It looks obvious

Caterina Fake , one of Flickr’s co-founders, published a splendid post explaining why it is a bad timing to open a new software company. It didn’t take long and David from 37Signals answered arguing that it is actually the best time to open a company that developed a product with value.

The funny thing is that I don’t think they disagree. Caterina’s post seems to me as criticism on the Web 2.0 hype and not on entrepreneurship. When she is writing:

There’s too much going on. Every night there’s a Mashup get together, or a TechCrunch party, or it’s Tag Tuesday, or SuperHappyDevHouse or SXSW or this conference or that conference. And this stuff is fun. It’s a real community. But all of these things are great by themselves, but terrible in combination. I see some entrepreneurs in photos from *every single event*. Who’s talking to the users, writing the code, tweaking and retweaking the UI? It ain’t the Chief Party Officer.

She is criticizing those entrepreneurs that are not creating value but “Developing” hype; and when she is writing:

Web 2.0 isn’t all that. Hello?. I don’t think there’s a rising tide lifting all boats here. I don’t think Web 2.0 is the magic bullet some people seem to think it is either. It ain’t the features, it’s that AND the business. Tagging was a great feature, no doubt. But Flickr was at break even — about to tip into the black — when we were acquired.

She is criticizing those who believe that building a valuable service mean round corners and tag cloud.

It seems clear to me, that both David and Caterina believe that there is no bad timing for good product, they just saying it differently.