JDsBlog.com

Reading a very long article by FastCompany.com, I wanted to take a minute and point something out.

I did a podcast last week about ideas being the basis of startups. People who have the ability to recognize a need, solve it, and turn it into a business, are the ones who are successful.

Mark Zuckerberg is no different. The FC article talks about how Harvard didn’t offer a student directory with photos and basic information, known at most schools as a face book. So he decided to build one.

Thefacebook.com, as it was originally called, launched on February 4, 2004. Within two weeks, half the Harvard student body had signed up. Before long, it was up to two-thirds. Zuckerberg’s roommates, Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, joined in, helping to add features and run the site using a shared hosting service that cost $85 a month. Students from other colleges began approaching them, asking for online face books of their own. So the trio carved out new areas on the site for places like Stanford and Yale. By May, 30 schools were included, and banner- type ads for student events and college-oriented businesses had brought in a few thousand dollars.

Now is that so challenging? Not really. He happened to have the resources himself to get most of the coding work done, but that is it.

Three years ago Zuckerberg was a college kid. Now he is turning down billion dollar buyouts. Not too bad for recognizing a need and coming up with a solution.