Time To Market

The importance of getting the product to market on time cannot be understated. There are very few technologies that can stand the test of time in this fast moving market. Assume that there are others out there who are after the same business opportunity using similar technology (even a 1/2 star entrepreneurship book on amazon.com will say that). The difference between the first mover and the laggard (missing the first mover advantage when that was the original goal may politely be referred to as business validation if that helps ease the pain) can cost the business opportunity itself. Validation, however, has its advantages and may, in fact, be good for a new business model that needs to be proven. If the market is large, there may be room for other players after the first mover has demonstrated that the model is for real. A large market dominated by a few players (ever play Monopoly?) is not the same as a large market with hundreds of customers. This is a key factor that needs to be incorporated into the risk equation (OK, if you are looking for the answer, it is 1.0) stated below.

The challenge with a new business model is getting investors to believe that this is even possible. Those words are like music to the ears of a VC. Not. Haha. Add to this the difficulty of proving that the technology works...something that starts to become extremely critical when the technology itself is non-trivial. Waiting longer for the technical milestones can greatly reduce investment risk. But when the level of difficulty in building the technology is high (read as - money is needed to fund development and prove or disprove that the technology works), a slowdown in technical execution that is under-fueled financially can have serious business consequences.

So, what mathematically appears to be a zero sum game - the sum of technology and business risk is 1.0 using the Real Number notation, the savvy business mathematician knows where to draw the line (or place the fulcrum). For example, a technical winning team of a dozen years is likely to continue to be a winning team - a Warren Buffet Wall Street stock market investment principle (or so I'd like to believe), or analogous to Newton's First Law if you wish to be scientific...don't mess with it and it will stay its course!. More investment fuel for developing/validating technology may prove or disprove faster that the technology works or not, at the same time, giving the upside of being a first he last drop out of itmover that may be essential to the success of the company.

So, go ahead, milch that udder, and get the last drop of albino martini out of your business execution.