Originally published on the SoftLayer Blog on October 21, 2015
Last week, I attended the LAUNCH Scale conference and had the pleasure of attending the VIP dinner the night before the event began. We hosted the top 10 startups from the IBM SmartCamp worldwide competition for the dinner and throughout the events. Famed Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis joined us for the dinner and gave a quick pep talk to the teams. He mentioned that people come up to him and lament that they wished they’d gotten into the “Internet thing” earlier—and that he’s been hearing this since 1999. His story reminded me of a similar personal experience.
In the fall semester of 1995, I was a junior at St. Bonaventure University, working in the computer lab. One day after helping a cute girl I had a crush on, she said to me, “You’re so good with computers, why aren’t you a computer science major?” Swelling with pride, I tried to sound impressive and intelligent as I definitively stated, “Windows 95 just came out, and pretty much everything that can be built with computers has been built.”
Yep. Windows 95. The pinnacle of software achievement.
It is easily the dumbest thing I’ve ever said—and perhaps up there as one of the dumbest things anyone has said. Ever.
But I hear corollaries to this fairly often, both in and outside the startup world. “There’s no room for innovation there,” or “You can’t make money there,” or “That sector is awful, don’t bother.” I’m guilty of a few of those statements myself—yet businesses find a way. We live in an age of unprecedented innovation. Just because one person didn’t have the key to unlock it doesn’t mean the door is closed.
Catch yourself before you fall into this loop of thinking. It might mean being the “Uber of X” or starting a business that’s far ahead of its time. Think it’s crazy to say everything that can be built has been built? I think it’s just as crazy to say, “It’s too late to get into ___ market.”
For example, when markets grow in size, they also grow in complexity. The first mover in the space defines the market, catches the innovators and early adopters, and builds the bridge over the chasm to the early and late majority. (For more on this, read Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore.) When a market begins to service the majority, the needs of many are not being met, which leaves room for new entrants to build a business that addresses the segments dissatisfied with the current offerings or needing specialized versions.
The LAUNCH Scale event showcased dozens of startups and the innovation out there in the world always amazes me. I’d recommend it to any startup that has built something great, and now needs to scale. Still haven’t built something yourself? Think you missed the opportunity to build and create? In 1995, I didn’t think about how things would change in five, 10, even 20 years. Now it’s 2015 and the startup world has been growing faster than any sector in history.
Think everything that could be built has been built? Think again. Want to build something? Do it. Build something. What are you waiting for? Go make a difference in the world.