We Can Learn Much Faster Than We Do, If Necessary
Back in 2009 after I left Yahoo!, I joined a startup which was focused on developing new ideas specifically for patent. The idea was that we would work with companies and help them to build out their patent portfolio in order to protect themselves from other companies and patent trolls. We started off thinking that this was a great idea – but after a while we realized that the timing was off – instead of increasing their patent spend the market was decreasing their patent spend due to the tail end of the great recession, so here we were, great idea, but no customers.