This thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2755215) got me thinking the other day. I've met a lot of folks in the Bay Area that are going after 'exciting' businesses, I'll use a definition of exciting as a business that can get significant press coverage. However, I'm someone that's been in the B2B world for some time now, I seem to come across a lot of opportunities that are from a technical perspective not exciting at all....at least not initially.<p>Just because they aren't exciting from a technology perspective, doesn't mean that there aren't great companies waiting to be built there.<p>I'm wondering, how many of you are interested more in the company building that then the technology building? i.e. who's interested in a boring business more than an exciting one?<p>(Braintree's Bryan Johnson talks about this in his 37Signals interview - http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2800-bootstrapped-profitable-proud-braintree)
We're building an enterprise software company focused on document collaboration. Sounds pretty boring, but the technology that we're building is really advanced -- we've implemented PhD theses and then extended them to achieve the kind of collaboration fidelity that we need.<p>The "consumerization" trend in the enterprise has basically eliminated the "crappy product, hardcore sales" approach to enteprise software. Our role model for product design, technology, and overall quality is Apple.<p>So: NO! We're not more interested in the company building than the technology building. And NO! We're not interested in a boring product. What we are doing is building great technology for business. Nothing boring about that.<p>Email me at amal@getliveloop.com if you want more details. We are based in San Francisco, VC funded, and hiring an engineer.
<i>I'm wondering, how many of you are interested more in the company building that then the technology building?</i><p>Well, I wouldn't say that those things are mutually exclusive. I'm pretty interested in both, myself. I mean, I'm working on a B2B, enterprise software startup, which is "boring" by a lot of people's standards, as far as I can tell. But I think the technology we're working with is pretty damn exciting personally; especially some of the stuff that will probably be on the roadmap for some "post MVP" releases.
Here's a list of non-exciting parts of a business: CRM, forms, cashflow management, hosting, file syncing, due diligence.<p>Now here's a list of companies that made them exciting: Salesforce, Wufoo, inDinero, Heroku, DropBox, Duedil<p>If your business isn't exciting your customers, then you're doing something wrong, it doesn't matter if you're b2b or b2c.