Web Hospices? 30
K-Man asks: "A while ago, I spent a few months at a dying web startup, and, as I looked at the costs of running such an operation, I realized that a tremendous synergy could be achieved by consolidating multiple dying web startups into one umbrella organization. Many functions - bankruptcy filing, creditor evasion, even hiring contractors for fictitious compensation - could be combined under one roof. While the "web incubator" was invented in the 90's, why has no one adopted a similar model for the 00's?"
Well ... (Score:1, Insightful)
"why has no one adopted a similar model for the 00's?"
Because it sounds illegal?
that's a joke (Score:1, Troll)
Web startups are dying (Score:1)
[I'm too lazy to do the cut and paste]
Re:Here .... I'll do it for you (Score:1)
Is his estate going to a web startup hospice?
Re:Here .... I'll do it for you (Score:1)
What I find was that he said he is close to finishing his last novel, that he was going to give up writing.
I found another interview from a few years ago, where he said his recent accident had reduced his writing output by about 50%.
I have moderator points, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Please correct this in the next version of slashcode.
Re:I have moderator points, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Me too, but I wanted to mod it "funny". So there, we just cancelled each other out.
Nothing to see here, move along.
-"Zow"
Because (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a hard-to-believe-it's-serious "question." But, assuming it is a legitimate request for input, I'd say this: the dying web start-ups are the least likely to realize they are dying. The reason they're dying is lost on the managers/owners who are true believers in the business model, regardless how much it's tied to a sock puppet, and believe that this last round of funding will be a success as Warren Buffet finally "gets it" and sinks his wad in the idea. You see, the start up is failing because those directing it lack the foresight and objectivity to realize that it is a failed proposition.
I've seen this up close and personal. A partner company was in a "final round" of financing and could not believe it fell short of funding by the price of a nice car. What it did not realize is that the technology, while excellently engineered, was dated and similar applications developed today could be deployed, maintained, customized, etc., at a fraction of the time and engineering cost of their product. It was painful to watch. But one thing became clear: those in the companies that end up on the frontpage of FC are the only ones surprised.
Re:Because (Score:1)
But, assuming it is a legitimate request for input, I'd say this: the dying web start-ups are the least likely to realize they are dying.
As a former employee (and co-founder) of a now dead web start-up , I beg to differ. It was quite obvious for quite a while that the company was dying. Yeah, we still hoped for a miracle, but it's hard to watch your employee base go from 80 to 10 without suspecting something...
Future Ask Slashdot questions (Score:5, Funny)
2) A friend of mine told me once that he makes pretty good income by stopping strangers in dark places and pulling a knife on them. I wonder how many Slashdotters use similar business model for their income, and why no one adopted it widely.
3) As I mowed lawns for a senior company executive, I got a potentially lucrative idea of kidnapping his twin daughters and request a hefty monetary donation. This seems like a good way to earn money, I wonder why it's not so widespread in 00's.
Re:Future Ask Slashdot questions (Score:2)
Perhaps because it involves leaving their parents basement?
whoa (Score:1)
Damn, I pretty much faded out at that point. I'm impressed that others got farther.
Ish gotsh yer syhnergy right s'here, barkeep (Score:3, Funny)
Or was that not the type of collaborative model you were looking for?
Ask not (Score:1)
That settles your first misconception.
Your second misconception is that doing that sort of things is a good idea: it isn't. Even the title of the post (maybe changed by the editors) suggests you don't believe this idea, since hospices are places people who have given up (i e people that are terminal, and medicine is useless except to ease the pain) go to die.
The Internet doesn't need that. It needs bad ideas flushed right out. Just like taking a failing Indian restaurant and roofing it with a failing Mexican restaurant isn't going to be a good idea, putting two failing dot-coms together on one URL is also not.
Dot-coms fail for a variety of reasons, like restaurants, and it isn't always the 'food,' but also the location, timing and price. Moving it with something else that is rejected doesn't escape any of that.
The closest thing I could imagine to what your saying is an Internet warehouse that comes along and buys up unsold merchandise from different dot-coms and shops it around to buyers at discount. But that isn't the same thing.
A bad idea is a bad idea, at least for the time being.
Not quite the same thing, but (Score:1)
Various people in the private capital business (sort of like venture capital, but they have no interest in taking the companies public for the foreseeable future) have swooped in, swallowing up various startups while the values are depressed and doing what consolidation they can, while keeping them alive till the tide comes back in.
Silicon Pines might be interested. (Score:3, Funny)
As reported by the acclaimed news portal SatireWire [satirewire.com], Silicon Pines [satirewire.com] offers loving care for the technically spare. Pretty sure they could take in dotcoms with problems in managing certain non-equity payment modes. [satirewire.com]
Some are still around, like Idealab (Score:1)
I think you'll still find "umbrella companies" here and there, where multiple startups share resources such as office space, internet connectivity, server rooms, lawyers, secretaries, and system administrators. I've worked for a startup that was part of the Idealab [idealab.com] incubator company, which has facilities in Pasadena and Boston.
Obviously, if a startup does not have a viable business plan, such economies will only slow their burn rate. For smart startups, however, I imagine it continues to be a good deal.
Oh darn (Score:1)
Time for the business plan... (Score:2)
2.
3. Profit!
and, from the sound of this story, add the final step of:
4. Go to jail!
Re:Time for the business plan... (Score:2)
1. Expand as quickly as possible--and at any cost--to saturate and own the market
2. IPO
3. Spend, spend, spend because the money never stops. No worries, we'll own the market soon and sooner or later we'll actually make a profit on operations.
4. Buy own island and be extremely rich recluse.
Well, I left out the part about lavish offices top impress everone and giving employees benefits such as constant free food, drinks (even beer in some cases) and free long distance calls on company dimes. That comes before IPO.
I'm not sure what the story submitter was smoking. A nursing home for dying tech companies? No, more like a collaborated ongoing attempt at screwing employees, stockholders and customers of all failing businesses. No thanks, they do that well enough individually.
synergy (Score:2)
I believe one of the many lessons of the 90's was not to adopt models that speak of synergy and other lame sounding words.
Re:synergy (Score:1)
Re:synergy (Score:2)
so, yes, synergy makes sense, but the poster did not specify the advantages.... thus we are lead to believe the advantage of synergy is synergy. Sadly, this is one of the more popular ways of using the word, and thus it gets blacklisted.
If the poster had specified some of the benefits of combining, I wouldn't have bitched about synergy.
resuscitation (Score:2)
Only the worst are left behind when ideas fail (Score:2)
I've worked for two failed start-ups since 1994, both of which did things relating to the Internet and hosting. In that time, I've also worked for a Fortune 500 company and a state government. I've known many people who have worked for various organizations, failed or otherwise. I've seen quite a range of workplaces. Your idea will not work.
First off, you assume safety in numbers. This is not the case. If you were CEO of a struggling dotcom, barely keeping afloat, would you like a pets.com to merge with you? A company that tries to make a profit shipping products which have margins so slim that double bagging erases profit? Would that help you or hurt you? There is no economy of scale in failed ideas.
Secondly, I've seen and had to deal with what happens when you try to bring different companies' technologies together under one roof. You want to set something up where everyone can use the same database servers, right? One company uses Windows 2000, one uses NT, one uses HP-UX, one uses Linux. You want them to use to the same web server? One uses IIS, one uses Websphere, one Apache, and so on and so on. You would need to have technical staff able to setup and administer these one-offs. In fact, you'd have a whole company with one-offs. Everything would be an emergency (I've seen this in action; it's not pretty), everything would be custom fit, nothing can be re-used. There's a reason Henry Ford became rich by employing standardized parts on an assembly line and his competitors who built each unit from scratch, by hand, have been completely forgotten. You might be able to get away with using the same physical Net connection(s) and rack hardware/floorspace, but that is about it.
The third reason why your idea won't work involves personalities. When a company starts dying, people leave (and get laid off) in pretty well defined stages. I can't quantify those stages, but I can say they exist as fact since I've seen and experienced them first- and second-hand many times.
The first to leave are the flighty ones that are always looking for greener pastures even in good times. These people never drank your koolaid and felt little loyalty. You were a paycheck and they'd have likely left even if your comapny hadn't tanked. The second group to leave are ones that would like to stick it out, but since they have families and such, they feel the need to protect their personal future. "No hard feelings, but I can't take IOUs two pay periods in a row..." Good, solid workers who make up the bulk of the company (and will might even remember it fondly). The third group to leave are those who thought they'd get rich off the company, or move up in the company once it got real big. These are the ones that take loans against their homes and advances on their credit cards for the company's sake. They bought into the company's dream, and had impressive titles to match their impressive hopes. The 25 year-old CTOs and VPs you heard a lot about a couple years back were in this group (but were not the sole members by any means).
Who does that leave? Founders, initial investors, and those that came in very early (and probably worked very hard early on). This is upper management, usually, and might even include one or two technical people. By and large, however, these are the folks who have made business plans and sold investors on ideas by using fanciful, meaningless graphs printed on glossy paper, not technical merits. They knew enough buzzwords to get them in the door, or fake technical acumen. They have insane amounts of stock options, and were all hoping to cash in. Depending on their proclivities they will either do anything to save "The Company" (moral, ethical or otherwise) or they will try to make things right by cutting a few corners or trying new things (moral, ethical or otherwise). These are the ones that wanted to get rich off the backs of others. It was their turn to make it big, and their "Vision" which was to succeed and make them rich and powerful. Their baby was going to grow up into Something Big.
Their baby has genetic defects, however, and is dying slowly of a wasting disease. This makes them angry, bitter, spiteful parents. They wanted their baby to be in the World Series, or win a Nobel Prize, but instead they get to watch it take the little bus to school all its short life. They gave birth to the runt of the litter. Their simple-minded and feeble offspring cannot survive on its own. It's not fair. They turn evil. It was not their idea that failed. It was not their mis-management that failed. It was 9/11, or market conditions, or a competitor's dirty tricks, or that one supplier who wouldn't extend them just a little more credit which they needed in order to "take it to the next level". It was something or someone else which failed, not them. Not their ideas or their personalities or the mishandling of the company, no.
These are the last people around when a company dies. They are not nice or happy people. They don't have good personality traits in the best of times and at the worst or times can turn on those around them like a rabid Rottweiler. These are people who will backstab and then fire their own family members if it means even getting one more chance at a small round of funding (I've personally seen this happen -- twice).
So your idea is that these people all get together, with the goals of making their ideas work by becoming a unit. By combining their strengths, they can overcome the redundancies that killed their businesses. They can all get together and learn from each other's mistakes. They can not repeat history together, and avoid the pitfalls others have encountered. Is that about right? It will never work.
There will be several people who feel they should run the show, decide direction, forge new alliances, etc. There will be several people who steal the ideas of other members of the co-op and use them to try to get rich. There will be people who see the successes of another unit and decide to move into their territory. There will be people who try to headhunt from within other units. There will be people who use the whole co-op to claim their unit is larger than it really is, or that it does more than it really does. Once one unit gets a taste of success, it'll do everything it can to shrug off the other members. There will be those who will lie, cheat and steal to get ahead. Business is, after all, business.
You may say that I have a cyincal view of the world, and I might indeed, but what I say is true. Ask someone who has been in a commune what they think of altruistic ideals. You'll find that nearly all of them discovered that the only person who really thought the commune was a good idea what the leader/founder of the commune. I know what you propose is completely different from a commune, but the point remains that there will always be people who seek to gain at the expense of others no matter what it takes. Getting these types together will not help any of them (or you), collectively or separately.
-B
Re:Only the worst are left behind when ideas fail (Score:1)
Didn't Doonesbury already mock this? (Score:2)
-russ