Another Why Webvan Failed Article
from the seems-like-a-popular-topic dept
Stewart Alsop chimes in with his opinion on why Webvan failed. His theory is that the company wasn't run by entrepreneurs, but by consultants. He claims that entrepreneurs understand the very basic concept that any money you spend should advance the business. Consultants just spend money. For example he points out that Webvan's decision to repaint their vans as a "rebranding" campaign as they were running out of money was ludicrous. What he doesn't mention was that venture capitalists (Alsop himself is a well known VC - though who knows if he's guilty of this himself) for the past four or five years (up until a year ago) had been pushing every startup around to focus on "branding" themselves rather than silly little things like "advancing the business" or, say, "bringing in real revenue".
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
