A few weeks ago I wrote an article about GroupOn and how I had been tinkering around at the intersection of the mobile, flash marketing, location-based services, and social spaces. The day I published the article was the day that I stopped working on the concept. It's because the market experienced a Netscape moment. There are really two type of Netscape moments. I will explain.

One type was initiated by the Netscape IPO. I was being recruited to join MindSpring at the time and when it happened you just knew that it was going to change everything in a very positive way. Everybody was talking about Netscape and the Internet. Most the people who where talking about them had no idea what they were talking about. But the world was heading to a new place and they wanted to be part of it. This ignited the visions of many an entrepreneur and investor. A slew of companies, including MindSpring, followed Netscape down the IPO path. Not just the technology world but the world as a whole has never been the same.

The other type of Netscape moment is not so positive. It's the "holy shit the world's largest most powerful company is entering my market, what the hell am I going to do?" moment. Being a bit player in the browser wars I can tell you that when that happened to Netscape they decided to do nothing. They were arrogant and non responsive. They lost their IPO mojo and their market. Doing nothing is a bad choice when this type of Netscape moment happens (this happened to MindSpring when AT&T entered the market, we dropped our pricing 40% and significantly changed our business model). 

The Netscape moment for the flash marketing space occurred on August 19. That was the day that GroupOn offered a national 50% off deal at Gap. They sold $11 million. Everybody noticed. It was apparent that there were going to be thousands of GroupOn clones. It was apparent that if a company already did not have some traction in the space or some serious resources to bear it might be a little late for a new market entry. It was apparent that any company with a sizable installed consumer base would be turning like a Tyrannosaurus Rex to get into the space. That happened yesterday. AOL is launching Wow!

When the GroupOn Gap deal happened my partner and I knew it was time to stop working on our concept. Despite the fact some of the things we were working on were unique to the market.  It did not matter. So we stopped. Sometimes stopping is the smart choice. Exit is always an option.