A Dotcom in a Basement? 60
garyebickford asks: "I recently learned that a company I co-founded a long time ago has degenerated to the point where the present principals have sold off most of the equipment and have moved 'operations' into their houses. Though the founding concept is almost two decades old, they still believe that they'll be able to pull something out of a hat. I'm pretty sure the two remaining true believers haven't been paid for several years, and have been working outside to support themselves. The company hasn't sold anything for years as far as I know, but they have kept it running through an amazing series of trials and tribulations including some of the most amazing legal shenanigans I've ever heard of. The stock was delisted a long time ago and is now valued at about $0.001. Of course, who knows? Maybe it will recover. It's happened before. I'm sure we all know of many others, like snakebit projects that have migrated from company to company, and 'entrepreneurs' who could raise money over and over but never quite get a company going, and of course, really cool technology that just never seemed to come out of development, or was almost done when the money ran out?So Slashdot, fess up - do you have a 'company in a box' downstairs? What kind of earth-shaking, irrelevant or worthless technology is sitting under your stairs? More interestingly, why are you, or they, still committed to the business?"
Well? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm typing this a second time because the first time the 20-second rule bit me!
Slashdot usage tip (Score:2, Insightful)
Okay, important safety tip...when you get hit by the 20-second rule, do NOT hit the back button. Simply wait as long as you should have, hit reload, and tell it to resend the data - no retyping those long and brilliant posts! Yay.
Please, please, no applause
Re:Slashdot usage tip (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Slashdot usage tip (Score:5, Funny)
Hahahahahaha! Preview first. That's a good one. You crack me up. *snort* Preview first. Next you'll be talking about reading the linked articles before posting.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot usage tip (Score:2)
I have it happen to me in Mozilla. It might have to do with some settings regarding form field data, though I'm not sure.
Re:Slashdot usage tip (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot usage tip (Score:3, Informative)
I've gotten into the habit of hitting ^A^C before submitting any form with a large text field. This copies the entire contents of the text field into your clipboard. If the browser messes up and deletes the form, then I'm saved by the clipboard. I can then just type ^V to paste it back in.
For really long posts, in
Re:Slashdot usage tip (Score:1)
Re:Well? (Score:1)
OT: reply to my .sig (Score:1, Offtopic)
Nothing.
What Williams is saying is quite simple: remove the ability to profit from production of drugs, which includes not only manufacture and R&D but navigating the FDA approval process, then the drugs will not be produced. I quote:
Re:OT: reply to my .sig (Score:2)
Kinda like how you can bet that Microsoft will continue to be profitable even if they're forced to stop their anti-competetive monopoly pricing practices. The whole drug patent thing gives drug companies a guaranteed monopoly for a period of time; I don't argue that that's necessarily a ba
eXtr@ct (Score:3, Interesting)
I've periodically lobbied them to open source their software (which is very cool, actually) and develop a business model like MySQL AB. So far no interest.
In the late 1980's the company was on the American Stock Exchange and valued at over $200 million (this was before the dotcom bubble and after I left.)
They acquired the name eXtr@ct fairly recently, when they came out of bankruptcy. Before that they were named AUDRE, Inc. (short for AUtomated Digitizing and REcognition - we wanted somet
Oh! I got one! (Score:2, Interesting)
It costs me $30/month to run it, I think I can deal with that... One of these days I'll call it reasonably complete and actually go looking for customers too... Ah well... I got other sites to write...
I'm developing... (Score:2, Funny)
Succeed in life (Score:5, Funny)
There are a lot of good ideas that just don't work out. Maybe the right time will come; maybe not. In the meantime, go do something else. Don't get so attached to something that didn't work out that you miss out on new opportunities.
As for your question, I had a design and partial implementation of a multiplayer game ... for BBSes. I started that project in 1993, and by 1996 I realized that there's little point in writing for BBSes anymore. So I moved on to a 3d simulation game ... for OS/2. By 1997 I realized that there's little point in writing for OS/2 anymore. So I moved on to grad school, working on theoretically sound statically typed programming languages. By 1999 I realized that there's little point in implementing theoretically sound statically typed programming languages. So I moved on. I now work at a "dot com". We'll see how that goes. :-)
Re:Succeed in life (Score:3, Funny)
Q.
Re:Succeed in life (Score:3, Informative)
I do (Score:3, Funny)
Re:my idea (Score:4, Funny)
I knew a guy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Eventually, Oracle bought him & his code (According to his daughter's non-technical understanding, they *needed* his code.) and he signed on as an Oracle VP. Another girl at my highschool had a dad who was a VP at Oracle, and I remembered him & many other VPs getting axed, so I knew that there was some serious churn in the upper ranks. Thus, I was unshocked when Oracle stiffed him for his code (dunno if they got away with it or he sued) and fired him.
Last I heard was before the bubble burst, and he was doing coding for some dot com, and enjoying it.
All this is filtered through several different types of bias (My own included. Had a crush on his daughter.) but I think it's close to the truth. He had some really lean years after he shrank his company, because despite saving up, he went a lot longer without selling his code than he ever expected.
yeah right.... (Score:1)
Dude! (Score:1)
ISP in a basement (Score:4, Interesting)
The real estate agent used this as a selling point, saying that if we ever had the need for 50 phone lines, the townhouse could handle it! We ended up buying the townhouse, but mainly because of the cathedral ceilings. The extra phone hardware was a nice little bonus.
We have since sold the townhouse, so if you are a dot-com wannabee, don't ask me ask me if it's for sale!
No basements in CA (Score:2)
Re:No basements in CA (Score:1)
actually, i think its the "soil", which most people call rock.
Re:No basements in CA (Score:1)
Re:No basements in CA (Score:2)
Re:No basements in CA (Score:2)
I do ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I do ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I do ... (Score:2)
Slashdotted? (Score:5, Funny)
It's the 99 percent. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh well. A lot of us have the ability to do practically anything. The real key is being able to stick to it once you start. Thomas Edision has that famous quote, which I won't bother quoting because you all know it already.
Re:It's the 99 percent. (Score:1)
I have one (serious post) (Score:5, Interesting)
I've worked completely solo to build this website [emusictheory.com] -- basically, it offers online interactive music exercises with a lot of support for teachers.
I brought it online just a week ago... now I'm waiting to work out a few more kinks before I open the doors to floods of subscribers.
Well, I think I'm guaranteed 2 or 3 subscribers... we'll have to see about the "floods". Anyway, I'm hosting it for $30/month, which I mostly paid for by reselling a bit of my bandwidth to an uncle for his website (he sells batteries and UPS systems).
So... thus far the only real cost are my time (and I built it all outside of my normal working hours).
In some ways, this nicest payoff from this sort of project is the emails from appreciative users... but yeah, I'm hoping it'll become a minor revenue stream. Ego boosts only go so far, in the end (as the work gets less fun).
Re:I have one (serious post) (Score:2)
Speaking of shameless (now to the point of my post), it took me just a minute to figure out where you were going with it, but I finally realized that the reason behind your backwards treble clef symbol is a desperate attempt at making an "e". Good God, man. I highly recommend you ditch that idea. This site is partially for students of music, who might thing that backwards treble clefs actually exist.
Just a little feedback. Best o
Back on topic (Score:2)
Not so terribly OT -- this may provide a clue as to why basement dotcoms don't tend to launch their creators instantly to fame and fortune. When the creator does it all, "all" tends to include some tasks s/he knows nothing about...
I'm a software developer, not a graphic designer (damnit Jim). Hey, I can make sweeping changes to the e
Back in 1994... (Score:2)
Of course, back then, running an operation like that was almost acceptable!
Re:Back in 1994... (Score:2)
Here. Read their AUP (acceptable use policy) [creighton.edu] for a giggle or two.
Let it die (Score:3, Funny)
I have my Tetris clone I wrote in Turbo Pascal, all packaged and ready for shareware release.
I have an idea, but I will not implement it... (Score:1)
So my current business plan is to patent it myself, and then sue someone else when they actually put in the time to develop a decent implementation.
Three cheers for software patents
Tunnel IM from your work (Score:1)
Well my wife's co. blocked her AIM and she was mad, so I hooked her up with the same setup. I thought there might be a bus
Re:Tunnel IM from your work (Score:2)
As a firewall and IDS admin, I can tell you first hand that if your company has decent admins, they probably know what you are doing. There are a number of people in the companies I do work for that do exactly this sort of thing.
As an admin, I ignore it because if they wer
Don't forget about decorating. (Score:2)
Great tips for making it look like you've taken over the world before you actually get your big break.
In all seriousness.... (Score:2)
Its not a dot-com in the traditional sense of the word (except the domain) as the site is a research project/art project/fun thing that I do. It is profitable however, because of nice grants and donations I've recieved, which is more than most dot-coms can say
So, as for the technology "under the stairs"
1. Dual PIII 733 mhz, 1 gig
very last post (Score:1)