Just make sure you're validating your idea as you go instead of just building it, and you'll find out for yourself if its worth continuing.
As depressing as it sounds, there's little point in continuing product development without solid validation. Its a problem I ran into at my previous startup - a good product, but just not needed by enough people.
Big potential in the added services Square will provide to SMEs. On top of reporting, I think they've already floated the idea of feedback through digital receipts.
I'd definitely imagine that improved customer feedback mechanisms would impact SMEs in a positive way.
The goal could still be to get as many Square POS systems onto the market so that a competitor (ie. Amazon) can't just waltz in and start expanding aggressively.
These two should be true for an incubator/accelerator or group of advisors/mentors/investors.
At the end of the day, the founders build the company, not anyone else. "Outsiders" (those who don't actually work in the company) should offer guidance and frameworks, but never a definitive solution to the problem you're having, that's for the founders to figure out and decide for themselves.
"Finding partners (both teammates and investors) who you can sail both the rough and calm waters with is absolutely essential to the survival of your business."
Can't agree with this statement enough (the teammates part, at least). From personal experience, I can say that the work environment becomes toxic when early team members start losing passion for the product, especially co-founders. People start questioning each other's commitment, work slows down, and bickering ensues.
As another piece of advice, it's really important to look for individuals who are great communicators. People who say it how it is, and share their feelings w/o hesitation. The last thing you want is a co-worker sharing some important piece of information (ex. they haven't been motivated for weeks) out of the blue.
After taking online classes myself, I am going to have to say that they they still have some ways to go. And like you say, the courses themselves are only part of the value of college. That's not to say that eventually online courses won't be as useful. Perhaps the best thing would be some combination of the two, being able to learn from world class professors while also having a local community to meet with who are doing the same.
I think co-location is a valuable part of education, and that while online lectures will revolutionize education the best programs will still have central locations were students gather and some amount of in person teaching. Good telepresence is a counter argument, but I don't think it will be enough to simulate living in the same building as other intelligent people with similar interests and the uniting goal of learning.
It will take a generation for the mindset to change that a purely online degree or a collection of classes from something like EdX are equal to 'Degree from State U'.
For the masses, yes. But for those willing to take their future into their own hands, I think you'll see a shift away from traditional college education.
Really think that apprenticeship should make a comeback in America. I know I would have benefited from spending some time in industry after high school.
The problem is that the reason for getting a degree isn't to become "educated" it's to be come employable. And until employers start to look at an online degree or an apprenticeship as comparable in value to attending college for 4 years it won't make sense for any rational person to take that path.
Unless you're an insanely large company, in the long-run, you can probably save on OPEX by switching to cloud infrastructure. You get away from purchasing hardware for yourself, which inherently reduces OPEX.
I think spydum's comment refers to the difference in the effect on the balance sheet. If you outright buy servers, you incur a capital investment in a fixed asset, which increases your balance sheet but doesn't hurt your EBITA. If you instead contract out to a 3rd party cloud provider, you incur an OPEX-- which shows up on your income statement and lowers your EBITA.
I'm not sure how investors favour this difference, but I do know that airline companies love to move aircraft purchases off their balance sheet, probably for cash flow reasons. They do this by leasing a/c instead of outright purchases.
You've now gotten me curious as to why firms behave different when it comes to buying aircraft vs servers.
Airline companies don't want to buy aircraft because their highest-probability outcome is to declare bankruptcy (which happens about every 10 years for most major airlines in the US, it seems). Far simpler to tear up your lease than to dispose of large, expensive assets like aircraft as part of the bankruptcy.
might also be due to the fact that Turks are simply - really mad about soccer :)! I lived couple years in Istanbul, and was amazed by how Turks are obsessed with soccer overall.
As depressing as it sounds, there's little point in continuing product development without solid validation. Its a problem I ran into at my previous startup - a good product, but just not needed by enough people.