Maria Lourdes C. Capilitan

SysAnal(O0A)

August 12, 2008

Case Study

Bob Davis

(Founder, Lycos)

            the things that I learn about Lycos are; first, it was 4^th most popular site on the web. second, Lycos was being acquired by the Terra Network. Lycos is about technology and all about consumer brands.

It was started in 1995. Lycos started from CMU, a student from CMU who is Michael “Fuzzy” Mauldin, started a research project. Fuzzy resists being a business person. Dan Nova of CMGI grew a lot from its investment. Davis is the VP of sales for a company when Dan Nova called and asks Davis to become the CEO.

            Their focus in their first month is the job, the building of the team. Also, figuring out what is their purpose like a medical company or a technology company. They decided to be Media Company.

            The company’s big problems are: hiring people, firing people, understanding business model, getting customers, servicing the customers, finding office space, scaling the company, staring down competitors, going public, raising money and satisfying shareholders.

            There was no turning points for them because for them everyday was a new challenge and opportunity. Being in a young business there’s a lot of sacrifice. Lycos became popular for some years but later on they felt that like their not exists.

            The thing that people misunderstood about them is about their unclear vision to what the Internet would become.

            Lycos gets its first traffic after 18 months which likely to be a giant snow ball rolling down and became very difficult to stop.

            Their first employees are their employees, advertisers and users. the user is the reason why Lycos became a success. AT & T an advertiser is their first paying customer. It was their first banner Ad running on Lycos. Their technology personnel work for it in a week and a half.

            The difference of Lycos to other competitors is being less with technology and more with consumer brand. Lycos work hard about their positioning and their branding for the company. Another difference is the company focused on earnings from the day they were incorporated.

            They most worried about Yahoo. Although, Lycos feared Lycos become the most popular destination on he WEB in 1999. They became the fastest IPO and NADAQ.

            Lycos Europe a native language for a dozen countries in Europe helps them to have a lot of users. They focused on building visibility in different ways. Davis never wanted to quit. They were overwhelmed when they attempt to merge with Barry Diller’s USA Network to Lycos but it failed to be complete. It became valuable to Lycos. Later on, Terra offered a $5.4 Billion to Lycos and they sold it.