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Dotcom Business Plan Archive Open for Business

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the recipes-for-disaster dept.

prostoalex writes "The next time you launch a huge online enterprise designed to cash out on Nasdaq IPO, it might be worth to check the Dotcom Business Plan Archive, MSNBC warns. David A. Kirsch, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland, is collecting dotcom business plans and stories about creative destruction. Alas, both archives require free registration. There have been other attempts at creating such a collection."

5 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Not much of an archive by satans_advocate · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, unlike others who scrambled to get first post, I went and had a look at the archive.

    Errm... it's a bunch of business names with a "submit information on this company" button next to them. So I did another search for listings with multiple documents and finally found a business plan after the tenth company I looked at which was Artex.com, business plan here.

    Looking at the executive summary, these guys planned to take a $20M investment and be generating $136M in revenues in two years. Ah, the hubris of those great days would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

    Anyways, so they planned to spend $3.5M on hardware/hosting/etc, $3.5M the guys actually doing the software development and $11.5M on the marketroids to sell the idea (and presumably the artwork). No doubt the marketing guys were being paid 3 times the software developers also.

    Is software development it's own reward? Do marketing people get paid a lot to compensate them for their frivolous job and their vapourous life?

    1. Re:Not much of an archive by Zangief · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You are right, but there is a problem. In this case, the marketing guys took the $11M, said "Sure, we can sell this, leave it to us, we know better", and let the company sunk, and went to the bank laughing all the way.

      An ethical professional would have said "You know, this business will die, horribly. Selling catfood through the internet isn't going to work, at least not today. Keep your millions, this advice will cost you $X thousands dollars".

      The IT guys couldn't know this. It isn't their work. But it was the work of the marketroids. So, at least these people had frivolous job and vapourous life.

    2. Re:Not much of an archive by Zangief · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, of course today it looks stupid, because today we know what happened. But back in the day, some people (of course the minority), MUST have realized what was going on.

      In fact, Paul Graham did realize that Yahoo stock(which had employed him) was priced waaaay above reality. And acted accordingly. He sold his stock, and told his friends to do the same.

      He was a programmer. Yes, he had a lot of business vision. But the market guys should have had a lot more of this than him. It was their fricking job.

  2. Former professor by LeiGong · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I atteneded an undergraduate entrepreneurship class at UMD's Smith School taught by Dr. Kirsch. He's a great professor and is very passionate about archiving the .COM history. He used a lot of these business plans as part of his class. For each lecture we would do a case study of successful companies like Starbucks and many unsuccessful businesses. I must of read over a dozen business plans and case studies as part of his course. I think this resource is great for business professors and MBA students studying entrepreneurship. It showed the businesses that turned out to be failures were the ones that wrote the business plans to find money but didn't bother to follow through on it. The successful businesses were the ones that stuck to the original plan (assuming it was a good plan) and used it as a roadmap. You would be surprised by how many companies used astronomical figures like "$15 billion industry by 2005, with only a 1% market share..." Looking back at articles written in the 90's about rejected business plans, it made sense that so many were rejected... Business school and intro business/marketing classes should be required to teach these business plans as part of the ciriculum.

  3. startup.com by hrm · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Reminds me of a great documentary, startup.com, about a dot.com that wanted to do something or other that would make tons of money.

    So many funny and tragic things happened there that to this day I'm not entirely convinced that it isn't a mockumentary a la Spinal Tap.

    For us in old Europe it was a double treat, because we'd get to experience both the dot.com madness, as well as the "standard" American business practices, like the "Monday morning shout" and other weird (for us) motivational stuff.

    Definitely check this documentary out if you haven't already.