Comments on: Slam Dunk Startups

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:12:14 +0000

I don’t know if its producing millions or not, but it strains the imagination to think that http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/ is making money at all.

By: krystyn

krystyn — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:24:33 +0000

First to come to mind for me is Craigslist as well. I saw “Craig” on Colbert a while back and his interview was phenomenal.

I think any idea that is “I just saw a need and did it” is going to do better than a “I wanted to make money on the web and tried to think of a way to do it.”

Except for maybe the Million Dollar Homepage. That’s just pure genius.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:59:10 +0000

StubHub.com

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:42:46 +0000

The million dollar homepage is not a startup it is a work of art.

By: Travis McCrea

Travis McCrea — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:16:40 +0000

Now re reading comments I can see I am not the first to jump on board, but let me also point out another website that has spawned off twitter, that is also simple
foamee.com

By: Travis McCrea

Travis McCrea — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:12:23 +0000

I have a million great ideas, unfortunatly I do not have the money, time, or skills a lot of the time… to do them.
I don’t think simplistic, thats crazy, I am always thinking up these very useful yet ellaborte sites that will take too much time.

However, I would like to also point out that there are simple websites that I know many more people would have NEVER thought of that are now popular.

http://www.twitter.com

Who would have 1) ever thought of making a blogging site that will only allow you 160 charaters 2) this is so simplistic (even more so in its infancy) 3) ever thought this site would go anywhere.

By: drew

drew — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:14:17 +0000

Yeah, swaptree.com.

“Awesome! Totally Awesome!”

By: Nathan Borror

Nathan Borror — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:36:36 +0000

MetaFilter, particularly AskMetaFilter.

By: Jeff Becker

Jeff Becker — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 05:40:36 +0000

I think our alma mater SeasonTicket.com was a great idea that had all the potential that we once dreamed it had. But, imo, there were 2 problems: 1) the revenue model, and 2) too soon for a strictly broadband play.

Had the revenue model been subscription rather than advertising, it might have been able to show a path to profitability, and therefore been more inviting for a second round investor. It also would have weathered the dot com bust a little better than it did.

We did the slide shows for AllStarBalloting.com but wouldn’t do them for SeasonTicket.com. I think if we had been willing to do so for both it would have attracted dialup users.

But in general, there’s always the nebulous ‘black box’ in the early stages of system/application architecture, especially when the idea belongs to the uninitiated. People with the industry experience and the technical know-how are expected to turn the black box into a working application.

And that is how careers are launched.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:59:22 +0000

Look out for one coming up this summer that will simply blow your mind away - of course it is finance related - and i bet you techies would wonder why on earth did I not think up of that! Keep guessin'...

By: Jeff Croft

Jeff Croft — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:31:40 +0000

Twitter is a terrible example because to this day it does not make a single cent…

…which is why I said…

That having been said, I’m not sure how much money they’re actually making.

By: Jim Ray

Jim Ray — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:30:49 +0000

As if the universe itself is responding to your post, Mike: HotOrNot acquired for $20M Who knew the "virtual flower" business was so, um, hot?

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:01:03 +0000

Aran: If you think there’s a 90% chance you could have created Amazon if only you had thought it of first, you might be the smartest person alive. That was a tough, tough company to start and to grow. Definitely doesn’t fit into what this question was asking.

By: Aran

Aran — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:10:46 +0000

I would choose Amazon. The initial idea behind Amazon –“buy any book you want” — was an absolutely brilliant idea, because it capitlized on:

1) neighborhood bookstores were ALREADY dying out
2) academic people needed books that you couldn’t find in these bookstores anyways
3) books are easy to ship compared to other irregularly shaped objects

I think their continued dominance had a lot to do with the fact that the initial idea behind them was such a powerful one. I remember meeting an astronomy professor in 1997 who was going absolutely bonkers about how many books he could finally buy now that Amazon was around.

By: Christopher Fahey

Christopher Fahey — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:01:06 +0000

@Jeff Croft: Twitter is a terrible example because to this day it does not make a single cent. It is an extremely expensive proof-of-concept that could not have been executed at all if not for bizousands of dollars of capital. I love Twitter, but we have to realize that we are being given a free ride on it, at least for now. I still have no idea if it can survive an eventual “monetization” stage. Will you keep using it when 1 out of every ten tweets is an ad?

As for the core question, well, in addition to products there are also pure-play content projects that are making very good money. Which is to say, *blogs*. We’re not talking billions of dollars and thousands of new jobs, but enough to make the person who got the idea extremely happy. Everything from Nick Denton’s mini-empire all the way to popular one-person bloggers like Perez Hilton who make money just by writing stuff and selling eyeballs.

The slam dunk can sometimes happen just by thinking about what people want to read about and realizing that you have the skills to actually write it yourself.