

Achieving a failure - eries
http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/01/achieving-failure.html

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raphar
Anyone has a clue of what's the company he's talking about?

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chris11
I think there.com. The business week article from 2007 lists three startups he
was involved with. A recruiting firm he founded in college, There.com, and
IMVU.com. IMVU is described on wikipedia as generating over 1 million a month
in revenue, so it probably isn't that one. And the business week article has
Eric describing There.com as having a focused strategy, but not having any
idea what customers want.

Link to
article:[http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2007/tc200...](http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2007/tc20070326_796549.htm?chan=technology_special+report+--techs+best+young+entrepreneurs_tech%27s+best+young+entrepreneurs)

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dasil003
This strikes me as the type of thing that comes from people groomed in the
corporate world. Companies with huge customer bases and revenues can't afford
to do anything less than move mountains, because mountainous results are the
only thing that matters.

Personally I've always worked on smaller things. I've never had an interest in
being a cog in a giant machine. As a result I've always had the luxury of an
agile team and rapid feedback cycles.

When it comes to startups, sure I want mine to be huge... but the way I see
it, most huge companies were small companies once (maybe I'm wrong). Given the
odds of creating a $500,000, $5,000,000 or $50,000,000 company, doesn't it
make sense to aim for early success and use real revenues as a launchpad to
the next level, and just sell the company if the potential ends up not being
there?

I know some ideas are either huge or nothing (eg. electric cars), but I don't
think most web startups fall into that category. Being the next Google is sure
appealing, but can it be manufactured? Where does aiming high hit diminishing
returns?

