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by elxrr 5463 days ago
I found Bill Nguyen's response quite strange when asked about this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WGdwY6h5JI&t=25m30s

"Robert(Scoble) is right, everyone's right, we should have done it, we could have done it, we didn't because I don't like conferences. Again, my bad, it's my responsiblity, I just didn't want to do it."

1 comments

Wow. I don't know if Bill Nguyen realizes this, but when you have a consumer based product, you NEED to launch it when there are a lot of potential customers to use it! That is without a doubt the worst thing that I've ever heard an entrepreneur say as long as I've been following tech. When this company crashes and burns, perhaps Mr. Nguyen will realize that being an entrepreneur sometimes means having to do things you don't want to do. Did you really think Steve Jobs was excited to go to Redmond, proverbial hat in hand to ask Bill Gates for a bailout? Of course not! But he did it because it was necessary for the long term health of the company. I truly think Bill Nguyen doesn't get it.
While Color has made a lot of mistakes, Bill Nguyen has accomplished more than 99.x% of entrepreneurs. He wanted something different from his product launch for whatever reason, maybe simply because he didn't feel like dealing with the madness of SXSW. It wasn't the best choice, but it's a far cry from him being clueless. I'm certainly in no position to question his abilities as an entrepreneur, and definitely not for one or two questionable decisions.
From his comments though, the only reason that they didn't launch at SXSW was bacause he didn't "like" conferences.

Honestly, it seems to me that he was either too hubristical or naïve.