Scott Porad

Recently, I was part of a planning session for a conference on startups.  One of the topics being discussed was:

Should we have a session on choice of platform or language?  Which is best for a startup?  For example, comparing Ruby to C# or Ruby on Rails to ASP.NET.

There are differences in platforms, I’m not going to deny that, but I don’t really think those differences have any meaningful difference in the success of a startup.  (Or, I suppose I should be more specific: in the success of a web-based startup.)

The name of the game in a startup is finding a product-market fit.  In other words, identifying and/or creating a product that your market will adopt and/or buy.  Everything else is just commentary.

Actually, the real name of the game is finding the product-market fit before you run out of money.  So, which platform does that?

Answer: The platform that you know best and can develop on most quickly.

In other words, the differences in platform are contextual: it’s about what your team knows, and the platform they can develop upon most rapidly, so that you can start generating revenue before the clock runs out.

Don’t get confused by platforms.  Just pick a shovel and get to work.  The hard part isn’t selecting the shovel, anyhow, it’s figuring out where to dig the hole.