

Stop asking "but how will they make money?" - moonsoonmenu
http://andrewchen.co/2012/05/30/stop-asking-but-how-will-they-make-money/

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jussij
> Business models are a commodity now, so “how will they make money?” isn't an
> interesting question. The answers are all obvious.

So obvious you can't give one concrete example?

But you are correct, there is an easier option,

You can make lots of money by doing an IPO of a business, using a vague
business plan, offering massive levels of success and just hope you hook a lot
of unsuspecting investors.

Then all you need a few suckers (any one remember the FB IPO) to invest in you
IPO any you will run away with lots of money.

Unfortunately most of these IPO investors will loose most of their money but
what does that matter.

~~~
quesera
I agree.

But to be fair, there are a lot of "projects" that can't stand alone, but are
valuable to existing businesses. The current vogue is for these to be
initiated as startups.

It sounds more glamorous than a bigco project, and sometimes it is. Sometimes
it's even more profitable for the founders than the cushy bigco job (with
benefits and accounting and budgets etc) that they didn't have during those
years of effort.

But usually not. The rewards have to come from elsewhere.

~~~
jussij
> But to be fair, there are a lot of "projects" that can't stand alone

The problem is you can make more money by creating a project does not need to
stand alone. The business plan does not need to make any business sense. You
only need to get through the IPO.

FB cooked the books for decades trying to find a good time to do their IPO and
they finally managed to get away with it. Some people made a lot of money on
that IPO and a hell of a lot of other people got screwed!

But give FB 5 years and unless they can actually implement a business plan
that works, not the work of fiction that is their current plan, they too will
be gone.

Now because I suspect FB will be gone in less than a decade, to me that makes
their IPO nothing more than a scam.

I guess time will tell.

