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Each year a big group of us go up to Tom Hughes’ place in the San Juan Islands to party. He’s put so much work into his island bar that we collectively decided to make a website, tees and drink coasters just to push it all completely over the top. His bar is better than all tiki bars in Seattle (and probably most other places). I did the site, Chad Otis did the illustration and Mark Popich did the crests and teeshirts.
Well I’m a bit late in posting this but it is true. The first company we developed internally at Curious Office (and where I am the CEO) just raised a pile of money.
The round was led by German publishing conglomerate Holtzbrinck though there was also participation from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Crosslink Capital.
Seattle angel investors — including former Expedia Chief Executive Erik Blachford, PhotoDisc co-founder Tom Hughes and Second Avenue Partners co-founder Nick Hanauer — also participated. As did the European Founders Fund, the venture firm created by the German brothers who sold Alando.de to eBay in 1999.
Pretty exciting huh? Here’s to a big 2007.
Kelly Smith
Thanks much to one of my favorite blogs…thealarmclock for the unsolicited mention of ImageKind.
Great blog and worth putting in your RSS reader.
This has been an interesting week. I’ve talked to three entreprenuers who have mentioned the idea of selling web 2.o software projects on eBay. Then on TechCrunch I see this mention of other folks selling similar start-ups the same way. I started thinking about this a bit tonight. Certainly, no serious investor or VC is going to view the sales of software platforms on eBay a great business. But, for the bright young folks just out of high school who happen to be very good at building web apps I can tell you that there are many “non tech” folks out there on the look out for this kind of stuff. Got a photo gallery app? Throw it on eBay. Develop an affiliate system for selling art and posters? Throw the system on eBay. For most young twenty-somethings this could be the easiest and fastest path to making $50,000 - $200,000.
At the time of this writing, the price for digforit.com is $11,000. I am sure the final sale will be for much more than this.
I predict a great number of web2.0 software concepts being sold for ‘pennies on the dollar’ as would-be entreprenuers head back to the stability of their corp jobs. But, somehow I actually think there is an interesting concept here that isn’t altogether crazy. Building software can be MUCH easier than building real businesses. Selling such software is also probably much easier than selling businesses with higher price tags. Depending on your personal situation, this could be a fascinating investigation.
Like many people, I’ve been following Ray Ozzie’s vision for Microsoft’s future because there really hasn’t been any other single person since Microsoft’s inception who have been held in such high esteem by both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Without a doubt, other execs (Mundie) are heralded but Ozzie seems to have a responsibility to a) clarify the strengths and weaknesses that Microsoft has amassed over the years since its founding and b) apply that clarity against a new strategy where Microsoft stays as relevant as it ever was in the high tech community.
What I often read about his vision for Microsoft’s future is interesting. Perhaps its something Rob Glaser figured out earlier than even Billg. Advertising and subscriptions! Building better software is certainly important but Real eventually got out of the server business when it saw that it may be unwise to try to beat Microsoft at their own game. This is what Google did. Knowingly or unknowingly, they went where Microsoft wasn’t. They built the best ad network on the planet. Certainly it took smart developers. Speaking of which, it is now Google who gets the frequent mention about the high levels of “developer IQ” that permeate its ranks. “The best and brightest” they say. Debatable but the press these days loves saying such things.
Ozzie’s vision for the future is one of connectedness. Its about “webification”. None of that is surprising so the devil will be in the details. But consumers are going to benefit in a major way as the tech giants duke it out. Why? Because webifying everything requires billions and billions of dollars in infrastructure. Storage and bandwidth will continue to become a commodity because the world’s largest tech communities must build out cluster after cluster after cluster to support the apps of tomorrow. Ozzie knows this. And they’ll continue to invest in their own clustering technologies (which are still relatively new) so that they can get close to the home-grown server OS that currently drives all of Google. More storage, more bandwidth at less cost. In 10 years, it could be at no cost.
In 10 years, Microsoft will need to be making a significant percentage of their overall revenue from advertising in order to grow the business. That is a KEY growth market. Could it be possible that in 2016 you’ll get Excel for free as long as you agree to consume some ads from time to time? I think its entirely possible and maybe the notion is even necessary for Microsoft to stay as hot as they’ve been all these years.
I love this recent post about distributing short films on the Internet.
Mika Salmi and I were doing this 6 years ago. Of course, Atom got a bit further with that plan while we opted to go a different route at the end of the day.
An old friend Chase Norland did the YouTube concept 6 years ago and it was called ShareYourWorld.
Now, I see dozens of people trying to build Flickr. Consider Zoomr.
There is too early and there is too late. Both can be fatal to a great idea.
Following actually works pretty well if you implement big improvements using market data gleaned from earlier executions.
Rising tides lift all boats so it helps to get good at determining when certain markets get “hot”. Online video is hot again. So, YouTube won’t be the only success story in that space. I suspect Addicting Videos and Revver will get a decent chunk of that market. RealNetworks (as the pioneer) should have been all over this.
The last month has been quite interesting. We’ve been contacted by venture funds both small and large who have expressed interest in investing money in what is currently a privately funded operation. It makes me think that more and more VCs are starting to think that an “earlier and smaller” strategy is well worth considering. I don’t know what we’ll do with these discussions. On the one hand, it’s quite nice to be able to operate as informally as we do. On the other hand, it might be nice to have some other capital to work with. None of this was something we expected. It should be an interesting year.
I expect a lot of consolidation in the video space. I had previously posted that MetaStories was a nice target. They got bought by MetaStories. Much newer companies like www.cuts.com seem interesting and some companies like YouTube weren’t especially innovative but executed perfectly. YouTube isn’t that old but it’s already a valuable property. And, my old favorites (props to Mika) like Atom Films would clearly be interesting and valuable to much larger companies. 2006 is going to be fun in the video space…
Ok so along with the rest of the blog fraternity (and I do mean that in generic male/female kind of way) I’ll have to cast my vote for who it was that Fox said they bought amidst a room full of companies.
I predict Meetro.
Let’s see if I’m right 
Now this was an interesting post about Newsvine…our Seattle neighbor just barely off the blocks…
Fox drools over menu at Web 2.0 buffet: You couldn’t have kicked off more clucking and squawking if you’d thrown a fox into a henhouse. The henhouse, in this case, was the Under The Radar event Thursday focusing on (and I use the term reluctantly) Web 2.0 companies, and the fox was Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media. In an interview with Techcrunch’s Michael Arrington, Levinsohn said Fox had acquired one of the 32 companies represented at the event (but not which one) and added that he wouldn’t be surprised if as many as five of the companies ended up in the den, given that Fox Interactive has $2 billion burning a hole in its pocket. Bawk! Commence the clucking. Will it be Newsvine, which is barely out of the womb? Or maybe photo-search outfit Riya, still in beta? Or maybe Goowy, which wants to help you manage your digital lifestyle? Expect much pecking and scratching to follow.
This article sums up quite nicely what my business partner and I have been thinking for a few years. And, in large part its what guides us here. However, really good (exciting) deals still come along infrequently so we remain on the lookout…
Steve Brotman has a nice little summary of Bo Peabody’s book, Lucky or Smart. The bullet list summary is worth the read if you don’t get the book. For example:
1/ Entrepreneurs are made, not born.
2/ Lose the ego, be gracious at all times, the world is a very small place
3/ Know what you don’t know
4/ Don’t believe your own press
I’ll be at the ContentNext Mixer…these are the PaidContent.org guys. Should be kind of fun and expect to see lots of old friends. Hope to see you there, Feb 22nd, 6 PM sharp @ The Palace Ballroom, 2100 - 5th Avenue, Seattle.
