Sometimes Ash the blogger should keep his mouth shut because Ash the entrepreneur tells him he should. It’s a good thing Ash the blogger does not listen to Ash the entrepreneur.
Valleywag is reporting (thus take this with a pound of salt) that some of Brightcove’s early investors are balking at the $55M round pegging Brightcove at $150M pre-money valuation.
Here’s the thing (ie. disclosure): Brightcove has pitched us - and everyone else in video, mind you - to:
- use their platform
- join their ad network
- use their API
- index them in our video search
- [insert every other imaginable act a relatively healthy, able-bodied man can do here]
since they launched early this year (it’s possible they launched earlier, but keeping track of Brightcove entails that I hire a full-time person on staff).
The point we are trying to make is that Brightcove’s management seems to be drinking too much of their own koolaid. Before they cease to return my calls or emails, allow me to clarify that we’re so bullish on Brightcove’s pedigree that I have not once, not twice, but about eight times changed my plans for IT, partnerships to try to account for Brightcove… but everytime I do, I get a new email from CEO Jeremy Allaire highlighting a “great and new directive” the firm is taking. It’s too much.
Will online video be huge? Yes. That’s whey everyone from AOL and IAC invested in Brightcove in the first place. We don’t doubt video’s potential. But we keep it simple: at WatchMojo.com, we produce original video for the Web, my senile, not-so-abled-body grandma gets that. Brightcove? Stephen Hawkins has hired a tutor to grasp the business model.
The simple truth is that Brightcove’s “we’re everything to everyone” strategy makes it confusing for partners, advertisers, let alone investors.
If indeed it’s true that AOL and IAC are balking at this most recent round, we humbly, personally think that the valuation might be secondary to the fact that the average, educated, experienced person thinks that successful and visionary CEO Jeremy Allaire is trying to be everything to everyone.
Did we mention Brightcove is spreading itself thin and trying to be everything to everyone?
Then there’s the issue of not focusing. Ok, we made our point.
Also, and this might hurt some egos but better you hear it from a fan than a competitor Brightcove: I was going to write a fantastic review on Brightcove some time ago because I was very impressed with the company and mainly, Mr. Allaire’s ability to scale his business in a hot sector. So, I proceeded to venture onto their corporate section and hear one of his video presentations.
Let’s say I stopped watching because their player kept pausing and buffering. It’s one thing if Warren Buffett’s video presentation cuts in the middle of it, but for a CEO of a video company, it somewhat killed the point of my fantastic review. This should not be used as a scapegoat because few people actually visit a “corporate/about us” section.
As a producer of video content, I have a vision for what video should look like online (man, that sounds pretentious). And, as much as I would love to work with Brightcove, I am just not sure Brightcove is the best solution.
I hope this does not kill any chance of us working together in the future (cause, you know, Mr. Allaire is on a plane coming to meet us to sign a 12 year exclusive deal as we speak), but you might as well know this from someone who could potentially use all of your products but has no clue where to start cause you change your model every other freaking day.
Brightcove is either ahead of his time or has not learned from the case studies of Intel, Dell, MSFT, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola etc. which is keep is simple… you know what!
Oh, and $150M pre-money valuation is ridiculous. The entire video market is set to be worth $1B in 2010. Just because YouTube managed to embarass Google and force it pay through the teeth does not make it a comparable you can use here. But, that’s just me.
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December 5th, 2006 at 1:35 am
This is why I love blogs. Raw, uncut, and full of information. I’m wary of the Valleywag story, but this is a good look at another side of the coin.