El Dumbo.

Heh!?! Akimbo just raised another $8 million from some of its earlier backers (Draper Fischer J., ATT, Kleiner Perkins, et al.).

Being as we said hello to them in many different ways- from the time they were selling a STB @ $125 + a monthly for content, to when they were just aggregating content, I thought we should check 'em out and see what $56 million raised over 5 years can help build.

The short answer is a long one: I am deeply offended by the state of venture capitalists, and their professed due-diligence for a market place, if they think it costs $8 million to build and market this..... (See screenshot below)


This costs $8 million to build and market?! Give me a break, guys. This is a $100,000 exercise, and it restricts you to Internet Explorer users. Not only do you not support Mac and Linux users, but you also don't support PC-Firefox users(which, from what I hear, is a FASTTTT growing and already kinda huge, market).

And it's not just the product...I think the website is an accurate reflection of their mindset. This is no 'widely acknowledged pioneer in Internet VOD'. It's a heavily funded failure. I could probably spend some time proving them wrong on all things mentioned on their "about us" page, but why bother?!

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Why bring this up? I'm not 100% sure. I liked Steve Shannon...he was a good friend to us. It's not Akimbo I have a problem with, either. They're just out there trying to do their thing. That "their thing" sucks is great...more power to us in the competitive landscape.

I do think I have a problem with Draper Fisher Jurvetson though. And with Kleiner Perkins. And I know I *might* be shooting myself in the foot, but heck, I think part of the reason we're blogging on here is to call a hat a hat.

Because if you're funding a $100k product, and a $7.9 million marketing effort, then it's no longer about venture capitalism.
It's about vulture capitalism, all over again.

And we all know where THAT got us last time around.