SOWPub Small Business Forums  
 

Click Here to see the latest posts!

Ask any questions related to business / entrepreneurship / money-making / life
or share your success stories (and educational "failures")...

Sign up for the Hidden Business Ideas Letter Free edition, and receive a free report straight to your inbox: "Idea that works in a pandemic: Ordinary housewife makes $50,000 a month in her spare time, using a simple idea - and her driveway..."

NO BLATANT ADS PLEASE
Also, please no insults or personal attacks.
Feel free to link to your web site though at the end of your posts.

Stay up to date! Get email notifications or
get "new thread" feeds here

 

Go Back   SOWPub Small Business Forums > Main Category > Original SOWPub Forum Archive
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

 
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
  #1  
Old May 22, 2003, 09:48 PM
Dien Rice
 
Posts: n/a
Default I just watched the documentary "Startup.com"....

It's about two guys who started up a dot-com company, govWorks.com - and the stratosphereic heights which they rose to (at one stage they had 200 employees) - and of course the big fall....

Their big idea was a web site where you could pay your parking tickets, and handle any other local government "red tape" you had to do...

If you had any interest in the dot-com boom, it's compulsive viewing. I didn't have anything directly to do with the dot-com boom (apart from starting our humble little site here, plus a couple other little projects), but I do have friends who were directly involved in the dot-com boom.

A couple friends of mine joined up a dot-com which started in Sydney, which then moved over to Silicon Valley - only to implode.... (I visited them and their office around mid-2000, when things were still looking good.) Another friend of mine actually started her own dot-com company, and raised over a million dollars before the crash came. (I visited her office in San Francisco at the same time - she had about 30 employees at that stage....)

One thing I noticed from the documentary was that there seemed to be less of a focus on profitability and more of a focus on whether their site was "good enough" and whether it looked impressive. I think the reason why that was the case was because in order to get more VC funding, you had to impress them with a good-looking web site...

Of course, NOW we know that how impressive your site looks is nowhere near as important as whether it can SELL. I know several sites that look pretty scrappy but which are GREAT at selling... Their "scrappy" look makes theem feel more personal, like you are dealing with a real person.

In the documentary, there was a LOT more emphasis on getting the VC funding (more and more of it - and then more and even more) in order to keep going, than there was in actually turning a profit. Wow, how times have changed!

If any of you see Startup.com available to buy or rent, get or rent yourself a copy - it's fascinating stuff. Learn from their successes and also from their mistakes! :)

- Dien Rice

P.S. govWorks.com is no more - it looks like it was eventually sold (under bankruptcy) to www.govONEsolutions.com - which IS around. It looks like the founders ended up getting nothing.... I've noticed that one of their competitors mentioned in the film, www.ezgov.com , is also still around.

I think another lesson from the documentary is the lesson about egos.... The dot-com boom was largely ego-driven, and I think big egos can make colossal mistakes. When you don't have TOO big of an ego driving you I think you tend to make much sounder business decisions....
 


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are Off
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Forum Jump

Other recent posts on the forum...


Seeds of Wisdom Publishing (front page) | Seeds of Wisdom Business forum | Seeds of Wisdom Original Business Forum (Archive) | Hidden Unusual Business Ideas Newsletter | Hotsheet Profits | Persuade via Remote Influence | Affia Band | The Entrepreneur's Hotsheet | The SeedZine (Entrepreneurial Ezine)

Get the report on Harvey Brody's Answers to a Question-Oriented-Person


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 07:47 AM.


Powered by vBulletin Version 3.6.0
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.