LIM, MARYLYN GRACE C.

OOA

            All of us know that Yahoo is one of the most popular search engines other than Google. The thing we didn’t know is how was Yahoo started? Yahoo started in 1994. During the time of Jerry Yang and David Filo, Yahoo was just a collection of links to research papers being run by the two of them. During their free time, they would add some links to new types of information and the site become popular later on. By the end of the year, Jerry Yang and David Filo decided to turn Yahoo into a startup. Tim Brady, Jerry Yang’s college roommate, was the one who wrote the business plan for Yahoo. During the time when Tim Brady was getting his MBA in Harvard, Yahoo grew bigger, so Tim Brady decided to fail three of his five classes just to have time for Yahoo. He used the business plan he made for Yahoo as a final paper for the two classes left. Eventually, he was able to pass it and of course he was able to graduate.

            This Yahoo thing happened when Jerry and David were taking their PhD theses and all the information that they need were online. So they need to keep tracking all of them. So they have a big list of information that they needed for their theses, then the EE graduates found out what they are doing so they sent Jerry and David emails saying of they could add this and that to their lists. During their free time, they would add things that their interested in, later on, more and more people are asking that if they could add things that the other people are interested in. as time passed, more and more categories are being added to the list. They were able a huge list, at the right time and in the right place. The VC’s notice what Jerry and David was doing. Companies like LA Times, AOL, Microsoft and many others want them to join their companies. Then Jerry and David thought that their project can be not just a hobby but also a business. So they decided to turn hobby into a business. They weren’t taking the money that the other companies are offering. Then Tim Brady decided to help them in making a business plan.

            As time passed, Yahoo becomes popular. Jerry and David decided to improve Yahoo. They put graphics on it at the same time they also put up advertising. During the time when the company was growing, Jerry and David were having a hard time in managing it so they search for someone to be the CEO. After 6 months if searching, they get Tim Koogle to become the CEO, Jerry and David had tough time convincing people to join Yahoo. They hired a lot of friends but then realized that it was a bad idea because people weren’t interest about where the Internet was going. They were just looking for something interesting that they can do so they decided to join Yahoo.

            Yahoo grows bigger and bigger. During the time when the Prime Minister of Israel, Rabin, got shot. Jerry and David thought of putting news on the front page. They think that Yahoo is not only a search engine but also a public service in some ways. They use the site to find things on the web and use it to communicate news. Eventually people who are using Yahoo are overwhelmed by it.

            This story taught us three things. First, hobby can be a business. Just look at what Jerry and David were able to do. At first they were just collecting interesting things in the Internet then it became a big thing later on. Second, they are not saying that going into a business with friends is really a bad idea. But we just have to choose the right person whom we are going with. Lastly, we should not think that one problem can make your company fall. Maybe if you didn’t take action in fixing it, it would really make your company fall. Take the problem as a challenge for you to work hard and improve the things you’ve done.

LIM, MARYLYN GRACE C.

OOA

            Research in Motion or also known as RIM was one of the first companies to appreciate the importance of wireless networks. RIM was founded by Mike Lazaridis. One of RIM’s projects was a local area network that ran industrial displays. In 1997, RIM becomes the most admired technology company because he was able to see the potential of mobile email and he was able to a build it and it is being use by Blackberry.

            During the third year of Mike Lazaridis’ college days, he had been doing computer programming contract work to earn some money to pay for college, then on his fourth year in college, before he graduate, he start his own company. He was able to get a contract that made him so busy that’s why he needs to take a leave of absence from school.

            Mike Lazaridis and Dong Fregin started RIM. They got a $600,000 contract with General Motors, because they were able to fix a problem that not any other companies could do. The early days of RIM weren’t that pretty good. They are worrying about paying the rent. After they heard about the grant from the Canadian government, they started applying for it.

            Mike Lazaridis thought of wireless date technology when he was at a conference and someone was talking about putting a wireless data system for Coca-cola. After hearing the story about the wireless data system, Mike thought that it would be an interesting project. Maybe he was lucky during that time when he was just in the right place at the right time when he had received a contract at that point because of his interest.

Cantel was talking about a system that they bought called Mobitex. It was a wireless date system, and they needed someone to make it work. I can say that Mike Lazaridis was very lucky at that period of time. Mike’s team were able to write the first wireless protocol software, application programming interface (API). This became a turning point to RIM because no one knew about wireless data.

            Another turning point of RIM was that Mike Lazaridis was able to write a program for Blackberry. Blackberry became an interactive pager. They were also able to build an advance pager. This advance pager does look like a pager and has a size of a pager; it even operates like a pager, but the only difference is that the advanced pager is a full-blown two-way email terminal.

That was the time when Blackberry became a pager. So people thought that they needed one of those things. People found it very useful because they could send message as well as receive it. Because of RIM, Blackberry became one of the all-time most famous brands worldwide.

            At first, I didn’t know what is RIM? And what is it all about? But after reading the story, I learned that RIM, specifically Mike Lazaridis was responsible for making Blackberry the famous brands world-wide. I also learned that in making a project, first you should have a vision on what’s going to happen in the future and you should also have faith on it. You should have believed that someday your project is going to happen and it’s going to have a value or it is going to be useful to other people. Just like what Mike Lazaridis said, “It’s a combination of vision and faith.”

LIM, MARYLYN GRACE C.

OOA

            Marimba is a software distribution company that was founded by Arthur van Hoff. But before Arthur van Hoff was able to found Marimba, he was part of the Java development team at Sun Microsystems. The other cofounders of Marimba were his fellow developers from the Java team, Sami Shaio, Jonathan Payne and Kim Poles which was the Java’s product manager. Marimba received lots of attention and the company had more than 300 employees back then. By 2002 Arthur van Hoff left the company and started another start up which was the Strangeberry.

            This startup started when Jonathan Payne left Sun Microsystems. Arthur tried to convince him to come back, Jonathan said that he don’t know if he’ll be coming back. But he suggests that he will do a startup with Arthur. They decided to make a startup even though they don’t have any idea on what project they are going to do. What they just did was that they find place to make it as an office where they will be working.

            The first year of the company was self-funded. The first project they try build was a user interface builder but another company was doing the same thing as theirs and that company was acquired by Netscape. After knowing it, they stop their project.

            After what happened, they decided that they will focus on software distribution. They came up with the idea for subscription-based software wherein users don’t need to buy the software, they could just subscribe to it and they will get updates automatically. So they announced it to the press that they were doing software distribution, but another problem came out. PointCast had some similarities to what Marimba was doing and they were immediately filed under “push”. So they have to explain to the people why they weren’t a push company. Eventually, they were able to fix the problem.

            There was a point wherein the company gets bigger. It grew from 0 to 300 people that it just becomes a management problem. Kim was replaced by John Olsen who has experience running a company. He was able to make decisions that were very hard for Arthur to make.

            They got funding of $4 million from Klein Perkins and another funding from Java. Mike wanted to use the money to buy an espresso machine but the lawyer wouldn’t allow it. Few weeks later, there are people who had been working for many years started quitting their jobs and Mike had a hard time in hiring people. Mike was so desperate about buying an espresso machine, so they bought one. After they bought the espresso machine, everybody’s spirits were lighten up. And everyday people would crowd around it.

            This story tells us three things. First, in management, it is hard to manage hundreds of people and it’s difficult to motivate them. Second, business is not just a business-related expense. You should have an environment that you like and that your people are happy and also they would feel that they are being valued. Lastly, in doing a startup, you shouldn’t expect too much that in just a first try your business would already succeed. Whether your startup succeeds or fails, you should have fun while doing it. Enjoy the things you are doing, don’t just be a business minded person, you’ll become successful if that is really the right time for you to succeed.