Overnight success is a myth

If you believe anyone can create the next big thing on the Internet by tomorrow morning, you’re not alone. The public tends to make generalizations about the ease in which entrepreneurs can achieve sky high valuations. But Sarah Lacy, author of the new book Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0, found that this is a myth. As a Silicon Valley reporter for nearly a decade, Lacy uncovered business survival secrets and personal hurdles that leave you exhausted just from hearing about them. I asked Sarah to give us a peek into the world we all dream of.

Weeks: Although the public believes that most internet startups find success overnight, you found out that this is a myth. Why?

Lacy: What makes the Internet so attractive to VCs is that you can build a site or product really fast and know overnight if you have a potential winner. Product development, audience growth and branding – it’s incredibly quick. While these aspects can be fast, building a business is an entirely different matter. There are more resources today for creating a good business model online. The network of advertising services allows most Internet companies to make decent cash inflow while you build the business. For example, Facebook has hired a ton of people to try to figure out their monetization model while the company is already earning millions. Back in the 1990s, this wouldn’t have occurred. Another example is Digg, a company that has always had the revenue side of its business outsourced. This gave the company the ability to focus on building a great product, instead of having to raise a lot of money or worry about audience.

Weeks: What are some of the surprising things you learned about today’s prominent Web 2.0 entrepreneurs?

Lacy: One of the interesting things is that Silicon Valley doesn’t work the way everyone expects it to work. When I was following the “scene,” I thought I knew how stuff worked, but then I found out that when people opened up to me I learned their true stories – like what’s really being discussed when a company is in acquisition talks or how deals can drag on and on. Another thing I learned was that the games that big companies play with small companies are very pronounced today. Once the entrepreneur gets tired of talking and says, “Make me an offer,” the big companies tend to just walk away. But the entrepreneur’s agony over how to handle the “sell” is changing. In the past there was an unprecedented amount of ownership and the entrepreneur would agonize about selling because of the VC’s interest, but now Web 2.0 entrepreneurs have more control and the power to make decisions.

Weeks: How has the role of venture capitalists changed in the past few years?

Lacy: They’re pretty absent right now. Silicon Valley cycles through the currency of power. What happened was that after the dot com crash, VCs had the power again. But since then, entrepreneurs have learned how to build internet businesses without venture money by using angels or friends. People aren’t desperate for millions anymore. The typical big VC shops aren’t thriving in the interactive space. Ning was bootstrapped and Slide used one VC round and then went to work with partners on Wall Street.

Weeks: When you and I spoke together on the panel at the Girls in Tech event in San Francisco, we talked about how young women are rising to the top of the digital media class. Did you interview female entrepreneurs for your book?

Lacy: Yes. Mena Trott of Six Apart and Gina Bianchini of Ning are interesting women because they play huge roles in their companies, and yet they gain little respect. It was horrifying that people thought Gina didn’t deserve to be on the cover of Fast Company. Same with Mena – often men treated her like a brash, emotional girl, but she learned how to work through this battle. Both of these women realized that no one important listens to this crap. We can’t let it affect our relationships, career, compensation, et cetera. There’s a myth that we can manage what other people say about us – we have to throw this thinking out the window because we can only hope that the crap and truth averages out in our favor. I believe that no single thing written about you can have a tremendous personal impact.