I had the pleasure of attending the Dublin Web Summit recently which featured talks from Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress and Automattic, and Craig Newmark from Craigslist (pictured above).
There were plenty of interesting nuggets to take away but my lasting impression was that their successes had come almost by accident.
Actually, that’s a little unfair. It would be better to say that their financial and business successes had been a nice – and possibly even unexpected – byproduct of creating something that people loved.
When Craig started Craigslist it was just a simple CC’d email list of things in San Franscisco worth checking out. When Matt started WordPress it was to create a better blogging platform – and make it open source. Although I couldn’t say for certain, I doubt either had images of world domination in their heads at the time.
And neither did Tiffany Philippou.
Having set up the Secret London Facebook Group (a group where people share lesser known spots to check out) in response to a competition for an internship, it has grown to over 180,000 members in just two weeks.
Not surprisingly, she’s more or less forgotten about the internship and is now focusing on turning Secret London into a commercial enterprise.
So how do you start an accidental business?
First and foremost you create something that people will love. Build a community around it. Then, finally, you try to figure out how to make some cash from it.
Of course, being an accidental business means that you have to assume that it’s not going to work out. For every Craigslist there are hundreds of listings and classified sites that have never made a penny.
So, the real trick is to create something that you’ll love working on even if it never takes off. Which, rather perversely, is also the best way to make sure it’s something cool enough and passion-filled enough to grow that loyal audience.
As Wired Editor-at-Large, Ben Hammersley said to close the Dublin event – “make it beautiful”.
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Brilliant Mark – spot on! Love this “the real trick is to create something that you’ll love working on even if it never takes off” – pretty much the central theme of my book “Screw Work, Let’s Play”…