Why There Aren't More Googles
paulgraham.com
Why There Aren't More Googles
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Re: Why There Aren't More Googles
#2The startups who turn down acquisition offer do better thing might have a bit of reporting bias. ie. the ones that fail, we never think about.
Except of course, there was a big famous example -- Friendster. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/business/yourmoney/15frien...
Re: Why There Aren't More Googles
#3Perhaps an enterprising Angel Group can try to package or commoditize the process of making Angel-sized (six figure) investments. I'm not sure the term "Angel Group" would still apply after adopting this model, but Angel Groups seem well-positioned to evolve into this new "new venture animal."
Re: Why There Aren't More Googles
#4"the kind of founders who have the balls to turn down a big offer also tend to be very successful"
Or they tend to fail spectacularly. The more risk you are willing to take the more you will tend to go towards the extremes: One extreme is huge succes, the other is bankruptcy.
Re: Why There Aren't More Googles
#5So the biggest gap is between angels/yc clones and VCs? It appears that there is a far bigger disparity between potential startups and angels who will fund them. This may be hard to grasp, depending on where you sit, but there is still a truly microscopic percentage of the workforce that gets in at the ground floor of a startup that gets funded by outside angels.
This is to say that percentages are what should be considered in measuring "ease" of getting an investment at each stage. 0.001% of groups that desire an early stage angel investment can get it, 30% of angel funded groups can get a successive intermediate investment, 50% of the groups that make it to the intermediate stage can get VC money, etc.
Re: Why There Aren't More Googles
#6> The reason there aren't more Googles is not that investors encourage innovative startups to sell out, but that they won't even fund them.
This goes for YC as well. Surely there are some technically innovative applicants that don't fit the mould of web sites to make quizzes or 10-second cartoons or other such dubious acceptees.
Google itself would have been rejected on at least a couple of grounds: project being too big to make much progress in 3 months (crawling the entire web!), and needing too much money ($15k ought to be enough for anybody!). IIRC they got not only the $100k from Bechtolsheim but also a similar amount from Cheriton.
> And yet it's the bold ideas that generate the biggest returns.
Yet YC sticks with smaller ideas...
> It's remarkable how wedded they are to their standard m.o.
This also seems to apply to YC. Small idea, $15k, 3 months, move your ass to Boston (then move again to SV, where you should have been in the first place), standard terms, no negotiation of the offer if YC accepts you.
Re: Why There Aren't More Googles
#7Perhaps an enterprising Angel Group can try to package or commoditize the process of making Angel-sized (six figure) investments. I'm not sure the term "Angel Group" would still apply after adopting this model, but Angel Groups seem well-positioned to evolve into this new "new venture animal."
What size investments do the Angel Groups make right now?
Re: Why There Aren't More Googles
#8Perhaps an enterprising Angel Group can try to package or commoditize the process of making Angel-sized (six figure) investments. I'm not sure the term "Angel Group" would still apply after adopting this model, but Angel Groups seem well-positioned to evolve into this new "new venture animal."
Traditional angel groups have so far been a complete disappointment. They're more conservative than VCs.
But I would not be surprised if a new form of angel group starts to emerge. There are a couple syndicates of ex-Googlers that look very promising. They have lots of money, and they were all smart enough to get hired as early employees at Google.
Re: Why There Aren't More Googles
#9Perhaps an enterprising Angel Group can try to package or commoditize the process of making Angel-sized (six figure) investments. I'm not sure the term "Angel Group" would still apply after adopting this model, but Angel Groups seem well-positioned to evolve into this new "new venture animal."
What size investments do the Angel Groups make right now?
It is my understanding that Angel Groups presently serve more to facilitate connections between Entrepreneurs and Angel Investors, rather than investing collaboratively. The size of the investments they facilitate vary (likely to fall between seed/YC [5 figures] and VC [7 figures or +] sizes).
Re: Why There Aren't More Googles
#10I've been quite surprised by the "get more traction" argument. It's like, if I had traction, what the hell would I need you for! Aren't you supposed to be the cowboys of investing? Sheesh. Tell me my idea sucks, that I suck or that my market sucks, anything but "your company doesn't exist yet so we can't fund it." Sort of a self defeating argument.