"It's a platform for creating widgets for the mobile web". Platforms don't make money. A platform is not a business.
"We don't really know what widgets are." Following on the point above, you're creating a platform (a non-specific, generic "thingy") for creating widgets (non-specific, generic "thingies") for the mobile web (something that's not even really defined properly yet. Non-specific businesses are almost without exception failures. Only huge businesses like Sun and Microsoft and Amazon can afford to release "platforms" without going broke.
Here's the most valuable advice you can get at this point if you want to build a start-up (that's a business, meaning it needs a path to making money) is:
Find one or two specific customers who have a need that this fills, and fill it, and get them to pay for it. Specific wins the day.
Since you've built a platform, you may well have to go one step closer to customers before you can help them. Design an application that people will be willing to pay for, using your (admittedly very cool) platform. Then, once you have your app and you have profits, over time you might want to open up the platform to other people.
Repeat once more: a business is an entity that makes money. A platform is not a business.
That said let me add that this does look extremely cool and promising, and developers will inevitably be all over this. But also remember that developers are unlikely to make you any money because a) they don't like to spend money, b) they are insanely creative about ways to "do it themselves" to avoid having to pay you money.
In fact, I ended up building this because I didn't want to pay for the other mobile services platforms (there are a few of them) when attempting to add mobile features to another project I'm experimenting with.
But to your original point, I absolutely agree, pitching this as a "mobile" "platform" for "widgets" is probably hopeless. Quite simply, it must solve somebody's problem. And I believe that we can get it to do just that. One area that we think is promising is using email to invoke applications that do interesting things because
(1) everyone knows how to send email, and
(2) you can attach lots of useful things to email.
So, what if we added the ability to recognize a ton of different file formats and allowed you to query the data within an attached file to invoke other web services?
For example, lets say you have a site that does group payments, and you want to let your users send you an Excel spreadsheet with the names of your friends and how much they owe you for that trip you just took together and automatically create an invoice on your site, and then notify everyone that they owe money. That seems interesting, and our product could support that pretty easily.
Anyways, it is definitely our immediate burden to focus this technology on solving _real_ problems.
So, what if we added the ability to recognize a ton of different file formats and allowed you to query the data within an attached file to invoke other web services?
You're still talking in terms of solutions. "Hey, we could build this cool solution! Would that solve any problems?" I've never managed to find a worthwhile business idea that way (not that I'm an expert at it or anything).. in my experience the way to do that is to find the problem first and then figure out what solution you could build (using your technology) to help solve that problem. Then figure out if there really is a market for that solution, and then build it incrementally and evolve it to serve that market. Then at one point flick the switch and start charging.
Amen; this mistake killed a company I cofounded and got funded during the bubble. I'll add: you can't really build a platform without building and selling the specifics; without real customer drivers, you run out of oxygen in design and architecture wanking.
If you've built most of a "platform", you should be in a good position to turn out cool apps quickly. Hide the platform, let people wonder why you're so good.
I second the notion. Read crossing the chasm. What swombat is saying is "find a beachhead, dominate it, then open the platform". Think about facebook and how they dominated one niche then opened it up to everyone else; this model has been used many times successfully for platform companies. The hardest part about this is maintaining focus on the beachhead when you get popular, and saying no to other segments. until you are ready.
Well, they DID start with a niche, say no to the outside, dominate, then use that domination to leapfrog the competition into the mainstream, exactly how crossing the chasm says to. By design or fluke, it was certainly brilliant.
I follow your point, but I think you need to qualify it better.
I would argue that a platform can make money if structured properly–most notably if it allows platform developers/users to make money and takes a cut (a la iPhone apps or iTunes music).
If his widget platform allowed widget developers to sell widgets and/or process transactions, then it most definitely could be a business.
"We don't really know what widgets are." Following on the point above, you're creating a platform (a non-specific, generic "thingy") for creating widgets (non-specific, generic "thingies") for the mobile web (something that's not even really defined properly yet. Non-specific businesses are almost without exception failures. Only huge businesses like Sun and Microsoft and Amazon can afford to release "platforms" without going broke.
Here's the most valuable advice you can get at this point if you want to build a start-up (that's a business, meaning it needs a path to making money) is:
Find one or two specific customers who have a need that this fills, and fill it, and get them to pay for it. Specific wins the day.
Since you've built a platform, you may well have to go one step closer to customers before you can help them. Design an application that people will be willing to pay for, using your (admittedly very cool) platform. Then, once you have your app and you have profits, over time you might want to open up the platform to other people.
Repeat once more: a business is an entity that makes money. A platform is not a business.