5 ms·

Cuil on Business Week list of most successful companies of 2008

35 points by rokhayakebe 18y ago

jcapote 18y ago
Is it 4/1/2009 yet?
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
sh1mmer 18y ago
For once I think Arrington has a valid point. What success criteria do we apply to startups? It seems like Business Week sees VC capital as success. The article TechCrunch points to (http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/106341/Most-Successful-U.S.-Startups-2008 http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/106341/Most-Suc...) has the startups listed by order of funding starting at $90m through to $30m. From the point of view of most people here I think we would regards that much VC not making a good startup in most cases. I'd be interested to see a good framework for measuring success in startups that could be used by VCs and the media alike.
- axod 18y ago
  #users/traffic, and if they've had them for a while, revenue. The only thing cuil were successful at was getting well known. Unfortunately they got well known for returning terrible search results. So now they have twice as much work to do. Or I guess they could just pay some naming company to come up with a 'rebranding' campaign.
  - sh1mmer 18y ago
    I think that's my point, traffic is great, but when does revenue matter? Youtube still has insane traffic but even Google can't make them close to profitable.
    - axod 18y ago
      Not what I heard, but who knows the real story there.
  - mikeryan 18y ago
    Most on this list aren't websites, so your metric isn't going to fly.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
- njharman 18y ago
  > good framework for measuring success in startups Accounting world is partial to profits as a sane measure. Investors should look at ROI. In other words no startup is successful until it's making money. Which I don't think is an unfair measure. Now if you want to compare pre-success startups to one another, good luck. A measure doesn't exist. That is why the whole VC system exists and investors are willing to gamble 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 startups will pay off.
- mpk 18y ago
  > I'd be interested to see a good framework for measuring success in startups that could be used by VCs and the media alike. Breaking even seems like a good starting point to me. Of course, this is not good from the VC viewpoint. VCs hate it when you break even early and they don't have a controlling interest, because it means they can't grab more shares (in exchange for new funding which you would then need and they can and will leverage that need) because you don't need them for growth. Also, success is a relative thing. A small firm that doesn't take VC and never reaches the multi-billion dollar heights of Google, but has happy customers, happy employees and founders that enjoy their work is successful in my book. A company that takes millions in VC money, lets the VC dictate company policy and has the whole thing run into the ground is a failure. Measuring success does not happen across a single axis. Unless you define success in the context of what VCs want from your company, the definition becomes blurry very fast. A framework that will satisfy both VCs and the media isn't that hard to formulate. The media will simply copy the VC parameters, most of which is number games. But this is neither a media nor a VC board, so the question is - would you want to work for or start a company that is run by VC/media rules?
newmediaclay 18y ago
Maybe Business Week just did this to try and cover up the shame of them and other msm relentlessly talking up and covering Cuil before its launch and epic fail?
callmeed 18y ago
Did Pownce make the list?
byrneseyeview 18y ago
Who is their PR firm? They should -- seriously -- be near the top of this list.
- brandonkm 18y ago
  "The first rule of cuils PR firm is you do not talk about cuils PR firm"
- daveambrose 18y ago
  Just a guess: FutureWorks, Text100, Outcast or Bite. The last three are the "typical" names for firms in the Internet industry. FutureWorks is Brian Solis' agency.
joao 18y ago
This is what spending money on marketing people with connections gets you. But not saying this how it should be done, I would probably invest that money in getting a better product and thus users - a better strategy in the long haul.
nir 18y ago
These lists are always meaningless, whether from Business Week or TechCrunch.
jfornear 18y ago
I don't understand why everyone is whining yet not suggesting an alternative. I would pick Twitter... :D All in this year, they moved Evan Williams to CEO (good idea), raised over $20 million in funding (from Union Square Ventures, Jeff Bezos, and others), acquired Summize (easily the hottest app in a while), grew ridiculously popular while stabilizing their service/uptime, and turned down an acquisition offer by Facebook (rumor?). Now that is success. I can't even think of a close second.
- jonknee 18y ago
  > I can't even think of a close second. Perhaps a firm that had even a dollar in revenue? Twitter hasn't actually become a business yet, so it can't be the best one of the year.
  - jfornear 18y ago
    Thanks for your nomination? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company Regardless of your apparent misunderstanding of what qualifies as a startup, Twitter, in fact, does have a dollar in revenue. Their Japanese version, which also launched this year, serves advertisements. :D “It’s like the stupidest question in the world: How’s Twitter going to make money?," said Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, another investor. "It’s like 'How was Google going to make money?' http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/twitter-to-get.html http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/twitter-to-get.html
    - jonknee 18y ago
      It's not so much that they have no revenue it's that they have no plan for revenue. While they may turn into a great business at some point, they aren't one now. Google's creation of AdWords is not an excuse to fund other ventures who have no idea how to make money. There's not an AdWords for every business. Again, Twitter may become the next Google but that does not mean they are currently one of the most successful start ups. SpaceX inks a multi-billion dollar contract and we're busy talking about how successful Twitter is.
KirinDave 18y ago
And yet Powerset gets no mention. We made a big splash, and got acquired by a company that is one of the few that has any chance of taking on google head-to-head. But Cuil, with there "scaling is our product" plan, weird name and "search-is-hard" image interface get mention here? The industry pundits can be strange, unpredictable people.
- 1gor 18y ago
  >The industry pundits can be strange, unpredictable people. Do you think a word 'corrupt' could also be used?
  - KirinDave 18y ago
    In my experience, I've never seen outright examples of corruption. Even fairly powerful folks like Arrington were always very fair with us so long as we were fair with them. Heck, even the mean uncov guys didn't have many mean things to say, so they didn't say much at all. I think that the list we're discussing here is more of an example of Gross Incompetence. I think we can all agree we've seen examples of that. :)
- curiousgeorge 18y ago
  Once you get bought, you aren't perceived as an independent company. Media focuses on the buyer not seller. Which is one reason to make them pay cash.
  - KirinDave 18y ago
    I suppose you're right... Although it does seem weird. Cuil has always seemed to be far more of a flip company than Powerset ever was. It seems mighty difficult to sell a customer on "Our search is just like Google's, but we have fewer servers!" The Google name has way too much power for a geek-appeal like that to work. Calling a flip company successful when it hasn't flipped at all seems weird to me.

35 points by rokhayakebe 18y ago

jcapote 18y ago

Is it 4/1/2009 yet?

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

sh1mmer 18y ago

For once I think Arrington has a valid point. What success criteria do we apply to startups? It seems like Business Week sees VC capital as success. The article TechCrunch points to (http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/106341/Most-Successful-U.S.-Startups-2008 http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/106341/Most-Suc...) has the startups listed by order of funding starting at $90m through to $30m. From the point of view of most people here I think we would regards that much VC not making a good startup in most cases. I'd be interested to see a good framework for measuring success in startups that could be used by VCs and the media alike.

axod 18y ago
#users/traffic, and if they've had them for a while, revenue. The only thing cuil were successful at was getting well known. Unfortunately they got well known for returning terrible search results. So now they have twice as much work to do. Or I guess they could just pay some naming company to come up with a 'rebranding' campaign.
- sh1mmer 18y ago
  I think that's my point, traffic is great, but when does revenue matter? Youtube still has insane traffic but even Google can't make them close to profitable.
  - axod 18y ago
    Not what I heard, but who knows the real story there.
- mikeryan 18y ago
  Most on this list aren't websites, so your metric isn't going to fly.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
njharman 18y ago
> good framework for measuring success in startups Accounting world is partial to profits as a sane measure. Investors should look at ROI. In other words no startup is successful until it's making money. Which I don't think is an unfair measure. Now if you want to compare pre-success startups to one another, good luck. A measure doesn't exist. That is why the whole VC system exists and investors are willing to gamble 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 startups will pay off.
mpk 18y ago
> I'd be interested to see a good framework for measuring success in startups that could be used by VCs and the media alike. Breaking even seems like a good starting point to me. Of course, this is not good from the VC viewpoint. VCs hate it when you break even early and they don't have a controlling interest, because it means they can't grab more shares (in exchange for new funding which you would then need and they can and will leverage that need) because you don't need them for growth. Also, success is a relative thing. A small firm that doesn't take VC and never reaches the multi-billion dollar heights of Google, but has happy customers, happy employees and founders that enjoy their work is successful in my book. A company that takes millions in VC money, lets the VC dictate company policy and has the whole thing run into the ground is a failure. Measuring success does not happen across a single axis. Unless you define success in the context of what VCs want from your company, the definition becomes blurry very fast. A framework that will satisfy both VCs and the media isn't that hard to formulate. The media will simply copy the VC parameters, most of which is number games. But this is neither a media nor a VC board, so the question is - would you want to work for or start a company that is run by VC/media rules?

newmediaclay 18y ago

Maybe Business Week just did this to try and cover up the shame of them and other msm relentlessly talking up and covering Cuil before its launch and epic fail?

callmeed 18y ago

Did Pownce make the list?

byrneseyeview 18y ago

Who is their PR firm? They should -- seriously -- be near the top of this list.

brandonkm 18y ago
"The first rule of cuils PR firm is you do not talk about cuils PR firm"
daveambrose 18y ago
Just a guess: FutureWorks, Text100, Outcast or Bite. The last three are the "typical" names for firms in the Internet industry. FutureWorks is Brian Solis' agency.

joao 18y ago

This is what spending money on marketing people with connections gets you. But not saying this how it should be done, I would probably invest that money in getting a better product and thus users - a better strategy in the long haul.

nir 18y ago

These lists are always meaningless, whether from Business Week or TechCrunch.

jfornear 18y ago

I don't understand why everyone is whining yet not suggesting an alternative. I would pick Twitter... :D All in this year, they moved Evan Williams to CEO (good idea), raised over $20 million in funding (from Union Square Ventures, Jeff Bezos, and others), acquired Summize (easily the hottest app in a while), grew ridiculously popular while stabilizing their service/uptime, and turned down an acquisition offer by Facebook (rumor?). Now that is success. I can't even think of a close second.

jonknee 18y ago
> I can't even think of a close second. Perhaps a firm that had even a dollar in revenue? Twitter hasn't actually become a business yet, so it can't be the best one of the year.
- jfornear 18y ago
  Thanks for your nomination? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company Regardless of your apparent misunderstanding of what qualifies as a startup, Twitter, in fact, does have a dollar in revenue. Their Japanese version, which also launched this year, serves advertisements. :D “It’s like the stupidest question in the world: How’s Twitter going to make money?," said Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, another investor. "It’s like 'How was Google going to make money?' http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/twitter-to-get.html http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/twitter-to-get.html
  - jonknee 18y ago
    It's not so much that they have no revenue it's that they have no plan for revenue. While they may turn into a great business at some point, they aren't one now. Google's creation of AdWords is not an excuse to fund other ventures who have no idea how to make money. There's not an AdWords for every business. Again, Twitter may become the next Google but that does not mean they are currently one of the most successful start ups. SpaceX inks a multi-billion dollar contract and we're busy talking about how successful Twitter is.

KirinDave 18y ago

And yet Powerset gets no mention. We made a big splash, and got acquired by a company that is one of the few that has any chance of taking on google head-to-head. But Cuil, with there "scaling is our product" plan, weird name and "search-is-hard" image interface get mention here? The industry pundits can be strange, unpredictable people.

1gor 18y ago
>The industry pundits can be strange, unpredictable people. Do you think a word 'corrupt' could also be used?
- KirinDave 18y ago
  In my experience, I've never seen outright examples of corruption. Even fairly powerful folks like Arrington were always very fair with us so long as we were fair with them. Heck, even the mean uncov guys didn't have many mean things to say, so they didn't say much at all. I think that the list we're discussing here is more of an example of Gross Incompetence. I think we can all agree we've seen examples of that. :)
curiousgeorge 18y ago
Once you get bought, you aren't perceived as an independent company. Media focuses on the buyer not seller. Which is one reason to make them pay cash.
- KirinDave 18y ago
  I suppose you're right... Although it does seem weird. Cuil has always seemed to be far more of a flip company than Powerset ever was. It seems mighty difficult to sell a customer on "Our search is just like Google's, but we have fewer servers!" The Google name has way too much power for a geek-appeal like that to work. Calling a flip company successful when it hasn't flipped at all seems weird to me.