Comments on: Commercial Space Netscape Moment? http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/03/commercial-space-netscape-moment/ Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen Sat, 05 May 2012 20:53:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jon Goff http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/03/commercial-space-netscape-moment/comment-page-1/#comment-2709 Jon Goff Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:17:00 +0000 http://selenianboondocks.com/?p=479#comment-2709 Anonymous,<br/>Good points about the role of luck, connections, people relations, etc. When the pie of funding going into the industry is tight to start with, the effect of bad apples getting funded is more pronounced. If there were a dozen orbital transport companies out there with at least enough money to start bending metal and flying hardware, the effects of one or two of those companies being flakes, or taking bad technical approaches would be a lot smaller than when they're one of only a couple of companies that are actually on people's radar screens.<br/><br/>~Jon Anonymous,
Good points about the role of luck, connections, people relations, etc. When the pie of funding going into the industry is tight to start with, the effect of bad apples getting funded is more pronounced. If there were a dozen orbital transport companies out there with at least enough money to start bending metal and flying hardware, the effects of one or two of those companies being flakes, or taking bad technical approaches would be a lot smaller than when they’re one of only a couple of companies that are actually on people’s radar screens.

~Jon

]]> By: Anonymous http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/03/commercial-space-netscape-moment/comment-page-1/#comment-2708 Anonymous Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:56:00 +0000 http://selenianboondocks.com/?p=479#comment-2708 the problem with the tight funding environment is, that it does not guarantee that only good plans attract funding. There is a glaring example of a certain well known "alt space" company once in COTS competition for example.<br/>Tight funding does not guarantee good "natural selection" of businesses. Technical concept, even solid business plans obviously arent the only factors to attract funding. In a theorethical "Economy 101" world yes, but back in real world, connections, people relations .. matter.<br/><br/>Another fairly fundamental rule of new businesses is that a large percentage of them fail. The percentage is not affected by the number of the entires on the field very significantly. Hence, tight funding across the sector means very, very, very few successes in absolute numbers.<br/><br/>Take again the example of the net bubble. Basically, technology-wise across the world, it was pretty much throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks.<br/>Some of it stuck, regardless of the business metrics of these ventures. And we wouldnt be having Web2.0 and Google phenomenon now if this spaghetti throwing in large amounts had not happened. the problem with the tight funding environment is, that it does not guarantee that only good plans attract funding. There is a glaring example of a certain well known “alt space” company once in COTS competition for example.
Tight funding does not guarantee good “natural selection” of businesses. Technical concept, even solid business plans obviously arent the only factors to attract funding. In a theorethical “Economy 101″ world yes, but back in real world, connections, people relations .. matter.

Another fairly fundamental rule of new businesses is that a large percentage of them fail. The percentage is not affected by the number of the entires on the field very significantly. Hence, tight funding across the sector means very, very, very few successes in absolute numbers.

Take again the example of the net bubble. Basically, technology-wise across the world, it was pretty much throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks.
Some of it stuck, regardless of the business metrics of these ventures. And we wouldnt be having Web2.0 and Google phenomenon now if this spaghetti throwing in large amounts had not happened.

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