Kontra, You are confusing the company and the product. You are further confusing getting rich, with profit. And the discussion was centered upon profit as a measure of success. I can not for the life of me see how you could consider either a product, or a company successful without some sort of revenue generation or profit metric.
Yes, you would certainly consider their 'business plan' a success if the end goal or exit strategy was to be aquired and for the owners/investors to bank some cash. But that's not what we are talking about here. Mark On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 3:27 PM, Kontra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> If the end game for the investors is merely further investment, yes they >> can cash out... but this is pretty similar to a pyramid scheme. > > > A company gets "investments" throughout its lifecycle, from angels to IPO to > acquisition to bonds. It makes no sense to classify a need or desire to get > "investment" as a pyramid scheme. Are you saying Skype is/was a pyramid > scheme because they sold to eBay? Even if the "scheme" of the founders and > shareholders were to sell their company to a larger entity as soon as they > can? > > >> If all that really happens is the final round of investors pay a lot for >> company that provides no end user value, then the company would hardly be >> considered a success. > > > If a company pays too much, that's their problem. Nobody holds a gun to > their head. One way to make a company attractive to potential investors, > acquirers, IPO, etc is to make it provide good customer value -- a built-in, > countervailing force. > > >> And we are talking about the success of the company, not the profiteering >> of the founders. >> > > When has investors getting a return on their investments become > "profiteering"? > > -- > Kontra > http://counternotions.com > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
