F'D Companies (eBook)

Spectacular Dot-com Flameouts

Philip J. Kaplan (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2002 | 1. Auflage
204 Seiten
Simon & Schuster (Verlag)
978-0-7432-3543-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Not long ago, the world was awash with venture capital in search of the next Yahoo! or Amazon.com. No product, no experience, no technology, no business plan -- no problem. You could still get $40 million from investors to start up your dot-com. And you could get people to work around the clock for stock options and the promise of millions. Then, around April 2000, it all came crashing down.

Smart investors, esteemed analysts, and the business press found themselves asking:

• Who knew people wouldn't rush out to trade in their U.S. dollars for a virtual currency called Flooz?

• Who knew people wouldn't blow all their Flooz on a used car from the guys at iMotors.com?

• And who needed a used car from iMotors.com when they could just sit at home and have 40-lb. bags of dog food delivered to them by a sock puppet?

F'd Companies captures the waste, greed, and human stupidity of more than 100 dot-com companies. Written in Philip J. Kaplan's popular, cynical style, these profiles are filled with colorful anecdotes, factoids, and information unavailable anywhere else. Together they form a gleeful encyclopedia of how not to run a business. They also capture a truly remarkable period of history.

F'd Companies is required reading for everyone involved in the 'new economy' -- assuming your severance check can cover the cost.

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Not long ago, the world was awash with venture capital in search of the next Yahoo! or Amazon.com. No product, no experience, no technology, no business plan -- no problem. You could still get $40 million from investors to start up your dot-com. And you could get people to work around the clock for stock options and the promise of millions. Then, around April 2000, it all came crashing down. Smart investors, esteemed analysts, and the business press found themselves asking: Who knew people wouldn't rush out to trade in their U.S. dollars for a virtual currency called Flooz? Who knew people wouldn't blow all their Flooz on a used car from the guys at iMotors.com? And who needed a used car from iMotors.com when they could just sit at home and have 40-lb. bags of dog food delivered to them by a sock puppet? F'd Companies captures the waste, greed, and human stupidity of more than 100 dot-com companies. Written in Philip J. Kaplan's popular, cynical style, these profiles are filled with colorful anecdotes, factoids, and information unavailable anywhere else. Together they form a gleeful encyclopedia of how not to run a business. They also capture a truly remarkable period of history. F'd Companies is required reading for everyone involved in the "e;new economy"e; -- assuming your severance check can cover the cost.

Textauszug

Introduction

So a bunch of Internet companies went bust...You may think I'm pretty arrogant for claiming to know what their problems were without knowing the first thing about them. And you're probably right. Honestly, I made all this shit up...Okay book over stop reading now.

The End

Still, hindsight is 20-20, right?

I mean, who could have guessed that people wouldn't pay big money to read amateur investment advice from complete strangers? (See iExchange.com)

Who could have known that we wouldn't rush to trade in our U.S. currency for Flooz?

Who knew that consumers wouldn't put a $500 device called 'evil' in their kitchens? (See E Villa)

And incubators? (See CampSix)

Why'd They Fail?

Ask an ex-employee and he'll probably blame management.

Ask management and they'll likely blame the economy.

The economy? MORE VENTURE CAPITAL WAS GIVEN OUT DURING THE FEW YEARS IN WHICH THESE COMPANIES WERE FOUNDED THAN IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF AMERICA. BUSINESSES AND CONSUMERS WERE SPENDING RECORD AMOUNTS AND INTERNET USAGE SURPASSED ALMOST ALL PREDICTIONS.

Sure the economy got all fucked up (I'm a financial whiz as you can tell...). But it wasn't due to something that happened -- rather, it was due to a lot of things that didn't happen. We didn't turn off our radios. We didn't abandon our TVs. We still go outside to shop most of the time (except me -- i don't wear pants).

We laughed at Flooz.

We thought the sock puppet was annoying.

So Then, Why'd They Fail (Part II)?

If run properly, many of these companies could have made it as small, successful businesses. Thing is, 'small' wasn't in their vocabulary. You'll find specifics in the rest of this book.

But in general......

Too early, too late, too expensive, too cheap, too big, too much competition, too much supply, not enough demand...and okay maybe a bit because of management...twenty-something Banana-Republic-khaki-pant-wearing Gap-blue-shirt-sporting Stanford-MBA-having Boxster-driving day-trading choad-smoking secretary-ass-palming CEOs.

But we won't discuss them. Nope. I really just wrote that cuz I wanted to use the word 'ass-palming.'

What Is Ass-Palming?

Far as I can tell, it's like 'palming' a basketball -- gripping it firmly with one hand. But with ass.

Who Is This Dipshit?

I'm not an analyst, I'm not an investor, I'm not an executive. I'm a computer programmer. I'm that dude at your office in the dark cubicle who nobody listens or pays attention to (especially the hotties in marketing).

On the Internet (yeah I'm cool like that), I go by 'Pud.' I was thinking about making Pud the official author of this book but then I remembered my main motivation for writing it -- hanging out in the bookstore picking up chicks.

'Hey waddaya know, they have MY BOOK here. Yes, I wrote it. Uh huh it's true. Now come home with me you MINX.'

'You're 'Pud'?'

So now I'm 'Philip J. Kaplan.' I put the middle initial in there not only cuz I'm a huge Family Ties fan, but also because there's apparently some dude who writes World War II novels named Philip Kaplan.

...although come to think of it, he prolly scores tons of ass with that stuff...oh well too late to change now (as I write this, this book is already for sale on Amazon -- it even says how many pages it's gonna be. Miss Cleo must work there.)

Wha? oh yeah.

Fuckedcompany.com

In May of 2000 I built a website called Fuckedcompany.com. That was just around the time when tech markets started to go south. One month earlier, April 2000, is the month generally associated with being the start of...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.4.2002
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Marketing / Vertrieb
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Wirtschaftsinformatik
• ISBN-10: 0-7432-3543-6 / 0743235436
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-3543-3 / 9780743235433