Q: Which are some lesser known [SaaS/B2B] companies from the dotcom boom and subsequent crash of 1999-2000 that are still doing very well today?
A few:
- eLance was founded in 1998 as an early freelancing website. It merged with a competitor (oDesk) and became the leader we know today as Upwork and is worth $6B today! More here:
- GoDaddy was founded in 1997 remains a leader in domain names but expanded into web sites, ecommerce and more — and is worth $13B today! More here:
- On24 was founded in 1998, and is a niche Zoom competitor. You might have heard of it if you do webinars. Covid finally gave it a boost to $200m in revenues:
- RingCentral was founded in 1999 as a simple IVR / voicemail solution for small businesses. They kept at it, went more enterprise, and today RingCentral is worth $30B. More here:
And a bonus #6:
- SurveyMonkey was founded in 1999 and literally run on a server in the founder’s closet for years. It was basically a 1 employee company (not quite, but almost) for quite some time and later private equity bought the company out and then on to an IPO and $2.5B+ valuation today. A very early example of product-led growth of a product that is inherently viral, albeit with a lower viral coefficient than some apps:
Go long, folks!!
