Posts tagged 2011
“I can Has Cheezburger” loses millions : Jann Scott’s Journal
Dec 20th
In a confession on Back Channel Huh said:
“In a nutshell, we didn’t know what we were doing. We had been profitable for years, selling ads, t-shirts, books and even a reality show on Bravo. But having investment money in the bank was new for us. More important, so was the process of transforming ourselves from a team that built and acquired WordPress sites to a company that produced a full-on content platform. We tripled our headcount.
After cashing out our original investors, however, our $30 million had dwindled to just $4 million. That figure is small by venture capital standards, but for a company that was used to duct tape and folding chairs, we felt like we were swimming in cash. We were turning into a confused, money-losing mess.”
What is this company ? What do they produce ? What is their financial model ? Believe it or not it is a kitty Kat humor website company who depends on fucking banner ads and T shirt sales to make it. It was a losing idea from the beginning. Memes. really. The entire startup world is caught up in this kind of bullshit and most of them go broke. The only people making money are the founder hustlers and the early stage VCs like Foundry. It is almost like these people plan to fail.
I hate to toot my own horn but I sure as hell know how to turn 30 million dollars into a profitable company and not blow it on dumb shit. Take a company like mine: Channel One Networks llc. We have evolved from cable television programming in the 90s to web based TV and news in the 2000s. We built slowly and surely turning a profit every year while expanding steadily. Now we have a grown to 6,000 TV channels and newspapers with local content and local advertising in every city in the world. We are not a flash in the pan and we don’t make Giant company ending mistakes. We compete with Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft. We build and sell our own products . We are not re sellers of somebody elses.. And we know what is King. Advertising and service sales are kings not content. Yes we are changing the way TV and news is delivered locally and we are changing the world.
One of the problems with the entire start-up millennium movement is that they are not business people. Most of them go broke. Most of them have little business or sales training. They do not know how to service customers or produce results for them. They are so caught up with making the scene that their zine meme thing crashes and they wonder .. oh gee what happened. business happened.
I wish some of these incubators and business schools would teach business instead of entrepreneurship. Not everybody can be an entrepreneur. There is great value in being a good solid worker.
From the Real World Home Town
Jann Scott
Boulder, Colorado
Jann Scott’s Journal gives a critical look at the world through the wise eyes of Boulders #1 multiculturalist
Boris Karloff was my neighbor
Oct 31st
I am reminded that Boris Karloff lived 7 miles from my home in New Milford Connecticut. I never knew that. No one around there knew. This was a small New England town. Everybody knew everything. Certainly, if a big star like Karloff lived there. I only found out because my new girlfriend Slylvia Prichard lived in his house with her parents. Her parents were British. So was Karloff. The Pritchards bought the home shortly after karloffs death in 1969. They had lived there just over a year when I met Sylvia.
It was a long time ago but I still remember it like it was yesterday. Sylvia and I were swimming on a hot June day in 1971. Only her mother was at home. She didn’t want to be left alone at night. Her mom had PTSD from being an English searchlight girl during the London Blitz in the 1940s. She was a bit quirky. Sylvias mother invited me to stay for dinner and to spend the night.
That is when I first heard the story of how Karloff had murdered his wife some 20 years earlier. Karloff was never arrested for the crime, but New Milford police always suspected him. At the time I was a young reporter, so I ventured over to the Police department and got my hands on the police report. It seemed Mrs Karloff had fallen down 30 stairs into the basement one night after an New York theater party. I had never heard of this. It was never in the papers. Never except this death notice from 1961 in the New Milford Times. “Andresca Karoff died accidently at her home on 312 Maple trail”
But the police report said they had found blood on Karloffs clothes.
As the evening wore on Mrs Pritchard revealed that she did not want to be alone because Andrescas Karloffs ghost roamed the house at night. Also, that sometimes Boris was there too. And that the murder was played out over and over. By this time it was nearing midnite. Both Sylvia and her mother were looped from wine we had been drinking.
I was like what the fuck?? Get out of here. Sylvia asured me that it was true but she didn’t care cause she took sleeping meds and never saw anything. I didn’t believe it. I thought they were both crazy.
Mrs. Pritchard saw that i wasn’t on board with yet another New England tale of horror and ghosts. No of course not I don’t believe in ghosts period. I didn’t then and I don’t now. I spent then night without episode.
I was tired and went off to my room in the basement. The guest room at the bottom of the stairs. Then something curious occured. An old car had pulled up to the back of the house when an older women came in through the sliding gloss door. It was Agness Mrs Pritchards sister who was visiting the family from England. She had been to bridge party in town. Not wanting to appear rude I sat at the sun table downstairs and chatted with her.
OMG she kept me up all night talking…… endlessly about her life in Liverpool. It was daybreak when I finally went to bed. agness went to bed in the room next to mine. Syvia and her mother had apparently passed out, because they did not come downstairs and rescue me from this odd duck.
I awoke late the next morining . Sylvia was smashed on ludes for sleeping and I from the old lady. During coffee when I asked about Sylvias aunt….Mrs Pritchard said. “What aunt??”
Your sister I said” Agnes. she kept me awake half the night talking”, Both Mrs Pritchard and Sylvias face drew pale.” I don’t have a sister Jann” When I took them to show them the old Mercedes parked in the back it was gone. The room next to the guest room was not a second guest room at all but an old unused coal furnis room.
Mrs Pritchard insisted ” It was her. It was her. It was Andresca Karloff you spoke with.” Like I said I don’t believe in ghosts. With a couple of lushes like the Pritchard, i have no idea what to believe. But this story is true and the case of Andresca Karloff death is still unsolved. And Agness? I don’t know what to make of her. But i did talk to her . she was as real as that cup of coffee you’re drinking. One other small fact. Andresca Karloff drove a 1961 Mercedes 220. The same car i had seen that June night in 1971.
from a place where innocent girls are murdered for fun
Jann Scott
Boulder Colorado