ambient

Read/Write Web ran a story today on Zlio.com, a startup from France that lets anybody easily create a store online. Does this sound familiar at all? Isn’t this what Paul Graham sold to Yahoo (now known as Yahoo Small Business) in 1998?

It’s easy for entrepreneurs focused on developing new businesses on the internet to miss opportunities by paying attention to markers. What are markers?

Russ Mann gave me this metaphor. In the Chinese / Japanese game of Go, you can occupy a great deal of territory just by placing a single marker. In business, this translates over to the strategy of trying corner a market by being the first one there. Would-be technological innovators often are fooled by these markers and ignore the opportunity to further innovate and deliver valuable services. In my mind, I had always treated Yahoo Small Business as a solution that had cornered the market on self-service store engines. In reality, it was just a marker.

Zlio.com is one example of a company that hasn’t been fooled by the markers. There is almost always room for improvement and innovation. Turning that innovation into a viable business model is another problem altogether.