Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for $50 million in 2000. Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph flew to Dallas to pitch it and got laughed out of the room. Cisco heard Eric Yuan's idea for a mobile-first video app, said no, and watched him leave with 40 Webex engineers to build Zoom. Excite passed on buying Google for $750K. Same pattern every time. The winners on this list all entered at the exact moment the market leader was maximally committed to something about to stop working. Blockbuster…

@1d ago

Apple was the 15th smartphone maker Spotify was the 10th music platform Google was the 21st search engine to enter the market Facebook was the 10th social network Netflix was the 7th streaming provider Uber was the 4th ride sharing service TikTok was the 8th short-video app Zoom was the 11th video-calling app Being first doesn't mean winning