Guys, I think many of us on this list would consider ourselves entrepreneurs. I''m willing to bet at least 40% of you are working on ideas for startups...hoping that you just might have the next Flickr, Oddpost, del.icio.us, etc. Me too, for what it''s worth. Rails is good for this, in that it enables you to move quickly (after the learning curve) and it''s currently buzzy, which will lend your startup a certain amount of press and blog buzz right out of the gate, if your app is of any value at all. As an entrepreneur in the current tech landscape, what is the end goal? I posit that there are two things that could ideally happen to a startup: create a profitable company and application that is sustainable on its own, or create a popular application that generates a lot of buzz and gets acquired by a larger company (as in Yahoo/Flickr, Yahoo/ OddPost, Google/Blogger, etc, etc). Sure, there are other possibilities, such as creating an application that does just well enough to pay the bills and sustain your livelihood, or, create an application that can''t and folding, but I think we''d all agree that the first two are desirable...either way, you become financially wealthy and have freedom to focus on the problems you want to solve going forward. My question is, how much do you think the selection of Rails, which truly is a new technology and not very widespread (yet) in terms of corporate acceptance, will impact the attractiveness of a startup hoping to be acquired? I''m a huge fan of Ruby and really enjoy Rails, but I don''t want to make decisions early that will taint my options downstream. Surveying what has come before us: Flickr is written in PHP, which Yahoo uses across the company. OddPost appears to be written in DHTML and Python, and while not PHP we all know Python at least currently trumps Ruby in use in corporations. del.icio.us is written in Java...again a widespread and openly adopted technology. I think as time goes on, this will be less of an issue with Rails, and truthfully it might not be an issue now, but I would like to hear opinions from the community. Thanks! John -- Posted with http://DevLists.com. Sign up and save your time!
Coming from a guy who''s been through this once before: The VC''s could care less what you build the app in. It''s all about time-to-market and monetization. And no acquisition is going to be put off because someone says "Sorry, we only buy companies that write code in PHP". What matters? For a public web-app, if you can beat everyone to the ''network effect'' or if it''s a corporate app, if you can quickly shrink the sales cycle from months to weeks, then that''s what you''re measured on. If Ruby/Rails is your magic sauce, then great. If you''re a PHP or Java or Lisp shop, that''s great too. In the end it''s what you deliver that matters. The only place where I can see a ''non-Java'' solution hitting a little resistance is if you''re selling enterprise software without attached hardware. You''ll probably get some raised eyebrows from the IT staff when they''re evaluating your project (Ruby/Rails is still pretty anonymous in corporate IT shops). But honestly, save yourself the hassle and bundle the software with a cheap rack PC and call it an ''appliance''. No one ever asks what the Google Appliance is written in ;) My only suggestion: don''t build for acquisition, build for the long haul. Acquisition is a nice option, but it''s a lot less heartache if it''s just one of your options. As for me, Rails is my sauce. -Sanford John Wells wrote:> Guys, > > I think many of us on this list would consider ourselves entrepreneurs. > I''m willing to bet at least 40% of you are working on ideas for > startups...hoping that you just might have the next Flickr, Oddpost, > del.icio.us, etc. > > Me too, for what it''s worth. Rails is good for this, in that it enables > you to move quickly (after the learning curve) and it''s currently buzzy, > which will lend your startup a certain amount of press and blog buzz > right out of the gate, if your app is of any value at all. > > As an entrepreneur in the current tech landscape, what is the end goal? > I posit that there are two things that could ideally happen to a > startup: create a profitable company and application that is sustainable > on its own, or create a popular application that generates a lot of buzz > and gets acquired by a larger company (as in Yahoo/Flickr, Yahoo/ > OddPost, Google/Blogger, etc, etc). Sure, there are other possibilities, > such as creating an application that does just well enough to pay the > bills and sustain your livelihood, or, create an application that can''t > and folding, but I think we''d all agree that the first two are > desirable...either way, you become financially wealthy and have freedom > to focus on the problems you want to solve going forward. > > My question is, how much do you think the selection of Rails, which > truly is a new technology and not very widespread (yet) in terms of > corporate acceptance, will impact the attractiveness of a startup hoping > to be acquired? I''m a huge fan of Ruby and really enjoy Rails, but I > don''t want to make decisions early that will taint my options > downstream. Surveying what has come before us: Flickr is written in PHP, > which Yahoo uses across the company. OddPost appears to be written in > DHTML and Python, and while not PHP we all know Python at least > currently trumps Ruby in use in corporations. del.icio.us is written in > Java...again a widespread and openly adopted technology. > > I think as time goes on, this will be less of an issue with Rails, and > truthfully it might not be an issue now, but I would like to hear > opinions from the community. > > Thanks! > John > > >
On 8.2.2006, at 15.58, John Wells wrote:> My question is, how much do you think the selection of Rails, which > truly is a new technology and not very widespread (yet) in terms of > corporate acceptance, will impact the attractiveness of a startup > hoping > to be acquired? I''m a huge fan of Ruby and really enjoy Rails, but I > don''t want to make decisions early that will taint my options > downstream. Surveying what has come before us: Flickr is written in > PHP, > which Yahoo uses across the company. OddPost appears to be written in > DHTML and Python, and while not PHP we all know Python at least > currently trumps Ruby in use in corporations. del.icio.us is > written in > Java...again a widespread and openly adopted technology.It''s not an issue, end of story. The companies ? at least the companies you''d like to get bought by ? are smart enough to look beyond the chosen technology. They are not the kind of MBA customers selecting the platform based on buzzwords. If something, I think using Rails would be an advantage. It shows that you''ve the guts to divert from the mainstream. Just look at all the buzz Rails has gained in the webdev world. David and Dave are busy speaking at Amazon, Yahoo etc. //jarkko -- Jarkko Laine http://jlaine.net http://odesign.fi
Following on what Jarkko said, Amazon is interested in rails. DHH had a blog posting on Amazon''s internal use of rails: http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000558.html Steve http://www.smarkets.net On 2/8/06, Jarkko Laine <jarkko@jlaine.net> wrote:> > On 8.2.2006, at 15.58, John Wells wrote: > > My question is, how much do you think the selection of Rails, which > > truly is a new technology and not very widespread (yet) in terms of > > corporate acceptance, will impact the attractiveness of a startup > > hoping > > to be acquired? I''m a huge fan of Ruby and really enjoy Rails, but I > > don''t want to make decisions early that will taint my options > > downstream. Surveying what has come before us: Flickr is written in > > PHP, > > which Yahoo uses across the company. OddPost appears to be written in > > DHTML and Python, and while not PHP we all know Python at least > > currently trumps Ruby in use in corporations. del.icio.us is > > written in > > Java...again a widespread and openly adopted technology. > > It''s not an issue, end of story. The companies ? at least the > companies you''d like to get bought by ? are smart enough to look > beyond the chosen technology. They are not the kind of MBA customers > selecting the platform based on buzzwords. > > If something, I think using Rails would be an advantage. It shows > that you''ve the guts to divert from the mainstream. Just look at all > the buzz Rails has gained in the webdev world. David and Dave are > busy speaking at Amazon, Yahoo etc. > > //jarkko > > > -- > Jarkko Laine > http://jlaine.net > http://odesign.fi > > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060208/9adef773/attachment.html
On 8 Feb 2006 13:58:55 -0000, John Wells wrote:> either way, you become financially wealthy and have freedom > to focus on the problems you want to solve going forward....> I''m a huge fan of Ruby and really enjoy Rails, but I > don''t want to make decisions early that will taint my options > downstream.At AOL, redesigning the mail system, I chose to do it entirely in PL/I using Stratus minicomputers, because that''s what the company was already using for everything. In turn, we chose those because we already had them from the shell of a previous, failed startup. We did pretty okay. Did we have to redesign it again later? Yes, of course, continually, like any project. And ended up porting every single piece of it to a different platform - live, mind you, with no outages. I think there''s still one or two old mail processes running on Stratus, but other bits are on Linux, Tandem, Sun, SGI, HP, Alpha, Sybase, and god knows what else. So if rails is the right framework for your project and style, then use it. Don''t overthink. Just code. Jay Levitt
If you want to build something so valuable a corporation will pay millions to get it, you need to be smarter than they are to begin with, and to make much better decisions than they are already making. Otherwise they could build it themselves. Therefore you need to disregard the entire corporate decision-making process and start from jump with a much better decision-making process. Here''s one: make your decision based on the technology. That right there is a better process than the process the corporations use. Go here: http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html And read everything related to startups and programming languages. Giles ps: and yes, use Rails! On 2/8/06, Jay Levitt <jay+news@jay.fm> wrote:> On 8 Feb 2006 13:58:55 -0000, John Wells wrote: > > > either way, you become financially wealthy and have freedom > > to focus on the problems you want to solve going forward. > ... > > I''m a huge fan of Ruby and really enjoy Rails, but I > > don''t want to make decisions early that will taint my options > > downstream. > > At AOL, redesigning the mail system, I chose to do it entirely in PL/I > using Stratus minicomputers, because that''s what the company was already > using for everything. In turn, we chose those because we already had them > from the shell of a previous, failed startup. > > We did pretty okay. > > Did we have to redesign it again later? Yes, of course, continually, like > any project. And ended up porting every single piece of it to a different > platform - live, mind you, with no outages. I think there''s still one or > two old mail processes running on Stratus, but other bits are on Linux, > Tandem, Sun, SGI, HP, Alpha, Sybase, and god knows what else. > > So if rails is the right framework for your project and style, then use it. > Don''t overthink. Just code. > > Jay Levitt > > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-- Giles Goat Boy http://gilesmakesmusic.blogspot.com http://gileswritescode.blogspot.com
John Wells wrote:> currently trumps Ruby in use in corporations. del.icio.us is written in > Java...again a widespread and openly adopted technology.Java? Surely del.icious was not written in something so ''enterprisy'', I would bet on PHP instead. Your most important capital is time, not the platform''s level of acceptance. Choose rails if you believe it to minimize time needed for development. Otherwise choose something else. zsombor -- Company - http://primalgrasp.com Thoughts - http://deezsombor.blogspot.com
On Wed, Feb 08, 2006 at 11:23:57PM +0200, Dee Zsombor wrote:> John Wells wrote: > > currently trumps Ruby in use in corporations. del.icio.us is written in > > Java...again a widespread and openly adopted technology. > > Java? Surely del.icious was not written in something so ''enterprisy'', I > would bet on PHP instead. > > Your most important capital is time, not the platform''s level of > acceptance. Choose rails if you believe it to minimize time needed for > development. Otherwise choose something else.del.icio.us is Perl. marcel -- Marcel Molina Jr. <marcel@vernix.org>