Archive for September, 2009
Where Did They Start Their Millions: PlentyOfFish
Website: PlentyOfFish
Founder: Markus Frind
Place started the business: In his office
PlentyOfFish
Back in 2001 after his birthday someone in the office introduced him to online dating sites. He went back to his desk and checked out udate.com and kiss.com and lavalife/web personals. He was bored and He wanted to chat with people. He was really annoyed when he found out you had to pay for everything, he ended up telling the girl who introduced him to the sites that he could do better and make them for free, so he went and registered Plentyoffish.com.
Where Did They Start Their Millions: Voltage
Website: Voltage
Founder: Rishi Kacker and Matt Pauker
Place started the business: In a basement office in the engineering building
Voltage
Rishi Kacker and Matt Pauker worked on the technology as a summer research project while attending Stanford. They entered a business-plan competition they won the contest. With the help of some seasoned executives, the two have created a thriving security-software business with more than 130 big-business customers and 75 employees. “It’s still amazing to me,” says Pauker.
Where Did They Start Their Millions: YouTube
Website: YouTube
Founder: Chad Hurley
Place started the business: In his office
YouTube
After that fateful dinner party, where Hurley and Chen wanted to create a simpler way to share their videos of the night, they immediately went to work at the office creating the answer. “In February, we started developing the product,” says Hurley. “In May, we had our first public preview. And in December, we officially launched YouTube. By that time we were serving over three million videos a day.”
Where Did They Start Their Millions: FastHost
Website: FastHost
Founder: Andrew Michael
Place started the business: From his bedroom
FastHost
He became a multi-millionaire after selling an internet business he started as a teenager. He started up Fasthosts as an internet project for a sixth form project at the age of 17. With the sale of Fasthosts, Mr Michael’s wealth has rocketed to £47m.
Where Did They Start Their Millions: WhatEverLife
Website: WhatEverLife.com
Founder: Ashley Qualls
Place started the business: started at her kitchen office.
WhatEverLife.com
Started her business in 2004 with an $8 domain name and an old computer, at the age of just fourteen. She didn’t know she was starting a business at the time – she thought she was just creating an easy way to share her cool MySpace background designs with her friends.
Where Did They Start Their Millions: eBay
Website: eBay
Founder: Pierre Omidyar
Place started the business: In the home of Pierre Omidyar
eBay
There aren’t many sites on the Internet that can claim the success that eBay has enjoyed. The first name eBay used was Echo Bay Technology. When the company tried to register the domain name echobay.com, they found that it was already in use. They shortened the name to eBay.com and the Website was born.
Where Did They Start Their Millions:LinkedIn
Website: LinkedIn
Founder: Reid Hoffman
Place started the business: In the living room
LinkedIn was officially founded in 2003. The site was launched on May 5th (affectionately referred to by employees as “Cinco de LinkedIn”) when the five founders invited about 350 of their most important contacts to join. At the end of the first month in operation, LinkedIn had a total of 4,500 members in the network. LinkedIn’s first “real” office was on Shoreline Road in Mountain View.
How LinkedIn’s founder got started
Reid Hoffman talks about his path from academia to social media.
My dad wouldn’t let me have a computer because he didn’t think it was relevant. I was in college before I actually got one. I think if he knew then what he knows now, I would have had one much earlier.
But I’ve always had an interest in how we improve people’s ecosystems — whether it’s civics or education or economics. When I was an undergrad at Stanford, I thought the way to do that was to be an academic. Then I saw that wasn’t the right way, because you become a scholar and publish in an area where only, like, 50 people will read it.
Find ways to reach people.
How do you change lives for millions of people? At Oxford [as a graduate student in philosophy] I decided software entrepreneurship was the way.
linkedin.com
I came back to Silicon Valley and worked for Apple and then Fujitsu before starting Socialnet, an early social-networking site. After a while I didn’t agree with the direction it was going, so I talked to Peter [Thiel, co-founder of PayPal], whom I knew from Stanford. He said, “Come join us. Help us at PayPal.”
Improve users’ lives.
What I realized before PayPal was sold was that there was going to be a confluence of two forces.
One was how the world of work is changing — every individual is now somewhat entrepreneurial. They’re getting the next gig themselves.
The other was the Internet, which could empower all these individuals to establish profiles online so that people can find them. You’d be able to use your network to get access to people to better chart your path.
I started LinkedIn because changing people’s professional lives is a massive transformation. In 2003 we got financing from Sequoia Capital, and we started to get more and more people into our service. Everyone began to realize the value. That’s when I was, like, “This could work.”
Secrets of my success
• It’s okay to be brief
When people ask me about work/life balance, I just laugh. But I try to be time-efficient by scheduling meetings in appropriate increments –15 minutes or less sometimes. I’ve also tried to build a culture that understands writing brief e-mails is not emotional coldness.
• Be willing to change course
Entrepreneurs tend to believe, “I’ve got my idea, I’ll go until I die.” But I advise them to take seriously the questions about whether their [business] plan is irredeemably flawed and whether they need to change what they’re doing. Be diligent about failing fast so that you don’t spend five years doing something that’s just going to fail.
• Don’t be a perfectionist
I frequently tell Internet entrepreneurs, “If you’re not somewhat embarrassed by your 1.0 product launch, then you’ve released too late.” There’s value in launching early, getting engaged with customers, and learning from them. That can direct your progress.
They’re hiring! Despite Global Economic Crisis
As many big companies are announcing mass layoffs, these Fortune 100 employers have at least 150 openings as of mid-April.
Wal-Mart Stores – Thousands
Hewlett-Packard – 150
Bank of America Corp. – 1,860
State Farm Insurance Cos. – 800+
WellPoint – 1,225
Boeing – 2,400
Microsoft - 630
MetLife - 1,000+
United Parcel Service – 3,070
Medco Health Solutions – 300+
Lowe’s – 7,900
Time Warner – 480
Sears Holdings – 500+
Supervalu – 180+
Johnson Controls – 750
GMAC – 750
Comcast – 1,000
Northrop Grumman – 3,700
Coca-Cola – 160
New York Life Insurance – 3,640
Aetna – 550
Motorola – 520
Abbott Laboratories – 260*
General Dynamics – 2,365
Prudential Financial – 235
Humana – 265*
Liberty Mutual Insurance Group – 500+
HCA – 9,000
