The quickest path to $50m in revenue? Build fun.

http://nabeelhyatt.com/post/172687318/the-quickest-path-to-50m-in-revenue-build-fun

by babyshake • 17 years ago

27 13 17 years ago

Tichy2• 17 years ago

Seems very unlikely to me that parallels can be drawn from the past to the present in that way. Markets go through different phases.

mishmax• 17 years ago

Yep, and did he just draw a general rule from just one example (Activision)?

ryanwaggoner• 17 years ago

No:

At least three social gaming companies I know of will be, or already have, hit $50m in revenue in their first three years of business.

jdrock• 17 years ago

Doesn't include data on % of companies in each category that fails.

nod• 17 years ago

Should it? Isn't that irrelevant to how fast the "best of the best" can get to 50 Mil?

jpwagner• 17 years ago

True, but if you want to calculate your own EV over x years, you need that kind of data.

nabeel3• 17 years ago

This was starting with the premise of "success" -- let's assume it's a world class idea and hits $50m in revenue, goes public, and becomes one of the top 100 software companies in the world (in terms of capitalization). How long does that kind of amazing success take?

If you're wildest predictions about growth of your startup are off from what the historically most successful companies public today are doing, that's worth looking at.

callmeed• 17 years ago

3 things I noticed (not sure if it affects the conclusions):

1. Interesting that neither article (this or the WSJ post) seems to include data on mobile carriers or handset providers. Not sure why that is.

2. Entertainment seems to be the only category that's primarly B2C companies. Almost seems like it doesn't fit. If you're going to include video game makers, why can't you also include Netflix and other such companies.

3. I wonder how much acquisitions have affected these numbers.

nabeel3• 17 years ago

Yeah, the data was just software companies. So no Apple, Nokia. They also didn't have Google or Yahoo, which was unfortunate. Still, in terms of top 100 software companies, it's a valuable sample.

rokhayakebe• 17 years ago

Zynga, Facebook, Myspace.

mkull• 17 years ago

No ecommerce on the list?

The quickest path to $50m in revenue? Build fun.

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