When you think about it, why is Paypal so successful? Besides the grumblings from people about unfair chargeback policies and the like, Paypal has become the de facto leader in online financial transactions. How did this happen? Wouldn’t you think that an established financial institution (think: Citibank, Wells Fargo, etc) would’ve been able to capitalize on their large cash reserves and launch an online payment service that would overtake and keep the smaller attempts at doing the same at bay? It looks like those larger institutions were just to cumbersome and slow moving and it was the speed of execution of Paypal that helped them become number one in the industry. Some might say that the subsequent purchase of Paypal by auction behemoth Ebay has since turned Paypal into one of those cumbersome and slow moving companies, but that is still open to a little debate. Paypal took the world by storm because they acted when they did and they focused on becoming the leader in their industry.

Strike when the irons are hot.