

CB Insights Sells List of Dying Tech Startups for $4,895 - dmor
http://www.cbinsights.com/datastore/product/dying-tech-startups/

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asanwal
Hi - Anand from CB Insights here.

Couple of clarifications/answers based on comments below:

1\. We look at cash-on-hand along with scores from a technology we've built
called Mosaic which looks for signals of strength or stress at private
companies (a bit more on Mosaic here - <http://www.cbinsights.com/mosaic/>).
So while cash remaining is an important input, we look at other measures
(industry health, investor quality, HR activity, etc) to ultimately create the
list.

2\. Startups are not the intended customer for the list. However, corporate
M&A teams, corporate HR teams/recruiters/VCs looking to recruit talent and IP
buyers are the customers. The list is a shortcut for their efforts.

3\. We're seeing a lot of the above folks buy the report which is a function
of (a) it's not easy to find info as we've got the most seed data out there
and (b) it is cheaper than alternatives, i.e. recruiters, consultants, trying
to do in-house

4\. 0% of the data is from Crunchbase. We started a company initially called
ChubbyBrain and the CB in our name is a tribute to our humble roots.

If any other questions, don't hesitate to reach out or ask in the comments.
Happy to help.

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gnu8
Is CB considering Bitcoin as a payment method?

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asanwal
We're waiting for Stripe to integrate Bitcoin and then we will. Until then, we
are happy to take the more old-school American dollar :)

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abcd_f
Any discounts for those on the list?

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arbuge
Your startup might find itself on that list pretty quick if it's in the habit
of shelling out $5k for dubious data products...

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kokey
I guess the only way for a startup not to die is to raise funding, I mean it's
not like it's going to make tangible profits or anything over 13 months.

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pytrin
Yeah, I found this notion amusing too. The only way not to die is to raise
money?

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reeses
I think you have a process patent in there somewhere. Let me know when I need
to license it when I get money to buy food.

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josh2600
So someone should take Crunchbase and sort for startups that raised a seed
without a follow-on round within 13 months.

Would that not be the same info?

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rdl
I assume they are pulling from Crunchbase, but it's not like people have any
incentive to keep Crunchbase updated (in a lot of cases, you don't _want_
people to know you just raised $1.5mm a year or two after your initial seed
money).

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777466
> (in a lot of cases, you don't want people to know you just raised $1.5mm a
> year or two after your initial seed money).

Why? What kinds of signals does that send?

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rdl
To channel Biggie Smalls via Ben Horowitz, "don't you know Bad Boys move in
silence and violence?". If competitors don't know you're well funded, they're
more likely to ignore you. On a more practical level, it keeps the bottom
feeder companies which troll crunchbase/techcrunch/etc and spam you with
recruiting/etc. offers for months away. There's not a lot of upside in letting
people know you're funded before a product is launched.

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dalehurley1
The problem I have with this list is you might not need to raise further
capital. Capital for equity is the most expensive form of money compared to
say a bond or loan from a bank.

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jmathai
That's a bit expensive to see if I'm on the list.

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riordan
The return of FuckedCompany is upon us... sorta

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mindcrime
Does anybody know where to get something similar to this, but not focused on
startups? That is, a more general "dying companies" list? That seems like
something that could be useful... are there services that generate that sort
of thing, or are you limited to just "the rumor mill" and what-have-you?

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minimaxir
Why not sell for an even $5,000?

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vecter
The same reason that things sell for $1.95 instead of $2.00.

~~~
sachingulaya
Convention? 99cent pricing is a hotly debated topic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing>

