A couple of weeks ago, we put DotBlu (formerly known as BluBet) in the deadpool. The San Francisco startup, which ran an online betting play at launch which later morphed to some sort of social gaming service, discontinued its operations on October 16 despite the startup being backed by a host of star investors (Jawed Karim of YouTube fame and Kevin Hartz of Xoom / Eventbrite to name but a few).
Turns out the venture still had a considerable amount of money left in the bank, which they will now be using to run the company in its third life under the name TownHog.
The startup has reinvented itself completely this time, leaving its social betting past behind completely because it simply “wasn’t working out”, TownHog CEO Song Kim tells us. It’s now hedging its bets – wink, wink – on the concept of collective purchasing.
Much like Woot.com, TownHog will look for and feature one online deal every day, but the main difference with Woot is that it’ll focus on promotions for local businesses rather than good deals on products that are widely available. It’s kicking things off in San Francisco, but intends to expand into more territories quickly, says Kim.
The first deal that went live this morning is with Cento, which I understand is a hot coffee bar (pun intented) located in the SOMA neighborhood in San Francisco. Basically, if enough users sign up for a deal they get to redeem a voucher that expires at a certain point in time.
In the case of Cento, users get $20 worth of Cento coffee for the price of $10. But the 50% discount will only be valid when 100 people sign up for the offer before the deadline (44 hours away at the time of this writing), and the voucher must be redeemed before the end of this year. People are charged only when the minimum of buyers chip in.
TownHog does a good job at keeping things simple and enables people to easily recruit other buyers on Facebook, Twitter and by e-mail. But it will be competing with a host of other companies offering local deals and coupons in some way, and it’s not like the concept of collective buying is new (many startups have stumbled trying to scale it into a big business).
DotBlu / TownHog received capital in an early angel round from Jawed Karim (Co-Founder of YouTube), Kevin Hartz (Co-Founder of Xoom and Eventbrite), Joe Greenstein (Co-Founder and CEO of Flixster) and Keith Rabois (Former PayPal & LinkedIn Executive and Current Slide Executive). A later $2 million round was funded by Maples Investments and DE Shaw.
We’ve now learned more investors are involved, including Bebo co-founder Michael Birch (who also sits on the board), Jeff Clavier (SofttechVC), Ron Conway and Howard Hartenbaum (via DraperRichards). The company has about $1.5 million in capital left, which Kim says should last them another 17 months at least.
Welcome back into the game, DotBlu!
Sounds like a good concept and could actually work, opposed to some sort of social gaming service. Hopefully TownHog gets big enough to expand overseas.
How innovative -.-
Couldn’t they just leave it dead?
Can’t the investors just ask for the remaining money back instead of watching it being wasted away. Third times the charm right?
R U Jealous?
Next product — TownHog.com starts after the coffee deal ends.
Entering a crowded space and there’s a real question around scalability. ScoopSt just launched out of NY [without the fancy backers] but seems like a better execution of the same idea.
But, good for these guys for not giving up ane working to jumpstart their company. I know first hand how hard it is!
Groupon defined this space in the US, and prints money.
sounds like a tax shelter.
GroupOn, LivingSocial, BuyWithMe.. they’re all running and growing… what deems something news-worthy? The raising of capital? Give those little guys a shot – they’re doing well for themselves.
I don’t mind seeing more of these guys as long as I can get the best deals in every places I spend money!
Your “hot coffee bar” is not really a pun. It’s just a play on words, and it worked fine on it’s own before you had to go label it, killing the humor.
Just sayin’…
It seems that both brands are not destined for success:
Dotblu:
Having great talent, but no energy to support it. The business is self-run but no result. It is difficult to achieve wealth and power.
This name is destructive.
TownHog:
Weak and without power. Lonely and without support. Looks fine, but is bitter inside. It is difficult for this business to reach success as planned.
This name is destructive.
Company Name Check by The Life Design Company
EPIC FAIL. The only thing they changed from Groupon was their name and background color. lol.
No wonder they were in the deadpool. They lack imagination, originality and creativity.
But hey, they found a good model and are copying it.
Losers.
What have you done better than those two companies? Isn’t there any positive people around here?
Nobody is happy about Dotblu’s life as TownHog. Dotblu’s facebook fans and former members want them to bring their social gaming service back. I think the former members would be willing to make a conbribution to Dotblu if they resurrect their gaming service. They need to scrap Townhog and go back to the drawing board and find a way to bring Dotblu back.
How about all of dotblu members to sign up on townhog.com site to assist them to build some funding? Perhaps townhog.com is the fastest way to bring back dotblu again… dotblu might be still there in the dark somewhere, but no money to live for everyone….
Jen, do you think Dotblu is doing this TownHog thing to raise money to bring Dotblu back? If so, they should ask the members for help. I’m sure they would be willing to donate money to bring Dotblu back. There are thousands of devoted members who are waiting for something to happened. Song Kim should let the Dotblu members on Facebook know what’s going on. The longer he waits, the members will start to leave their Facebook page and look for other gaming wbsites to join.