Ruth Ann S. Basnillo                                                                                           6/17/2008   SYSANAL

O0A

Tim Brady

First non-founding employee

YAHOO

STORY:

      Yahoo began in 1994 when Jerry yang and David Filo had their references for their PhD theses and all the technical papers online to keep track of them all. It basically became a collection of links to research papers maintained by these two Stanford grad students until all major EE graduate programs had them add categories they need or like. They gradually added links to new to new types of information until they created this huge list and the site grew rapidly in popularity. By the end of 1994, Yang and Filo were considering turning the site into a startup and that’s the time when they asked Tim Brady- Yang’s college roommate- to write a business plan for it. Initially, Brady was getting his MBA at Harvard Business School, but as Yahoo’s potential grew , he decided to turn in the company’s business plan as his final assignment in the courses he needed to pass, and became Yahoo’s first employee. By that time, VC communities were recognizing Yahoo and were actually offering to host them even without the business plan. With those interests from several VCs, they thought of turning their simple hobby into a full- fledged business. Their first show off was in March 1995 during a consumers electronic showdown in San Jose where they had a booth. Few weeks after the show, they got funding allowing them to move into an office space in Mountain View. Their VC back then was Sequioa who gave them $ 1 million. Aside from selling advertisements in their pages, they also did a bunch of things like making book deals. They did many things to get money and then searched for a CEO in the name of Tim Koogle. The first to give Yahoo a link was the one and only browser back then- Netscape. They then hired an outside sales firm to help them start advertising. Netscape went public in 1995 which set off a chain of reaction of PR urging the founders to hire a temp PR firm which didn’t work out well since they already have Jerry who was way too good with the press. But then, Netscape sold their search button to Excite for about $5 million. One of the categories they struggled with in their business was the popular sex category which led to a very tough issue of pornography. They also had big debates about certain decisions to make. Many acquisitions were also offered to them but were just turned down. Yahoo went public in April 1996 and became the most popular network of websites in the world.

THREE THINGS I LEARNED:

I learned from this startup that certain hobbies could turn into a business if you put your heart into it. Just like what Yahoo was before. It was actually a tool for researches they need and then became a collection after certain additions by those who had interest on it and finally became a full-fledged business.

I also learned that having a positive outlook in life is good because it would motivate you to pursue what you want to do.

Lastly, I learned that having a long term goal in a business is better than having a short term goal because it would result to success.