"For example, youtube was simply a better product for the market than google video -- even though the back-end technology was supposedly worse."
I know I'm going to get hammered for saying this - but I don't think back-end code is as important as a good user interface, a well designed site, and a clear vision. Your users don't get to see the back-end code, and they don't really care how it works. And servers and bandwidth are cheap, so it doesn't matter much that your code isn't well optimised.
What does matter though is that you have a clear value proposition to you users, and that they will understand this within 5 seconds of arriving to your site. This is much more important than nice and clean back-end code.
I have a bit of experience with this - I started thinking about doing a web based project management tool around a year ago, and since I didn't know any good hackers that weren't already occupied with something else I thought I would learn how to code and just do it myself. And interestingly I found that the hard part was not the coding, but the usability and flow of the site. The coding part is basically just getting stuff in and out of a database. But the flow is really hard to get just right.
I know I'm going to get hammered for saying this - but I don't think back-end code is as important as a good user interface, a well designed site, and a clear vision. Your users don't get to see the back-end code, and they don't really care how it works. And servers and bandwidth are cheap, so it doesn't matter much that your code isn't well optimised.
What does matter though is that you have a clear value proposition to you users, and that they will understand this within 5 seconds of arriving to your site. This is much more important than nice and clean back-end code.
I have a bit of experience with this - I started thinking about doing a web based project management tool around a year ago, and since I didn't know any good hackers that weren't already occupied with something else I thought I would learn how to code and just do it myself. And interestingly I found that the hard part was not the coding, but the usability and flow of the site. The coding part is basically just getting stuff in and out of a database. But the flow is really hard to get just right.