I was pondering yesterday's post about Mowser's demise and ran across an old (last boom) stack of business cards from VC's, startups, and "advisors." So I decided I would try a very unscientific snowball sample experiment and grab the top 20 cards and see what I came up with.

Winners

• The Monster Board Who? You know them as Monster. This card was pre-merger, so around 1998 I guess. Ok, they may be getting their lunch eaten by the hippies at Craigslist, but still. Big winners.
• RedHat These cards were right next to each other, so also a 1998 vintage. Shoot, another job opportunity worth $5M for just being there missed.
• Butler Technology Solutions I'll just give you the money quote from their website:
• "Winning in business requires solid strategy, steady performance and Yoga-like flexibility. " (I guess down-dog wins in the end.)
• Ultimus Still rocking good workflow stuff and have not gotten killed by the 27 different flavors of Microsoft and BPEL out there. High quality development offshored to Pakistan.
  

Alive

• NetCentrics Still doing the consulting and "product development" thing.
• ElementK Just not quite Special K but still around to provide IT training.
• NetGift.com Still loading, albeit slowly. There are generic shopping sites besides Amazon and Zappos?
• AccPac Bought by Sage.
• InfoTech Document solutions, bought by Ricoh.

Dead Pool

• MedicinePlanet.com Used to supply travel health information, now the website points at the WHO. I'm sure there is a story in there somewhere.
• OfficeClick.com Ten years ahead of their time, they had a hosted application suite for temps to use onsite for immediate productivity. I suspect they were killed by Office. Now their site points to dsl.com.
• PacketCom.com Site does not load, guess we didn't need yet another next gen telecom system after all.
• Poertera They used to do Learning Management Systems, now they:
• We create value-aligned business models with our clients that provide mutually beneficial financial returns.
  
• Infocruiser Hosting and dial-up (remember that?) internet. Site does not load.
• Nuforia They were new media before there was new media. Some shop in SFO bought the bones. I mostly remember them because they had these rounded edge business cards that made all the cats from Asia laugh. Long story.
• Opus360 "Staffing and training solutions for the digital age." And doesn't that sound Victorian now? They are long dead.
• YipiNet  Yes, "YipiNet dot com" - not all the terrible names are happening now. They had "online coaching for executives" in an age before the internet was pervasive. Dead, dead, dead now.
• nCommand Don't know what they did and their website has disappeared and the domain is for sale.
• Tandem Big computers for big money, bought by Compaq in 1997 (told you this was an old stack of cards!) and the domain isn't even pointed at anything anymore!
• Constallar Mega-ETL vendor, lacked tech to go with their sex appeal, ran out of cash, but threw great parties. Website dead.

Odd Ball Stuff

I don't want to make fun of people (google knows all, sees all) but I did run across

• A beautifully made card for a "Medical Intuitive-Astrologer." I am not sure what that is or where it came from, but I did sniff the card to see if it smelled like patchouli.
• At least a dozen cards from the late 90's with out a web address or email.
• Tons of cards with no cell phone numbers. Remember $600 cell phone bills for roaming in Philly for two days?
• My NEXTStep card stack. Sigh. Anyone want to buy a cube with an optical drive?

What's the Lesson?

Well, it's kind of obvious - the odds are stacked (30% win, 50% alive, 50% dead), even if you assume that I threw away the stupidest ones. (I did)

Here is the real hint: I pulled 10 VC firms and 10 Law Firms at random and they were all still in business.

Hmmm. Remember learning that the only people who really made money in the California gold rush were the guys selling picks and eggs? Still true.