The iPod was designed and manufactured in less than a year. It sold 125,000 units in the first month. That's his definition of a dud? Likewise, Google went from being a stanford research project to the best search engine in less than 3 years.<p>His premise is wrong and the article is an apologia for being slow. Every huge success on the web, and in the computing/internet sector in general has been the result of being better and faster than the competitors. 10 years is way too long. If you haven't succeeded in 2-4 years you are doing something wrong.<p><i>The trap: sprint all day and run out of energy before the marathon even starts.</i><p>Runners who <i>win</i> marathons can run all day at a pace most people would consider sprinting.
This is actually similar to PG's "How Not to Die" essay:<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html</a>
Nice article, but what's the deal with the title? I mean, his point is that patience is the secret of success-- the web doesn't really factor into his argument at all....
He makes an interesting/controversial point:
"It still takes ten years to become a success, web or no web."
...
"Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul."<p>I wonder how many people doing startups are prepared for success to take ten years.
So this theory kind of screws over the popular startup mentality, right? A friend of mine got $500k in financing for his startup, so he basically only has a year. He can't afford to be patient...
I think this is very important for the entrepreneurs who say "I will make millions and retire when i am 40". Once we start our business, it is really impossible to retire unless we want to sell the business or go bankrupt. It is a one way trip to Hell, which is Heaven is disguise.