Making big promises.... how important is it?

Hi Ricky,

I agree with you completely. Honesty and integrity are paramount when you are pursuing your independence and freedom!

However, among many big successes, a false image is (at first) presented, in order to land that "big account" or "big client"....

Here's another example of what I mean....

One of the first personal computers was the Altair 8800, which Ed Roberts created in 1975.

However, there was no computer language for it. To program it you had to write in "machine code. That is, you had to write your program in 1's and 0's !

Ed Roberts realized he needed a computer language for his computer to make it truly useful.

One day, he got a letter from Bill Gates and Paul Allen, claiming they had written the BASIC language for the Altair 8800. This was just what Ed Roberts needed.

However, in fact, Gates and Allen hadn't even started to write anything. They made this claim partly so as to "beat" any other competitors who might even be thinking of competing with them on this.

Then they figured they had 30 days to deliver on their promise.

(This may have been one of the earliest instances of "vaporware". That is, to claim you have created something, which you haven't actually done yet, in order to discourage the competition.)

In the end, Gates and Allen did create BASIC within a few frantic weeks. So they DID deliver on their promise. They then sold their BASIC along with the Altair 8800 computer....

But -- when it comes right down to it -- their initial claim was a false one. They hadn't actually created it at the time like they had claimed....

Yet it was with this first, early success, that Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft....

This was a "big promise" which wasn't fully honest.... Yet they nevertheless did deliver....

I was thinking about situations like this....

"Big promises" seem very important for landing that first big client. And it is vital that you deliver on what you claim you will.

But it often seems a false image is presented, in order get a client to believe in that "big promise" in the first place....

I'm not saying anything here one way or another about these.... I've noticed this, and was wondering about it....

Anyone have any comments? I'd appreciate knowing what you think....

- Dien