

Zingku Flips to Google: No Dodgeball Hacker Lessons Learned - bootload
http://blog.insiderchatter.com/2007/09/28/zingku-flips-to-google-no-dodgeball-hacker-lessons-learned/

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pg
_The Zenter duo invested a few months of their lives in non-stop hacking with
the goal of winning over Google_

I don't know if it's even worth correcting her, but this isn't true. They were
about a day away from closing a funding round when Google got interested.

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neilc
"The Zenter duo invested a few months of their lives in non-stop hacking with
the goal of winning over Google, and they did. Grand prize? Engineering jobs
at Google!"

That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. The Zenter guys spent 6 months
building their product before they got bought. I have no idea what the
purchase price was, but let's take a wild-assed guess and say both founders
made $1 million in Google stock. They ended up with jobs at Google, which is
probably the best of the big technology companies to work at, plus the chance
to see the stuff they'd developed used by millions of people as an eventual
component of GDocs. So on the whole, I think they did pretty well for 6 months
of work, and fairly limited risk.

The alternative? If they rolled the dice and tried to make an independent
company out of it, there's no guarantee they wouldn't just be crushed by GDocs
adding presentations 6 months down the line. They hadn't even _launched_ yet,
let alone demonstrated they could build a profitable business.

If anything, I think the lesson to be learned is that if you're in Zenter's
shoes, that would be a hard offer to turn down.

~~~
bootload
_"... I have no idea what the purchase price was, but let's take a wild-assed
guess and say both founders made $1 million in Google stock. They ended up
with jobs at Google, which is probably the best of the big technology
companies to work at, plus the chance to see the stuff they'd developed used
by millions of people as an eventual component of GDocs. So on the whole ..."_

I also couldn't understand the point of the article. Certainly getting bought
out to make your product work is better than A) dying a slow death B) being
beaten to the punch by google C) being bought out by Microsoft and having to
work there.

 _"... I think they did pretty well for 6 months of work, and fairly limited
risk. ..."_

I don't think so. They sacrificed 3mths work. One also had a newborn. For
their spouses this is no holiday. Indeed they are taking risks here. The ones
left behind are picking up a lot of slack.

~~~
neilc
I didn't mean to suggest they didn't take risks -- of course a startup
involves _some_ degree of risk. My point was just that selling out to Google
involved significantly less risk than trying to continue as an independent
startup.

~~~
bootload
_"... My point was just that selling out to Google involved significantly less
risk than trying to continue as an independent startup ..."_

I'd agree with that. An exit strategy with google is better risk.

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blader
Go read some of her other entries. Donna Bogatin is consistently one of the
most ignorant blabber heads on the interwebs.

------
bootload
_"... How valuable was the Y Combinator backed Zenter to Google? Chris Sacca,
Google biz dev guy: Y combinator comes down to two kids in a room with two
computers and ramen noodles for a summer. .."_

Still trying to work this one really means because I'm sure yc is a lot more
valuable to google than is made out in this quote.

    
    
        @sacca RU quotedok "Donna Bogatin:YC 
        comes down to 2 kids in a room with 2 
        computers & ramennoodles for a 
        summer" http://tinyurl.com/37ca5s  
    

Maybe I should ask? ~ <http://twitter.com/sacca>

~~~
bootload
and replied to confirm:

    
    
        "sacca": the quote is more or less what i said. it 
         was a long time ago though, so i dont exactly 
         remember.  12:30 AM October 01, 2007
    

