Startup on Other People's Servers (OPS)
A came across Peter Yared's Musings while looking for details on his latest startup, wdgtbldr. Peter previously built ActiveGrid and has some great nuggets to share the second time around.
His post, A Startup in the Cloud, captured an accelerating trend with big implications. We've heard plenty about all the web programming advances that allow 1-2 founders to launch a web 2.0 site quickly -- remember Jason Batiste, Frank Astor and Brian Breslin's $500, 2-week WeblogWire launch? The other exciting trend is the growth of inexpensive, hosted productivity apps allowing founders to go beyond launching a site, to truly running a business with a superior cost structure.
This reminds me of the entrepreneur/VC reference to building companies with Other People's Money (OPM). In this case, you're leveraging Other People's Servers (OPS) -- and you benefit from the economies of scale (not to mention cut-throat SaaS pricing). Securing OPS is a lot easier than OPM, and the benefits can be significant. Peter is building wdgtbldr with an OPS approach, leveraging CRM, conference calling, analytics, email, forwarding, fax, forums, wikis, accounting, calendar, code control, campaigns, and QA -- all for less than $400/month. Amazing.
Related images: peter yared, jason baptiste, frank astor, brian breslin, saas
His post, A Startup in the Cloud, captured an accelerating trend with big implications. We've heard plenty about all the web programming advances that allow 1-2 founders to launch a web 2.0 site quickly -- remember Jason Batiste, Frank Astor and Brian Breslin's $500, 2-week WeblogWire launch? The other exciting trend is the growth of inexpensive, hosted productivity apps allowing founders to go beyond launching a site, to truly running a business with a superior cost structure.
This reminds me of the entrepreneur/VC reference to building companies with Other People's Money (OPM). In this case, you're leveraging Other People's Servers (OPS) -- and you benefit from the economies of scale (not to mention cut-throat SaaS pricing). Securing OPS is a lot easier than OPM, and the benefits can be significant. Peter is building wdgtbldr with an OPS approach, leveraging CRM, conference calling, analytics, email, forwarding, fax, forums, wikis, accounting, calendar, code control, campaigns, and QA -- all for less than $400/month. Amazing.
Related images: peter yared, jason baptiste, frank astor, brian breslin, saas
Labels: brian breslin, frank astor, hosted apps, jason baptiste, opm, ops, other peoples money, other peoples servers, peter yarid, saas, wdgtbldr, weblogwire
Posted by VC Dan | 10/18/2007
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Comments (4)
Lookery and Mashery are both on OPS. It cuts way down on the OPM, which noticeably increases the cash that eventually ends up IMP.
AKA In My Pocket!
I'd expect nothing less from you Scott. How else could you keep building these businesses from Helsinki or wherever you touch down next. ;-)
That reminds me that running with OPS also maximizes an entrepreneur's ability to build with geographically spread teams...post-funding, I strongly prefer core teams in one place, but early virtual progress can be critical to landing that venture round.
Dan, our online OS/ web platform discussion is about 6 months overdue now :-). This post is a great primer. It's all about inexpensive productivity apps that focus on collaboration and process efficiency (ie- less of a headache with venture capital). This is where we're going with Publictivity... public relations is just the start. Have you read Charlie ODonnell's series of posts on Business Dev 2.0 = API integration (ie- Other People's Servers)? Really great stuff.
PS- ahh, theweblogwire days, im feeling nostalgic. our baby has grown so much since then :-)
CTO's in boston; I'm in SF, and new VP mktg in in SEA. unlikely to co-locate.
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