What is success? Ok, I'm not going that broad... what is success in a web startup?
I've had bunches of conversations with entrepreneurs all over the success scale, from concept level to recently acquired, and all have different definitions of what 'success' is.
One founder I know regularly uses the world success, 'we've built three successful web apps' or 'I've successfully launched my first company.' Other people don't even really consider acquisition a success, just a stepping stone for further growth.
So what is success in the web? 20,000 uniques? 10,000 active users? 1,000,000 page views? 1,000 page views? Revenue?
'Successful' I think is another filler word I want to remove when talking about websites, same as 'empower' just because it seems to be over used. Successfully exited 3 companies certainly makes sense, but 'successfully launched' is just simply too hard to define.
Make your own definition of success, but most entrepreneurs I know never consider themselves successful anyways...they're too busy thinking through their next great idea.
I like Christopher Morley's definition of success.
"There is only one success--to be able to spend life in your own way."
But putting my green eyeshades on for a minute, success in a bootstrapping startup is positive cash flow, ideally enough your you and your business partner to live on and continue to develop your firm.
Instead of "exits" think about great product or services that are created that continue to serve customers. VC's talk of exits because it's how they pay off their investors (limited partners). It's not the same as value created.
"I think the purpose of life is to be useful, responsible, honorable, compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have some difference that you have lived at all." Leo Rosten
Posted by: Sean Murphy | November 23, 2007 at 10:25 PM