Made with more love than money

Reading Ev's post about buying back Odeo from the VC's and refocusing on smaller faster development, along with Aaron's on how Google could decentralise I see several trends converging.

Software startups used to need lots of VC cash and time because of the old packaged software cycle, where you had big, annual releases that you sold for hundreds of dollars apiece. On the web, we have daily releases, adapting to customers and other changes in the environment, and new tools mean that an 18-year-old with an idea can get it up and running fast, then worry about scale.

Talking to various friends working in the field I am starting to see a pattern. With the trend of startup funding and team size shrinking so much, we'll end up with several startups each - a kind of personal portfolio theory - lots of small ideas, made because we can, some of which will blossom.

Update: Fred Wilson calls this being a Parallel Entrepreneur. That makes some sense, after all 'entrepreneur' means 'carrier between' - it's all about connecting ideas.

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