With a billion people on this planet connected to the Internet and the barriers to entry relatively low, the Internet has created unprecedented opportunities for people to create unfathomable wealth. What is interesting and remarkable about many of these particular success stories are their coincidences:
- Most of the people grew up moved to the San Francisco Bay area
- Most sites were created for personal, selfish reasons
- Many are started by two people: a business guy and a tech guy
- Most of these sites became more valuable as more members joined
- Most of the sites had addictive qualities – reasons to return frequently
- Most of the sites were viral or self-promotional by nature
| Start | Sold | Price | Founder | Company Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | 2007 | $10M | Graham Hill | TreeHugger – media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream – acquired by Discovery |
| 2006 | 2009 | $15M | Johns Wu | Bankaholic – a financial portal provides consumers with up finance tips, credit card rates, etc. – acquired by Bankrate |
| 2000 | 2008 | $20M | James HongJim Young | Hot or Not – Rating site that allows members to rate the attractiveness of photos submitted by others – acquired by Avid Life Media |
| 1998 | 2008 | $22M | Derek Sivers | CD Baby – Online distributor of independent music – aquired by Disc Makers |
| 2005 | 2008 | $25M | Tony Conrad | Sphere – tools for publishers and bloggers – aquired by AOL |
| 2004 | 2004 | $28M | Joshua Kopelman | TurnTide – an anti-spam technology company created as a spin-off corporation from privacy technology firm – acquired by Symantec |
| 2003 | 2005 | $30M | Joshua Schacter | Del.icio.us – social bookmarking site – acquired by Yahoo! |
| 2004 | 2005 | $35M | Caterina Fake Stewart Butterfield |
Flickr – Image hosting website and online community for users to share and personal photos – acquired by Yahoo |
| 1996 | 2006 | $100M | Richard Rosenblat | Great Domains – secondary domain market – acquired by VeriSign |
| 2007 | 2009 | $170M | Aaron Patzer | Mint – free online personal finance service that is aimed at being “easy and secure way to manage and save money online” – acquired by Intuit |
| 1999 | 2000 | $350M | Joshua Kopelman | Half – a fixed price marketplace connecting buyers and sellers of used books, movies and music products – acquired by eBay |
| 1996 | 1998 | $400M | Sabeer Bhatia Jack Smith |
Hotmail – a free web-based email serviced – acquired by Microsoft |
| 1994 | 1999 | $565M | Richard Rosenblatt Craig Pickering Mark Comer |
iMALL – provides name brand products at great prices to give customers a convenient shopping experience – acquired by Excite |
| 2006 | 2009 | $750M | Omar Hamoui | AdMob – mobile advertising marketplace that connects advertisers with mobile publishers – acquired by Google |
| 2005 | 2008 | $850M | Michael Birch Xochi Birch |
Bebo – one of the world’s most popular social networking sites – acquired by AOL |
| 1995 | 2002 | $1,500M | Max Levchin Peter Thiel |
PayPal – an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet – acquired by eBay |
| 1999 | 2007 | $1,600M | Marc Andreessen | Opsware – web browser – acquired by HP |
| 2005 | 2006 | $1,650M | Chad Hurley Steve Chen Jawed Karim |
YouTube – online video sharing site – acquired by Google |
| 1996 | 2005 | $1,850M | Garrett Gruener David Warthen |
Ask – search engine that responds to plain English queries – acquired by InterActiveCorp |
| 2003 | 2008 | $1,900M | Niklas Zennstrom Janus Friis |
Skype – free peer-to-peer Internet telephony (voice over IP – VOIP) service – acquired by eBay |
| 1994 | 1998 | $4,200M | Marc Andreessen Jim Clark |
Netscape – web browser – acquired by AOL |
| 1995 | ~ | Pierre Omidyar | eBay – connects millions of buyers and sellers, world’s largest online marketplace | |
| 2004 | ~ | Marc Andreessen Gina Bianchini |
Ning – online platform for people to create their own social networks - | |
| 2004 | ~ | Mark Zuckerberg | Facebook – the world’s largest social network | |
| 2006 | ~ | Jack Dorse Biz Stone Evan Williams |
Twitter – a real-time social networking and micro-blogging service | |
| 2006 | ~ | Richard Rosenblatt | Demand Media – online media company operating two strategically-linked businesses: an integrated content and social media platform | |
| 2009 | ~ | Dennis Crowley Naveen Selvadurai |
FourSquare – mobile app that combines social networking and gaming elements where people check in with people and places |
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