Execution Matters, Ideas Don't

Back in 1999 my friend Phil told me about his brother in law’s idea to start a retail business providing eBay listing services.

The idea was simple, if you wanted to sell something on eBay, you’d drop it off at the store and they’d take care of the rest. The store would take a fee for providing the service and you’d get the stuff sold with no hassle.

It sounded like a good idea, but i didn’t have a lot of time on my hands for a new investment and showed it to my friends Ron and Jordan. They made a seed investment. The name of the company was EZSale (i found this out from a comment to this post). The story doesn’t end happily. The management team didn’t execute as well as they could have, the company ran out of money, and the investors pulled the plug on the deal. I am not close enough to supply any details, but that’s the gist of it.

So it was with some amazemant that I read Brad’s post about AuctionDrop today. Same exact idea. Better execution. Big winner.

That’s the venture business. It’s happened to me too.