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Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

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Re: Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

#81

Post by sogen »

mschaecher wrote: post #32
replicatorblog wrote: post #11

I'm one of the authors of this post and plan on releasing an updated version with some companies that we missed on the first pass. If you know of other substantial startups that went far before raising capital, please let me know: JoeFlaherty@FounderCollective. The current list of misses includes: + Grammarly + 37 Signals/Basecamp + Zip Recruiter + Outcome Health + Wistia Who else?

Craiglist generates tons of cash, wildly profitable, no investment Bose has always funded itself via profits for 50 years with no outside investment. $3b-$4b revenue last year. Beats waited 4-5 years and was huge before taking first equity investment from HTC

AFAIR eBay had an investment in Craigslist. Might be wrong.

Re: Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

#82

Post by replicatorblog »

sogen wrote: post #81
mschaecher wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craiglist generates tons of cash, wildly profitable, no investment Bose has always funded itself via profits for 50 years with no outside investment. $3b-$4b revenue last year. Beats waited 4-5 years and was huge before taking first equity investment from HTC

AFAIR eBay had an investment in Craigslist. Might be wrong.

They owned at least 25% of the company at one point, but it was well after it started and gained critical mass, or liquidity in this case. My filter for this piece allowed for companies that raised money, but only if they managed to run independently, for a few years at least.

Re: Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

#83

Post by artur_makly »

traviswingo wrote: post #61
replicatorblog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The birth of VC as an asset class is generally considered to be in the mid-1940s and created by Harvard Professor George Doriot. The early employees of Fairchild Semiconductor built on the model in the 1960 and helped give birth to Silicon Valley. You're are correct that VC moved into the popular psyche in the 1990s in the run-up to the dot-com boom.

There's a great documentary on Netflix about this titled "Something Ventured."

Sadly not available outside U S A

Re: Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

#84

Post by artur_makly »

kingnothing wrote: post #59
sbov wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't Beats founded by a celebrity? I feel like this kind of goes against the spirit of the list.

Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre.

a fluff doc on them coming out: http://www.npr.org/2017/07/07/535920449/the-story-of-dr-dre-...

Re: Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

#85

Post by zjaffee »

cr0sh wrote: post #38

Isn't this the way companies, until fairly recently, have always been started and grown? Basically, come up with an idea/product, reach around to back pocket (or into your purse) and fund it ad-hoc. That, or take out a loan or such. It seems like this was the way things were always done - until fairly recently. It seems like things changed sometime around the early 1990s. I tend to wonder if this had anything to do w…

I think a large part of this is the growth of internet companies, SaaS, ect, compared to the more traditional, we have a product and it costs x dollars, and it cost us very little beyond the cost of human capital to build it.

It simply isn't possible to build a new internet company unless you either have users who are already going to generate revenue from the second you deploy the product, or some amount of financial backing (either personal/familial, or VC based funding). You can't easily put close to 1000 dollars per day of server costs on to a credit card.

Additionally, it's hard to attract skilled developers these days without being already established (and can pay high salaries), or by having the backing of some valued institution (big name VC's/angel investors).

Re: Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

#87

Post by dllthomas »

bigtunacan wrote: post #76
cr0sh wrote: post #38

Isn't this the way companies, until fairly recently, have always been started and grown? Basically, come up with an idea/product, reach around to back pocket (or into your purse) and fund it ad-hoc. That, or take out a loan or such. It seems like this was the way things were always done - until fairly recently. It seems like things changed sometime around the early 1990s. I tend to wonder if this had anything to do w…

It is certainly still possible to get loans on collateral. If you have equity in a home then most banks will give you a loan using the home as equity and they don't much care how you intend to use the money. This is what a HELOC is (Home Equity Line of Credit). The bank gives you a loan that is somewhere less than the amount of equity you have in the home for you to spend as you please. If you don't pay it off they t…

As you're less likely to crash a house, maybe he could get a better rate?

Re: Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

#88

Post by showerst »

Animats wrote: post #51

Autodesk. Started with $60,000 put in by the founders. No further investments until the IPO. Current market cap $24 billion. (Autodesk did have some conversations with VCs, but they were so profitable and growing so fast that by the time the VCs had made an offer, it was ridiculously low. Here's the history of those deals.[1]) [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_32.html

Not to take away anything from the incredible achievements of autodesk, but $60,000 in 1982 was roughly $155,000 today.

That's a non-trivial amount of cash to be able to dump into starting a company.

Re: Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

#89

Post by zck »

sogen wrote: post #81
mschaecher wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craiglist generates tons of cash, wildly profitable, no investment Bose has always funded itself via profits for 50 years with no outside investment. $3b-$4b revenue last year. Beats waited 4-5 years and was huge before taking first equity investment from HTC

AFAIR eBay had an investment in Craigslist. Might be wrong.

eBay bought a former employee's stock from him; it wasn't an investment. Craigslist later bought back the stock (https://web.archive.org/web/20040813165340/http://www.cnewma...).

Re: Invisible unicorns: Big companies that started with little or no money

#90

Post by hitekker »

showerst wrote: post #88
Animats wrote: post #51

Autodesk. Started with $60,000 put in by the founders. No further investments until the IPO. Current market cap $24 billion. (Autodesk did have some conversations with VCs, but they were so profitable and growing so fast that by the time the VCs had made an offer, it was ridiculously low. Here's the history of those deals.[1]) [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_32.html

Not to take away anything from the incredible achievements of autodesk, but $60,000 in 1982 was roughly $155,000 today. That's a non-trivial amount of cash to be able to dump into starting a company.

I agree, though according to Wikipedia 12 people started the company together and contributed the initial sum of money
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