iLike Online Music Service - From Startup to Internet Giant
“Every now and then, an online prospector hits the mother lode, inspiring others to keep digging.
That’s happening now with iLike, a fledgling Seattle startup that suddenly, over the past three weeks, became one of the biggest online music services. Piqued by co-founder Hadi Partovi’s blog describing the surge, I asked what it’s like to experience the breakout moment that every Web entrepreneur dreams about.
Partovi, 34, was general manager of Microsoft’s MSN.com until he left to start a company with his twin brother, Ali, a startup veteran in San Francisco. They launched iLike, a service for sharing musical preferences, in October, with Ali as CEO and Hadi as president.
Their breakout began May 25, the Friday before Memorial Day.
By noon, 10,000 new users signed up. Another 10,000 joined by 3 p.m., then it really picked up.
“Within the next five hours we had another 30,000 users join and then we started hitting the 10,000-users-an-hour pace, which was 10 times faster than the first 10 hours,” he said. “Then we realized we needed to start rethinking things.”
Ads and commissions on ticket and song sales should make iLike profitable this year.”