11–20 of 27 posts
What bubble?
What bubble?
Ah, the classic "Holier than thou" attitude of some technical people. 375 million pageviews a month, between ads and merchandise sales I'd be really surprised if they make anything less than 7 figures a month in revenue. Hate the company if you wish, but investing in them is far from an indicator of a bubble, in my opinion.
What bubble?
But they're already profitable and have a proven business model (gain attention, sell it to advertisers). I have serious doubts about their ability to make good use of $30MM, but I don't think it's vaporware, either. This could be a case of smart founders taking liquidity in an era of cheap money.
What bubble?
But they're already profitable and have a proven business model (gain attention, sell it to advertisers). I have serious doubts about their ability to make good use of $30MM, but I don't think it's vaporware, either. This could be a case of smart founders taking liquidity in an era of cheap money.
Also I'd be very wary of investing my money on people with such malleable ethics. But I guess with so many new VCs without a clue there's a lot of money to be made.
What bubble?
Ah, the classic "Holier than thou" attitude of some technical people. 375 million pageviews a month, between ads and merchandise sales I'd be really surprised if they make anything less than 7 figures a month in revenue. Hate the company if you wish, but investing in them is far from an indicator of a bubble, in my opinion.
"NOW WITH MORE LOL CATS!"
"THE MILLION DOLLAR HOMEPAGE IS NOW OFFERING FRANCHISES!"
"TRON GUY CELEBRITY APPEARANCES INCORPORATED"
"FAIL BLOG, NOW WITH 40% MORE FAIL!"
What bubble?
Ah, the classic "Holier than thou" attitude of some technical people. 375 million pageviews a month, between ads and merchandise sales I'd be really surprised if they make anything less than 7 figures a month in revenue. Hate the company if you wish, but investing in them is far from an indicator of a bubble, in my opinion.
http://www.linkedin.com/companies/zvue-corporation
http://www.google.com/finance?q=zvue (very likely the same ZVUE)
Check their home page: http://www.zvue.com/
"$15 million cash and $2.5 million in stock" !
"$5.2 million revenue in 2007!" (check the Wikipedia source page for this figure, hilarious)
Edit: I see now you are acangiano...
And this is the kind of investment that will make you look like an idiot if it blows up. But I have to think someone like Brad Feld, whose firm was part of this investment, is pretty confident in the business if he is willing to put his money and his reputation at stake on this.
Funny movies, funny books, and funny tv shows have all proven to be big money makers over a long period of time (but they also bomb often). Why is a business built on funny websites so ridiculous?
It seems that a lot people have a hard time differentiating between an intelligent business and a business that makes intelligent products.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see why everyone's so skeptical of this. How is this any different than other social sites? Basically what they're doing is crowd sourcing humor and that seems like a better plan than a lot of other startups I've seen. Give the huge audience potential (who doesn't like a good laugh?) and their proven record of success (3 years) it doesn't seem like a terrible investment to me.
Some of us will never be able to really accept the idea that $30m isn't a metric shitload of money, for anything, let alone a faddish humour website. Whenever I see these numbers I can't help but think about how much food you can buy for $30m. I know economics is obviously more complex than that, building wealth helps the world etc. but I still find it impossible to get over this. Just being honest.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they're already profitable and have a proven business model (gain attention, sell it to advertisers). I have serious doubts about their ability to make good use of $30MM, but I don't think it's vaporware, either. This could be a case of smart founders taking liquidity in an era of cheap money.
We can't fault founders for building a profitable business and taking cheap money before the growth tails off. But shouldn't there be some evidence of a viable master plan to spend that $30m turning it into a $300 million business for it to be an investible opportunity? I can't help thinking the "ephemeral crap" market is looking highly competitive and that the competition is more sophisticated and addictive.
To the investors, yes. To the general public, no.
What bubble?