pkmehta

Nik - good stuff. Was there ever a monetization plan when you were building it or was it always just always viewed as a complementary asset to TC as you highlight above?

Comment from TC article left by IronToby which is a great point:

"Sounds like they wanted people to contribute content for free while they're the only ones allowed to profit from it."

This article is well-written and The Verge's production quality is tremendous. Can we get more like this?

On Everpix - pretty shocked at the candor/level of disclosure in this article including from the founders and Index Ventures. VCs tend to keep mum about their misses so a bit refreshing to see.

I think the comments by Matt Kaufman (president of Crunchbase) about the damage that can be caused by "Crunchbase replicas" reflect the knowledge on AOL's part that Crunchbase is a potentially very interesting data asset. And so the reality is that they'll prob revisit rights to Crunchbase, and it'll go from very open to something less so (how far is the question). I would also guess that Crunchbase has a paid subscription offering in the works.

I would also speculate that People+ may be the first "offender" Crunchbase will target. Datafox.co, Mattermark, Inkwire.io might all find themselves in the crosshairs.

This also underscores a common mistake developers make which is creating on someone else's platform where the rules can and will change significantly especially when monetization becomes important. And it seems monetization is on Crunchbase's mind.

Update:

This post on the Crunchbase blog articulates that monetization is coming and that the above "offenders" may be hearing from AOL counsel soon.

http://info.crunchbase.com/2013/11/05/crunchbase-people-and-...

"CrunchBase must remain open to anyone who wants to contribute, and retrieving that data for non-commercial benefit must remain open as well. That said, to invest in CrunchBase’s constant improvement requires building a business around CrunchBase in a way that successfully takes into account our terms of service and our openness."

I wonder what this means for startups building their product on Crunchbase like Datafox.co, Mattermark and Inkwire.io?

Seems analogous in some ways to what Twitter did with its API and data and developer some time ago.

This is going to increasingly become common esp as governments try to cover budget gaps. We just went through a sales tax audit for our SaaS company and so are expecting a good size bill for taxes not paid + penalties. Yes - fun stuff.

Honestly, the gov't folks are playing whack-a-mole here trying to keep up with fast-growing areas that don't fit the old "you sell this widget for $X" model they're used to. And so they're going to write overly broad rules as they don't understand technology and related industries. There is no intrinsic reason that SaaS should be free of tax and so the more worrying aspect of this legislation (NY has similar) is that it is so difficult to understand and open to interpretation and the mental tax it imposes on businesses who live in a cloud of of uncertainty about how they should treat their revenues.

That said, I think the idea that it will drive biz out of the state is naive. California is not a particularly biz friendly state in terms of taxes but the Valley and even LA seem to be doing just fine.

No. According to Glassdoor, it says 16-50 employees - http://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-PrivCo-EI_IE659...

LinkedIn has them at 50 employees. Safe to say it's definitely not a one man shop.

Inspired by this thread where Fred Wilson called Privco's data garbage, their response was a bit of a case study in how not to respond to criticism.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5746763

SiliconValleyVC - this account has to be the worst attempt at astro-turfing I've seen in a while from a company employee or founder. Does anyone talk like this about a vendor (much less a data company) -- "I respect PrivCo from my working with their remarkably accurate data." Right right.

You're a SiliconValleyVC whose submission history is 2 privco articles. And your comment history references PrivCo multiple times and your love of them.

So perhaps you're just a really really happy VC client of a data tool or more likely you are here at the behest of your employer/are with the company and trying to salvage what must be a very bad day at the office - data company whose data gets called garbage.

On to your points to Fred:

1. If you've seen the docs, share them.

2. There was no ad-hominem attack. Fred called your data b.s. He has the #s so is in a good position to make that claim.

I can understand you're trying to save face for Privco after respected VC's Fred Wilson, Bijan Sabet have called you out. Plus, today, editors of 3 major tech publications called you out -- Jay Yarrow of Biz Insider, Eric Eldon of TechCrunch and Mike Isaac at AllThingsD all said Privco data and claims are incorrect and hyperbolic.

Pls don't insult us here with this very sad attempt at covering for your employer/company.

Whoa - this is so spot on.

We get lots of I'd be willing to pay X and we always send them a link for exactly that amount. And they never pay. We even follow-up just to give them the benefit of the doubt and they still never do.

Being the low cost provider for software (at least those targeted at corporates) is not the way to go. When people are spending OPM, it's more about the problem you solve for them then the cost. (note: of course, cost can't be insane but you get the idea. OPM = other people's money)

Writers/editors from major techh publications don't seem to trust Privco's data or practices either it seems - https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/336949975634296833

Worth noting that "A spokeswoman for Spark Capital disputed the accuracy of the report"

Privco were the same guys who did the LivingSocial hatchet job a while ago which was proven inaccurate. Privco's MO seems to be wild claims to generate interest in their private company data.

It seems even major publications think Privco's claims and data are not very good. Here's a tweet from TechCrunch and AllThings D editors questioning the integrity of the company and their data - https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/336949975634296833

For those interested, I have found VCExperts data to be better for this type of shareholding info (not affiliated with the company) and definitely less sensationalist.

Unrelated to Privco, a big congrats to USV - disciplined, open and truly thesis driven - not just chasing what is the hot thing of the moment.

The point about vesting is one I hadn't considered. Thanks.

Re: the burger analogy, that also makes sense in the context of there being competition for this deal. But aside from a puff piece in TC which looks placed by sources (aka Tumblr banker Frank Quattrone), there didn't look like much competition in this case.

But nevertheless, thanks for the informative answer.

Saw this one earlier by Fogcreek guy - TOMA where his phrase was that they'd use their blogging to "achieve TOMA" -- still have no idea what it is

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5732024

Can someone explain to me why you spend $1.1B on this if the company was running out of cash, had investors skittish about funding a new round and there were no competing bids.

Why didn't Yahoo just let them get desperate and buy them then? With an all-cash deal, it seems they're less interested in the team than the platform so seems they could have picked that up in a few months for significantly less.

What am I missing in this? I hope the answer is not that doing that would create enmity between Yahoo and Tumblr's investors or something like that? That would strike me as a gross violation of their fiduciary duty to their shareholders, no?

Great points.

Perhaps a dumb question but what is TOMA? I google'd and Urban Dictionary'd and I came up with the "Tennessee Osteopathic Medical Association" which my gut tells me is not what you're trying to achieve.

Thanks for clarifying.

BTW, #5 point is great. I've thought about writing posts that I thought might "do well on HN" but in retrospect, I stopped myself because realized our demographic isn't HN and so even if #1, it'd be a waste of traffic (except from a recruitment perspective perhaps).

You could goto Bloomberg.com or Yahoo Finance and get real P/S ratios but you used the uncontested paragon of financial data - HuffPo.

And you said it's high but still used it in your headline cuz you thought would have a higher chance of getting to the top of HN.

I guess pursuit of provocative > properly researched.

Exactly. What makes it worse is that Tumblr has lots of soft core porn and other unsavory content which brand advertisers don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole.

Plus, the P/S of 10x looks pulled out of ye' olde arse. Google's trailing P/S is 5.6x and Yahoo's is similar. AOL is 1.31x. What media company that might be a "comp" trades for 10x.

Sorry - sarcasm never translates well in writing. I totally agree with your point. Apologies for confusion.

Your conflating two unrelated things here - being objective (or real) and being dismissive.

Have you earned the right to have this much attitude? Strikes me as odd that as someone building a startup about startups that you'd be so dismissive of others on HN - a startup heavy community.

Interesting PR strategy.

VCs don't like that type of company. As a result, you should not aim for that goal.

You're drastically overestimating how many people care about startups (and will pay for a product related to them). This is a small market and VC as an asset class is shrinking (so it's getting smaller). VCs are terribly intuition driven and the good ones already do what you're thinking of and they'e good at it. And even if they bought, it's less than 50.

If you're trying to build one of those shoot for the moon startups (the kinds VCs like), this idea won't be it.

Not being a hater.

If you can really do that, become a VC or full-time angel vs. starting some silly startup index SaaS platform.

Revenue is a vanity metric. That's a new one.

This seems like an interesting way to justify shortcomings of dmor's momentum index. So:

- Mentions in TechCrunch > Revenue - Conference presentations by CEO > Revenue - Klout score > Revenue

This is some combination of naive, farcical or dumb.

Of course, you can throw out Facebook as an example of what over-optimizing for revenue would have done to them but this is survivor bias at its best. You could also look at Pets.com, Webvan and Kozmo from a bygone era to see what a poor monetization plan does. Note: it's not just revenue that is important but revenue > COGs.

(Note: Yes I know. This time is different. I'm an idiot.)

Good point. So far, the midwestern call center folks I've been dealing with have been nice but utterly useless so your point is spot on. Thx.

Credit unions. Hadn't even thought of them as I thought you had to be a "member" or something. But that's prob just ignorance on my part. Thanks much for putting me on to this as an option.