Failed early internet businesses seem awfully familiar. > I basically think all the ideas of the 90s that everybody had about how this stuff was going to work, I think they were all right, they were all correct. I think they were just early — @pmarca Thread 👇

Oct 29, 2018 · 9:46 PM UTC

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2004 attempt to build Tinder. Short phone calls instead of texting on a mobile app.
John Backus @backus
28 Oct 2018
"Online SpeedMatching" — 2004 attempt to build Tinder. Review profiles, view pictures, have a brief phone conversation, vote yes or no for followup contact. There are so many awkward early 2000s internet products that, in retrospect, had a smartphone app sized hole.
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Kozmo (1998 - 2001) – wide-ranging local delivery in under an hour. Seems a lot like Postmates today, minus the mobile app
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Webvan (1996 - 2001) – One of the most notorious dotcom flops. Instacart's last private valuation was $4.2B. Differences? Instacart outsources grocery inventory to stores and delivery vehicles + logistics to Instacart shoppers.
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TextPayMe (2006) – Payments between friends via mobile phones. Sounds like Venmo! This article even frames TextPayMe as "the logical second act for PayPal." Venmo was. Now PayPal owns them :)
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Pets​.com (1998 - 2000) – bad idea, too early, or just prematurely bankrupted by the bubble bursting? PetSmart acquired Chewy​.com for $3.35B in 2017! People mocked later attempts to sell pet supplies online, but the Pets​.com CEO understood it was viable businessinsider.com/petscom-…
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There were lots of attempts to build digital currencies before Bitcoin: DigiCash ('89), Beenz (98), Flooz (99), e-gold (98), 1mdc (01), e-Bullion (01). Some even tried to anonymously create underground (Tor only) currencies like eCache (2007).
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SixDegrees' social network launched in '97 and sold in '99, peaking at ~3.5M users. Here is @andrewsroadmaps demoing how users could traverse their network to find intros to key people. Associate that with LinkedIn? They launched in 2003 and bought out SixDegrees' patents!
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Replying to @backus @pmarca
I’ve often thought about this. I can’t help but feel that it took all those failures to pave the roads of infrastructure towards what we see today. Is too early just as bad as too late or not at all?
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Too early is an umbrella for many themes IMO: • mobile use case before smartphones • not enough people internet literate in right ways • business model innovations like two sided marketplaces not established • tech more expensive to build • lower webapp complexity ceiling
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Replying to @backus @pmarca
Great thread.
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Thanks. I’m seeding it with things I remember now, but I intend for it to be a long running thread since I run into these things all the dang time
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