
BusinessWeek:  Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs - jkopelman
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/04/0418_youngtech_entp/index_01.htm?chan=technology_special+report+--+best+young+entrepreneurs_best+young+entrepreneurs
======
iamelgringo
First off, congrats to the guys who made the list. It's hard work being an
entrepreneur, and I'm glad that you guys are getting some good press.

But, I do have a problem with how it seems that these businesses are being
selected. It seems that the level of funding that these people raised is used
as a hallmark of how good the entrepreneur is. Isn't the mark of a good
entrepreneur how much they can do with how little?

I can understand why a video company like Video Egg might need a high
capitalization. Bandwidth charges for video streaming are high. But, I'd still
balk at taking $27 million in funding.

Etsy--31 million in funding. Granted, the company has 1 million users and
75,000 sellers. But really, 31 million dollars! What does an e-commerce site
need 31 million for?

I've actually begun to see taking large sums of VC money as a competitive
disadvantage. If these companies take $20-30 million in funding, the VC's are
going to push for a 10x return. That means that their investors are wanting a
$200-300 million exit. And, even at those rates, I'd imagine that the founders
shares are quite diluted by that point.

And, I'd guess that the chances of getting a $200-300 exit are a lot slimmer
than getting a $5-6 million exit. For details Google "Digg acquisition":
[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&clien...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official&hs=Ess&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=digg+acquisition&spell=1)

~~~
optimal
Yeah, it's like BW is blinded by the numbers--that money's not a personal gift
to the founders (from "holed up alone in a room for 100 hours a week" to
"Funding: $17.5 million"). Regardless, it's a validation of their efforts.

True success will be determined years from now based on the outcome of these
investments.

------
ian
Congratulations Drew!

~~~
danielha
Congrats to dhouston!
[http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/04/0418_youngtech_entp/...](http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/04/0418_youngtech_entp/source/5.htm)

(One of the founders of SFP07 company Dropbox, for those not in the know).

The article failed to mention his rock band skills.

~~~
mosburger
Does anyone know if Drew is related to Chris Houston of Amp'd Mobile fame?
Just curious... I used to work w/ Chris...

------
Flemlord
Apparently I am no longer a "young" entrepreneur. (sigh)

~~~
optimal
The hook seems to be tying "kids" to "millions"--must draw lots of eyeballs
(like the last time around).

Maybe AARP has a business publication that would like to profile all these
young 30- and 40-something upstart entrepreneurs.

------
dbreunig
RockYou? Really?

~~~
freax
F Me. $15 mil for adding tinsel to your MySpace? And _"RockYou is lining up a
new round of funding to stay sharp."_.

Etsy: $31.6 mil for a swapmeet just for _handmade crafts_.

When people take that much buck for so little bang it doesn't seem like they
are interested in ROI or making it big so much as having a jobs program for
them and their buddies.

Auctomatic sold for what probably amounts to a few months' burn rate for these
suckers and still made their founders millionaires. How are these guys with 20
or 30 mil invested going to find a buyer that makes them a profit?

By the strict definition of entrepreneur (assuming the risk), that title goes
to the VCs. When the venture tanks it's not going to be the founder who's out
$30 mil.

Not a lot of technical wow in that list. Drupal probably leads by a good
margin.

~~~
run4yourlives
I won't argue against RockYou. That's just silly. But Handmade crafts are a
huge segment of the market, especially with women as soon as they graduate
college and start nesting. There's a much bigger upside to Etsy.

~~~
freax
> _especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting_

Nesting? What are they, ducks? As a feminist I'd like to say that's some
pretty idiotic stereotyping. Female college graduates overwhelmingly enter the
workforce, not nests.

~~~
byrneseyeview
'Nesting' is a common term for the set of behaviors that makes a home more
compatible with a family than a single person. Are you unfamiliar with it?

Is it really idiotic to suggest that women are more likely to do handmade
crafts than men? I know many women who knit as adults, or make small crafts as
kids.

However, there's an easy way to settle this. If etsy is going to underserve
the vast market for men who knit adorable mittens and hats for their kids, you
can certainly be successful with a startup that targets that market. Or we
could just bet that the online craft market with a higher fraction of male
sellers will be more successful than the one dominated by women.

Or we could concede that -- whether due to biology or the patriarchy -- gender
correlates with some behaviors. That shouldn't be hard to admit.

~~~
freax
> _Are you unfamiliar with it?_

Yeah, I totally thought you were talking about ducks!

> _Is it really idiotic to suggest that women are more likely to do handmade
> crafts than men?_

Now you're trying to change the subject.

Your actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted quite specifically is that as
soon as women graduate college they start "nesting". In fact women college
graduates are pushing back starting families by record amounts.

I know a lot of female professionals and I can't think of any without kids
that spend any appreciable amount of time on handmade crafts.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Are you thinking of this person: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=167383>
? I didn't say that.

Unless you're addressing an autistic audience, it is acceptable to say "Women
do X" when you really mean "Women do X more frequently than non-women,
although of course some women do not do X at all, some have never heard of X,
some hate X, etc." For example, I am rarely corrected if I say "Five-year-olds
are taller than four-year-olds," even though it's trivial to demonstrate that
this isn't true. If your argument is that the statement in question is not
_literally_ true, you are correct. But if you use that to conclude that the
_tendency described_ does not exist, you're stretching things.

The statement was not "Women are nesting more than they used to," but "Women
tend to nest." Whether they start nesting immediately or a bit later than they
used to distracts from the point that they do it more than men regardless of
timing.

>I know a lot of female professionals and I can't think of any without kids
that spend any appreciable amount of time on handmade crafts.

I know female professionals who don't, female professionals who do, full-time
parents who don't, and full-time parents who do. Perhaps, given your
admittedly limited circle of acquaintances and your previous admission of
bias, you should leave this discussion to people who have more data and less
of an axe to grind. That is, you should do so if you want to know the facts --
if you want to defend your prejudices, proceed.

~~~
freax
> _Are you thinking of this person_

Yes, apologies. I hardly got any sleep. Change "your" to "the" as in "the
actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted" and the rest applies.

But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square.

~~~
byrneseyeview
>But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square.

That's a very strange thing to say. You acted shocked that someone would
suggest that women tended to 'nest', and then brought up ducks. I have no way
of knowing your intended tone. It would be very rude to assume that you were
being sarcastic if you were actually a non-native speaker who was legitimately
confused about the idiom. Perhaps, whether you are a native speaker or not, it
is considered acceptable to make fun of people for using words when the
meaning is apparent but another definition could be used where you are from.
So one could say "The music was haunting," and someone in your social circle
could respond "Ghosts are a silly superstition!" I bet it's a blast.

Did you have a response to the content of the comment, though?

------
nazgulnarsil
am i reading this right? dropbox does the same thing as the shared documents
folder in windows?

