Startup Review
Jumpstart Automotive Case Study: blueprint for a vertical ad network
Jumpstart Automotive Media is a vertical advertising network focused on the automotive market. The company represents automotive web publishers for advertising sales and offers a suite of services for advertisers and publishers around that core business. Vertical advertising networks have received significant attention and investment recently, so Jumpstart’s story is timely. The […] [Link]
StepUp Commerce: subscription model for early market
Many consumer Internet companies leverage the scale of the internet to offer cost savings over local brick-and-mortar businesses. StepUp Commerce instead uses the interactivity of the Internet to help local businesses compete against internet companies and big-box retailers. Likening itself to an internet-era yellow pages, StepUp helps local retail businesses increase visibility and […] [Link]
Wallstrip Case Study: Delivering content where it is consumed
Why profiled on Startup Review Wallstrip, which produces short online video pieces covering stocks, is a fascinating and unusual business. Born of the blogosphere, founded by a venture capitalist who says he never intended to run it as a long-term business, funded with seed capital and sold less than a year later, the company fairly […] [Link]
Flektor Case Study: Counter to prevailing Web 2.0 wisdom
Flektor is a unified suite of tools that enables users to create, manage, and share personal media across a variety of Internet sites. The service can best be compared to Slide and RockYou, but with a more powerful toolset for content creation, like video and photo editing tools. Users create “fleks” - photobooks, […] [Link]
Key success factors for Facebook apps
Like everyone else these days, I have been thinking a lot about Facebook and the F8 application platform. I thought I would share some of my research notes here, but this was not meant to be an exhaustive analysis. As of this writing, there were 18 Facebook apps (not developed by Facebook) having 1M or […] [Link]
LoopNet Case Study: Partnerships build data asset
Why profiled on Startup Review Loopnet is a leading online marketplace for real estate brokers, agents, buyers, and investors to sell and buy property. Founded in 1995, the company IPO’d in 2006 and has grown to feature more than $408 billion in properties for sale and 3.2 billion square feet of space for lease as of […] [Link]
How to work with imperfect timing – an Elance example
Rare companies like YouTube show what happens when entrepreneurs stumble on the right idea at just the right time, but I suspect that most companies miss the time window slightly and have to adjust. Elance is an interesting study in how to adapt when the market isn’t ready. Elance is an online agency that matches […] [Link]
Reddit Case Study: How personality impacts product success
Why profiled on Startup Review Reddit is a social news site that was launched in June 2005. As of April 2007, Reddit is generating ~170,000 unique visitors and 1.9M page views per day. The company was acquired by Conde Nast Publications in October 2006 for an undisclosed sum. Reddit is thus far the […] [Link]
eCrush Case Study: Why timing the M&A market is tricky
Why profiled on Startup Review The eCrush network is comprised of several major sites (ecrush.com, espinthebottle.com, and highschoolstyleboard.com) that offer flirting, matchmaking, quizzes, romantic content and social networking type features to teenagers (age 13-19). The sites receive over 1 million unique visitors per month, and rank as the 10th largest dating site in the US […] [Link]
YouTube Case Study: Widget marketing comes of age
This week’s case study was co-authored by guest writers Deepak Thomas and Vineet Buch. Deepak is an MBA student at the University of Chicago. He previously worked at Oracle for 10 years in engineering and product management roles. He is currently looking for summer internship opportunities at early-stage Venture Capital firms. He may be reached […] [Link]
HotJobs Case Study: Vertical market entry strategy the key
Why profiled on Startup Review HotJobs is a consumer facing online job search engine and back-end system that provides tools for employers to post, track, and manage job openings. Founded in 1996, the site grew to become the #2 job board when it was acquired by Yahoo! for $460M in 2001. By that time […] [Link]
MyBlogLog Case Study: Product progression and the widget
Why profiled on Startup Review MyBlogLog was launched as a blog analytics service in March 2005, but became popular by creating online communities around specific blogs. MyBlogLog enables bloggers to connect with their readers on a more personal level by building profiles of readers and connecting them via social networking features. As of February […] [Link]
Announcing new Startup Review authors: Jay Parkhill and Rob Finn
I am pleased to announce the addition of my new co-authors for Startup Review, Jay Parkhill and Rob Finn. I will continue to author case studies on Startup Review, but will now be splitting the workload with Jay and Rob. From time to time, you may also see case studies being contributed by […] [Link]
Jumpcut Case Study: Blueprint for a product acquisition
Why profiled on Startup Review Jumpcut is an online community for video creators. Jumpcut provides free video editing tools that let consumers upload short video segments and edit them online to add music and effects. Its Flash-based tools attracted immediate attention in the blogosphere and from consumers, resulting in the company’s acquisition by Yahoo! […] [Link]
Top 7 indicators of consumer Internet success
A few weeks ago, Tom Shields of Woodside Fund contributed a post to VentureBeat listing his criteria for investment in a Web 2.0 company. This spurred me to write an alternative version based on the recurring themes that we have seen through the case studies on Startup Review. I would encourage you to […] [Link]
Betfair Case Study: Target a niche and expand
Why profiled on Startup Review Betfair is one of the largest Internet success stories that few of us in the US know much about. This is because Betfair is a UK-based company that operates the world’s largest online betting exchange and does not accept bets from US consumers. Betfair completed a financing in April […] [Link]
Marchex Case Study: Execution rather than innovation
Why profiled on Startup Review Marchex is an online marketing services firm, offering merchant advertisers a mix of performance-based advertising and search-oriented services. Marchex has emerged as a leader in the direct navigation market with its purchase of Name Development Ltd. in February 2005 for $164M. Marchex was founded about four years ago and […] [Link]
Grouper Case Study: Dual go to market strategy pays off
Note from Nisan Gabbay: This week’s case study was authored by Jay Parkhill, who will be a regular contributor to Startup Review. Jay is an attorney who serves as “outsourced general counsel” to growth-oriented businesses. You can read more about him on his website and blog. Why profiled on Startup Review Grouper Networks is the developer […] [Link]
Startup Review analysis featured on Mashable
This week I have published a blog post as a guest author on Mashable. The title of the blog post is “How to Have an Overnight Internet Success Story” and it discusses some of the common themes I have seen across Startup Review case studies for how to gain broad consumer adoption of a consumer […] [Link]
April 5th, 2007 at 12:56 am
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