Was MySpace an Overnight Success?
Brad Greenspan, the CEO of eUniverse, posted about the history of his company leading up to MySpace. His company survived the dot com meltdown (while profiting the whole time). By the time they created MySpace in 2003 they had a top 20 (US web traffic) network of community driven sites. When they launched MySpace they were able to leverage their other content sites and traffic streams to help MySpace spread quickly. MySpace may have appeared as an overnight success, but it didn't hurt that eUniverse had years of experience launching numerous high growth community sites.
Almost all high growth web businesses start out with an idea that works but a model that does not, but that is why the evolve, and why experience is worth so much. Paul Kedrosky recently shared this Niklas Zennstrom video:
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Hi Aaron, I was at eUniverse in 2001, 2002. My website was one of their acquisitions. The major players from our old company one by one migrated to eUniverse and became heads of tech, marketing, and product development there. It was a very fast paced and chaotic environment. I'll leave any negatives for a one to one. I can tell you that in 2002 they had more than 60 million opt ins. They also had a very bright 20 year old that was at the helm of much of what was going on. Greenspan was right, a lot of the success had to do with the ability to drive massive traffic from the start.
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