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Do you mind sharing examples of overfunded rivals? I'd be interested in reading about their trajectories. I'm also working on helping creators monetize their a
by charlierguo 8y ago
Do you mind sharing examples of overfunded rivals? I'd be interested in reading about their trajectories.
I'm also working on helping creators monetize their audiences (but bootstrapped), and it often feels like Patreon is either going to vacuum up all the creators or explode in a VC-funded blaze of glory.
- idlewords 8y agoMy favorite example is Kippt, who decided that dominating bookmarking was not enough, and that they needed to compete with email. I had a beer with the developers and came away quite worried, because they seemed energetic and capable. Luckily, they took VC funding instead of focusing on the narrower bookmarking space, and soon enough were drafting an "incredible journey" blog post. Start: https://techcrunch.com/2012/06/14/yc-backed-kippt-goes-collaborative/ https://techcrunch.com/2012/06/14/yc-backed-kippt-goes-colla... Finish: http://blog.kippt.com/next-chapter/ http://blog.kippt.com/next-chapter/ Something similar happened to trunk.ly, which had a lot of momentum and then got harmlessly acquihired away by a lavishly funded competitor, AVOS systems, who cratered so hard a few years later that I was able to buy the remains of Delicious, my original VC-funded competitor, from them with my Pinboard profits. Sic transit gloria fundi. Compare both to historio.us, which has been chugging along for about as long as Pinboard without VC funding and hopefully makes StavrosK some money.