I think this should be the motto for entrepreneurs and those involved in startups...

It is not the critic who counts,
nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled,
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
I think this should be the motto for entrepreneurs...
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs and comes short again and again;
who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those timid souls
who know neither victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

How many prototypes did James Dyson make of his cyclonic vacuum cleaner before he succeeded? Scarily the answer is Five thousand!!   more »

I was in a strange conversation today. Someone was asking about UK broadband opportunities and I told them it's a blood bath. It really is horrific with free broadband offers appearing (if anything is ever truly free). So why are my business partners and I are so keen on broadband in Eastern Europe. Broadband is broadband right?

Well, the difference is the adoption curve. You probably know this already but there is a profile of sales over time that starts to build slowly, then accelerates before flattening out again. This s-curve is seen in many industries. Sometimes your product or service can re-juvenate itself by finding a new niche or set of users and a second s-curve builds on your original one. Tricky but good if you can do it.

In broadband, we can see in the UK that we have achieved near saturation and companies are being forced to givie it away 'free'. However, countries in Eastern Europe have very low penetration and so are only at the start of the s-curve explosion.

This doesn't make it easy but it does mean that you can learn from what has happened in other countries and use strategies that have worked.    more »