Viaweb/Paul Graham's First Business Plan | Hacker News Reader

Viaweb/Paul Graham's First Business Plan

paulgraham.com

18 pointspashle12 comments

For one of my MSEE classes at Stanford, I took a business for engineers class taught by a local successful and retired software entrepreneur. I forgot his name. He was paralyzed in one arm b/c of a plane crash when piloting one of his own planes if that rings any bells to anyone. (Guess he was a better businessman than pilot! :) )

Anyway, he would always give case examples from his own experience, and his eyes would light up, making it obvious that this was happiest time in his life. His teaching this class was his attempt to relive his glory days. He never had a family (and was actually ousted from the company so had nothing there), and in a strange way, I think this class was his attempt to have one.

I don't know much about pg, but his viagen references remind me a little bit of this guy. We're all trying to have a legacy of some sort. I believe, though, that of the possible investments one can make with one's time, family is the best and longest lasting one. Keep that in mind, young-uns!

"2. Secure server software ($5000). This does not seem to be an absolute necessity; there are a lot of sites on the web where you can send your credit card number unencrypted, and to date there have been no reports of the numbers being stolen. But catalog companies may believe that a secure link is necessary, and spending this $5000 would give Webgen a much more professional look."

When you feel like you've missed the gravy train for web startups, quotes like this remind you of all the good things about starting one in 2007.

I really enjoyed reading this, especially given the fact that one of my lingering ideas has to do with catalog generation (but performed much more dynamically than Viaweb).

From what I've read, they got their first seed capital from an angel investor and friend Julian Weber, of about $15,000. He also happened to be a lawyer, so legal counsel was very accessible, if not free. This is somewhere in Paul's essays. Google around and you'll find more.

It was $10,000. Julian was the model for YC. He incorporated us, gave us $10k, and taught us how to raise more. We know that's enough, because it was for us.

This is great.

Where did the funding for Viaweb come from and did this plan help you get it?

Check out Jessica Livingston's book. The interview with pg reveals a lot about their early days in forming the company.

I love the very last line:

"Spending some money on advertising might also be a good idea."

I love the paragraph stating the upcoming introduction of Java into Netscape will help the server generate the stores on a user's screen. Every programmer who've seen it, including Paul, must have laughed at that line later on. "Client-side Java taking load off the server? That's silly!" I believe Paul himself has said, in one of his other articles, that some startups failed during the dot com boom simply because they tried to create their businesses using Java.

That is, until last year. With the JavaScript (AJAX) technology saving CPU server cycles[1] by doing a lot of logic in the web browser itself, Paul's one paragraph predicting something he expected to occur within a few months now sounds way ahead of its time. Either that, or such technology has taken 10 years too long to brew. (Coffee reference!)

I would also like to read the business plans of crazy dot com companies which tanked immediately. It would be great to be able to contrast the two. I'm thinking those business plans probably used a lot of made-up words to confuse the investors. Paul's document is pretty succinct.

[1] as well as saving bandwidth and time, of course.

If you want to see "birth of the dot come era" business plans, check out http://www.businessplanarchive.org/

My, how things have changed. I love that entire section:

...A computer on which to develop software ($3000)...

...Secure server software ($5000). This does not seem to be an absolute necessity; there are a lot of sites on the web where you can send your credit card number unencrypted, and to date there have been no reports of the numbers being stolen. But catalog companies may believe that a secure link is necessary...

...At present Webgen has only a 28.8kb connection. This will serve in the initial stages, when we have few clients....

This may be the first written business plan, but the first idea according to Founders at Work was to let art galleries get on the web.

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