Seesmic is just a plain terrible idea though. Growth first, profit after is a great proven model which works well, but not if your idea is lame to start with.
There's no evidence to suggest people want to view slow videos of people making comments/waffling, rather than reading them. Seesmic traffic barely registers.
Most people don't bother about video comments since most of them are by people who are promoting themselves and they're also very low on info density. You can read a paragraph in few seconds and it takes you minutes to get the same thing from a video comment. Video is perfect for teaching but I don't think it's great for quick bursts of communication.
I think video comments are going to be irrelevant in the long run. It's interesting to make a parallel with video phone. Video phone never took off because people didn't want to be bothered with checking how they look before they answer a phone. Fixing hair, shaving, etc... why bother with that?
The ROI "upside" to moon-shot companies like Seesmic is deceptive. Yes, the success stories in the Seesmic bracket are 8-9 figure exits. But the founders (a) see only a small fraction of that return after preferences and dilution and (b) are disallowed from pursuing any but the most lucrative conceivable exits; the rocket is strapped to their back, and it's the moon or bust.
The investment "risk" of bootstrapped companies is also deceptive. If you have a business model that works, you don't need investment; if you'd benefit from an investment, you pursue it at your leisure.
There are also hybrid models. A "market place" startup might introduce individuals to other individuals or companies to individuals. In this case there might be a per transaction cost or the startup might charge one party and not the other.
In this case, the startup might grow horizontally with the freebie crowd and obtain a large market share, then sell the audience to an interested party for a fee. That's what my startup is doing :-)
Every business should be a "lifestyle business". If don't know what a non-lifestyle business is, but it sounds like something that's unsustainable, that doesn't make you happy and thus doomed to fail.
Definitely a Balsamiq style entrepreneur. I don't even think twice about ideas that don't have a pricing model. I don't even seem to come up with them in the first place.
[+] [-] axod|17 years ago|reply
There's no evidence to suggest people want to view slow videos of people making comments/waffling, rather than reading them. Seesmic traffic barely registers.
[+] [-] nickb|17 years ago|reply
I think video comments are going to be irrelevant in the long run. It's interesting to make a parallel with video phone. Video phone never took off because people didn't want to be bothered with checking how they look before they answer a phone. Fixing hair, shaving, etc... why bother with that?
[+] [-] tptacek|17 years ago|reply
The investment "risk" of bootstrapped companies is also deceptive. If you have a business model that works, you don't need investment; if you'd benefit from an investment, you pursue it at your leisure.
[+] [-] dotcoma|17 years ago|reply
Seesmic: bullshit.
[+] [-] emmett|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mahmud|17 years ago|reply
In this case, the startup might grow horizontally with the freebie crowd and obtain a large market share, then sell the audience to an interested party for a fee. That's what my startup is doing :-)
[+] [-] pclark|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sachinag|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cedsav|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ctingom|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dpnewman|17 years ago|reply
with scale model -- you better have a landmark vision and the ability to execute exceptionally well.