Seeing VCs start to sweat and throw in the towel on more and more startups, I realize that there’s really very little value - hence the ‘where’s the beef’ title - to show for despite all of the money VCs have invested in companies since 2003.
It’s a shame. I must have pitched 100 VC/angels (ok, that is a stretch, the number is probably closer to 25) and none of them saw us becoming a $1B exit. So they invested over $10M in companies that they are about to kill because they realize the error of their ways. Make no mistake about it: had investors not invested in clunkers, they would not be ringing alarm bells announcing impending doom and gloom.
Most of these investments had very little to do with any semblance of value based on net present value, replacement value, etc., and everything to do with the time-tested theory of the Greater Fool theory. Even though you would think that media companies will use this downturn to acquire services like Slide, Facebook, Digg etc., you sort of realize: “no, they won’t.”
For one: media companies are being mauled. Look at the loss of value of late. What’s more, many of these companies are also asked to cut costs internally. I don’t care who says what: Digg, Facebook, Slide etc., provide fairly little utility (no wonder why Facebook removed the ‘utility’ description from its main page).
For the record: I love Digg, I think Facebook remains useful if they remove the crap from the site… and Slide I am still trying to understand what that is. But my point is: they all cornered themselves with obscene valuations in recent financing rounds.
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