a large number of YC companies have thousands to millions of users who love them.
flickr was not the first sharing photos website by far. youtube wasn't the first video online. and your example, yahoo and google. yahoo was an online list of interesting webpages, hand edited. google was another search engine.
yes yahoo grew up to be a portal, and google showed us search means great ads. but they hardly did it in three months.
[edit]
oh yeah, and yahoo is burning out. and google is still only making money in one way (ok plus search appliance last i heard).
flickr was not the first sharing photos website by far. youtube wasn't the first video online. and your example, yahoo and google. yahoo was an online list of interesting webpages, hand edited. google was another search engine.
yes yahoo grew up to be a portal, and google showed us search means great ads. but they hardly did it in three months.
[edit]
oh yeah, and yahoo is burning out. and google is still only making money in one way (ok plus search appliance last i heard).