Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Matt Williams: LiveBid delivered a 10x return when acquired by Amazon

Matt Williams · FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams · Jul 31, 2015 · at 2:49

Matt Williams, founder and CEO of Pro.com and former CEO of Digg, discusses his entrepreneurial origin story and the sale of his first startup, LiveBid.

0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.3s
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“I started a company called LiveBid that was founded back in 96 and sold to Amazon in 99 for about a 10 X return to investors”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Matt Williams

Insight
Matt Williams: First-time founders should bootstrap until achieving clear product-market fit
“So if it is a if it's a relatively new founding team that's never founded another company my advice is quite simple, which is to bootstrap as long as you can until you see some very clear traction, some very clear product market fit For the offering that you h…”
Matt Williams Jul 31, 2015 ▶ 8:49 FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams
Assertion Supported
LiveBid built the first real-time engine for physical online auctions
“And we decided to focus you know, the entire company on the auction space and built the first real time the real, you know, first real time engine for competing in a physical auction for online bidding.”
Matt Williams Jul 31, 2015 ▶ 4:06 FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams
Assertion Partly supported
LiveBid amassed $100M in inventory before acquisition interest from Amazon and eBay
“And in about a year we're able to amass close to a hundred million dollars in inventory that was, you know, being offered through auction through our website, which at the time was quite a bit, and we then had, had interest from eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon for acq…”
Matt Williams Jul 31, 2015 ▶ 4:52 FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams
Assertion Supported
Matt Williams: Most acquired founders leave within three years; he stayed twelve
“Very few founders ever kind of last longer than two or three years at most startups that get, then get acquired. I, you know, I think there's, there are very few, I happen to be one of the rare, you know, kind of rare ones that I was at Amazon for about 12 yea…”
Matt Williams Jul 31, 2015 ▶ 13:21 FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams
Assertion Supported
Matt Williams laid off 40% of Digg staff in his first six weeks
“It was a really hard, you know, kind of first six weeks, which included laying off about 40% of the staff”
Matt Williams Jul 31, 2015 ▶ 14:54 FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams
What-if
Matt Williams: Digg turnaround needed fresh outside talent sooner after v4 launch
“That probably would have more quickly brought in some additional talent that that, that hadn't kind of lived through the pain of, you know, kind of the V four launch and brought in new blood more, kind of more quickly to really help not only carry new perspect…”
Matt Williams Jul 31, 2015 ▶ 15:52 FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams
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