5 ms·

Max Levchin's favorite new startups

35 points by angstrom 18y ago

rokhayakebe 18y ago
My new favorite startups are the ones with a "Pricing" link and without "Share", "Collaborate", "Easy", "Friends".
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- markessien 18y ago
  Most of the really successful ideas started without a "pricing" link - google, skype, wikipedia, youtube, facebook, myspace, craigslist, plentyoffish, instant messaging etc. And what the people want is free - torrents, muxtape, tvlinks, etc. I'm not saying it's wrong to charge money, but not charging money has been a successful strategy for a good number of startups.
  - rokhayakebe 18y ago
    All the companies named above are the exception in their categories. I do not know another successful Google, Skype, Craigslist.... By the way Youtube, Facebook and Skype are not profitable yet (at least not to my knowledge so excuses it if I am wrong). Let me give you a good example of "Pricing". Take a company such as ClickCare. They provide a web based environment for home care providers to remotely ask questions to doctors, and share photos & videos of patients. The doctors can review the information from anywhere and make the proper suggestions. That is what they do, well they are also HIPPA compliant to ensure the privacy/security of the patient information. Now this video, photo, wiki company charges doctors 20,000 USD a year. I am not saying that is all to their enterprise, but whatever effort two guys in a garage are going through to build the next Flickr, they could apply their technology in less sexy field and have a significantly higher chance at being successful. But not everyone wants to build a profitable, not famous business. They want to be rockstars.
    - pg 18y ago
      I do not know another successful Google, Skype, Craigslist That's because these companies are so successful they've killed off all their competitors.
      - rokhayakebe 18y ago
        That is correct. Yet some companies surge every now and then to offer premium video conferencing services, or offer custom search services to companies with millions of documents across their network and they charge a nice fee for it. You have companies such as Webex dominating web conference, yet you have startups such as MeetCast with a promising technology (although I have only seen a short screencast once) and I am confident they can make a good amount of money from this technology.
  - teej 18y ago
    > Most of the really successful ideas started without a "pricing" link If you define "success" to mean "lots of traffic" and not "profitable and growing". Clearly this is the case, because half of the companies you listed aren't profitable. There are -lots- of internet companies who charge and are very successful. I'm not talking 37 Signals and Fog Creek - literally drops in the bucket. I'm talking about Amazon, Salesforce, and Google AdWords. Oh and how does Craigslist make money? Charging users. > not charging money has been a successful strategy for a good number of startups. No offense, but you're blowing both the "successful" and "good number" part of this way out of proportion.
- axod 18y ago
  It's considered "HIP" to say that at the moment. That doesn't make it right though. In the same way it's hip to hate Java right now. That doesn't mean that Java isn't good at solving a set of problems in a good way - it clearly is. There's millions to be made from advertising revenue. If you can get people to pay for something, great, but not every product is the type where paying would make any sense at all. By charging consumers directly, you massively reduce your audience to a small subset of users. It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real" revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay directly. You know what the most powerful marketing word in the world is? "FREE". The clever thing is using that to your advantage and still making money. Tons of industries do that though, loss leaders work, 'free cellphone (with contract) works' etc etc.
  - adamhowell 18y ago
    > It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real" revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay directly. As long as numbers like these hold true: "At the $1 RPM (CPM/CPA/CPC) level achieved by most general sites, you need 4 billion page views/month ... to [reach] $50M in revenue per year" (http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_of_o.html http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_...), charging money for a product that creates value is going to be a more viable way of starting a successful company online
    - markessien 18y ago
      Don't be short sighted. Advertising on the web can be highly targeted and very effective. It's also measurable. Advertising on TV is dying, in papers, it's dying too. Ads on the web are the future, and though it may not seem like an excellent way for now, it's not going to get worse in the future. Compare 5 years ago to now. More companies can survive on ads than 5 years ago.
      - trapper 18y ago
        It wouldn't take much to put a big stop to that. Imagine if adblock came installed by default in 3.2!
- pg 18y ago
  I don't have a new favorite. Mine have always been the ones that make something people want.
  - sofal 18y ago
    I think the ones that go for the intersection between what people want and what will genuinely improve people's lives are the best.
    - pg 18y ago
      To some extent, yes. But it can be dangerous to go too far down that road. You're saying in effect you're going to give them what you think they should want, instead of what they do want. You have to be extra careful when doing that. Historically it has been responsible for a lot of bad things.
- wschroter 18y ago
  I love how people confuse "selling to Google" with a viable business. Just because you sell the company (YouTube) doesn't mean the business was successful. It just means you've handed the loss to another company.
markessien 18y ago
Finally, someone is saying it. The ideas in silicon valley that are being produced now are just so boring. I can't remember the last time I said : wow, or even just thought - well, that's different. Sure, it's great to make a better database examiner, but if you're young and you have nothing to lose, why not try something really fresh. Something brand new? That webcam figure is fresh, for example.
- vaksel 18y ago
  truly innovative ideas are almost impossible to make money with, so people settle for doing things that they know will sell(either to users or another company)
  - mixmax 18y ago
    From the Wikipedia article on Silicon Valley "It was in Silicon Valley that the integrated circuit, the microprocessor, the microcomputer, among other key technologies, were developed, and has been the site of electronic innovation for over four decades" These were all truly innovative ideas, and they made enough money to give Silicon Valley it's name. The problem with truly innovative ideas is not that they are impossible to make money with. The problem is that it's a homerun business where a few succeed and most fail. VC's have known this for ages, which is why they invest in innovation.
- pg 18y ago
  Occam's razor suggests that the reason the current ideas seem boring is that you don't understand yet which ones have big potential. Microprocessors seem a great idea in retrospect, because we've seen now what they turned into, but initially hardly anyone cared about them, even within Intel.
  - Shamiq 18y ago
    I'm sorry, I don't follow how you're applying Occam's Razor here.
    - 18y ago
immad 18y ago
That doll is awesome. Watch the video.
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  It's awesome technology, but I'm disturbed by the seeming purpose of it. There's a whole section of the video devoted to molesting, and taking clothes off of, the teenage girl figure until she's crying in a corner...and then giving her a teddy bear to make her happy again. The Japanese sexual culture is deeply disturbing is what I'm trying to say here.
  - sho 18y ago
    Won't somebody think of the virtual children!
    - SwellJoe 18y ago
      I just don't understand what kind of person gets their jollies by molesting a virtual child until they are crying in a corner. I'm not suggesting there ought to be a law against molesting virtual children.
      - unalone 18y ago
        From what I understand of Japanese culture, there are few sexual taboos. People are much more open and honest about sex than they are here. In America, anything beyond missionary position is considered weird. Anal sex is a little edgy. BDSM and roleplaying are considered weird and freaky by pretty much everybody. Which is odd, because sex really should be one of the most individual, unique things for people. Each person has different standards for what they find hot. Why shouldn't that play out during sex? Those fantasies go far and wide. I'm sure every single person reading this has had bizarre sexual thoughts and ideas. Perhaps not for long, perhaps you've denied the thoughts to yourself as wrong, but the thoughts have crossed your mind. So the concept of a robot like this is, why not let people indulge in these fantasies? Some things you cannot achieve unless you do it virtually. That means either you suppress those fantasies, which is unhealthy, or you find some other outlet - virtual, which is fine, or real, which is certainly not. My opinion is that having a sexual fantasy about beating and molesting a child is perfectly natural. That's not my personal perverted fantasy, but if it's somebody else's I'm not going to call that strange. So if they've found a way to have that fantasy that doesn't involve harming a child, then props to them! If America had such an open nature to sex, we'd have fewer cultural problems than we do (and we have a lot).
sofal 18y ago
So... shun the superficial Web 2.0 social networks in favor of the new, innovative technology with more substance: virtual sex toys. It's absolutely inspiring.
jmtame 18y ago
wow! counted as the second time i saw a photo of max without his slide shirt on.
- matt1 18y ago
  That actually is kind of funny: http://images.google.com/images?q=max%20levchin http://images.google.com/images?q=max%20levchin
  - jmtame 18y ago
    max is a marketing GENIUS. searching for someone's name and it inevitably turns up x*results of advertisements for his company ;) i say this is a predictor of success. if you search someone's full name, count how many times you see their shirt with their company logo. until i have enough money as max to throw around, i'll pose with a 8.5x11 sheet of paper with my logo written or printed on it.
    - matt1 18y ago
      If he is such a marketing genius why am I still so unsure about what Slide actually does? :)
callmeed 18y ago
So, he's unimpressed with silicon valley conventions like "friends lists" ... but one of his favorite startups is a "mobile social network"? I'm unimpressed with Max's shallow evaluation.
igglepiggle 18y ago
My favourite startup (if you could still call it that) is Telnic (British). I think the .tel TLD will be revolutionary, but has so far received surprisingly little attention from tech/entrepreneurial communities like this one and TechCrunch - perhaps because it's not in the Valley? I guess this might change when it launches next week, or on March 24th when general availability begins..
- unalone 18y ago
  What's so revolutionary about it?
  - igglepiggle 18y ago
    Well, there is plenty of friction in the world of telecoms, and its tangent with media - .tel solves many of these problems. Check out the DEMOfall 08 presentation for a brief 5 minute overview, or their in-house "Tell The World" interview for a lengthier discussion: http://www.telnic.org/media-resources.html http://www.telnic.org/media-resources.html The best blog writeup I found is here: http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2008/12/is-the-new-tel-domain-more-than-just-a-pretty-face-on-top-of-dns.html http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2008/12/is-the-new-tel-do... If you want to get into a discussion then let me know and I'll pitch some thoughts at you, but wanted to introduce you to the subject first, in case you hadn't already looked into it.

35 points by angstrom 18y ago

rokhayakebe 18y ago

My new favorite startups are the ones with a "Pricing" link and without "Share", "Collaborate", "Easy", "Friends".

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
markessien 18y ago
Most of the really successful ideas started without a "pricing" link - google, skype, wikipedia, youtube, facebook, myspace, craigslist, plentyoffish, instant messaging etc. And what the people want is free - torrents, muxtape, tvlinks, etc. I'm not saying it's wrong to charge money, but not charging money has been a successful strategy for a good number of startups.
- rokhayakebe 18y ago
  All the companies named above are the exception in their categories. I do not know another successful Google, Skype, Craigslist.... By the way Youtube, Facebook and Skype are not profitable yet (at least not to my knowledge so excuses it if I am wrong). Let me give you a good example of "Pricing". Take a company such as ClickCare. They provide a web based environment for home care providers to remotely ask questions to doctors, and share photos & videos of patients. The doctors can review the information from anywhere and make the proper suggestions. That is what they do, well they are also HIPPA compliant to ensure the privacy/security of the patient information. Now this video, photo, wiki company charges doctors 20,000 USD a year. I am not saying that is all to their enterprise, but whatever effort two guys in a garage are going through to build the next Flickr, they could apply their technology in less sexy field and have a significantly higher chance at being successful. But not everyone wants to build a profitable, not famous business. They want to be rockstars.
  - pg 18y ago
    I do not know another successful Google, Skype, Craigslist That's because these companies are so successful they've killed off all their competitors.
    - rokhayakebe 18y ago
      That is correct. Yet some companies surge every now and then to offer premium video conferencing services, or offer custom search services to companies with millions of documents across their network and they charge a nice fee for it. You have companies such as Webex dominating web conference, yet you have startups such as MeetCast with a promising technology (although I have only seen a short screencast once) and I am confident they can make a good amount of money from this technology.
- teej 18y ago
  > Most of the really successful ideas started without a "pricing" link If you define "success" to mean "lots of traffic" and not "profitable and growing". Clearly this is the case, because half of the companies you listed aren't profitable. There are -lots- of internet companies who charge and are very successful. I'm not talking 37 Signals and Fog Creek - literally drops in the bucket. I'm talking about Amazon, Salesforce, and Google AdWords. Oh and how does Craigslist make money? Charging users. > not charging money has been a successful strategy for a good number of startups. No offense, but you're blowing both the "successful" and "good number" part of this way out of proportion.
axod 18y ago
It's considered "HIP" to say that at the moment. That doesn't make it right though. In the same way it's hip to hate Java right now. That doesn't mean that Java isn't good at solving a set of problems in a good way - it clearly is. There's millions to be made from advertising revenue. If you can get people to pay for something, great, but not every product is the type where paying would make any sense at all. By charging consumers directly, you massively reduce your audience to a small subset of users. It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real" revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay directly. You know what the most powerful marketing word in the world is? "FREE". The clever thing is using that to your advantage and still making money. Tons of industries do that though, loss leaders work, 'free cellphone (with contract) works' etc etc.
- adamhowell 18y ago
  > It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real" revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay directly. As long as numbers like these hold true: "At the $1 RPM (CPM/CPA/CPC) level achieved by most general sites, you need 4 billion page views/month ... to [reach] $50M in revenue per year" (http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_of_o.html http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_...), charging money for a product that creates value is going to be a more viable way of starting a successful company online
  - markessien 18y ago
    Don't be short sighted. Advertising on the web can be highly targeted and very effective. It's also measurable. Advertising on TV is dying, in papers, it's dying too. Ads on the web are the future, and though it may not seem like an excellent way for now, it's not going to get worse in the future. Compare 5 years ago to now. More companies can survive on ads than 5 years ago.
    - trapper 18y ago
      It wouldn't take much to put a big stop to that. Imagine if adblock came installed by default in 3.2!
pg 18y ago
I don't have a new favorite. Mine have always been the ones that make something people want.
- sofal 18y ago
  I think the ones that go for the intersection between what people want and what will genuinely improve people's lives are the best.
  - pg 18y ago
    To some extent, yes. But it can be dangerous to go too far down that road. You're saying in effect you're going to give them what you think they should want, instead of what they do want. You have to be extra careful when doing that. Historically it has been responsible for a lot of bad things.
wschroter 18y ago
I love how people confuse "selling to Google" with a viable business. Just because you sell the company (YouTube) doesn't mean the business was successful. It just means you've handed the loss to another company.

markessien 18y ago

Finally, someone is saying it. The ideas in silicon valley that are being produced now are just so boring. I can't remember the last time I said : wow, or even just thought - well, that's different. Sure, it's great to make a better database examiner, but if you're young and you have nothing to lose, why not try something really fresh. Something brand new? That webcam figure is fresh, for example.

vaksel 18y ago
truly innovative ideas are almost impossible to make money with, so people settle for doing things that they know will sell(either to users or another company)
- mixmax 18y ago
  From the Wikipedia article on Silicon Valley "It was in Silicon Valley that the integrated circuit, the microprocessor, the microcomputer, among other key technologies, were developed, and has been the site of electronic innovation for over four decades" These were all truly innovative ideas, and they made enough money to give Silicon Valley it's name. The problem with truly innovative ideas is not that they are impossible to make money with. The problem is that it's a homerun business where a few succeed and most fail. VC's have known this for ages, which is why they invest in innovation.
pg 18y ago
Occam's razor suggests that the reason the current ideas seem boring is that you don't understand yet which ones have big potential. Microprocessors seem a great idea in retrospect, because we've seen now what they turned into, but initially hardly anyone cared about them, even within Intel.
- Shamiq 18y ago
  I'm sorry, I don't follow how you're applying Occam's Razor here.
  - 18y ago

immad 18y ago

That doll is awesome. Watch the video.

SwellJoe 18y ago
It's awesome technology, but I'm disturbed by the seeming purpose of it. There's a whole section of the video devoted to molesting, and taking clothes off of, the teenage girl figure until she's crying in a corner...and then giving her a teddy bear to make her happy again. The Japanese sexual culture is deeply disturbing is what I'm trying to say here.
- sho 18y ago
  Won't somebody think of the virtual children!
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    I just don't understand what kind of person gets their jollies by molesting a virtual child until they are crying in a corner. I'm not suggesting there ought to be a law against molesting virtual children.
    - unalone 18y ago
      From what I understand of Japanese culture, there are few sexual taboos. People are much more open and honest about sex than they are here. In America, anything beyond missionary position is considered weird. Anal sex is a little edgy. BDSM and roleplaying are considered weird and freaky by pretty much everybody. Which is odd, because sex really should be one of the most individual, unique things for people. Each person has different standards for what they find hot. Why shouldn't that play out during sex? Those fantasies go far and wide. I'm sure every single person reading this has had bizarre sexual thoughts and ideas. Perhaps not for long, perhaps you've denied the thoughts to yourself as wrong, but the thoughts have crossed your mind. So the concept of a robot like this is, why not let people indulge in these fantasies? Some things you cannot achieve unless you do it virtually. That means either you suppress those fantasies, which is unhealthy, or you find some other outlet - virtual, which is fine, or real, which is certainly not. My opinion is that having a sexual fantasy about beating and molesting a child is perfectly natural. That's not my personal perverted fantasy, but if it's somebody else's I'm not going to call that strange. So if they've found a way to have that fantasy that doesn't involve harming a child, then props to them! If America had such an open nature to sex, we'd have fewer cultural problems than we do (and we have a lot).

sofal 18y ago

So... shun the superficial Web 2.0 social networks in favor of the new, innovative technology with more substance: virtual sex toys. It's absolutely inspiring.

jmtame 18y ago

wow! counted as the second time i saw a photo of max without his slide shirt on.

matt1 18y ago
That actually is kind of funny: http://images.google.com/images?q=max%20levchin http://images.google.com/images?q=max%20levchin
- jmtame 18y ago
  max is a marketing GENIUS. searching for someone's name and it inevitably turns up x*results of advertisements for his company ;) i say this is a predictor of success. if you search someone's full name, count how many times you see their shirt with their company logo. until i have enough money as max to throw around, i'll pose with a 8.5x11 sheet of paper with my logo written or printed on it.
  - matt1 18y ago
    If he is such a marketing genius why am I still so unsure about what Slide actually does? :)

callmeed 18y ago

So, he's unimpressed with silicon valley conventions like "friends lists" ... but one of his favorite startups is a "mobile social network"? I'm unimpressed with Max's shallow evaluation.

igglepiggle 18y ago

My favourite startup (if you could still call it that) is Telnic (British). I think the .tel TLD will be revolutionary, but has so far received surprisingly little attention from tech/entrepreneurial communities like this one and TechCrunch - perhaps because it's not in the Valley? I guess this might change when it launches next week, or on March 24th when general availability begins..

unalone 18y ago
What's so revolutionary about it?
- igglepiggle 18y ago
  Well, there is plenty of friction in the world of telecoms, and its tangent with media - .tel solves many of these problems. Check out the DEMOfall 08 presentation for a brief 5 minute overview, or their in-house "Tell The World" interview for a lengthier discussion: http://www.telnic.org/media-resources.html http://www.telnic.org/media-resources.html The best blog writeup I found is here: http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2008/12/is-the-new-tel-domain-more-than-just-a-pretty-face-on-top-of-dns.html http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2008/12/is-the-new-tel-do... If you want to get into a discussion then let me know and I'll pitch some thoughts at you, but wanted to introduce you to the subject first, in case you hadn't already looked into it.