Love this quote from the article... I actually had to re-read it to make sure I got it right:<p>"If you’re an investor, I’m looking for a partner to help me make Clicker the Ask.com of online video guides. I think you’ll find SetJam is a real bargain!"
There's no such thing as "8 million dollar gorillas". Companies with 8 million dollars in funding are monkeys just like you.<p>The gorillas make more than 8MM in <i>profit</i>.
When spotlife.com launched the demise of Camarades.com/ww.com was widely announced, spotlife was backed by heavyweights Logitech and Philips ($30M).<p>Spotlife went under many years ago, ww.com is still ticking along. Don't say it can't be done. Be prepared to put in a lot of time and effort though. And forget about finding external capital for the moment.
Funny thing about competition, if the market is big enough and the competitors are good enough, there's plenty of room.<p><i>At TC50 Clicker demonstrated a product that has about every bell and whistle you can imagine. SetJam is stripped down to the bare essentials. I’ll let our users tell us what they need instead of deciding for them.</i><p>How about that, he's already found a classic way to differentiate. Sounds like a great starting point. I have a feeling they'll do well.
When your competitor has raised $8M in funding and you barely have $50k you get the feeling that it is not a fair competition. (And it can not be fair, no matter what you say...). But when your product gets better reviews, you suddenly become more optimistic.;)
also, clicker seems to be getting a lot more publicity. this is obvious considering they have more money, PR people, or whatever, but you should work on some basic attempts to get your name out there. why aren't you on crunchbase? googling "set jam" sends me to a website on proper handling of cherry jam. The way to win against the gorilla is to use your position as a PR move and write to dozens of blogs, forums, and newspapers (even those old things on the tree-based substances are still read, especially when content is placed online).<p>You are definitely facing unbalanced competition, the way to beat the bogeyman is to enhance your product's value proposition and use every opportunity for free PR<p>edit: I do understand the company is called "setjam" not "set jam" but, I imagine many others do not
If anything they could be over funded. I wouldn't call them a gorilla unless they were someone big like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft or have proved themselves in the market over 6+ months.
Very simple: go raise $8-12M based on Lanzone creating a market for a web-based TVGuide. Almost every market worth being in has two winners (think cola, search, fedex/ups, burgerking/MCdonalds, etc).<p>Also, on exit have two players in the market will help. they will probably not want to exit under $100M and you can carve out the quick exit at $25M.... or not.<p>the best thing to do is:<p>a) raise some capital ASAP
b) focus on your product
c) focus on users and what they think of your product
d) focus on distribution (i.e. consider strategic money maybe).<p>best jason
Firstly, don't characterize competition as a 8MM gorilla, when they are a startup.<p>Second, don't worry about competition. Focus on your users. Listen to them. Iterate rapidly. Add features request by your early users.<p>The other way to think about it is the facebook > twitter status update* as a product. Taking one component of a successful product and making it a product.<p>* comparisons to fb might not be completely accurate since one of the founders, apparently had the idea for twitter when folks were updating their IM clients.
If you have 50k in the bank that is not small change for a startup. That is plenty for you to show off your skills and get things going. Just because they have 8 mil and can hire a ton of people, does not necessarily mean they will be able to execute at your speed. They may have countless discussions, meetings, changes, upgrades, etc... that keep them from releasing product. I've built stuff in a few days with a friend that some companies can't build in 2 months due to the endless meetings and other such nonsense.<p>Focus on your users and give them what they ask for and remember this: To an end user Yahoo and mydinkysite.com look the same, they have no idea if there are 13,000 people backing it or just you. 10,000 servers or a shared hosting account. All you need to do is give them what they want better than the competition.<p>You can buy/rent a lot of talent in the valley, but you can't buy is domain knowledge acquired by talking to your users! Engage them and they will give you ideas that are will give you an edge.
Funny. I had started working on something similar as a way to learn Django. Was going to use Netflix as my master data source and dapper to scrape Hulu, XBox 360 (on xbox.com) and various lists of iTunes movies. This was going to be a project over a few weekends.<p>I'm not sure I see where the business model is. The value zap2it and the actual TV Guide bring to the table are by offering original content, something more like Entertainment Weekly. That doesn't seem to be in the plan for either company.<p>That leaves the affiliate model he mentions, and I can't imagine Netflix, Apple or Microsoft are offering an affiliate model. Hulu also seems doubtful, as an affiliate program for Hulu would be huge news. Perhaps Amazon? After that, it's all small potatoes.<p>Anyway, good luck.
I think the auther is unncessarily hung up on Clicker, which doesn't even seem to be out of private beta yet. His real competitor is SideReel, a television stream aggregator with huge penetration right now.
Here is another option for you. Look long and hard at your business and your partners. Decide if you want to compete w/ Ask.com (maybe you do) and also entertain the possibility of switching directions and doing something different.<p>Maybe some of the code is reusable? Is there a better idea? Ask yourself if you were to start today, what you would do.<p>We went through a similar situation and we changed direction. We were lucky to have a flexible and talented team, and looking back on it, it was the best decision we ever made.
out press them, watch this interview from mixergy with the founders of hotornot.com<p><a href="http://mixergy.com/hotornot-bootstrapped5-million-profits-james-hong/" rel="nofollow">http://mixergy.com/hotornot-bootstrapped5-million-profits-ja...</a><p>once hotornot bootstrapped from the guys front room- funded competitors sprung up everywhere. He talks about getting his site to be the first article that newspapers carried about such a site
No doubt clicker.com has a lot more people required to make a single decision. In the beginning, when there many critical decisions, this is a disadvantage.<p>Another thing setjam has going for it is time -- it can grow at its own pace, I suspect. Clicker.com is more sink or swim, and the clock is already running.
The media loves a good fight. Otherwise they are bored to death just copying press releases.<p>So you have a good angle to play. At this point, I would shoot to get a free ride on the buzz they are going to get short term, and see them die from overweight within 2 years while you zoom past them.
Isn't it unfair to say that they raised "$8 million on a PowerPoint like it’s 1999"? It definitely was harder otherwise SetJam could create something in PowerPoint too.
There can be only "Many"!<p>You don't have to be No.1 or the only one to be successful. If you are a player, I think this is good enough. And good luck!
How much does a gorilla cost? Like, a real one?<p>Given that it's probably a gray market at best, I'd guess that one or two particularly impressive ones have traded for $8 million. To Kim Jong Il or somebody. Seems reasonable, right?
An $8 million gorilla only matters to the extent that you are a monkey.<p>You're not a monkey, so I don't know what you're doing defining yourself in reference to a gorilla. Probably not "a lot of good".