Dan Ackerman Greenberg is a master at getting lots of views for online videos. Last year he wrote a less-than-well-received post here on TechCrunch called “The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos.”
In the face of hundreds of negative comments he wrote a follow up post where he clarified some of his original points – “We do NOT spam email lists…We do NOT pay off bloggers,” etc.
Well, whatever it is he does do must be pretty interesting, because his new company, 750 Industries, cofounded with Brett Keintz, landed a $1 million round of financing from Ron Conway, Maples Investments and Baseline Ventures. The company, which is located in Yelp’s old offices on Montgomery and Mission in San Francisco was founded six months ago and has seven employees.
Greenberg and Keintz were pretty open when talking about the funding this evening, but won’t say anything about the startup, which remains in closed beta. A bio for Keintz from April describes the company as “a startup providing viral media distribution solutions that gives content owners and advertisers quick and effective access to millions of consumers,” though, and they say the company is already “very profitable.”
very profitable? if so then what’s the $1 mil for?
Expand maybe? You can be profitable and need to expand more quickly, need support, etc..
Sounds like 750 Industries is going to redefine viral in 09
this makes American VC a joke. non ethical and they are on my black list.
taking a note on “Ron Conway, Maples Investments and Baseline Ventures”, these ppl would eat you up twice without a blink if they think such ppl are worth to invest in.
Maples invested in digg, twitter and revision3. I’d agree with Mike that these 750 guys must be doing something right.
Never stops amazing me how people/companies with lots of money still need funding….
It could also have to do with strategic valuation.
Profitable company + correctly “negociated” capital funding = very high valuation
Which could “set the pace”
- should they need more money
- should they get bought over (especially if they let efficient VCs in)
See- even evil people can get financing when they get techcrunch publicity. Kidding. But there’s a huge gap between marketers and online video viewers, and huge opportunities to connect them. So as long as the guy can run a biz it seems like a safer bet than… another video website.
hmm interesting, a yet to launch closed beta that is already very profitable. makes me wonder what they are working on.
just the luck of the cards for awhile, though i am sure he thinks he is responsible… the luck will flow away soon enough, but he won’t take responsibility for that, he will blame conditions
@gregorylent
Positive attitude mate! What have you got against this guy?
congrats to Dan & Brett (+ Rob, Jack, Matt & others at 750).
guess you guys proved the Facebook class at Stanford was worth something
Smart and creative guys who work hard and understand the importance of strategic alliances. Congrats!
huge congratulations to the 750 team!
They are building a video ad network. They would distribute your (youtube) videos across the net.
I’ve worked with these guys for months and I couldn’t live without them.
Congrats on the funding!
The first thing they should with that funding is replace that illegible logo.
http://www.imageco.com has a special going… logos are only 1 million dollars… today only.
Ron Conway: “Look, your dad was a friend of mine, so I can’t just tell you to f**k off”.
hells yeah. progress. billionaire boys club. BBC.
this guy is like the James Bond of new media advertising
LOL. That page source code suc*s
Reading the comments, I see a lot of people who are very happy for Greenberg. But for me, while I’m glad some people are taking advantage of capitalism and making a buck, I just don’t like it.
The bottom line is that people who drive up views of videos for these big professional outfits are cheating virtually everyone else in cyberspace. Think about it. A couple years ago, “real people” could get featured. Heck, I got featured once. But with these outfits, the internet is going to become just like TV or film. Only the “pro with the dough” gets to be seen. And it’s because of people like Greenberg.
If I were to create a great video today, one that was feature-worthy, maybe a few of my friends would ask YouTube to feature it. But because YouTube gets 75 trillion requests to feature one of these pro films, that’s the one they see, and ergo feature.
Not that I’m bitter. I still hold out hopes that someday, I’ll do enough blatant self-promotion to become something online. But if Greenberg got his way, the only videos that would ever go viral would be the ones he gets paid to take viral, and frankly, I can’t afford to pay anyone to make me famous. (Maybe if they did it on spec, but that’s another story…)
Bottom line: I can’t be happy for a person who’s making it incredibly more difficult for me to reach my goals.
Plus, how can you ever trust the people who are happy for him? I mean, if his previous posts are true, then half the commenters here are on his payroll. Heck, maybe I’m on his payroll. If I am, he’s the worst paying boss there ever was though, that’s for sure!
It always amuses me when people speak of ‘cheating’, as though the practice of business is an Olympic sport with judges awarding those who adhere to the rules and pass their strict urinalysis for drugs. One has to wonder if the most adamant of those want the competition to level the playing field to the lowest common denominator.
Have any of these detractors come remotely close to Greenberg’s success?
The Internet is far too young to have artificial rules applied and I vouchsafe that those condemning Greenberg’s honor might not do well having their own honor scrutinized. Fail and the world loves you, but succeed and you unleash the very worst in those who cannot succeed.
It’s not rules, it’s ethics. And you’re an idiot.
I enjoyed the article, I mean he was keeping it
very real about that goes on to get viewers. I need
more info and legit ways to viral video.