Hard Work and Luck...

Web 2.0 entrepreneur cashes out just in time - CNN.com:

"The 26-year-old, a former Microsoft employee who helped put together the Windows Home Server product, founded a company called Esgut within months of the debut of Facebook's developer platform in May 2007. Esgut is a portfolio of Facebook applications, and a few of them, like Superlatives and Entourage, became genuine viral hits."

Ali got lucky. Even before the reality of the recession set in, the social-platform craze was subsiding. The venture capital buzz about widgets began to quiet over the summer. Some of the sillier novelty apps wore off in popularity. Companies that were snapping up small apps and raising huge amounts of venture capital, like Slide and RockYou, grew intimidatingly bigger--but the glut of independent apps made it more difficult to grab the attention of potential buyers.

I met with a client yesterday that raised round 1 of funding, had a great start and fantastic platform but as the economy started to turn the investors in round 2 pulled out and it all fell apart. Not an unfamiliar story these days.

Hard work, proven teams, deep pockets, etc... all have much to do with the success of any venture. However, there is also time and chance. That simple concept is as old as time itself...

Congratulations Ali!