Build It and They Will Come - An Interview with Peter of Too Many Designers.


The dotcoms boomed and busted before you could say Boo.com. In that time, every man and his dog had a portal, business models were created by monkeys with laptops, and venture capital was thrown around more freely than how to vote dockets in a marginal electorate.

While our land down under was not subject to the extremes of Silicon Valley say, we did experience our own boom and bust and the flow on effect can still be felt. This article centres around One Too Many Designer, and his ability to survive the rollercoaster ride and some hopes for the future.

Excerpts of this appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald on 11/09/2002.

On the dotcom madness & staying persistent :

Around the heady days of 2000, Australia, like the rest of the Western Markets were going crazy with youth portals. SCAPE.COM, Sydney & Melbourne Tribe, amongst others all were competing for that target market willing to spend up to subscribe to cutting edge content. We now know that such a market was almost immeasurable. Why, we haven't even got to the stage today where we can set up viable pay per view subscription models, let alone increase broadband uptake.

What made us think we could then? Ego really. Everyone was doing it because we all thought we could make a buck from it. Not that we didn't enjoy it, it was a fun time! But all of those portals, including ours went down the drain. It just wasn't justifiable.

SCAPE.COM famously invited Sub Razorfish to develop their Site Identity but it was about as usable as a dead fish. We on the other hand mocked and coded ours up in-house, but it didn't have all the bells and whistles. In the end, neither "won".

We read FAST COMPANY, surfed SALON.com and watched proudly as the Olympics came to town. We were destined for success, or so we thought.

Ultimately, our portal just kept on chugging along barely, while others died overblown deaths. The press, there so readily to document the ride to the top, didn't miss a beat and just as dramatically watched as these and other dotcoms crashed and burned.

We never got rich from it, but we never lost our riches from it either. Ours was for a youth charity and that's why its still running today. Great times, and great people.

On Graduation in a downturn :

The IT Job Market in 1999 was nothing short of fantastic. Fantastic, in the sense that the figures being offered were truly tantalising. But also in the sense that they were almost out of this world. A friend of mine was offered a $100, 000 salary while on work experience! I'm sure other folks have their own stories too. Doesn't everyone know of a 17-year old script kiddie that was offered a ludicrous sum to come in and hack at code?

Three years later, the design and development field was a far sight from what we had seen going into school a few years earlier. It wasn't uncommon for a big corporation to offer around 5 places to a applicant pool of 5000 or more. The fact that the downturn had been in place for a year or two now already meant that we'd be up against consultants and experienced developers as well.

On Design Versus. Creativity :

The last few years have taught me an enormous amount about design and development. About business versus artistic talent. About Design versus Creativity.

Too many of us are schooled only in one of these. We are constantly pigeon-holed as soley left or right brain thinkers. But everyone who analyses needs to be able to create as well. And anyone who's going to be an artist for a living better have a sense of how to make money in a saturated market.

Go with your strengths sure, but become a Jack of all trades. If you're a web programmer, get a feel for the Information Architecture that structures a good site. If you're a web designer, you better become adept at a bit of scripting now and again to see how the back-end guys handle your sliced up GIFs.

Don't be ignorant. Never be ignorant.