Marilyn A. Bosito                                    08/14/08                   OOA

SYANAL

Case Study in

(Six Apart/ Mena Trott, Bob Davis, Alliant Computer System; Shareholder.com)

Ron Gruner

Six Apart was founded by Mena Trott together with her husband Ben Trott. It started at the blog created by Mena which was called Dollarshot. It was created at about April of 2001. At that time, she was at job and doesn’t feel contented of she had done. As her blog became popular, she became involved more and more of what people are doing. When their company closed and she was nothing to do, she thought that they can make a blogging tool and release it as a donationware and see where it goes. As they became more involved, they also aim for higher one and realizing that starting a company is not impossible. So what they did is to start thinking about a web design company but it is somewhat overpowering for they even don’t have any idea of what they are going to build. It is just an accident when they release the Movable Type that easily became popular and eventually this thing became a full-time job. This thing is also the one that forced them to become a company for having customers on their day one. At the time that they talked to the VCs, they realized that they should solve problems to be funded by the VCs. But at that time, there was a huge demand on what they were doing and Movable Type is becoming more and more popular. By July 2002, they decided to do something that they would earn in doing. It was the TypePad. At the same time, they form the LLC before they get funding. This project was done in their apartment in Richmond. It takes them 8 months to finish the product. They never required VC money for they were afraid to be like the companies that died because of taking money. They just have known the use of VC money when they met Joi Ito who later became their CEO. As time passed by, they grow the company and are able to acquire a few companies in between.

They became a real-time company and as a result, they transformed from LLC into a C Corporation. They build new software for TypePad because they know that more people were coming to blog but they were less experience users. That’s why the new software for TypePad to have a service that can be use by all people. They didn’t even plan on transferring code from TypePad to Movable Type for the reason that the users of the two products are differentiated from one another. They didn’t worry too much on competitors for they enter the field without knowing that they were creating a market. In terms of pressure, they also had when they launch the TypePad and there were paying customers. It seems that there is no future in it. They realized that they should just know on what they must prioritize first.

They were able to get funding from Joi Ito's Neoteny by April of 2003 and they were able to launched another product which was the Fox (formerly known as Comet) in the year 2006. it was a hosted blogging platform with social networking components.

I learned in this startup that blog publishing can be related into business in the way that it can help you promote something new. Another is that all people have the ability to do something great. They should just know to do what is really the important thing to be accomplished.

Lycos

Lycos was founded by Bob Davis in the year 1995. It started in 1994 when a brilliant computer scientist in Carnegie Mellon University, whose name was Michael Mauldin, invented the technology which was a search engine. It was a research project and the result of a federal research grant. Michael Mauldin who is also called Fuzzy doesn’t want to be a business person in a profitable entity. So what he did is to work with CMU's Tech Transfer Office to sell his technology. He was lucky that CMGI bought the 80 percent of the company and the 20 percent remain in the ownership of Fuzzy and CMU have 10 each.

By that time David was the Vice-President of sales of an old company the sell memory for IBM mainframes. He wasn’t happy in his job until on time Dan Nova of CGMI called him to check out on how he was trying to put a deal together with the CMU. If he get is right, he wouldn’t have a CEO. So David volunteered to be the CEO and it happened. He became the CEO of the company but the problem is that the technology exists but there were no employees, customers and product. So what they did first is to get the core team and to understand what they were doing to have a living. They also have to make their presence in Pittsburgh where their technology group was even they where based at Boston for it is required in their agreement with the CMU. They were able to hire their first few technical engineers out of the CMU for it is a premier computer science institution such as Fuzzy's student assistant and a worker in their data labs. They were able to get 300 employees in Pittsburgh and some of their engineering operations were also there. They experience a difficulty in management for they were apart in location and it became an additional burden for the company. They also other problems that they face like getting and servicing customers, understanding their business, finding an office space and scaling the company. These problems are only few among their many problems in their first 9 months.

They haven’t gone to have turning points in their startup for every obstacle that they overcome, there is always a new one waiting for them. Another reason is about their changing environment and the issues that their company faces like the staffing. Lycos became popular after a few years but in its early stage, no one knows about it. They were able to get the traffic in a big way such as having advertisement, press and telling their relatives about it and after 18 months, they were able to roll their wheels in the road of business. In terms of competitors they worried about Microsoft and Yahoo. It is for the reason that Microsoft might as well go into the online world. For Yahoo, it is for the reason that it has a larger audience than that of Lycos so they were trying their best to catch up with them. Even so, they were able to manage their problems by developing a business plan. This helps them to define their work, expand the company and established partnerships. It helps them to improve their visibility and increase their revenue. They were able to grow 200-300 percent every year and it is a very hard thing to do but they were still able to make it until they were acquired by Terra Networks for $5.4 billion which represented a return on VC investment of about 300,000 percent.

I learned in this startup the importance of determining your work to be able to do the things that were necessary for the company. Another is that there are also companies that spend a lot in order to promote their product and not only relying in the spread of word from the people who first engage themselves with the product.

Alliant Computer System; Shareholder.com

The cofounder of Alliant Computer System and Founder of Shareholder.com is Ron Gruner. The Alliant Computer System was founder in 1982 with Craig Mundie and Rich Andrew, the purpose of this company is to built a parallel super computers that use multiprocessing to be the fastest CPU. They lead the market the next generation computers in the market that became the commodity. The company went to public in December 1986, Tom Perkins was one of the board. In 1991 he left the company Alliant Computer System because of some disagreement and miscommunication regarding the growth of the company. After he left this company he had open a new start up company Shareholders.com, which was very opposite to his first company he work for, because this company deals with web-base service business. The company was founded in 1992, he had an investor from a group of his friends and business associates, that give out S25, 000 dollar each. They had their first corporate customer, which was Campbell’s Soups, they really had a focus on the customers satisfaction, while working on the web site. The first scariest events that happen to Shareholder.com is when there is big pharmaceutical companies want to do a project form them, because they can’t afford to mess up with.

First thing If you want to be a big in the market you should start and focus a things one at a time and do not rush things along the way let it be. A second thing is Persistence is also one of the key to success of the business along the way that you should have aside from confidence.