Startups.com
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Startups.com was a dot-com-era startup incubator founded in 1998 by Donna Jensen, offering office space, HR, and business services to startups (Guy Kawasaki sat on its board). It raised $17.2 million during the boom before shutting down in January 2002, with only its domain name surviving. In October 2008, the startup blog KillerStartups bought the startups.com domain for about $500,000 in cash and relaunched it - first as a Q&A site for business questions in 2009, then as a daily-deals site for website owners and entrepreneurs in April 2011. Founder Gonzo Arzuaga shut it down in May 2012, admitting the company 'couldn't make a go of it'.
02 / Startups.com FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Startups.com failed twice for two different reasons. The original 1998 incubator died with the dot-com crash: after raising $17.2 million it shut down in January 2002 when the boom turned to bust. The relaunched daily-deals version died of a mundane cause - it missed its own targets. Founder Gonzo Arzuaga wrote that 'we didn't achieve the ambitious goals we set for ourselves when we launched only 1 year ago', and the daily-deals model for website owners never gained enough traction; alongside it he also shut down BlinkList, his other side project, to stop wasting resources on ideas that never took off.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Dot-com incubator founded
Donna Jensen founded Startups.com as a startup incubator offering office space, HR, and business services; it raised $17.2 million during the boom.
- First shutdown
After the dot-com crash, Startups.com shut its doors in January 2002; the only surviving asset was its URL.
- Domain sold for ~$500K
In October 2008 KillerStartups (CEO Gonzalo Arzuaga) bought the startups.com domain for about $500,000 in cash.
- Relaunched as Q&A
Startups.com relaunched as a Q&A site for business questions.
- Pivot to daily deals
In April 2011 the site shifted to daily deals - discounted software, gadgets, e-books, and services for website owners and entrepreneurs.
- Final shutdown
In May 2012 Arzuaga emailed subscribers that Startups.com was shutting down - 'we couldn't make a go of it' - alongside the BlinkList site; the domain was not for sale.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In May 2012 founder Gonzo Arzuaga announced Startups.com was shutting down: 'we didn't achieve the ambitious goals we set for ourselves' and 'couldn't make a go of it'.
- 02
The BlinkList site was shut down at the same time; Arzuaga said there was 'no point in going on with something just because you've been doing it'.
- 03
The domain name was not for sale at the time; no losses, debts, or creditor claims were publicly disclosed.