LILO – the new internet startup model

A few weeks back, my friend Glenn Kelman over at RedFin posted about how much it cost to startup a real estate site that would have lasting impact. I countered in the comments that I thought the number was much lower and that much of the MBA-izing of the site was not needed.

I like Glenn. He’s had the courage to do what a few other have doen before him as well. Namely the dot.com 1.0 guys. They have cut down tons of trees to forge a wide path. It is essentially unprofitable to cut down trees but that’s OK by me. It IS profitable to drive a truck down the road they’ve created. That’s my business model. Driving the truck of profitability up the roads created by others.

I commented about it here on EricOnSearch a while ago.

Now the guys at Time have created an acromyn for this type of business. LILO startups. Little in / Lots Out. I like that. Great article.

It fits SO well with phrases like Sweat Equity. And Earned Media. And Stephen Covey’s “Begin with the End in Mind”.

I’d like to add something to Mr. Covey’s profundity. Or maybe take something away.Here’s my corollary on creating online businesses:

“Begin with the end.”  – Eric Blackwell

Seriously.

My friend Jon Karlen refers to “beginning with the end” as not being an “Underpants Gnome“. There’s a ton of insight from South Park on that.

There are a whole bunch of low cost / revenue producing sites out there. Bootstrap it. Don’t have enough search engine experience. PARTNER.  You don’t need an MBA to do this stuff. You do need a work ethic, an idea, some savvy, and some would claim copious quantities of Diet Mt. Dew….

Do you have examples of great bootstrappers who have made it online? Send their examples / stories to me! I will be happy to have you guest post on EoS about them.

I want people to see how possible this really is.

Seriously.