In college I had a decently successful internet business, and I probably rushed to try new things instead of massaging what was working... because I had a fear that Amazon would crush me because of their efficiencies.
Looking back on those days, I'm impressed with how right I was in some ways. This was around 2010 so Amazon was not nearly what it is today (Its stock is about 25x the price 😬), but I was right to be concerned about how well they were doing and how big of a beast they'd become.
What I was wrong to think is that they'd be able to crush me if I wasn't ruthlessly efficient myself. In fact, when you're small you don't need pure efficiency because you can be more creative and try more things more often. Had I just kept methodically working on the business it would have kept growing and turned into a big success. I tried to move too quickly and get big, and in doing so just kind of burnt out and let this project fade away.
Lesson is... You're not in a mad race against the big guy. You can slowly build up your value offering and you'll be fine if you stay committed and keep shipping.
Miranda is a technical writer and product lead at VMware as well as founder of Books on Code, which is a platform for programmers who love to learn through technical books.
Location
San Francisco, CA
Education
MA English Literature
Work
Senior Technical Writer at VMware (previously Pivotal)
This is huge and something everyone needs to know. People stop themselves before even trying because of a perceived obstacle that may not even exist. Or, as you said, they try to compete against time, when they have all of the time to learn and grow.
I've heard that many things fail just because people didn't stick with them long enough to see the rewards.
This is why I don't fall for the antitrust stuff. If a company is wildly successful, there's always room (at least in a mostly free economy) for a little guy to make a nice chunk of change alongside (and possibly get bought out by) them for an even bigger chunk of change (though maybe be careful if Amazon comes along talking about acquiring you, and definitely don't let them peek at your tech stack).
In college I had a decently successful internet business, and I probably rushed to try new things instead of massaging what was working... because I had a fear that Amazon would crush me because of their efficiencies.
Looking back on those days, I'm impressed with how right I was in some ways. This was around 2010 so Amazon was not nearly what it is today (Its stock is about 25x the price 😬), but I was right to be concerned about how well they were doing and how big of a beast they'd become.
What I was wrong to think is that they'd be able to crush me if I wasn't ruthlessly efficient myself. In fact, when you're small you don't need pure efficiency because you can be more creative and try more things more often. Had I just kept methodically working on the business it would have kept growing and turned into a big success. I tried to move too quickly and get big, and in doing so just kind of burnt out and let this project fade away.
Lesson is... You're not in a mad race against the big guy. You can slowly build up your value offering and you'll be fine if you stay committed and keep shipping.
This is huge and something everyone needs to know. People stop themselves before even trying because of a perceived obstacle that may not even exist. Or, as you said, they try to compete against time, when they have all of the time to learn and grow.
I've heard that many things fail just because people didn't stick with them long enough to see the rewards.
This is why I don't fall for the antitrust stuff. If a company is wildly successful, there's always room (at least in a mostly free economy) for a little guy to make a nice chunk of change alongside (and possibly get bought out by) them for an even bigger chunk of change (though maybe be careful if Amazon comes along talking about acquiring you, and definitely don't let them peek at your tech stack).
Thank you for sharing.
I'm glad to see you didn't give up and moved on to create this wonderful community.