[aeturnum]

Google's initial funding, when they did not have a business model, was around 1 million dollars. By the time they got a significant chunk they had decided to use ads to try to monetize. Not all useful things make sense as income generating businesses.

[jkuria]

Not according to In the Plex. They had raised money from Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins and John Doerr was almost losing his mind on how much cash they were burning through with no business model. Finally, in an act of desperation, they copied Overture's model. The rest is history!

[sokoloff]

$1MM in 1988 is about $2.15MM today, hardly different from what these folk raised.