I don't understand why everyone is so critical of what Guy has done
He seems patronizing: his entire post reads like a satire, i.e., "Look, ma, I made a social networking site, too, just like the ones all the cool kids are visiting these days".
Also, he seems to enjoy mocking the lower costs inherent in Web 2.0 by exaggerating how cheaply he built the whole thing.
That may not be his intention, but that's certainly how it comes across.
Do you think he's being insincere or just a showman? My feeling is that Guy likes to exaggerate everything to make a point: in this case, it's getting really cheap to fail, so take more risks.
I totally agree that you need a business "model" - but do you really need a "plan" for a site that costs $12,000?
If he can get 260K page views, even a 0.5% clickthru @ only $0.10 an ad is $130. Not great, but if you can do it every day you've got a site that's pulling in $50K in revenue a year. Not bad, but could be something to explore.
I totally agree with you that you need to know where your business is going to go and if you want to get real funding you'd better have a business plan, but if you're running a $12K test, why not just make sure you think there's a model and then test it?
He seems patronizing: his entire post reads like a satire, i.e., "Look, ma, I made a social networking site, too, just like the ones all the cool kids are visiting these days".
Also, he seems to enjoy mocking the lower costs inherent in Web 2.0 by exaggerating how cheaply he built the whole thing.
That may not be his intention, but that's certainly how it comes across.