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Seed capitalism (economist.com)
21 points by moog on March 12, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments



This is a great article. Two key points for consumer oriented startups: it always takes longer and foolproof is hard to do. Key paragraphs:

[T]wo other key characteristics of the successful entrepreneur: persistence and perfectionism. Mr Bissonette had expected to have the new product on the market within a year to 18 months. In the end, it took four years.

Experience had taught Mr Bissonette that “when you launch a new category, you make one mistake and it could be your last chance.” So each new version of AeroGrow's kitchen garden was tested to destruction with people whose fingers were anything but green. “We kept building the best system we could, watched how people would kill their plants, and changed it so they couldn’t kill their plants that way any more,” says John Thompson, AeroGrow's marketing director.


Great article. This reminds me of the Excite team, after the 6 of them graduated from Stanford, they decided to start a company simply because they want to pursue entrepreneurship, without even having an idea of what they will be doing.

I think it's important to show that entrepreneurship succeeds when you are persistence, have a strong drive to succeed, and have the determination... rather than how media portrait it as random luck (ex. Founder x first started the company because he couldn't find something that does y)


In Triumph of the Nerds, a great feel-good movie for Internet startups, there is a nice time capsule vignette of the founders of Excite, when the company was just getting started.

In Bob Cringely's documentary. Joe Kraus and Graham (the other co-founder) are interviewed while working in someone's basement. They're sitting in near darkness, illuminated by the glow of multiple workstations. In this brief vignette, they both exude confidence. Joe Kraus, dressed in jeans, seems to be very entreprenurial charismatic. Graham reminds me of a young Bill Gates and demonstrates Architext's technology on Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Later, in the documentary, several months or a year later, Bob Cringley goes to visit the massive brand new, post-VC offices of excite.com. Graham and Joe lead Bob on a tour - and you can see that the founders are still very much the same people - humble but world-affecting ambitious.


Thanks for that. I will definitely check it out.

I read about Excite's early days in Founders at Work.




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