Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Creative destruction on a small scale

Findory has a few paragraphs in an article in the Wall Street Journal today, "When a Tech Start-Up's Dreams Turn Prosaic" (subscription required).

Excerpts on Findory:
The absence of many tech IPOs in recent years also means the financial fallout and public awareness of start-up disappointments will be more limited. Findory.com Inc. shows just how quiet and contained the disappointments can be.

Former Amazon.com [employee] Greg Linden launched the Web personalization start-up in January 2004. User traffic to the site, which recommended content to users based on the Web sites they visited, doubled each quarter for the first two years until it began to plateau in early 2006, increasing only about 5% quarterly. Mr. Linden couldn't persuade venture capitalists to fund the company so it could make a major marketing push to reach more consumers.

While he could have continued to finance the site himself with the help of ad revenue, he wasn't excited about the business opportunities such as licensing the Findory technology to other firms. "When you start a company around this Google-size vision, it's hard to be really passionate about switching to that," says Mr. Linden.

In January, he announced he would stop working on Findory and let the site run on autopilot for awhile before shutting it down. But repercussions are limited: Mr. Linden was the only Findory employee [by that point] ... "This is kind of creative destruction on a small scale," he says.
See also my Jan 2007 post, "Findory rides into the sunset".

See also my post, "Starting Findory: In the beginning", that discusses the motivation behind creating Findory.

5 comments:

Isaacy said...

So what's your next plan Greg? Will you continue to blog or is starting another project soon?

Anonymous said...

"When you start a company around this Google-size vision, it's hard to be really passionate about switching to that," says Mr. Linden.

I love your passion, Greg!

Anonymous said...

Yes Greg, what 山宗原人 said - what's next? Are you gong to let Findory just sit there? Why not sell it?

amckinnis said...

Greg - got to admit, it's been awhile since I read through the blog. Hate to hear about Findory - it's the toughest thing to do - but all roads have curves, ups and downs.

So really, answer the question - what's next - the passion has to have an outlet. Hell, you could do something wild - outrageous - uncalled for - just keep the passion alive.

RobotsThink said...

Hey Greg, we are all waiting to hear ... what's next ? whats new in ur mind ?