- envy others who have made money
- find some investment
- make promises
- hire some cheap developers
- tell them to build a product that is going to make money
- provide them with 'sufficient' capital expenditure
- base software decisions on open source options
- claim that you don't want to build a Rolls Royce solution
- demand harvesting of low-hanging fruit
- wonder why it's taking so long
- sit back & reap the rewards
Reality is harsh, even in IT. People make a lot of money out of having brilliant ideas & the drive to put them out there & make them work. You cannot capture the market from your armchair, any more than you can develop good product without investing in what makes good product - people (product people, development people, marketing people, etc) & infrastructure (support, teamwork, process, leadership). There are no easy solutions, otherwise everyone would be able to just do it, which means that no-one would stand out, which means that no-one would be able to have any real success.
When packet cake mixes were first introduced, they were literally "add water & stir". These didn't sell. No-one wanted to move from fully-home-made to "do no real baking process" - the producer failed to understand the market, no matter how excellent the product was. The solution was a marketing one - ensure that the end user has to add an egg. This added complexity in the process made the production cheaper & made the end-user happier. The product sold like ... hot cakes.
Success in IT is the same - the product needs to be not just an excellent collection of ingredients, but a solution to an end-user problem that the end-user appreciates & can understand as fulfilling their needs. Anything less will sit on the shelf & grow mould.
A complete solution takes time to 'build' - as software, as an idea, as a product, as a solution (& these are distinct phases). There are no short-cuts. There is no easy way.
The newest buzz is "lean" - lean start-ups, lean development, etc. This means no wastage. Every CEO rubs their hands & says "That's what we want!" & cuts budgets or expectations. Lean actually means investing in the right things so that we don't waste time & resources on the wrong things. Process is essential when they support the development of product. People - the right people - are essential to produce good product. Wastage occurs when hiring 'anyone' is deemed sufficient, or else trying to hire "the right person"; when processes are imposed because they're "best of breed", or when no process is followed & people go around in circles doing the wrong thing for too long without realising, because they're too busy looking busy to notice what they're too busy doing.
Waste occurs when the only outlet for frustration is a blog that no-one reads.
