Lessons from History

As the economy tightens and the 'good times' of the last couple of years head to a 'possibly not so good times' ahead, Sanjeev Bikhchandani looks back to the year of the dotcom bust. Good stuff for all wannabe entrepreneurs:

The most fundamental lesson from the dotcom fiasco is that, for most of us, there is still no quick and easy way to get rich. Most instantly successful companies take over 10 years in the making. Sadly, even in cyberspace, there is no free lunch. In order to realise value, you have to first create it. You need customers and you need to offer them a value-proposition. You need to sell them something that they want and you need to charge them an economic price for it. You need to provide quality service to customers and you need to focus on terribly unsexy things like the backroom, logistics, fulfilment and customer complaints. You don't need to run an idea, you need to create a business. Most of this stuff is pretty boring and old-economyish – far removed from the dreams of the starry-eyed 20-something MBAs, who were funded by other 20-something MBAs who worked at the VC firms.

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