The families getting the bed nets and vaccinations might have paid quite some attention. And if you succeed there, who gives a flying f… how many casually-engaged twitterati pay attention?

“I tell my clients to be bold. I don’t want them to be afraid of failure. Try, fail, try, fail, try, succeed. That’s how you learn.”

Yes, excellent, couldn’t agree more. Except life’s too short for everyone to start at square one and make all the mistakes themselves, and aid and development actors have been trying (and succeeding, and failing!) at this for decades. There’s a certain conceit to thinking the idea you’ve come up with at 3am hasn’t been considered (and possibly discarded) dozens of times before. The simple fact is that @iwearyourshirt simply didn’t do enough due diligence, with the seriousness of approach one would take on a business venture of similar scale. That a swarm of Africans and aid bloggers turned this around (we hope, still TBC as far as I’m concerned) isn’t cause for endless back-slapping, and definitely not grounds to say Jason “did this right”.

As a bonus, you may win the prize for dumbest blog statement of the week. Who pays attention to a million mosquito nets? The people who get to stay alive, that’s who smart guy.

That said, the wise person takes on board advice, particularly when they explain to you (preferably in economic terms) why your idea isn’t going to work. Otherwise you tend to lose a lot of money.

Take it from me, I’ve been that particular loser.