At the time of this case, Yang and Filo had an attractive business opportunity because they had first mover advantage with demonstrated high demand from the number of users and strong brand recognition. Their business model was, and still is, largely to be the most preferred web search engine and content provider globally, thus creating a valuable platform for advertisers and revenue generation. However, there are risks that the two founders face in terms of their team, finances, market forces and technology. The greatest immediate risk to their business success is the current lack of business savviness and knowledge on founding team of two engineers and their lack of financial resources. Further down the horizon is market pressure and competition from existing access providers developing their own search technology and improved advances in automated indexing, categorizing and ranking of websites as developed by Google. The first two biggest immediate risks can be mitigated by accepting the Sequoia Capital offer from Michael Moritz. Sequoia Capital’s offer not only provides Yang and Filo the financial resources they need, but the business knowledge and resources to “assemble a top management team”. While they give up some equity in the Sequoia Capital option, Yahoo! would still be their own company, whereas in a merger option, they would essentially be cashing out and losing ownership of their company and technology. Accepting corporate sponsorship would potentially “taint Yahoo!’s image” and brand while not providing the necessary business knowledge and support to successfully launch the company. It is unnecessary to introduce this kind of risk at such an early stage for less return than the Sequoia Capital option. Although waiting for another venture capital company deal requiring less than 25% equity exchange is an option, it is more risky. There is not another