Spotting a niche for web traffic measurement, Adrian Giles co-founded Hitwise in 1997 and took it from a $5k start-up to $250 million trade sale in ten years. It was an interesting journey, to say the least. He shared his experience Anthill founder James Tuckerman and fellow entrepreneurs in April at an intimate lunch hosted by PricewaterhouseCoopers in Melbourne. Here are some interesting excerpts.
On venture capital:
We were preparing to sell the business from the moment we first took venture capital in 2000, because we effectively sold it then. Venture capital gives you the advantage of a decent bank account, the ability to make mistakes and the ability to scale quickly, but it creates an absolute path to exit that wasn’t there before.
When things are going really well, and you’re growing, the last thing the VCs want to do is screw with the founders too much. But if we’d screwed up, they would have had the knives out instantly.
On cracking the US market:
In 2000, the US was the most attractive market, but it was too hard to get in. We spent quite a bit of time talking to internet service providers there, but with the dot-com crash and September 11, it was difficult. So we focused on other markets.
We launched in the US in January 2003. We got the business bubbling in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and the UK before trying again. I think that made us more successful in the US. It’s difficult for a purely Australian business to enter, but if you have a global business, it’s a different story.
On the legacy of an entrepreneur:
Entrepreneurs are measured by the success of what they leave behind. I used to think, ‘if my company goes belly up as soon as I leave, they really needed me’. But in reality, a good entrepreneur creates a business they work on, not in, that will survive them in every way. For the last few years of Hitwise I didn’t play an active, day-to-day role. I tried to work more on it. Then, when we sold, I could have left the next day and Hitwise would have been exactly the same.
On being an angel investor:
I don’t want to give an opinion. I only want to invest in companies where I go along to board meetings or management meetings to give pure experience.
A lot of people came into our business with general opinions and you develop a loathing for it. When you speak to someone who has actually had the experience and they speak purely from experience, it is such a rewarding, enlightening conversation, compared to someone giving an opinion based on something they read in a text book.
| Attendees: Berry Driessen, KomodoCMS David Jackman, Pronto Software Christina Tutone, Aditlast Brett Matson, Funnelback Mark Toohey, Optim Legal Trent Schmidt, FillMyTruck Manashi Roy, M. R. Consultancy James Tutton, NeoMetro Jeremy Rich, Energy Matters Dale James, Xpand Group |
