You are correct. It was not meant to be negative. It was meant to convey the importance of the shift from social/consumer apps with no thought of monetization, to startups focused on solving real world problems that generate revenue from day one. This can be boring to investors looking for flying cars, or journalists looking for mind blowing technology.
I mentioned Circuit Labs, great technology that makes money in a boring way by selling parts. I also mentioned Thalmic Labs as an example of cool technology.
My personal favorite was Skip, the RFID checkout company, but I couldn't talk about it because they haven't officially launched. I think there could be an indoor location play using the RFID tag data.
Overall, I was impressed with the focus on solving real world problems and generating immediate revenue. Boring to some, but I liked it.
The $30/user is just a valuation metric, not the acquisition justification. They bought it because mobile and photos are core to what Facebook does...and Instagram does it better than Facebook. A lot better.
Exactly, it does work both ways. It would be interesting to know the details/motivations on why Ev Williams (Blogger), Dennis Crowley (Dodgeball) and Max Levchin (Slide) left Google. Yet, Andy Rubin (Android) and Chad Hurley (YouTube) stayed on and were very successful. Same parent company, different results.
It’s no real secret that Google wasn’t supporting dodgeball the way we expected. The whole experience was incredibly frustrating for us – especially as we couldn’t convince them that dodgeball was worth engineering resources, leaving us to watch as other startups got to innovate in the mobile + social space. And while it was a tough decision (and really disappointing) to walk away from dodgeball, I’m actually looking forward to getting to work on other projects again.
At a brief glance, it appears that when you get a lot of autonomy and resources (YouTube and Android), you want to stay. When you feel like Google is ignoring you, you want to leave. That's the way it looks to me.
This is basic stuff for anyone here. I'm sure you get asked for startup advice all the time. Here is something you can send to people who ask you for help. It will get them started thinking...and come back with more focused questions.
YC companies are the best in the world at elevator pitches. This post explains why you need 3 pitches; 1 minute elevator pitch for random encounters, 6 minute pitch for events, and 30 minute pitch for VCs and investors.
Also why your elevator pitch is important to recruiting new hires, getting new customers, and making deals with partners. The pitch is not a marketing task, it is vital to growing your business.
This post was written 4 years ago. At that point is was too early to tell. Four years later we know YouTube was a pretty good deal. Myspace looked like a great deal for a few years. Now...not so much. It takes several years to know if things will work out or not.
My son Darren works for Jason at Mahalo. He is too busy working to comment here...so I will for him :-)
Darren works 6 or 7 days a week because he loves what he is doing, and is learning a ton from Jason. Yes, he is tough and has high expectations. But, Jason is the best mentor and teacher around.
Jason isn't for everyone, but if you want to rise to the top really fast...a ride with Jason will get you there.
Don, I am assuming this is Don Dodge, I won't debate that he can teach you a lot, and be a great mentor and possibly an awesome angel.
It's the attitude that he has - which we could excuse if his accomplishments were as big as he makes them seem like they are.
I am not diminishing the fact that he built a company from scratch and sold it to AOL for $30M. That's not a small feat, so don't get me wrong.
But, that happens almost every day in many industries. There are countless stories like that, and we don't see all of those CEOs acting like they are God's gift to technology. Jason acts like that, and quite frankly, when you compare him to his peers (the YouTube guys, Andreesen, Joshua Schacter, Max Levchin, etc.) - he comes up short.
As has been said so many times, the only people that I think has the right to act like that are Jobs, Gates, Bezos, etc. And they don't.
Some people may follow the money for pre-IPO stock options, but those are exactly the kind of people you don't want. They are in for the money and will jump ship at the next perceived opportunity to strike it rich.
Most people change jobs because they want a new challenge. They want to build something new, or do something they haven't done before. The fact that stock options are part of the deal is frosting on the cake.
In the case of high profile startups with multi-billion dollar private valuations, the upside potential at IPO may be pretty limited anyway. Stock options are always a gamble. In this environment of limited IPOs they are a big question mark.
With Wave getting the axe, I'm sure he could have easily moved on anywhere internally that he wanted to... If he really wanted something new, with a taste for social, Google, I'm sure, could have benefited from his talent in their latest social efforts.
So, I don't think it was for a new challenge. I think that door has been WIDE open to him for around a month now.
HackerbySea, I agree the Secondary Market is inefficient, and is artificially inflating prices. Individuals are bidding up prices without any financial information or real competitive market.
However, I think the public markets will be more efficient, and have more complete financial information. My guess is that the public markets will not value Facebook, or other high flying private companies, at a much higher valuation. In fact, I think the public markets could value these companies at substantially less.
In the end that is what makes a market, buyers and sellers, all with different opinions. It is impossible to say who is right at this time.
My point is that private valuations have been driven up far higher than ever before for three basic reasons;
1.) Lack of IPO market has driven the creation of new markets
2.) 409A has required companies to value their stock at much higher valuations than ever before.
3.) Second Market allows individuals to buy private stock, and bid up prices, without complete financial information.
Time will tell how efficient or accurate these alternative markets really are. My guess is the gap between private valuation and IPO public valuation has narrowed considerably, and we will not see the IPO price bounce we saw in the past. Just a guess. Time will tell.
I mentioned Circuit Labs, great technology that makes money in a boring way by selling parts. I also mentioned Thalmic Labs as an example of cool technology.
My personal favorite was Skip, the RFID checkout company, but I couldn't talk about it because they haven't officially launched. I think there could be an indoor location play using the RFID tag data.
Overall, I was impressed with the focus on solving real world problems and generating immediate revenue. Boring to some, but I liked it.