One problem I often see in mobile is that of having too many partners. It usually goes like this. Someone has a bright mobile idea and gets a developer to implement it in return for some share or revenue share in the company. However, the product relies on some content that is too expensive to buy so the content provider becomes another partner. Finally, network operators are approached who also want a share in the pie.

This rarely works. Each party takes such a small slice of the pie that they eventually realise that it’s not really worth any of them putting significant effort into the venture. Also, the greater the number of parties, the slower the progress.

Hence, if you have a great new mobile idea, try to utilise it in such a way as to minimise the number of partners. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.