

Ask HN: Examples of "build first, monetize later" successes? - dreamdu5t

I'd like some examples of the "Build First, Monetize Later" mantra of Silicon Valley?<p>I'm looking for examples of startups that had no way of monetizing their original product, but then successfully did so after achieving huge growth.
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dasht
There are no such companies.

The problem is that you said "monetize later" rather than "become profitable
later".

For example, someone else suggested that Google was an example of a company
that had no way of monetizing their original product. That's false. In the
earliest days of Google it was obvious that there were tons and tons of ways
to monetize the product -- hence the very early-stage investment -- though
there was uncertainty of which ways of monetizing were best for growth and
profit.

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iaw
Seconded, if you're starting a company with no understanding of how you _can_
make money than you are not starting a business.

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byoung2
YouTube (though the monetization came after acquisition by Google) and Twitter
come to mind

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electrichead
How about Google?

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tagabek
I know this is obvious, but Facebook is the first thing that came to mind.

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liamgooding
Reading around the history of Facebook, there were advertising sales quite
early, a lot earlier than people realise. They used to do local campus deals,
student credit card deals etc.

Echoing dasht's point above, no startup should plan to "monetize later". Plan
for 'profitability later' but without some kind of test (like a sale) it's
going to be harder to test and iterate on ideas (lean startup etc.)

