Web 2.0 Start-Up Failure Analysis - The Dogster Experience

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Please see response attached, which is also presented below.

RESPONSE:

1. Do you think there are lessons and incentives that you can use based on the Dogster experience? (See link below)

According to this article there are several lessons and incentives that they learned that could perhaps be transferable. For example, user or customer input is essential to business success, always expect the unexpected, and be flexible (adjust as new information comes in), which can save time and money. It is also about being committed and determined in the face of failure and setbacks. It is about being willing to move forward and perhaps even be willing to change your original vision for your company. It is about perseverance in the face of adversity and failure. For example, when introducing new features, like Google, Dogster has remained true to a "fail fast" strategy: launch, listen, improve, launch again.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/03/01/8401031/index.htm?postversion=2007022807

I downloaded the article below for easy referencing. Can you think of other lessons and incentives that you can learn from Dogster?

Article: A startup's best friend? Failure
From Dogster to Google, Web companies are finding that mistakes can be shortcuts to success, reports Business 2.0 Magazine.

By Tom McNichol, Business 2.0 Magazine senior writer
February 28 2007: 8:42 AM EST

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Few niches crashed more spectacularly during Web 1.0 than the pet sector. In the space of just nine months in 2000, Pets.com managed to raise a jaw-dropping $82.5 million in an IPO, air a $1.2 million Super Bowl ad starring its sock puppet mascot, land funding from Amazon.com (Charts), build a network of cavernous warehouses ... and go out of business without making a penny in profit.

When Pets.com rolled over and died in November 2000, it presaged scores of dotcom disasters to follow and slammed the door on online pet businesses, seemingly for good.
So when San Francisco Web designer Ted Rheingold co-founded Dogster.com in January 2004 as a kind of canine version of Friendster, the news drew smirks from the few who bothered to notice. How could Dogster, a pet site cobbled together on weekends and launched on a shoestring budget, expect to succeed where lavishly funded pet sites had flamed out? The consensus on Dogster was unanimous: It would fail. ...