I'm building Spoofproof, a zero-knowledge proof AI authentication platform that completely obliterates passwords, passkeys, and those annoying 2FA codes. One platform for all: cloud, legacy systems, LLMs... even future-proofed for quantum threats.
We're validating: "Would you actually want this?" If yes, join our beta list. If not, we might just cry a little.
Comments appreciated.
This is both a tear jerking article and a realization to startups everywhere.
Your idea seems good... initially... with no answer to the chicken and the egg problem... how do you become a dominate entity...
I'm only 23 and yet I vividly remember over half of these startups. Granted the majority of these started and ended during the dot com boom / collapse, these are still and will always be a realization to internet specific companies. No user base means no revenue.
Many questions arise; do you need to sell if you have a dominate opponent offering a lucrative opportunity (Alta-Vista <- Google) or do you wait it out (Facebook -> Google) and postulate an opportunity greater than your biggest competitor believes can or more importantly will see for the fate of your company.
Friendster is a company much like Facebook with many unique niches to offer. Why did they fail? Did they not see that bigger picture; did they not have a good board of directors; did they not have a robust infrastructure?
If you had a bulletproof startup that had every corner covered, had an outstanding leadership team with a concise business model and looked at each niche and improved it; is that the recipe for success or does that give them a 50/50 chance for success?
I think:
Friendster, Ning and sites similar offer a unique niche.
Facebook, MySpace and sites similar are the sites above combined.
What if you were the site that combines the unique niche of the most popular sites like Facebook and MySpace? What if you had a dominate leadership team that had a robust product which offered the most popular services combined and improved on those ideas. How does that separate FedEx from the USPS? If a company has a lucid vision for their product, how do you separate that from the already existing ideas... after all... every new idea is generated from an existing problem? How do you separate a new idea from a solution to an existing dilemma... how do you separate a better solution from an existing one? Is the quality of that solution directly pending the ease of use to the end - user or is it determined by the freedom, creativity, ingenuity, funding and end - user registration numbers?
I think the ultimate success of any company: good, bad and mediocre is based on the personal beliefs of the initiator of the product and their 'support team' (startup partners). If they ALL firmly believe in the success of their product with absolutely no doubt then they have the material, answer and solution to solve the loop - hole that garnishes users and divides the user base among other entities that offer similar services.
Sorry dude, but you must not remember them vividly, because the majority of these sites did actually have a user base and did actually make revenue. In some cases (WebVan for instance), they actually made quite a bit of revenue.
They were simply prey to illogical economics. They had all created machines that were too large for the revenues to support.
As for Friendster, I know it's been fun to say that they've failed for the last 3 years, but as far as I can tell their story isn't even close to being over. They have billions of pageviews and a growing userbase. I'm guessing you'd probably switch places with them right now.
WebVan... not a memorable company... Lycos, Alta-Vista (the original search engine), pets.com, over half of those companies had a good idea...
Friendster, 'billions' of page-views... per month?
I think I'm missing 1% of what your saying... I wouldn't switch places with them, I'm not where they are yet... I'm in the development stage, alpha-stage.
Above all that, these companies are on multiple sites listed multiple times for being 'part of the economic dot com failure'. Is that what your referring too when you say "created machines that were too large for the revenues to support"?
WebVan, for example, bought a fleet of Mercs to deliver groceries with. If they'd gone for Fords, they might have survived. OK, not that alone, but they basically spent too much money on things that customers didn't care about and wouldn't pay for.
I've been debating back and forth about the iPhone being worth the '1/2 the price, 2x the speed' and everything I read justifies the complaints in this article. Having installable apps is a good thing, not having the iPhone "3G" function work only 20% of the time or sporadically malfunction more than 75% of the time is not good... regardless of the great new features implemented in the latest version.
If I had money I would donate, I don't like PayPal and don't like using them unless I have to, they should setup alternate payment methods so people have a choice on which one they prefer to use.
I'm building Spoofproof, a zero-knowledge proof AI authentication platform that completely obliterates passwords, passkeys, and those annoying 2FA codes. One platform for all: cloud, legacy systems, LLMs... even future-proofed for quantum threats.
We're validating: "Would you actually want this?" If yes, join our beta list. If not, we might just cry a little. Comments appreciated.
Love, The Spoofproof team