

Cuil on Business Week list of most successful companies of 2008 - rokhayakebe
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/29/cuil-on-businessweeks-most-successful-of-2008-list/

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byrneseyeview
Who is their PR firm? They should -- seriously -- be near the top of this
list.

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daveambrose
Just a guess: FutureWorks, Text100, Outcast or Bite.

The last three are the "typical" names for firms in the Internet industry.
FutureWorks is Brian Solis' agency.

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sh1mmer
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-Suc...](http://finance.yahoo.com/career-
work/article/106341/Most-Successful-U.S.-Startups-2008)) 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
#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
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
Not what I heard, but who knows the real story there.

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KirinDave
And yet Powerset gets no mention. We made a big splash, and got acquired by a
company that is one of the few that has any chance of taking on google head-
to-head.

But Cuil, with there "scaling is our product" plan, weird name and "search-is-
hard" image interface get mention here?

The industry pundits can be strange, unpredictable people.

~~~
1gor
>The industry pundits can be strange, unpredictable people.

Do you think a word 'corrupt' could also be used?

~~~
KirinDave
In my experience, I've never seen outright examples of corruption. Even fairly
powerful folks like Arrington were always very fair with us so long as we were
fair with them. Heck, even the mean uncov guys didn't have many mean things to
say, so they didn't say much at all.

I think that the list we're discussing here is more of an example of Gross
Incompetence. I think we can all agree we've seen examples of that. :)

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joao
This is what spending money on marketing people with connections gets you.

But not saying this how it should be done, I would probably invest that money
in getting a better product and thus users - a better strategy in the long
haul.

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callmeed
Did Pownce make the list?

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jcapote
Is it 4/1/2009 yet?

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nir
These lists are always meaningless, whether from Business Week or TechCrunch.

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jfornear
I don't understand why everyone is whining yet not suggesting an alternative.

I would pick Twitter... :D

All in this year, they moved Evan Williams to CEO (good idea), raised over $20
million in funding (from Union Square Ventures, Jeff Bezos, and others),
acquired Summize (easily the hottest app in a while), grew ridiculously
popular while stabilizing their service/uptime, and turned down an acquisition
offer by Facebook (rumor?). Now _that_ is success.

I can't even think of a close second.

~~~
jonknee
> I can't even think of a close second.

Perhaps a firm that had even a dollar in revenue? Twitter hasn't actually
become a business yet, so it can't be the best one of the year.

~~~
jfornear
Thanks for your nomination?

See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company>

Regardless of your apparent misunderstanding of what qualifies as a startup,
Twitter, in fact, _does_ have a dollar in revenue. Their Japanese version,
which also launched this year, serves advertisements. :D

“It’s like the stupidest question in the world: How’s Twitter going to make
money?," said Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, another investor. "It’s like
'How was Google going to make money?'
<http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/twitter-to-get.html>

~~~
jonknee
It's not so much that they have no revenue it's that they have no plan for
revenue. While they may turn into a great business at some point, they aren't
one now. Google's creation of AdWords is not an excuse to fund other ventures
who have no idea how to make money. There's not an AdWords for every business.

Again, Twitter may become the next Google but that does not mean they are
currently one of the most successful start ups. SpaceX inks a multi-billion
dollar contract and we're busy talking about how successful Twitter is.

~~~
jfornear
I see what you mean. I am measuring startup success in potential revenue. I
think a startup ceases to be a startup when it becomes a profitable business.

Also, I wouldn't consider SpaceX to be in the same boat as Twitter, and I
assumed we were talking web startups since the Cuil controversy started this.
If we were talking tech in general, I agree, something like SpaceX would be
preferable over Twitter any day.

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newmediaclay
Maybe Business Week just did this to try and cover up the shame of them and
other msm relentlessly talking up and covering Cuil before its launch and epic
fail?

