It's amazing how exciting this is. It's not as if it's the first time humans have sent an automated delivery capsule into space, yet it feels like a game changing event.
Co-incidentally I read a post on HN this morning arguing that the iPhone wasn't special. We already had phones, and palm computers, and downloadable apps. It was no big deal.
In the case of both SpaceX and Apple thy've taken something that's existed already, but made it accessible. With SaceX the massively reduced costs has made dreams possible that we all thought were dead. With the iPhone they made a hand computer that my wife's sister, who's hardly ever used a computer in her life, could pick up and understand and fall in love with in minutes.
When you take an existing technology, but cut the barriers to entry radically lower (barriers in terms of cost, or usability, whatever) then you have something special. Amazon did this with online shopping, facebook did it with social networks (orkut was a clunky piece of junk - been there). Instagram did it with photo sharing, dropbox did it with file sharing.
Identify barriers, in whatever form you find them, and knock them flat. That's where the opportunities are.
Co-incidentally I read a post on HN this morning arguing that the iPhone wasn't special. We already had phones, and palm computers, and downloadable apps. It was no big deal.
In the case of both SpaceX and Apple thy've taken something that's existed already, but made it accessible. With SaceX the massively reduced costs has made dreams possible that we all thought were dead. With the iPhone they made a hand computer that my wife's sister, who's hardly ever used a computer in her life, could pick up and understand and fall in love with in minutes.
When you take an existing technology, but cut the barriers to entry radically lower (barriers in terms of cost, or usability, whatever) then you have something special. Amazon did this with online shopping, facebook did it with social networks (orkut was a clunky piece of junk - been there). Instagram did it with photo sharing, dropbox did it with file sharing.
Identify barriers, in whatever form you find them, and knock them flat. That's where the opportunities are.