Execution is easy. (Profitable) Ideas are hard.

Conventional wisdom in the software industry states that investors invest in people rather than ideas. For as long as anyone can remember, this approach has been based on the belief that the success of the venture is primarily dependent on the determination and perseverance of the team executing the idea rather than the strength of the idea/vision itself. I, however, have asserted the opposite for years; execution is easy, but it is extremely difficult to come up with the type of idea that all investors desire, one that will result in significant and/or substainable profits.

The tech industry's history is littered with failed products from both startups and industry giants alike; most notable of late are the Google Wave and Microsoft Kin products. Each of these launches was backed by an industry giant and executed by an experienced, rock-star team with access to virtually infinite financial and technical resources. So, it is extremely difficult to understand how anyone could argue these products did not gain traction because of poor execution. I charge, in each case, the execution could not have been any better. The products were simply based on ideas that could not be monetized.

The failures of the dotcom bust - govWorks, Kozmo.com, etc. - can also be attributed to product ideas/visions that were not solid. A simple way to confirm this is to count the number of failed dotcom products that have reappeared during Web 2.0. If the idea hasn't been recycled with a new team and/or implementation, it must have sucked to begin with.

Let's take a look at the other end of the spectrum, Facebook for example. According to the trailer for the movie about the founding of the company, The Social Network, the idea at the heart of the phenomena was, "taking the entire social experience of college (Harvard) and putting it online." The site then apparently received 22,000 hits in its first two hours, expanded to Stanford, Columbia and Yale, moved to Silicon Valley, and had over 1,000,000 users in less than twelve months all without venture capital funding. This product launch was initially backed by no one significant, and executed by inexperienced, undergraduate dropouts with access to minimal resources. Yet, Facebook, the website, has been a huge success, simply because it was based on a solid idea.

In the 80's, Microsoft along with IBM brought a cheaper computer to market. In the 90's, Google built a better search engine. After the millennium, Facebook built a more efficient way for people to interact with their social network. In each case, the product was successfully launched by a relatively inexperienced team in its early 20's, and the product was perceived to be significantly "better" than competitive products or methods in at least one critical category; price, performance or ease of use.

History has shown, time and time again, in general, "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." The formula appears to be that the required strength of the management team is inversely proportional to the strength of the idea. For example - and I know this is ridiculous - if I created a "Fountain of Youth" application - can we agree that EVERYONE is seeking the fountain of youth - how strong would the management team truly need to be? Conversely, if I created something that it turned out very few people wanted, the team MUST consist of superstars in order to find a way to make it successful. And, we've already proven a superstar team doesn't guarantee success.

Giving the people what they want (execution), is not rocket science. Neither is figuring out what potential users will find of value (idea), but the latter sure is hard.

What the mobile app explosion has really showed us...the browser's days as the star of the Internet are numbered

Mobile applications, or "apps", are not new. They've been available, in various forms, for mobile phones since the 90's. I remember discussions about the "burgeoning" market for mobile phone software with my technical lead back in 1998. We both were very excited about the potential of this new platform.

In a former life, I was an avid fan of the Palm Treo. I remember installing several productivity applications on various occasions; Pocket Quicken to better track my finances, software that tracked both my workouts and caloric intake, specialized browsers, etc. Some of these apps were quite useful, others weren't. At the time apps were cool, but dealing with them was a pain, so browser based software ruled.

Then in the early 2000's, Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) hit the market promising, "The best of the desktop, meets the best of the web." It was now possible to develop desktop quality software that provided an optimal user experience, but was easily administered like a browser-based application; no installation disks, centrally managed updates, connected to the 'net using Internet protocols, etc. And, over the years, RIAs have made some traction on the desktop, but they've really taken off on mobile platforms...as apps.

According to the Silicon Alley Insider, few cellphone users access the mobile Internet. This is understandable due to the user experience that mobile devices provide as a software platform. Please don't misunderstand me, mobile devices are definitely getting better all-around, but the limited screen real estate makes it difficult to provide information to the user in an optimal fashion. Using a web browser makes it worse.

The same logic applies to software for tablet computers. As evidenced by the iPad, another mobile platform, tablets will access services on the network primarily using apps, not the web browser.

In my opinion, as mobile computing continues to proliferate and make the traditional desktop computer a highly specialized product, see my previous post, the web browser, commercialized by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark of Netscape fame, will continue to be used for its initial intention, to browse information on the web. Yet, it is experiencing its last hoorah as a requirement to access interactive services on the Internet. There's an app for that.