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Lessons From the Dot Com Meltdown

The Business Plan Archive has a list of top ten lessons from the dot com meltdown. Rule No. 1 (“Nothing changes overnight”) does not ring true with me. The Internet did change everything, and almost overnight. In retrospect, the speed at which business has adopted the Internet is astounding. The fact that businesses were trying to do stupid things on the Internet (shipping 10 lbs of dog food across the US at a loss) and expecting people to pay for them has nothing to do with the speed of adoption of the technology. It is more of a function of consumers and business people employing their common sense in a new medium.

IMHO, the biggest takeaway from the “dot com meltdown” is this: employ common sense. AFAIK, the main reason people get into trouble in business (especially during the dot com era) is that they willingly suspend their common sense in expectation of fabulous riches. There is no such thing as a free ride, grown up boys and girls should know this. People who lost money in the dot com fiasco should not blame the technology; they should blame themselves.

October 16, 2002 | Archived in Business