Comments on: Are You a Seesmic or Balsamiq Entrepreneur?

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[...]Are You a Seesmic or Balsamiq Entrepreneur? | Bits And Buzz, by @JeremyChone[...]…

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By: Jeremy Chone

Jeremy Chone — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:09:55 +0000

@PamLMartin, yes, this is my feeling as well, the scale first seems to be build to flip ventures, and it is much more of a probability game.

By: PamLMartin

PamLMartin — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:54:27 +0000

Having grown up in the bay area in the 90s, I have to say that those people that focused on the monetize first business model found the success they were looking for in the end. It might have taken multiple times, but eventually they found a good income. However, those that went from next big thing to next big thing are still jumping around, looking for the next ‘quick’ money, 10 years later (gee, not so quick then, is it?).

By: Serge

Serge — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:42:11 +0000

Hi, i liked Balsamiq example. Simple and profitable product – mockup… people need it, people like it.

By: SoftWave » Šeširi i poslovni modeli

SoftWave » Šeširi i poslovni modeli — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:58:58 +0000

[...] drugom mjestu, Jeremy Cherone pita svoje čitatelje Are You a Seesmic or Balsamiq Entrepreneur? Seesmic i Balsamiq su dva startupa, u podjednakoj fazi razvoja ali i s vrlo različitim pristupom; [...]

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Personal Growth and Improvement — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:42:22 +0000

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By: Cristi

Cristi — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:03:57 +0000

Thanks for this informative post,still some things i don’t understand because of my low english level but i’m working on that..

By: gilcatt

gilcatt — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:10:01 +0000

@Ray Good point. I was precisely thinking about broadcast.com and how Mark Cuban pulled it big, barely a year after its hugely successful IPO & just months before streaming technology went mainstream, pushing down costs & reducing Yahoo’s investment of $5.7 billion to zilch. Most blatant “market false positive” ever? (To be honest, Yahoo never quite knew what to do with their biggest acquisition.)

Mark (and Todd Wagner, the founder) got lucky yet another time: Yahoo’s stock almost tripled in value between April ‘99 and January ‘00. Seismic.

Meanwhile Tim Koogle played guitar in Yahoo!’s ‘99 annual report [http://tiny.cc/Lk5sI](so ‘90ish… worth a look for the design itself.)

By: Loic

Loic — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:53:01 +0000

very good point. I was the head of Six Apart Europe when Wordpress launched. Typepad 100% paying against Wordpress free, so I know the topic a little bit. Fascinating debate. Let’s make all the Twitter apps paying tomorrow and be Balsamiq, will make my day.

By: How to Find a Business Model for Your Startup - The Netsetter

How to Find a Business Model for Your Startup - The Netsetter — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:28:15 +0000

[...] his post Are you a Seesmic or Balsamiq Entrepreneur, blogger Jeremy Chone gives a good roundup of the pros and cons of both these approaches, using two [...]

By: Jeremy Chone

Jeremy Chone — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:26:20 +0000

@Vasudev Ram, ok, very good point. I think there are different scale of scale. In the monetize-first case, I would agree that Growth is a more appropriate description. And yes, at some point it will plateau (either by design or by the market dynamics).

By: Jeremy Chone

Jeremy Chone — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:09:34 +0000

@John Prendergast, yes, you have a good point, not every entrepreneur wants an exit, especially, the "monetize-first" type. I did update the post with a reference to your comment. Also, very good link your shared about the good venture return (http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/03/what-is-a-good-venture-return.html), I like the 1/3 angle.

By: Vasudev Ram

Vasudev Ram — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:58:24 +0000

Nice balanced post.

I disagree with this part near the start of the post, though:

“Any organization needs to eventually do both”

Why do you assume that? Specifically, those words sound as if you think an organization (i.e. entrepreneur, in this case) *needs* to scale. What’s wrong with growing a company to a certain level and then staying at roughly that level of revenue and profit? It’s likely many or even the majority of businesses do that. Not everyone needs to or wishes to becomes a Google or a Yahoo! or a Microsoft. And they can still make a good living for themselves and their employees.

- Vasudev

By: MICHELN

MICHELN — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:19:12 +0000

Scale first strategy in a post web 2.0 bubble is a very risky stratégy because of not exit opportunity. Traditional media have no cash to play the game anymore.

By: John Prendergast

John Prendergast — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:17:58 +0000

Jeremy,

Great post, clear thinking as always. I think one interesting facet of the distinction you make here is that its not at all clear that the profit first company ever needs or wants an exit. While obvious, its because its often absurdly financially rewarding for the founders to simply run the business.

Using Balsamiq (I’m a customer and love it) as an example, as the business scales to $1M then $5M costs will increase but the margins will usually expand. Often you get to a point where the business has a 30-40% Cash flow margin. At $5m that’s $2M pretax to the owners and its often %100 percent the founders. That’s a heck of a lifestyle!

One additional thought is that Fred Wilson the VC had a good posting on what makes for a good venture return. Its nuanced and dead on with every early stage VC I know. http://tinyurl.com/d8gawb

By: Jeremy Chone

Jeremy Chone — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:47:40 +0000

@Alain ho yes, does not have to be one-man show to be a “monetize-first”. And yes, I would not recommend anyone to start alone. I did it once, it is extremely hard. The first focus should be to build and sale, then, later is to market and grow.

By: Alain Raynaud

Alain Raynaud — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:31:18 +0000

Excellent post, I like the points you make.

I do think the one-man company example is a little bit extreme, there are many successfully bootstrapped businesses out there that have 3-5 people. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to start a business alone, that’s for sure!

As usual, the right answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. If you don’t have enough ambition, your company will remain a minor project. If your ego is too large, you won’t notice that you aren’t solving a real problem.

By: Jeremy Chone

Jeremy Chone — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:26:53 +0000

@Peldi, tx for dropping by. Thanks for the link too, very relevant.

BTW, Balsamiq Mockup is gaining ground. Great job, keep at it!

By: Peldi Guilizzoni

Peldi Guilizzoni — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:12:56 +0000

Hi Jeremy, wow thanks so much for using my little startup as an example! It took me a while to figure out where I had read a similar article years ago, but I just found it: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html – so if I’m like Ben & Jerry, you’re definitely like Joel Spolsky! ;)