Why Jack Dorsey’s Square will fail

Let’s face it – Twitter in it’s current form was an accident.   I remember when Twitter was first introduced, it was meant to be an SMS application (that’s where you get the 140 character limit).  I’m too lazy to confirm it but I believe the remaining 20 characters were left for tiny ads.

When what you’re building turns into a phenomenon accidentally – you really can’t take too much credit for it’s evolution and must consider yourself more an agent of change.  That’s exactly what the Twitter team is (or was) up until now.  In fact, I’d go out on a limb and say that now that the Twitter folks are riding this bronco of a company, they hardly know what to do with it in it’s current fashion.

Jack Dorsey lends much of his fame to his reign at Twitter – but past success means very little in the valley and many entrepreneurs spend the rest of their lives trying to outdo their first startup which came across as “beginner’s luck”.  Square is a lofty idea and only someone with super grandiose position in the tech world who could generate buzz could launch an idea into the buzz stratosphere.  If not someone then a massive company with dollars to spend on development and marketing and with a stronghold position in an existing market.  I’m talking about Verifone and PAYware.

We’ll have to see who wins in the end (or exactly what winning means) but I suspect that it will take much more than Techcrunch and Mashable articles to get Square adopted by retailers far and wide.  I’ve been surprised before though…

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Why Jack Dorsey’s Square will fail,” an entry on The Soapbox

Published:
02.02.10 / 6am
Category:
Commentary, Entrepreneurship, Technology