

Web start-ups almost always fail. So why are these guys launching one? - tptacek
http://www.slate.com/id/2250727/

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grellas
A very nice backgrounder on the Redbeacon team that won TechCrunch50 this past
year.

Most impressive item for me (besides the talent, prudence, discipline, and
perseverance of the founding team, which is evident): having the willpower to
defer VC funding until they can do it on terms that are reasonable for the
founders (a lot of startups use this strategy now but to be able to do it
after drawing interest from 19 VC firms in the wake of the TC50 win is
commendable). Also, their realizing that getting premature VC funding can
actually mess up a company by skewing its goals toward premature expansion.

These guys have a business model that will live or die by whether it can scale
well, and that challenge still lies before them. But what they have done so
far is really the perfect picture of a highly disciplined lean startup that is
done right.

I must say, I am growing weary of the "fail" theme. It is just not in the
spirit of an entrepreneur to be focused on failure and I wish those who write
about them would stop beating this theme to death. Founders have better things
to focus on, as do those reading about their ventures.

~~~
tptacek
As this is part 2 of a 4-part series Dickerson is doing for Slate on the
character of risk in America, I can understand his particular focus on
"failure".

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retube
Differs from the normal startup stories you so often hear about - they don't
have funding, they don't have much in the way of private cash, they're not
ridiculously young, and it's taking them a while to get traction. They're
basically going it totally alone on a wing and a prayer. Kudos to them.

~~~
TotlolRon
Going "alone on a wing and a prayer" is fine, but you gotta make damn sure you
know who you your god is.

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chegra84
How risky is it to be an entrepreneur? 10-30% chance of sucesss. On the
surface this might seem like bad odds but we are talking about businesses that
have the potential over a life time to be worth over 10million dollars. And so
the expected value of starting one is 0.1 * 10million = 1million. These
figures are arbitary but it's more to illustrate the point that they aren't
that insane to start one. The thing about entrepreneurship is that if you fail
you can always try again. Try 12 times and that puts your probability of
success to 70%. Assuming the trials are independent, but they are not most
entrepreneurs will succeed in 4 tries.

~~~
maxwin
"Assuming the trials are independent..."

This is a big assumption. Same entrepreneur, same personality, more or less
same skills, same contact networks... It can hardly be independent.

~~~
chegra84
I know that's why i say that in actuality the number of trials is 4. Each
trial compounds on the previous.

~~~
krschultz
He might be saying that some people will fail at it no matter how many times
they try.

~~~
chegra84
Yes some people will fail no matter what cause it's a probability. But it
doesn't negate the fact the more you do it the higher the probability you will
win.

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ErrantX
ex-googlers - I wonder how much of an advantage that gives them in terms
contacts and possible future buyout.

(especially seeing as it is dead center in an arena Google could easily want
to expand into)

~~~
dpritchett
There's certainly a networking and pedigree advantage to be had:

 _"Social marketing is just starting to bubble up and everybody wants in. But
only ex-Googlers needed to apply to invest in MyLikes, a social marketing ad
network which just raised a $630,000 seed round. The company, which was
founded by two ex-Googlers—former Google Apps product lead Bindu Reddy and
former AdSense tech lead Arvind Sundararajan—took money only from 11 other ex-
Googlers."_

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/13/mylikes-
raises-630000-seed-...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/13/mylikes-
raises-630000-seed-round-all-from-ex-googlers/)

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justinchen
So is the main difference between this story and any of our bootstrapped
stories that they were high profile and declined the VC money?

~~~
fnid2
People have heard of RedBeacon.

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Tawheed
This is what REAL business is. I'm so glad real entrepreneurs like these guys
are getting some attention.

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inboulder
I'm not sure the slow start is what's called for here, if CL were so inclined
they could permanently make these guys irrelevant in a week or two.

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gaborcselle
Startups founded by ex-Googlers have a 70%+ chance of failing? That seems
incorrect.

