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BusinessWeek: Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs

27 points by jkopelman 19y ago

dbreunig 19y ago
RockYou? Really?
- freax 19y ago
  F Me. $15 mil for adding tinsel to your MySpace? And "RockYou is lining up a new round of funding to stay sharp.". Etsy: $31.6 mil for a swapmeet just for handmade crafts. When people take that much buck for so little bang it doesn't seem like they are interested in ROI or making it big so much as having a jobs program for them and their buddies. Auctomatic sold for what probably amounts to a few months' burn rate for these suckers and still made their founders millionaires. How are these guys with 20 or 30 mil invested going to find a buyer that makes them a profit? By the strict definition of entrepreneur (assuming the risk), that title goes to the VCs. When the venture tanks it's not going to be the founder who's out $30 mil. Not a lot of technical wow in that list. Drupal probably leads by a good margin.
  - jgrahamc 19y ago
    > Etsy: $31.6 mil for a swapmeet just for handmade crafts. I'm assuming that your italics were meant to indicate that you think this is a silly idea. But what you probably have to consider is the size of the handmade craft market in the US. Then consider the entire world-wide market. It's probably very large. And Breyer @ Accel is no fool.
    - freax 19y ago
      You have to judge the idea, not appeal to authority. Investors make mistakes most of the time! > But what you probably have to consider is the size of the handmade craft market in the US. Then consider the entire world-wide market. It's probably very large. That's every business plan ever. "Look how huge this market is! If we could just get one percent, why..." It's like Ali G's pitch. "Zen" (Venn) diagram of "People who like ice cream" intersected with "People who has hands". Voila, the Ice Cream Glove. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TR0vUPQCs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TR0vUPQCs
      - danielha 19y ago
        Wait, what? Of course you look at the size of your market. How is that a bad thing? I'm not sure why you are poo-pooing Etsy's business. It serves a need and the company makes money.
        freax 19y ago
        > and the company makes money. The company loses money. Read it again. I'm not disparaging the business, I'm disparaging the business combined with the amount of funding. That's just ridiculous.
        jgrahamc 19y ago
        If you read the TC article on the investment you'll see where they plan to spend it: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/30/etsy-raises-27-million-accels-jim-breyer-joins-board/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/30/etsy-raises-27-million-... —Buy $5 million worth of hardware and hosting over the next two years. —Support more currencies and languages other than the U.S. Dollar and English. —Fix the checkout system (there is none now, every buyer has to pay every seller on an individual basis. There is no Etsy payment system that works across all sellers). —Fix search. —Provide a cushion in case of a recession. —Offer customer service —Provide competitive wages and take care of his employees. Quite a lot of big ticket items in that list. Add to that any significant amount of consumer marketing and the number doesn't seem that bad.
        freax 19y ago
        That explains a lot more. They just raised most of it. But after $4.6 mil they don't even have a checkout system?!? Or search? Or customer service? Or even competitive wages?!?
        veritas 19y ago
        I'm not sure of the checkout system, but I assume right now that the payments are left for the sellers and buyers to deal with and Etsy would instead like to establish their own system that makes it dead easy to buy and sell with Etsy as the middle man in the transaction. Search is hard. They have search already, but they want it make it better and more relevant to the user's taste and buying history I imagine. Customer Service => manpower => salaries => money => funding. Competitive wages: I'm sure Etsy pays it's employees well, but I doubt it's at market value (although it's probably damn close). But they want to take care of their existing employees and hire new ones and pay them all well, which I think is admirable. The funding isn't absurd. Etsy can and probably will be huge. I've seen nothing from their execution and growth so far that indicates that they're a mirage or about to tank. For a company with a revenue model, growth, and a large market to raise a 30 million series B isn't exactly earth shattering.
  - run4yourlives 19y ago
    I won't argue against RockYou. That's just silly. But Handmade crafts are a huge segment of the market, especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting. There's a much bigger upside to Etsy.
    - freax 19y ago
      > especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting Nesting? What are they, ducks? As a feminist I'd like to say that's some pretty idiotic stereotyping. Female college graduates overwhelmingly enter the workforce, not nests.
      - byrneseyeview 19y ago
        'Nesting' is a common term for the set of behaviors that makes a home more compatible with a family than a single person. Are you unfamiliar with it? Is it really idiotic to suggest that women are more likely to do handmade crafts than men? I know many women who knit as adults, or make small crafts as kids. However, there's an easy way to settle this. If etsy is going to underserve the vast market for men who knit adorable mittens and hats for their kids, you can certainly be successful with a startup that targets that market. Or we could just bet that the online craft market with a higher fraction of male sellers will be more successful than the one dominated by women. Or we could concede that -- whether due to biology or the patriarchy -- gender correlates with some behaviors. That shouldn't be hard to admit.
        freax 19y ago
        > Are you unfamiliar with it? Yeah, I totally thought you were talking about ducks! > Is it really idiotic to suggest that women are more likely to do handmade crafts than men? Now you're trying to change the subject. Your actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted quite specifically is that as soon as women graduate college they start "nesting". In fact women college graduates are pushing back starting families by record amounts. I know a lot of female professionals and I can't think of any without kids that spend any appreciable amount of time on handmade crafts.
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  Exactly my thoughts.
iamelgringo 19y ago
First off, congrats to the guys who made the list. It's hard work being an entrepreneur, and I'm glad that you guys are getting some good press. But, I do have a problem with how it seems that these businesses are being selected. It seems that the level of funding that these people raised is used as a hallmark of how good the entrepreneur is. Isn't the mark of a good entrepreneur how much they can do with how little? I can understand why a video company like Video Egg might need a high capitalization. Bandwidth charges for video streaming are high. But, I'd still balk at taking $27 million in funding. Etsy--31 million in funding. Granted, the company has 1 million users and 75,000 sellers. But really, 31 million dollars! What does an e-commerce site need 31 million for? I've actually begun to see taking large sums of VC money as a competitive disadvantage. If these companies take $20-30 million in funding, the VC's are going to push for a 10x return. That means that their investors are wanting a $200-300 million exit. And, even at those rates, I'd imagine that the founders shares are quite diluted by that point. And, I'd guess that the chances of getting a $200-300 exit are a lot slimmer than getting a $5-6 million exit. For details Google "Digg acquisition": http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=Ess&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=digg+acquisition&spell=1 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&clien...
- optimal 19y ago
  Yeah, it's like BW is blinded by the numbers--that money's not a personal gift to the founders (from "holed up alone in a room for 100 hours a week" to "Funding: $17.5 million"). Regardless, it's a validation of their efforts. True success will be determined years from now based on the outcome of these investments.
- davidu 19y ago
  I don't think BW cares about the amount raised. They didn't ask me until after we were already confident that I was going to be selected. It was like, "Oh, we forgot to ask -- how much money did you raise?"
Flemlord 19y ago
Apparently I am no longer a "young" entrepreneur. (sigh)
- optimal 19y ago
  The hook seems to be tying "kids" to "millions"--must draw lots of eyeballs (like the last time around). Maybe AARP has a business publication that would like to profile all these young 30- and 40-something upstart entrepreneurs.
ian 19y ago
Congratulations Drew!
- danielha 19y ago
  Congrats to dhouston! http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/04/0418_youngtech_entp/source/5.htm http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/04/0418_youngtech_entp/... (One of the founders of SFP07 company Dropbox, for those not in the know). The article failed to mention his rock band skills.
  - mosburger 19y ago
    Does anyone know if Drew is related to Chris Houston of Amp'd Mobile fame? Just curious... I used to work w/ Chris...
- dhouston 19y ago
  thanks, though my cofounder arash deserves equal mention here. (we sent them a pic of the two of us but apparently after the deadline, so it should be corrected soon)
- yters 19y ago
  I'm impressed, both with Drew and YC. Even if YC only has one in this group, that's still significant. Do they have more? - EDIT - Unless the information is undisclosed, the answer is no.
nazgulnarsil 19y ago
am i reading this right? dropbox does the same thing as the shared documents folder in windows?

27 points by jkopelman 19y ago

dbreunig 19y ago

RockYou? Really?

freax 19y ago
F Me. $15 mil for adding tinsel to your MySpace? And "RockYou is lining up a new round of funding to stay sharp.". Etsy: $31.6 mil for a swapmeet just for handmade crafts. When people take that much buck for so little bang it doesn't seem like they are interested in ROI or making it big so much as having a jobs program for them and their buddies. Auctomatic sold for what probably amounts to a few months' burn rate for these suckers and still made their founders millionaires. How are these guys with 20 or 30 mil invested going to find a buyer that makes them a profit? By the strict definition of entrepreneur (assuming the risk), that title goes to the VCs. When the venture tanks it's not going to be the founder who's out $30 mil. Not a lot of technical wow in that list. Drupal probably leads by a good margin.
- jgrahamc 19y ago
  > Etsy: $31.6 mil for a swapmeet just for handmade crafts. I'm assuming that your italics were meant to indicate that you think this is a silly idea. But what you probably have to consider is the size of the handmade craft market in the US. Then consider the entire world-wide market. It's probably very large. And Breyer @ Accel is no fool.
  - freax 19y ago
    You have to judge the idea, not appeal to authority. Investors make mistakes most of the time! > But what you probably have to consider is the size of the handmade craft market in the US. Then consider the entire world-wide market. It's probably very large. That's every business plan ever. "Look how huge this market is! If we could just get one percent, why..." It's like Ali G's pitch. "Zen" (Venn) diagram of "People who like ice cream" intersected with "People who has hands". Voila, the Ice Cream Glove. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TR0vUPQCs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TR0vUPQCs
    - danielha 19y ago
      Wait, what? Of course you look at the size of your market. How is that a bad thing? I'm not sure why you are poo-pooing Etsy's business. It serves a need and the company makes money.
      - freax 19y ago
        > and the company makes money. The company loses money. Read it again. I'm not disparaging the business, I'm disparaging the business combined with the amount of funding. That's just ridiculous.
        jgrahamc 19y ago
        If you read the TC article on the investment you'll see where they plan to spend it: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/30/etsy-raises-27-million-accels-jim-breyer-joins-board/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/30/etsy-raises-27-million-... —Buy $5 million worth of hardware and hosting over the next two years. —Support more currencies and languages other than the U.S. Dollar and English. —Fix the checkout system (there is none now, every buyer has to pay every seller on an individual basis. There is no Etsy payment system that works across all sellers). —Fix search. —Provide a cushion in case of a recession. —Offer customer service —Provide competitive wages and take care of his employees. Quite a lot of big ticket items in that list. Add to that any significant amount of consumer marketing and the number doesn't seem that bad.
        freax 19y ago
        That explains a lot more. They just raised most of it. But after $4.6 mil they don't even have a checkout system?!? Or search? Or customer service? Or even competitive wages?!?
        veritas 19y ago
        I'm not sure of the checkout system, but I assume right now that the payments are left for the sellers and buyers to deal with and Etsy would instead like to establish their own system that makes it dead easy to buy and sell with Etsy as the middle man in the transaction. Search is hard. They have search already, but they want it make it better and more relevant to the user's taste and buying history I imagine. Customer Service => manpower => salaries => money => funding. Competitive wages: I'm sure Etsy pays it's employees well, but I doubt it's at market value (although it's probably damn close). But they want to take care of their existing employees and hire new ones and pay them all well, which I think is admirable. The funding isn't absurd. Etsy can and probably will be huge. I've seen nothing from their execution and growth so far that indicates that they're a mirage or about to tank. For a company with a revenue model, growth, and a large market to raise a 30 million series B isn't exactly earth shattering.
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  I won't argue against RockYou. That's just silly. But Handmade crafts are a huge segment of the market, especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting. There's a much bigger upside to Etsy.
  - freax 19y ago
    > especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting Nesting? What are they, ducks? As a feminist I'd like to say that's some pretty idiotic stereotyping. Female college graduates overwhelmingly enter the workforce, not nests.
    - byrneseyeview 19y ago
      'Nesting' is a common term for the set of behaviors that makes a home more compatible with a family than a single person. Are you unfamiliar with it? Is it really idiotic to suggest that women are more likely to do handmade crafts than men? I know many women who knit as adults, or make small crafts as kids. However, there's an easy way to settle this. If etsy is going to underserve the vast market for men who knit adorable mittens and hats for their kids, you can certainly be successful with a startup that targets that market. Or we could just bet that the online craft market with a higher fraction of male sellers will be more successful than the one dominated by women. Or we could concede that -- whether due to biology or the patriarchy -- gender correlates with some behaviors. That shouldn't be hard to admit.
      - freax 19y ago
        > Are you unfamiliar with it? Yeah, I totally thought you were talking about ducks! > Is it really idiotic to suggest that women are more likely to do handmade crafts than men? Now you're trying to change the subject. Your actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted quite specifically is that as soon as women graduate college they start "nesting". In fact women college graduates are pushing back starting families by record amounts. I know a lot of female professionals and I can't think of any without kids that spend any appreciable amount of time on handmade crafts.
run4yourlives 19y ago
Exactly my thoughts.

iamelgringo 19y ago

First off, congrats to the guys who made the list. It's hard work being an entrepreneur, and I'm glad that you guys are getting some good press. But, I do have a problem with how it seems that these businesses are being selected. It seems that the level of funding that these people raised is used as a hallmark of how good the entrepreneur is. Isn't the mark of a good entrepreneur how much they can do with how little? I can understand why a video company like Video Egg might need a high capitalization. Bandwidth charges for video streaming are high. But, I'd still balk at taking $27 million in funding. Etsy--31 million in funding. Granted, the company has 1 million users and 75,000 sellers. But really, 31 million dollars! What does an e-commerce site need 31 million for? I've actually begun to see taking large sums of VC money as a competitive disadvantage. If these companies take $20-30 million in funding, the VC's are going to push for a 10x return. That means that their investors are wanting a $200-300 million exit. And, even at those rates, I'd imagine that the founders shares are quite diluted by that point. And, I'd guess that the chances of getting a $200-300 exit are a lot slimmer than getting a $5-6 million exit. For details Google "Digg acquisition": http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=Ess&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=digg+acquisition&spell=1 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&clien...

optimal 19y ago
Yeah, it's like BW is blinded by the numbers--that money's not a personal gift to the founders (from "holed up alone in a room for 100 hours a week" to "Funding: $17.5 million"). Regardless, it's a validation of their efforts. True success will be determined years from now based on the outcome of these investments.
davidu 19y ago
I don't think BW cares about the amount raised. They didn't ask me until after we were already confident that I was going to be selected. It was like, "Oh, we forgot to ask -- how much money did you raise?"

Flemlord 19y ago

Apparently I am no longer a "young" entrepreneur. (sigh)

optimal 19y ago
The hook seems to be tying "kids" to "millions"--must draw lots of eyeballs (like the last time around). Maybe AARP has a business publication that would like to profile all these young 30- and 40-something upstart entrepreneurs.

ian 19y ago

Congratulations Drew!

danielha 19y ago
Congrats to dhouston! http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/04/0418_youngtech_entp/source/5.htm http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/04/0418_youngtech_entp/... (One of the founders of SFP07 company Dropbox, for those not in the know). The article failed to mention his rock band skills.
- mosburger 19y ago
  Does anyone know if Drew is related to Chris Houston of Amp'd Mobile fame? Just curious... I used to work w/ Chris...
dhouston 19y ago
thanks, though my cofounder arash deserves equal mention here. (we sent them a pic of the two of us but apparently after the deadline, so it should be corrected soon)
yters 19y ago
I'm impressed, both with Drew and YC. Even if YC only has one in this group, that's still significant. Do they have more? - EDIT - Unless the information is undisclosed, the answer is no.

nazgulnarsil 19y ago

am i reading this right? dropbox does the same thing as the shared documents folder in windows?