History of Famous Startups

History of Famous Startups http://startuphistory.ru/ StartUp, бизнес ru Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:00:32 -0800 http://startuphistory.ru/rss bookCMS Инвестиции http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/investicii

Большинство людей хотя бы раз в жизни мечтали о дополнительном источнике заработка, особенно в условиях, когда банально зарплаты не хватает, приходится как-то крутиться, копить не получается, остается потуже затянуть пояс и ждать следующей зарплаты. Можно прибегнуть к поиску дополнительного заработка, одним из таких видов является заработок через сеть интернет. Конечно, пользователи с опаской относятся к такому способу зарабатывания денег, думая, что их обязательно обманут. Если рассмотреть шире, то это является чистой правдой, большинство контор, которые обещают огромные барыши с ваших вкладов, могут исчезнуть с вашими деньгами, так и не рассчитавшись. Это обидно, поэтому на объявления типа 5000 долларов за день,...

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/investicii Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:00:32 -0800 like that at http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/like_that_at like that at all.
I’d be the one to call up and apologize, and that was just part of the job.
Most people were very reasonable, and they would understand—things go
wrong. I would use the analogy of a cell phone (that was when cell phones were
really getting hot). I’d say, “Look, we’ve all got cell phones or car phones.
Sometimes they just screw up and they go wrong. And this is the same kind of
stuff; this is pretty advanced technology and sometimes things go wrong.”
But we did occasionally lose a client that was just irrational, saying,...

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/like_that_at Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:40:36 -0700 breed of cat http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/breed_of_cat breed of cat in financial services. We were a technology company providing
great service to public companies. So we were always viewed as a technologist
kind of company, and many companies liked that. Some didn’t like that so
much. But that was our niche. That was our differentiation. We understood
technology better.
Livingston: Who did you learn from? Did you have any mentors?
Gruner: I had several. I tried to learn and listen to them. The whole founding
group at Data General were really smart people. There were four founders
there: Ed de Castro, who was the president, who was…

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/breed_of_cat Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:40:36 -0700 didn’t want to http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/didnt_want_to didn’t want to sell the company to somebody that was going to disembowel it.
So that’s why, when we had an offer from NASDAQ—and we had a couple
of offers from them; I can’t talk too specifically about it—we felt that it was the
right strategy. We’ve known the people for a long time; we’ve had marketing
relationships with them; they’re going into corporate services and they’re very
sincere about that. They want to use Shareholder.com as the foundation for
building their corporate services. They’re keeping the name. The valuation was
right. It all happened very quickly.
Ron Gruner 443…

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/didnt_want_to Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:40:36 -0700 $85 million of http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/85_million_of $85 million of venture capital—they were going in and just bombing prices and
even giving stuff away for free.
We realized that we would have to adjust prices. So we sat down and talked
about it and, literally in a day, made the decision to completely restructure our
product line and roll that out pretty quickly. That’s the kind of thing that would
have been difficult to do in a more complex, let’s say, structure.
Livingston: You could be more flexible and move faster.
Gruner: Yes. So we were able to compete with all these startups—almost all of
which went…

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/85_million_of Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:40:36 -0700 lives. http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/lives lives.
Livingston: So you became a source of advice for these companies as well as a
source of new technology?
Gruner: Yes, I would say Shareholder.com played a significant role in the late
’90s and up until now, interpreting both the technology and the regulatory environment.
And from 1995 to 2000, the company and I personally spent a lot of
time going to trade conferences, luncheons that NIRI (National Investor
Relations Institute) would host, talking about “What’s the Internet?” and giving
demonstrations, trying to make that less intimidating, explaining it. And then,
starting in 2000, we did a similar thing…

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/lives Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:40:36 -0700 scariest incident we http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/scariest_incident_we scariest incident we had in these 15 years.
Livingston:Were you a hero with the client?
Gruner: Yes, we were, but we didn’t fall on the sword too much on that. We
basically told them that we got it worked out. I don’t think I even told them we
used a private investigator. We absorbed all the costs. Turns out, there were two
people involved: a client plus a very large stock transfer agent that was working
with the client. Of course, the transfer agent really felt good about that, so they
threw a lot more business in our direction at…

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/scariest_incident_we Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:40:36 -0700 hiring a private http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/hiring_a_private hiring a private detective?”
I said, “Well, let’s try this. It’s an interesting idea.” So I went to the Boston
Yellow Pages, looked under “private investigators,” and found an ad that
appealed to me. I called the private investigator and I said, “Here’s an 800 number.
It belongs to somebody that has a pager. All I need from you is to know the
name and the personal phone number of this person.” He said, “No problem.
It’ll cost you $100.” And I said, “That’s fine. How long will it take?” He said, “It
will probably take about 4 hours.” I…

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/hiring_a_private Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:40:36 -0700 few years there http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/few_years_there few years there were only three or four people, including myself. We were
delivering news for public companies that was very visible, under scrutiny. If
you screwed up, either by being late or by getting the wrong information, you
were in big trouble. We had a couple of things that scared me to death.
I think the one that was probably scariest, that definitely could have put us
out of business, happened in ’94 or ’95. A very large pharmaceutical company
had decided to go with us. We had everything underway, and they were going to
announce this new service…

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/few_years_there Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:40:36 -0700 which at the http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/which_at_the which at the time was a very successful high-end machine, and converted it to
run on our machine. The key question was, “Can we take these off-the-shelf
Vax programs, recompile them for ours, and actually have them (1) run correctly
and (2) significantly speed up as you add more computers?” When we
demonstrated that to ourselves, that was a huge milestone. At that point we
knew. By early ’85, we knew we’ve got technology that works and is viable. And
if we can execute from that, we’ve got a viable company.
Livingston: Did you have any competitors at that point?...

]]> http://startuphistory.ru/post/show/which_at_the Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:40:36 -0700