[iDC] Will you delete your Feedburner account?
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten
boris at fleck.com
Sat Jun 9 09:22:45 EDT 2007
Hello all,
Before I make my point first a short introduction. My name is Boris
Veldhuijzen van Zanten. I'm an entrepreneur from Amsterdam, The
Netherlands. My company Meganova works like an old-fashioned
incubator but without much money. I started several companies and
sold 2 of them. I'm also the organizer of The Next Web Conference and
a founder of Fleck.com.
I find it hard not to feel attacked when I read some of the comments
on this list. I am one of those 'greedy' people who only wants to
sell out. There is no need to apologize for this, I'm actually proud
of being able to start innovative companies, grow them from nothing
to something and then step aside when the moment (and the number) is
right.
One of my investors is a turn-around manager. If a big company is in
trouble they invite him for a few years to make everything work
again. This is what he does and he is good at it. He is not
incompetent because he can't start a company and is good in one
aspect of running a company; the near end of its life-cycle.
I'm the opposite. I come in when there is nothing there and then
build something new. It is what I am good at and it is what I love
doing.
Big companies are not good at innovation. They lack entrepreneurial
spirit. (see this post on a story about that: http://blog.fleck.com/
2006/01/29/the-truth-behind-the-flickr-and-delicious-acquisition/)
Small entrepreneurs often lack scale and infrastructure. They are
often frustrated about this and deny this fact which leads to
seemingly innovative products we all love to hate.
So this is the game we all play: young entrepreneurs innovate and
build companies. Big companies pay those entrepreneurs for the
innovative work they did. And they pay well. If they wouldn't pay
well it would be less interesting to start innovative businesses. And
since most start-ups fail the reward must be big to attract enough
entrepreneurs and make up for all the failed businesses.
Yes, I'm an entrepreneur.
Yes I'm in it for the money.
No, I'm not ashamed of that.
And to finally answer Geerts question:
On 9-jun-2007, at 11:24, Geert Lovink wrote:
> Selling out seems to be the default in the
> Web 2.0 area. The question is why.
Selling out has always been and will always be the default. It is
just one of three possible exits for a start-up: bankruptcy, IPO or
acquisition.
Craigslist is simply the exception that confirms the rule*.
So please DON'T delete your Feedburner account and just be happy that
you witnessed a natural phenomena and congratulate the founders.
Hopefully they will go and invent a new innovative company and sell
that to another big company soon.
Sincerely,
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten
boris at bomega.com
http://www.bomega.com -> Blog
* = http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-exc1.htm
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