Paul Mockapetris wrote a guest post yesterday on Forbes that is worth a quick read. Mr. Mockapetris is chairman and chief scientist of Nominum, a security software company. An IEEE member, he received the 2003 IEEE Internet Award for his work on the Domain Name System.
One key from the article:
- Keep it simple.
The first thing I tell startups is to create a
simple product that you and everyone else can understand. If your
product is hard to understand, that’s a barrier to adoption, and your
business may never take off. For example, the original Google search
window is wonderfully simple; however, Google+ is perhaps getting too
complicated. Even though the technical functionality of a product may be
complex, end-users will use the product if they understand what they
are getting, and the benefits are clear and compelling. Equally
important, you need an architecture that is understandable to
developers.
This advice is also good advice for both domain investors and website developers. You need to start out with a simple business model, not trying to do a million things at once, or invest in domain niches you know nothing about because you read someone else was having success in the niche.
