Founders at work: Stories of Startup’s early days Student: Ronaldo Oliveira Professor: Paulo Feldmann

Firefox Context: Started as a side project at the Mozilla Foundation; Blake Ross Context: Started as a side project at the Mozilla Foundation; Response to experiences lived by the founders at Netscape; System driven by users; Internet Explorer vacuum of innovation (team disbanded); From a hobby to a business. Founded in 2002

Firefox Reasons of success: Blake Ross Reasons of success: Transition from a “geek audience” into a more mainstream world; Difference from traditional startups (no focus on competition for financial reasons); “We wanted people to use it, but we weren’t going to kill ourselves if it failed. We defined success in terms of users, not competitors.” Open market without clear competition; Be In the right place and in the right time.

Livingston: Are there any lessons that you learned in the Firefox days that you are applying to this new startup? Ross: One is to make sure you are always in communication with the people who are eventually going to use your product. It’s very easy to just lock yourself in a room and code all day, and you forget what the real problems are that people are having. So you have to keep talking to people and keep refining what you are doing.

TripAdvisor Context: New possibilities of business due to internet; Stephen Kaufer Context: New possibilities of business due to internet; Site populated initially by the use of information that already existed in the internet, but it was not organized for travel customers; The idea: having a great amount of information would serve as an incentive for users to show their opinions Founded in 2000

TripAdvisor Reasons of Sucess: Stephen Kaufer Reasons of Sucess: Development of a new business model in the travel sector; Establishment of partnership networks with bigger companies (Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity…) due to its innovative system; Greater assurance of consumer experience with easier access to information “It’s not just for traveling, but for a lot of things that people are collecting user reviews on now”

Livingston: Is there any advice that you would give to someone who is thinking about starting a startup? Kaufer: At the earlier stages of the company, when you’re actually out trying to get some customers, do whatever the hell the customer wants. If they’re going to pay you, the customer is right. Because you need that initial money. You need that customer on the list to go get the next one. If you have to give away whatever you’re doing, give it away. Get the customer.

Adobe Charles Geschke Context: Transition of the 70’s to 80’s at Xerox PARC: development of Interpress, a language that allowed any computer to talk to any printer (first Adobe technology); The slowness of Xerox to bring a product out and start marketing it; Founded in 1982

Adobe Reasons of Success: Charles Geschke Getting out Xerox PARC to find new possibilities of investment; Establishment of strategic partnerships whti the “first” customers, Digital Equipment & Apple, after the need for changing in the business plan (new focus on the system language software); The new system, PostScript, started to revolutionize the old analog technologies; Development of new products (software) during the time. “you can’t be a one product company”

Livingston: What surprised you most about the early days? Geschke: To me, the most surprising thing was how responsive some people were to accept and embrace change.

Yahoo Context: Founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo; Tim Brady Context: Founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo; Started in 1994 as a collection of links to research and to get information; From a hobby to a business; Use of its online traffic to sell advertising Founded in 1994

Yahoo Reasons of Success: Tim Brady Reasons of Success: High level of trust between the founders and first hires; Advantage of being a first mover in the early internet market; “Most people don’t get the privilege to know that they are at the center of something while it’s happening. We were in the middle of everything back then” Investment from VCs, but without being driven by them;

Livingston: Any advice you’d give to someone who was starting a startup? Brady: Part of it is “know yourself.” Try to do as much thinking up front as to what your breaking points are. One of the things I think I did well was that I never spent any time thinking about quitting or any of these doomsday scenarios.

Thanks! Student: Ronaldo Oliveira Professor: Paulo Feldmann