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Successful Web companies find cash instead of flash – Austin American Statesman

By Omar L. Gallaga  | Saturday, February 21, 2010

Matt Chasen, the CEO and founder of Austin’s uShip Inc., has watched lots of flashy companies sail through South by Southwest Interactive on a wave of hype (but with no business plan). That’s good for some companies (cough – twitter – cough), but Chasen says that for many start-ups, little attention is paid to the basics of business: working hard and becoming profitable as quickly as possible.

“Hype is good and hype helps, but it’s very rare to have hype-driven companies actually amount to anything,” Chasen said. “What ultimately makes any business sexy is being successful.”

Ah, yes: The Sexy. It’ll be the topic of the South by Southwest Interactive panel “Unsexy & Profitable,” which will include Chaes, Hooman Radfar of Clearspring Technologies Inc., Alan Martin of CampisBookRentals.com and writer Paul Carr from TechCrunch as moderator.

See the full Austin American Statesman article