It’s not a matter of legitimacy as much as it is something people will come up with themselves. If your message is clear and interesting, they can figure out whether you are first or not. So it is the capability that really matters. Like I tell my LL baseball team – if you play well, the winning takes care of itself.

@Trustifier -

Truly innovative is a rare breed and something for which I am constantly on the prowl. Truly innovative and useful is even rarer. Many companies fall over in simply describing their value proposition (hint: it is NOT “we flip this bit to protect against evasion and mimicry”).

I don’t think it is necessarily difficult to succeed, it is simply important to pick the right target market – one that you can support. Almost no breakthrough comes from a large company (at least in the security market). There are lots of ways to promote grassroots ideas at conferences and through the security “social network”. Whatever we say about the security space, it is still a fairly small community full of people who will hear you out and provide some feedback.

So how do you push the rock up that hill if you are a garage start-up? Does every breakthrough have to come from a large company? I am beginning to think that the money requirement to enter the market is too much for many small start-ups, and if so, we could be losing some good ideas.

I would like to extend your comments about being First…

First or latest doesn’t really matter, what matters is simple – do you have a compelling story about the value of your product? Don’t tell me your first or best, show me the value and demonstrate (data?) to me how the idea can be sold to others.

In looking at a recent post by Pete Lindstrom about On Being First to market