Like ConFabb, we track conferences. However, where they are a mile wide and an inch deep, we are narrow but extremely deep. We focus specifically on peer-reviewed medical meetings around the world, and currently provide over 70 fields of very specific information on over 1,000 medical meetings around the world. In addition, we have even more details on almost 2,000 peer-reviewed medical journals. We have a sustainable busness model because we have targeted the people who absolutely need to know this information (aka “publish or perish.”) Our clients include pharmaceutical companies, small biotechs, universities, research institutions, libraries and medical writing agencies. For this, they are glad to pay $4,995 per year because it saves them huge amounts of valuable time in finding, tracking and sorting the ideal place to submit their medical research for publication or presentation.

Our subscribers want up-to-the-minute and accurate information, while the journals and meetings want to make sure that their information gets out to all the researchers out there who are writing up articles for peer-review. Everybody wins.

Yes, we have feedback loops in case users find what they think to be wrong or outdated data. (Does this qualify as “social networking?”) But the same backlash that Wikipedia is now experiencing in colleges and high schools due to “socially edited content” is the same reason that ConFabb, in it’s current form will not work. First, who has time to put this information in and secondly, can I trust it? I either want it from the source or I want it in a centralized, sortable form from someone who has a vested interest in making sure the information is correct and up-to-date. That where we come in.

Call me old-fashioned, but sustainable business models are about finding an audience with a real need, delivering value and making money in return. Hmmm, but then again, maybe I should start a rumor that WE are in play…..

Sam: I don’t think there’s no value here, but it’s hard for me to value this at $5 million in its current state. Without going into too much detail, I think Confabb’s business strategy needs to involve the conferences themselves. There are a few options here. Perhaps a major conference operator is the potential buyer. It would make sense to some extent.

Greg: agree completely that you can’t value a user at $x just based on the size of the audience. I think valuations are probably one of the biggest problems in Web 2.0. There are no standardized metrics for usage that really work well. Even pageviews can be misleading when you consider that certain sites have inflated numbers due to poor design (MySpace) and others have deflated numbers due to the use of AJAX, etc. We know that many startups promote user and usage numbers that just don’t add up. At the end of the day, any company looking at an acquisition and doing due diligence should weigh revenues heavily. A company without revenues (or very minimal revenues) creates a great risk because you can only speculate on how much each user could contribute to the bottom line. That doesn’t mean that you have to be MySpace before an acquisition makes sense, but it does seem like we’re in a market where decent services with limited traction, no real validation of a business model and no defensible technology or positioning in the marketplace can be flipped very quickly, and I don’t think that’s healthy for anybody. The acquirers are at risk of blowing money and destroying shareholder value (even though the majority of the time the amounts lost are extremely minimal compared to the cashflow/revenues/market cap of the acquirer). New startups are conditioned to believe that a quick flip is viable and that the traditional components of businesses worth acquiring (revenues, profitability, intellectual property, etc.) are less important.

One other aspect of this report that we might reasonably ask: if Confabb just launched and has little traction but has already received a buyout offer of $5 million, why are the founders saying “Let’s sell!” instead of “Wow. We just launched this and haven’t even really started making progress but somebody wants to buy us. Imagine the value of the business we could build if we continue executing on our strategy!”? I’m not naive. Sometimes you take the money and run, especially in a frothy market. It’s a very nice return. But in most cases you don’t make a massive fortune by flipping. Imagine where Sergey and Larry would be now if they had sold Google to Yahoo. A much different place. I think the old stock market adage “cut your losses short and let your gains run” has some application to startups. If a startup that promotes its great potential is willing to sell out so quickly, I think they’re really telling you that they’re not as confident about their prospects as they’ve led you to believe. And the funny thing here is I think there’s potentially a very decent business to be built with the right strategy that would get them more than $5 million.

not saying this idea is doomed. if it works as a comprehensive directory then its already there for the most part. the social stuff is just gravy. id like to see things like calendar integration, email me certain kinds of conferences etc.

i definitely want to see which conferences are offering free lunches, free dinners, xbox raffles, book giveaways and so on.

If you watch Scoble’s show where Salim announced the startup you will learn that the company was built using equity labor. Everyone involved contributed their time and skills in exchange for stock. The small amounts of monetary investment apparently came about right before the launch.

your questions regarding confabb are valid, and we’d both agree that whatever happens with confabb it’s up to the principles to implement, and to continue to innovate.

however, one of your statements, was in questioning why confabb hasn’t grown more. i would reply by stating that it has, and in fact is apparently growing. these guys are growing a business, and just like planting a tree, it takes time/effort.

to your point regarding that major conferences could in fact have their own social networking, this is also valid. however, i would state that if every (major) conferences had their own social network, then the value to the end user is limited.. when i went to conferences, there were plenty of people that i was pretty sure i never met, but who never the less were important. a social network for the conferences where the users could interact with each other, as well as with others from other like minded conferences would be quite useful, and potentially very powerful.

in fact, the more i think, mull this over, this begins to look like one of those times were you start to say, there might be a good buziness model here!!

i once came out of my apt, years ago, and looked on the ground and saw what i thought was a $1 dollar bill.. who cares right? i picked it up, and saw that it was in fact a $100 bill. however, no one drops/loses a $100 bill… so i took it to a bank. yeah, someone had dropped a $100 bill!! bought a few text books that day!

my point is that sometimes you need to take a harder/closer look, and you might find something valuable.

peace…

-bruce

If we’re back in a market where M&A can be driven primarily by the potential of concepts alone then we’re in trouble. In a sane market, it doesn’t make sense to acquire something that has yet to prove it can attract a large audience and that has no defensible technology or market position (i.e. key partners, relationships, executives with unbeatable domain expertise, etc.). There’s no doubt that many major companies are facilitating this startup flipping because they’re scared that if they don’t acquire early, they’ll be forced to look at 9 and 10 figure acquisitions later, but if I’m a Yahoo shareholder, for instance, and I see them acquire MyBlogLog (which has limited mainstream traction) so soon after launch, I have to wonder if Yahoo has the ability to compete in the market. If the startup you’re looking at acquiring has a limited lead on you and no major traction, you have some real problems as a company. If you feel you can’t compete and need to perpetually acquire to stay in the market, you are in trouble. Somebody else just launched a service similar to MyBlogLog. Will it succeed? Who knows. But it highlights the fact that somebody else was undeterred that MyBlogLog had a head start. It also demonstrates that Yahoo purchased something with no real defensible position in the marketplace. An acquisition of Confabb, in my opinion, is the same type of acquisition.

Sam: I think the idea is interesting, but if it’s easy for us to see how this could grow, the question is why it hasn’t. I believe there’s something of value to the concept, but I wouldn’t pay $5 million for an interesting concept and nice looking service with no real traction. A few devil’s advocate points:

- Unless Confabb has near 100% penetration for each conference, conference, the service has little use as an attendee list.
- Conferences are social networking events. Do you absolutely need an online social network built around them? Usually you go to conferences knowing (in general) who will be attending and making it a point to network with the key people and/or companies you’d like to meet. You exchange contact information, etc. and remain in touch with the parties of interest after the business is over.
- If you do believe that an online social networking component provides enough value to attendees of conferences, wouldn’t the operator of a conference be best equipped to set up such a social networking component for its conference? They have direct access to the attendees to market it and if they wanted could automatically set up an attendee list that lists 100% of the attendees if desired. I’m sure CES, for example, could get more than 14 “members” for an official online network they operated. If any major conferences do this, Confabb’s market becomes fragmented very quickly and it gets marginalized. Of course, there’s no reason this has to occur and this disadvantage could be eliminated with the right business strategy, but I’m not on the Confabb payroll so I’ll let them figure out the obvious.

unfortunately a lot of you guys are way too young to recall, but i remember trying to get membership lists of conference attendees as these guys were potentially our targeted customers/competitors… at the time 80s/90s.. it could get to be pretty damn pricey to get this kind of information…

so i can easily envision different tracks that this could incorporate…

peace

-bruce

Someone with so much experience as you should know it better!

Lets really look at this. I call BS. I think that some one in the confabb camp is trying to stir some interest in a not too interesting site. I think that there is some tomfoolery going on here.

1 put the rumor out there that there is a takeover happening.
2 deny
3 say it is premature but we are talking
4 sit back and wait for a company dumb enough to buy
5 pray for traffic

this site is vaporwear ……the most popular conference has nothing in it ….
how bout they get over 100 visitors a day then we can start talking bout takeover.

milas

http://www.conf...ces2007/details

14 users watched
14 users attended
6 ratings
4 discussions

If this is the type of activity level seen for a conference like CES, then it’s a sign at the very least that they haven’t developed the community itself to the point where an acquisition would make a lot of sense. Right now they look more like a conference directory that a social network, as it doesn’t seem as if there’s a whole lot of social interaction going on. If this is an acquisition for technology then one needs to ask if something like this couldn’t be duplicated for less than $5 million. If they built it on $75,000, you’d think it could.

source: http://lists.fi...,6tqs,6ha9,fjp3

don’t spread rumors/gossip, as they say – lol

just stick to the stories that to the best of your knowledge, are facts

Comparing confabb to mybloglog in terms of value as a function of how long they have been up and running…well I know which one I’d put my money in:

http://www.alex...p;url=8apps.com