
Viaweb/Paul Graham's First Business Plan - pashle
http://www.paulgraham.com/vwplan.html
======
supahfly_remix
For one of my MSEE classes at Stanford, I took a business for engineers class
taught by a local successful and retired software entrepreneur. I forgot his
name. He was paralyzed in one arm b/c of a plane crash when piloting one of
his own planes if that rings any bells to anyone. (Guess he was a better
businessman than pilot! :) )

Anyway, he would always give case examples from his own experience, and his
eyes would light up, making it obvious that this was happiest time in his
life. His teaching this class was his attempt to relive his glory days. He
never had a family (and was actually ousted from the company so had nothing
there), and in a strange way, I think this class was his attempt to have one.

I don't know much about pg, but his viagen references remind me a little bit
of this guy. We're all trying to have a legacy of some sort. I believe,
though, that of the possible investments one can make with one's time, family
is the best and longest lasting one. Keep that in mind, young-uns!

------
edgeztv
"2. Secure server software ($5000). This does not seem to be an absolute
necessity; there are a lot of sites on the web where you can send your credit
card number unencrypted, and to date there have been no reports of the numbers
being stolen. But catalog companies may _believe_ that a secure link is
necessary, and spending this $5000 would give Webgen a much more professional
look."

When you feel like you've missed the gravy train for web startups, quotes like
this remind you of all the good things about starting one in 2007.

------
wensing
I really enjoyed reading this, especially given the fact that one of my
lingering ideas has to do with catalog generation (but performed much more
dynamically than Viaweb).

------
pashle
From what I've read, they got their first seed capital from an angel investor
and friend Julian Weber, of about $15,000. He also happened to be a lawyer, so
legal counsel was very accessible, if not free. This is somewhere in Paul's
essays. Google around and you'll find more.

~~~
pg
It was $10,000. Julian was the model for YC. He incorporated us, gave us $10k,
and taught us how to raise more. We know that's enough, because it was for us.

------
rms
This is great.

Where did the funding for Viaweb come from and did this plan help you get it?

~~~
danielha
Check out Jessica Livingston's book. The interview with pg reveals a lot about
their early days in forming the company.

------
andybourassa
I love the very last line:

"Spending some money on advertising might also be a good idea."

~~~
vlad
I love the paragraph stating the upcoming introduction of Java into Netscape
will help the server generate the stores on a user's screen. Every programmer
who've seen it, including Paul, must have laughed at that line later on.
"Client-side Java taking load off the server? That's silly!" I believe Paul
himself has said, in one of his other articles, that some startups failed
during the dot com boom simply because they tried to create their businesses
using Java.

That is, until last year. With the JavaScript (AJAX) technology saving CPU
server cycles[1] by doing a lot of logic in the web browser itself, Paul's one
paragraph predicting something he expected to occur within a few months now
sounds way ahead of its time. Either that, or such technology has taken 10
years too long to brew. (Coffee reference!)

I would also like to read the business plans of crazy dot com companies which
tanked immediately. It would be great to be able to contrast the two. I'm
thinking those business plans probably used a lot of made-up words to confuse
the investors. Paul's document is pretty succinct.

[1] as well as saving bandwidth and time, of course.

~~~
nonrecursive
If you want to see "birth of the dot come era" business plans, check out
<http://www.businessplanarchive.org/>

------
brlewis
This may be the first written business plan, but the first idea according to
Founders at Work was to let art galleries get on the web.

