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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

by 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?

by sh1mmer 18y ago

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?