Start Up Blog

DECEMBER 29, 2019

Why it mattered: It’s strange to me that Facebook was able to make an acquisition valued at $US 16 billion and still not capture the attention of antitrust regulation. I liken it to the dot-com bubble of 1999. Welcome to the Zuckerberg Dynasty. What happened: Facebook buys WhatsApp + Amazon Echo is launched.

Technical Review 105

Technical Review China IPO Vesting 105

Growthink Blog

DECEMBER 27, 2017

The most common exits are IPOs or acquisitions. About Growthink Since 1999, Growthink's professional business plan writers and investment bankers have assisted more than 2,000 clients in launching and growing their businesses, and raising more than $1 billion in growth financing. Ready to get started?

Venture Capital 129

Venture Capital Business Plan Technical Review Private Placement 129

ConversionXL

APRIL 24, 2019

The concept of “economic moats” came from a 1999 Fortune article by Warren Buffett: The key to investing is [.] Buffett, when thinking of low-cost production moats, uses GEICO (another Berkshire Hathaway acquisition) as an example. The primary goal is user acquisition. If you can make it for less, you can sell it for less.

Non-Compete 122

Non-Compete United States Networking Acquisition 122

Austin Startup

APRIL 27, 2019

the business was the same and through acquisitions it became to be worth $1.33 At the beginning of Coremetrics in 1999, the market risk was whether or not companies would embrace the outsourced model (what we called ASP, or Application Service Providers, back then, and are now called SaaS, or Software as a Service, or “cloud” providers).

B2C 51

B2C Austin Cofounder IPO 51

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

The numbers of potential buyers had decreased dramatically both because large companies were shedding jobs and because many past buyers simply lacked resources to make acquisitions. In 1998 it was 150 million, 1999 250 million and by 2000 it had crossed 350 million. There are 20x more consumers online.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2018

According to Investor's Business Daily , even though IPOs in 2018 through July were up nearly 39 percent from last year, the total of 115 companies so far is still nowhere near the rate required to match the yearly total of 486 hit way back in 1999. New stockholders will expect to see rapid growth. Analysts want escalating profits.

Exit Strategy 128

Exit Strategy IPO Initial Public Offering SEC 128

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

Over a 25 year career, Baughman has gained experience in leading worldwide sales organizations, brings expertise in full life cycle product management, proven revenue creation and growth management including taking a start up from zero to $1.6B, and shepherding companies through all phases from start up launch to IPO to acquisition.

Naming 59

Naming Hiring Technical Review Virginia 59

Venture Chronicles

SEPTEMBER 11, 2010

The issue isn’t Twitter and RSS but rather consumer RSS applications have remained for the most part locked in a paradigm that turns out to not be very useful for anyone but a small segment of the market.

RSS 58

RSS Aggregator Acquisition Audience 58

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 27, 2014

They generally cite one off events like Snapchat turning down a $3bn acquisition or Google’s $3.2bn acquisition of Nest as evidence. Comparing this with the chart below from the 1999 bubble and two things stand out. Recently I’ve been hearing a lot that there is a new bubble in Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley 110

Silicon Valley New York Venture Capital Acquisition 110

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 10, 2018

If you lived through the Internet-bubble between 1999 and 2002 you know this cycle well. Out of this mess came several long-term companies and a huge number of pennies on the dollar type acquisitions. And, you know that the companies that survived it were the ones with very strong fundamental businesses (e.g.

DC 112

DC Equity Hosting Valuation 112

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Online social networking is a concept still being evangelized even in Silicon Valley… Friendster is in private beta (wasn’t until Oct 2003 they received Google acquisition offer which they turned down for Kleiner/Benchmark round). This is my 2nd time trying this, first time was in 1999. A lot has changed. link] leehower.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 8, 2020

What the visionary, Milton Friedman, predicted about Bitcoin in 1999. Even before Bitcoin became a reality, visionaries like Milton Friedman were predicting the rise of an internet-version of cash, as long ago as 1999. Another example is the recent acquisition of the popular Taringa!

Iceland 140

Iceland Government Internet Bandwidth 140

ConversionXL

MARCH 19, 2020

At the same time, the company contained its operating costs and came out of the recession stronger, bigger, and more profitable than it had been in 1999. You’re no longer in a growth and acquisition position, so KPIs based on revenue targets, etc., If you move fast, with less information, there will be mistakes,” admits Stewart.

Marketing 121

Marketing Campaign Non-Compete Lean 121

The Equity Kicker

APRIL 11, 2012

I’m just back from a week skiing and visiting relatives and the big news whilst I’ve been away is undoubtedly Facebook’s $1bn acquisition of Instagram. I think that high priced acquisitions of startups are often valued with half an eye to the acquirers share price. I think that is the difference between 1999 and today.

IPO 110

IPO Valuation Forecast Acquisition 110

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 16, 2011

In 1999, there were 486 IPOs nationwide; just 10 years later, in 2009, there were only 63. Do you need the IPO for your acquisitions strategy? Of course, you’re going to have to perform well to make that stock useful in the acquisitions process. The market is moving back up, but slowly.

IPO 223

IPO Social Media Media Exit Strategy 223

VC Cafe

JANUARY 20, 2014

Last year, the VC industry partied like its 1999. While there were IPOs (notably Wix in November), most of the acquisitions were made by global technology companies with R&D Centers (and their corporate M&A teams) in Israel, including Apple, Google, EMC, AOL, Cisco, IBM and now Facebook. Seed-stage deals now require $5.1

Venture Capital 155

Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation IPO 155

Cracking the Code

JUNE 24, 2021

But the Valley in 1999 was a new world of startups, venture capital, and stock options. 1999/2000 was the startup heyday, and I was in the hot space of telecoms – it all looked promising. With competitors in the US often 10 times bigger, they’d become an acquisition target. And that was the start of an interesting journey.

Global 62

Global Europe France Cofounder 62

Pascal's View

AUGUST 12, 2009

Second, emerging growth companies lose negotiating leverage in acquisitions when they have no other viable liquidity alternatives. Between 2001 and 2008 mergers and acquisitions (M&A) accounted for 87% of venture-backed company exits, up from an average of 44% in between 1992 and 2000.

IPO 28

IPO Silicon Valley Merger Sweat Equity 28

Sophia Perl of Wisdom

AUGUST 27, 2011

Since this was in other countries, their customer acquisition costs were much cheaper than the US. That’s the story of Matt Mickiewicz the founder of Sitepoint, a site which, back in 1999, was the first online forum for web designers and developers. After establishing a foreign user base, the the dating website came to the US.

EC2 53

EC2 Social Network Distribution Demand 53

David Teten

JANUARY 10, 2012

acquisition. Mr. Fralic was also one of the early employees and VP of Business Development at Half.com starting in 1999, and after the eBay acquisition, spent six years with eBay in a variety of entertainment, business development, and media roles. through the Yahoo!

Portfolio 122

Portfolio New York Social Bookmarking Philadelphia 122

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

The vast majority of their customer acquisition is word of mouth. When you put those two things together, you get high-quality customers, high LTV, and acquisition at super low costs. And you know, a cost goes out with an acquisition, so whether it’s hiring a salesperson, commissions, or paying Google. David Zhang.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Dave McClure’s AARRR metrics and Andrew Chen ‘s specifics on freemium models, viral marketing, user acquisition and engagement both offer examples of exit criteria for Customer Discovery and Validation for startups on the web. Back in 1999, it all ended very bad. Eric and I will be working on others.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

VC Cafe

JUNE 4, 2012

This month’s trend continues to be the acquisition of mature Israeli high tech companies by multinationals. Avaya, EMC and VMWare are following the footsteps of Facebook, eBay, Cisco and HP with Israeli acquisitions that become R&D centers. For the Invest in Israel archive, click here. Great for them, good for Israel.

San Francisco 90

San Francisco New Jersey Private Equity 90

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

Mine started this way … I started my first company in the “go-go years&# of the Internet: 1999. We raised a seed round of capital in 1999 and our first venture capital round was the first week of March 2000 (e.g. We were based in London. a few days before the wheels came off of the market).

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley San Diego Non-Compete 308

Start Up Blog

AUGUST 25, 2013

They made a trade sale in late 1999. Which I am assuming is either a reference to them paying too much for acquisitions, or not making money for a long time themselves ?? Though he had a successful exit from it. feel free to comment on this one]. ” “The culture of a company is a special thing.

Australia 80

Australia Startup Valuation Cofounder 80

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 3, 2012

Philips has expanded its Israeli presence and acquisitions since 1999, when it acquired part of Israel’s Elscint, and is set to further expand its current 600- employee Israeli R&D center. INDIA, ISRAEL SIGN $50 MILLION ACADEMIC RESEARCH PACT.

El Salvador 97

El Salvador San Diego Silicon Valley 97

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

I started investing in 1994 and while there was some bumpiness in 1997 and again in 1999, the real pain happened between 2000 and 2005. They are almost always written in a way that doesn’t really hold up, creates misalignment, or is a negotiating anchor in an acquisition situation.

Cap Table 70

Cap Table Down Round Liquidation Preference Founder 70

Professor VC

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Both companies were relatively well capitalized, building peer to peer payments businesses and spending a significant amount of their funding on customer acquisition. Looking back five years later, it appears that the merger was a very expensive partner acquisition strategy for iControl. Hope that changes in 2016.

Merger 28

Merger LP IPO Redemption 28

Lightspeed Venture Partners

MAY 5, 2016

Over the years we’ve had the privilege of working with amazing founders and helping them grow from infancy to IPO or acquisition in many cases. Prior to joining Russell Reynolds Associates, Brian worked at Salomon Brothers, Lehman Brothers and Thomas Weisel Partners, where he joined at the firm’s inception in early 1999.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Advisory Board Flash Pennsylvania 60

Austin Startup

JUNE 15, 2010

Founded in Austin in 1999, Coremetrics is known as one of the high-end providers of web analytics, competing with Omniture and Webtrends. Today it was announced that IBM is acquiring the company for an undisclosed sum.

Analytics 69

Analytics Portfolio Agile eCommerce 69

Hearpreneur

MARCH 28, 2018

In 1990, Mr. Moran, his wife and his youngest daughter Barb founded Moran Industries and expanded the business model to include franchised repair facilities with the acquisition of Mr. Transmission. Barb has led the company through a changing industry and has served as the President and CEO since 1999.

Cofounder 49

Cofounder Illinois United States Retention 49

Seeing Both Sides

SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

Are Israeli companies on the verge of developing a repeatable playbook to scale their companies and become market leaders, not just acquisition fodder for the Silicon Valley giants? How do I strengthen my market position through acquisitions and innovation? That’s disappointing for a country with so much potential. We think so.

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Review United States 20

abovethecrowd.com

JUNE 2, 2021

Could we offer a “dial” to issuers and let them (and perhaps their ad agencies) decide? * * For GS.com , EXCLUSIVE access to GS hot deal might be a critical competitive tool to keep customer acquisition costs low and encourage larger clients to more to our site from a competitor’s.

IPO 82

IPO Customer Matching Silicon Valley 82

Reid Hoffman

OCTOBER 10, 2017

Piracy became so associated with startups that when, in 1999, the cable network TNT released a movie about the heated rivalry between Steve Jobs and Apple, and Bill Gates and Microsoft, it was titled, “Pirates of Silicon Valley.”

Silicon Valley 36

Silicon Valley Early Stage Software Review Employee 36

andrewchen.co

AUGUST 20, 2012

Given that team acquisitions provide downside protection while the hits drive the real returns, it’s hard for investors behind top teams to lose money. « Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999. -->. So the question is, when will the downside protection, in the form of acquihires, disappear?

Seed Stage 51

Seed Stage Early Stage Mobile Seed Money 51

Pascal's View

AUGUST 21, 2011

For me Bubble will always be inexorably linked to what went down in 1999 and 2000 in the internet sector. I will post separately on valuation metrics and the implications of the dichotomy between recent public company valuations and merger & acquisition statistics. It is intentional. I do not think we are in a Bubble per se.”.

Valuation 50

Valuation Social Media Media IPO 50

SVPG

SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

But back in 1999, a then very young Netflix based in Los Gatos with less than 20 employees, was on the edge of going bust. Let me also add that there’s little as powerful as a marketing person that’s also strong at product. The combination is amazing. NETFLIX – Kate Arnold.

Product 60

Product Technical Review Software Review Engineer 60