Viaweb was a web-based application that allowed users to build and host their own online stores with little technical expertise using a web browser.

[1] The company was started in July 1995 by Paul Graham, Robert Morris (using the pseudonym "John McArtyem"),[2] and Trevor Blackwell.

[4] Viaweb was also unusual for being partially written in the Lisp programming language.

capital stock, valued at about $49 million, and renamed it Yahoo!

[9][10] Viaweb's example has been influential in Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial culture, largely due to Graham's widely read essays[11] and his subsequent career as a successful venture capitalist.