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My regret if I did have one would be around business projects I didn't take a leap of faith to take advantage of. I don't however believe in regret as each part of ones life is purely a "step". None of us are perfect, and often we will trip. So long as we get up and do our best to put right what we broke, everything is good. If you like, all these moments become learning's ... they weave the colour and texture into the blanket we call life.
I've always been proud of coming from a very entrepreneurial family, and one that has been astute at picking trends.
#1 In the early 90's after years on Compuserve I discovered the web through that service. It was slow and horrible, so I wanted direct access but that was usually only available through the universities. Any way after telling my wife that "This is going to be huge", and after months of negotiating access and developing a business model so that others could also benefit, I went back to my day job.
As we all know, we call them ISP's now, and the people who didn't get comfortable got very, very rich. It's interesting to note that many people that did start ISP's in the early days were kids in Mum's garage, who didn't yet have much to lose.
#2 When working at Xerox my father and I developed a piece of software called Patch Manager (I still have a copy of my proposal to Xerox). As I read the Larry Ellison book Softwar and heard about the development of the Oracle Business Suite of products, I realised the thinking behind ours had evolved similarly, and was years before it's time.
Xerox went on to spend millions on an alternative option that seemed in many ways a knock-off of our original idea. Although I believe that option was completely inferior, it was picked up by many corporates around the world.
My boss, however, said that I was "an Account Manager, not a software developer" and made me get back to work. Unfortunately I was young and wanted to keep him happy rather than take a risk. I wonder if we had continued would we be an SAP or Oracle today?
#3 In approximately 1997 I started a website called Photojunction for our industry where "everything photographic" came together. Long before anyone even thought of social media and social networking we had a site where photographers could share links, do reviews, rate sites etc. Although limited by the technology of the time and way off what is available today, it had the potential for a real community to develop. The problem was photographers at the time didn't have computers :-)
We were caught in The Dip, with lots of other work to do. With a rapidly growing export business, we closed the site down (we kept the name though!) Even in our industry the sites that have filled this space are large and by my guess very profitable.
Being first is only useful if you "stay in the line".
Anyway life is like that. You make choices and move on. Sometimes however making 'good choices' involves not being scared, not trying to keep everyone happy, taking risks and going for it.
No regrets though. I am excited about the journey we've had despite these learnings.