Yet the history of small Internet companies being snapped up by large ones isn’t pretty. Just in the past few months, eBay has had to unload both StumbleUpon (the Web recommendations engine it bought in 2007 for $75 million) as well as the Internet-phone service Skype (purchased in 2005 for $3.1 billion), each for a loss. Yahoo is looking to rid itself of several properties, including Zimbra, the email company it snapped up in 2007 for $350 million. FeedBurner, Jaiku, and Dodgeball are only a few of the startups languishing in obscurity under the Googleplex.
Tag: entrepreneurs
Hard Work’s Overrated, Maybe Detrimental. | Design & Innovation | Fast Company
A co-founder of Flickr argues that hard work often doesn’t amount to much–and neuroscience offers some backing for the claim.
Caterina Fake, who, with her husband Stewart Butterfield, founded Flickr, knows a thing or two about bliztkreig work schedules. But she points out that late nights are seldom very useful in the grand scheme of things. Hard work?
Small business rivals band together to boost business | CNNMoney.com
When Christine Saun
ders saw her Southern California floral design company’s revenue dip last fall as the economy sputtered, she realized that creating products for do-it-yourself brides might spur sales. But the owner of The Spiraled Stem Floral Design didn’t want to carry the expense and burden of treading into this unfamiliar market alone.
Brand Makeovers: 3 Lessons in Reinvention – Reinventing Your Brand | Entrepreneur.com
“You need a brand makeover when the marketplace tells you so directly: Sales are slowing and market share is shrinking,” Adamson says. “But it’s often too late to change things when they are really off. You have to catch it just at the tipping point when things are going great, but the increases are diminishing and momentum is giving out.”
Detroit’s jobless economy: Start-ups take root | CNNMoney
Detroit, long depressed by the collapse of the auto industry, is beginning to reinvent itself.
