The struggles of on demand make that old Churchill chestnut seem appropriate. Especially since they’ve made it to Business Week (here), which should be a buy signal according to my “Business Week Reverse Lock” theory. It is a Sarah Lacy piece, so I figure that it has to be somewhat plugged-in to the Valley’s, ummm… wisdom. And I sure have my doubts that on demand/SaaS will “immamentize the eschaton” as well (here, here, here).
However, while this news isn’t “news”, there was one passage that struck me as telling:
Not every startup has the patience—or funding—to stick on demand out for 10 years and $100 million-plus in sales. Those mid-slog are feeling it acutely. [Bruce} Richardson {of AMR] says he increasingly hears about “founder fatigue,” entrepreneurs being ground down by the endless travel and ever-ballooning marketing costs. It’s worse for the publicly traded companies constantly under Wall Street’s what-have-you-done-for-me-lately scrutiny.
An “aha” moment (for me at least). How many entrepreneurs — never mind SV folks — have the patience for a ten year “Long March“? On demand places such a premium on execution that it seems unlikely that the very same “swaggering, elephant hunter-style salesmen [who] would drive up in their gleaming BMWs” could wait out on demand’s growing pains. No wonder they’re fatigued…
Filed under: On Demand, On Premise, PaaS, SaaS, SAP Tagged: | AMR, Bruce Richardson, CRM, Dave Duffield, Marc Benioff, N, ORCL, Sarah Lacy, TLEO, Workday, Zach Nelson
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