It's not about the idea; it's about the speed of execution (and a bit o' luck)

It is quite obvious that Flickr COULD be the world’s largest stock image marketplace overnight. But when will Yahoo get around to building these features for Flickr?

FlickrCash built it in under 65 hours, launched it, got it blogged, and seems to be on a good trajectory to doing it for them. Will they buy them or build it on their own.

Did you know Blogger has long allowed people to submit a post by emailing or texting your own account at username.password@blogger.com ?

Twitter made a better, more intuitive version of it, made the display interface simpler, wrapped a social aspect around it (your friends instantly see what you’re up to), and got a bit o’ luck at SWSX.

What’s your idea and how quickly did you launch the product/service and can you continue to out-innovate copycats?

About Augustine Fou
http://www.linkedin.com/in/augustinefou

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Talk about this idea

Jim Meyer
(6 points)
April 15, 11:04 pm

Speed of execution only counts if the timing is right—otherwise you’d be holding a Newton, not a Treo.

Amit Bijlani
(5 points)
May 05, 01:05 am

I think the speed of execution is for products that can be easily copied. I don’t think this theory applies to every innovation

Tony Wright
(11 points)
May 22, 05:05 pm

Yep—you’re talking about the First Mover Advantage… Which is only SOMETIMES true. Dodgeball preceded Twitter. Google attacked a well-established and crowded market. Adwords didn’t do much of anything Overture hadn’t been doing for years. The iPod was far from the first MP3 player.

It isn’t speed, it’s timing and quality of execution.

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