How Adobe (and others) got everything wrong initially

Interesting:

Pyra was started to build a project-management app, not Blogger. Flickr's company was building a game. eBay was going to sell auction software. Initial assumptions are almost always wrong.

From Ten Rules For Web Startups. [Via]

I've heard Drs. Warnock & Geschke talk about how they started Adobe with the intention of selling printing hardware, and how they shopped this idea around and around until they finally agreed to do what customers wanted: just sell them the software. They depict it as something of a forehead-slapping moment that changed everything.

Tangentially related: I've mentioned it previously, but I always like this anecdote:

The hands-on nature of the startup was communicated to everyone the company brought onboard. For years, Warnock and Geschke hand-delivered a bottle of champagne or cognac and a dozen roses to a new hire's house. The employee arrived at work to find hammer, ruler, and screwdriver on a desk, which were to be used for hanging up shelves, pictures, and so on.

"From the start we wanted them to have the mentality that everyone sweeps the floor around here," says Geschke, adding that while the hand tools may be gone, the ethic persists today.

Original Post : http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/01/how_adobe_and_others_got_everything_wrong_initially.html