I didn’t realize, however, that ProQuo had shut down. The last I heard about the company’s status was just over six months ago, when ProQuo founder Steven Gal sent out a mass e-mail to thousands of his contacts (including me) announcing Nascenzi’s appointment and his own departure to teach at Cornell University’s business school as a visiting professor. It seemed at the time like a straightforward change in CEOs.

Turns out it wasn’t. Nascenzi tells me he’s constrained in what he can say. But he says he worked with ProQuo’s chief creditor, San Jose, CA-based venture lender Western Technology Investment, to sell off the company’s assets and dissolve the corporation. Nascenzi says he shut ProQuo down at the end of July, and laid off the last six employees.

Gal, a veteran who worked at San Diego’s HNC Software and was a co-founder of ID Analytics, started ProQuo in 2007 as a way to enable consumers to review mass-market mailing lists and decide what junk mail they really wanted to receive. The service was free to consumers and the business concept was to make money by selling the customized lists of users to mass-marketing companies. ProQuo took in a total $15 million in venture capital from Draper Fisher Jurvetson of Menlo Park, CA, and San Diego’s Mission Ventures.

Mission Ventures’ Leo Spiegel confirms that ProQuo was the startup he was referring to during a San Diego Venture Group panel discussion a couple of weeks ago, when he said his firm has only shut down one portfolio company during the economic downturn. In an e-mail to me, Spiegel says “It was difficult to execute the plan given the economic [downturn] and the competitive landscape.”

I gleaned a little more insight from a recommendation for Nascenzi that Andre Durand, a ProQuo co-founder and board member, wrote on the professional networking site LinkedIn: “Bob was brought in at a very difficult time for ProQuo. The company had not yet validated it’s business model, was consuming its remaining cash quickly, and with the funding climate changed significantly for the worse, was being forced to shut down… During this period, Bob regularly communicated his progress to the board, and managed the company through a number of tricky and delicate negotiations with creditors and purchasers of the ProQuo assets. While it was unfortunate that after so much time and money, we ended dissolving ProQuo, we were very fortunate to have found Bob when we did.”

In response to my query, Gal sent me an e-mail that says, “I ceased any involvement with ProQuo as of the beginning of May, I was neither employed by the company nor on the Board when it ceased operations, and am under a confidentiality agreement with the company (as is Bob) which prevents me from divulging any information.”

The topic apparently remains sensitive. Gal also called me, saying, “In 15 years of doing these kinds of startups, this is my first failure. It was truly a painful experience, and I’m still not over it.”

i think warren buffet is into this

..Only good things to come for ProQuo. With the added capital, it will be interesting to see how they continue to expand their service…..

See http://www.dmne...vacy/42812.html or http://money.cn...sion=2007102315.

Please consider updating the original post, because people are starting to panic and scam phishing emails are sure to follow.

A calendar, a fridge magnet, an informational sheet about the branches in their area, with their addresses, a personal letter from their would-be bank manager, a complimentary movie poster, a christmas (or any other occasion) card, anything different.

Would that give you a better impression of their efforts to directly market to you?

P.S.
http://www.stopjunkmail.org/
http://www.p2pa...g/main/junk.asp

I see no cash flow into ProQuo.

ENFORCE THEM!!!

http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com

The incorrect spelling of “effectivley” is *really* selling me on this service.

When I do get junk mail, it usually has a postage paid envelope in it. I write “Please take me off your list” on the response card and then stuff the envelope with as much heavy junk material as I can fit and mail it back. This costs the company more since they pay the postage. If everyone did this, they might get the message.

For catalogs, I call the 800 subscription number and asked to be removed.

Works for me and overall, I get relatively little junk mail.