4 ms·

Who needs funding when you have creativity?

34 points by oliviakuhn 18y ago

Awesome and inspiring look at how Andrew Warner bookstrapped his first company, Bradford and Reed into a multi billion dollar engine. Andrew is candid, creative and sharp!

donniefitz2 18y ago
I've watched a few of this guys videos and I'm really liking them. It's cool to see someone make it with a startup but do it "quietly". Who ever heard of his company? I guess it really doesn't matter because his clients sure did.
- AndrewWarner 18y ago
  Thanks. I was very conflicted about our obscurity. On the one hand I saw it as a way of keeping competitors away. On the other hand, I felt like the Rodney Dangerfield of the dotcom space. All the cool kids were on magazine covers and I couldn't even get into their parties.
  - volida 18y ago
    I suppose you can host the parties now!
patio11 18y ago
Nitpick: the title should be "Who needs funding when you actually charge customers?" My mother pays something like $50 a year for online greeting cards. Do the quick extrapolation on how many mothers there are in America, how many of them use the Internet, and how many you can reasonably convert. Yeah, $40 million for a market leader doesn't seem that unreasonable now does it. You will not get invited to give conferences at The Future Of Web 3.0 2012 if you make greeting cards. Nobody will ask you for your insights on scaling, principally because at your scale it will be a boring engineering problem with well-understood solutions. You'll just put smiles on a few mothers' faces and, oh, well, there might be a little bit of money involved. I think I've mentioned this a few times, but to say it one more time: grown women have money, too, and nobody in tech wants it. Instead of building stuff they want and charging money for it (money they have and spend), we want to push CPM levels to about a quarter (trending towards dimes!) while making social networks for the same people who are already members of six.
- AndrewWarner 18y ago
  They really were an under-served and unappreciated market. Everyone we got funding went after the cool kids. Meanwhile we were in the business of creating the cutest smiley-face pages. Not as cool, but more profitable.
  - aristus 18y ago
    "Were"? Are things different now?
- donniefitz2 18y ago
  It's true that it's not a great engineering problem, but a great business opportunity no doubt. I think your title change suggestion is accurate.
DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Nice introduction, Andrew. You established credibility and got right into WIIFM (What's in it for me) There sure are a lot of folks helping startups. I've got a stack of books on startups, e-commerce, and innovation. Hopefully you can distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack. Best of luck. Look forward to hearing more from you.

34 points by oliviakuhn 18y ago

Awesome and inspiring look at how Andrew Warner bookstrapped his first company, Bradford and Reed into a multi billion dollar engine. Andrew is candid, creative and sharp!

donniefitz2 18y ago

I've watched a few of this guys videos and I'm really liking them. It's cool to see someone make it with a startup but do it "quietly". Who ever heard of his company? I guess it really doesn't matter because his clients sure did.

AndrewWarner 18y ago
Thanks. I was very conflicted about our obscurity. On the one hand I saw it as a way of keeping competitors away. On the other hand, I felt like the Rodney Dangerfield of the dotcom space. All the cool kids were on magazine covers and I couldn't even get into their parties.
- volida 18y ago
  I suppose you can host the parties now!

patio11 18y ago

Nitpick: the title should be "Who needs funding when you actually charge customers?" My mother pays something like $50 a year for online greeting cards. Do the quick extrapolation on how many mothers there are in America, how many of them use the Internet, and how many you can reasonably convert. Yeah, $40 million for a market leader doesn't seem that unreasonable now does it. You will not get invited to give conferences at The Future Of Web 3.0 2012 if you make greeting cards. Nobody will ask you for your insights on scaling, principally because at your scale it will be a boring engineering problem with well-understood solutions. You'll just put smiles on a few mothers' faces and, oh, well, there might be a little bit of money involved. I think I've mentioned this a few times, but to say it one more time: grown women have money, too, and nobody in tech wants it. Instead of building stuff they want and charging money for it (money they have and spend), we want to push CPM levels to about a quarter (trending towards dimes!) while making social networks for the same people who are already members of six.

AndrewWarner 18y ago
They really were an under-served and unappreciated market. Everyone we got funding went after the cool kids. Meanwhile we were in the business of creating the cutest smiley-face pages. Not as cool, but more profitable.
- aristus 18y ago
  "Were"? Are things different now?
donniefitz2 18y ago
It's true that it's not a great engineering problem, but a great business opportunity no doubt. I think your title change suggestion is accurate.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

Nice introduction, Andrew. You established credibility and got right into WIIFM (What's in it for me) There sure are a lot of folks helping startups. I've got a stack of books on startups, e-commerce, and innovation. Hopefully you can distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack. Best of luck. Look forward to hearing more from you.