When a business run by a 22 year old raises 25 million dollars it certainly gets attention and Crinkle’s successful seed funding has provoked plenty of commentary.
Particularly notable are stories like the gush piece from the New Yorker magazine calling the fund raising “a $25 million jackpot.” Reading those, those, you’d think Crinkle’s Lucas Duplan had won the lottery.
The truth is, getting a fat cheque from investors is only the beginning of the business journey; the real work starts when you have a board and shareholders to answer to.
Where the real jackpot lies is in selling the business to a greater fool and the story of Bebo founder Michael Birch is a good example.
Bebo was bought by AOL, probably the greatest greater idiot buyer of all, in 2008 for $850 million. Five yearrs later Birch has bought it back for one million and promises to ‘reinvent” the social media service.
While Birch didn’t get all the $850 million AOL spent on Bebo, he and his investors did hit the jackpot. Whether Lucas Duplan and the backers of Crinkle do is for history to tell us.
Image courtesy of sgman through sxc.hu