PRESS RELEASE: POKING FUN AT VCS!
“37signals will lead the new global movement filled with imaginary assumptions on growth and monetization potential. We’re excited to roll out a list of unconfirmed revenue possibilities that involve crowdsourcing, a robust set of widget creation tools, 3G, augmented reality, social stuff, and an app store. Also, everything we make will include a compass.”
Rebecca Buckman in Forbes has posted a fun article about how Jason Fried, a Chicago entrepreneur at 37 Signals, blogged about a hefty $100 billion valuation in a satirical post ridiculing the valuations of companies that don’t make any money – and at least one VC actually fell for it and called up to enquire about getting in on the deal!
Titled “37signals Valuation Tops $100 Billion After Bold VC Investment” the satirical post poked fun at the nosebleed valuations commanded by some money-losing, VC-backed Internet start-ups lately. “One confused venture capitalist seemed to think the document was genuine and “wanted to get in” on the made-up deal”
Here’s another caption from the hilarious post:
“When it comes to valuation, making money is a real obstacle. Our profitability has been a real drag on our valuation … Once you have profits, it’s impossible to just make stuff up. That’s why we’re switching to a ‘freeconomics’ model. We’ll give away everything for free and let the market speculate about how much money we could make if we wanted to make money. That way, the sky’s the limit!”
Have you got a ridiculous startup? Well be sure you add the “Grenada State Schnool School of Business” valuation formula to your Business Plan….
Company Valuation = (Twitter followers x Facebook fans) + (# of employees x 1,000)] x (RSS subscribers + daily page views) + (monthly burn rate x Google’s stock price).
And if it’s still not enough you can always double the total “if the CEO has run a business into the ground before”…
