Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and is actually a misquotation of the statement:

“If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.”

Never before have we seen such dramatic leaps in technology, data and social connections as we see today. In just a few short years we’ve gone from mainframes, to minis and laptops. We centralized data, then distributed it then strived to make it ubiquitous. But while the need and experience has changed, so has technology and methodology. We now carry cell phones with more computing power in our smartphones then we used to put the first man on the moon.

But those old application and visions are still important. Sometimes we don’t have start from scratch. Standing on the shoulders of people who’ve built great things, along with innovation, leads to new and better... And maybe though that philosophy, customers will beat a path to your door.