Apr
17
15

Funding Warning

Asides

Just a warning for entrepreneurs out there, if you ever announce funding you will be contacted by people offering the following services: banking; debt financing; PR services; other VCs; fancy SoMA offices; telephone services; India outsourcing; Kansas IT outsourcing; recruiting (x10); equipment leasing; renting/leasing/buying real estate; stories about Audrey Hepburn; web analytics; bandwidth; data communications (?); Java programming. Expect 50+ emails in the first 12 hours, and a steady trickle after that. They will also send emails to firstname @ your domain for every name they can find on the website. It gives you a newfound appreciation for those nice Nigerian banking folks, who gave you attention before you were “big.”


15 Comments

  • Robert Accettura April 17, 2006 @ 2:34 pm

    Yup, that’s about what I’d expect.

    Now imagine what you get if your acquired by google!

  • Dougal Campbell April 17, 2006 @ 2:45 pm

    “Well, there’s spam egg sausage and spam, that’s not got much spam in it.”

  • Ozh April 17, 2006 @ 2:48 pm

    Hmmm…. I hope you gave the mails about Audrey Hepburn the attention it deserved, it should really get your business going.

  • ryan king April 17, 2006 @ 3:17 pm

    Ouch.

    I guess that’s one of the reasons that lot of entrepreneurs never announce their funding– its not worth the hassle.

  • Jim Thompson April 17, 2006 @ 3:37 pm

    I hope you bought the Audrey Hepburn story. She was awesome!

  • Geren April 17, 2006 @ 4:02 pm

    Gee, I get all that, and don’t even have funding! Except the Audrey Hepburn story.

  • Jacques Marneweck April 17, 2006 @ 4:20 pm

    That’s scary. Once you’ve announced to the world that Automattic is sizzling hot with the VC injection, then others want you to give them your money, apart from the VC guys who now also want a part of the pie.

  • Blaze April 17, 2006 @ 5:41 pm

    Haha isn’t that half obvious of them. I didn’t think people were so stupid to ask. I wouldn’t have even expected it though.

    Of course most funded companies could use offshore outsourcing… right ;) . That’s how you build a successful business that gets funding.

  • Aaron Brazell April 17, 2006 @ 6:56 pm

    Matt–

    I might coud interest you in busssinesss opportunity that very lucrative. :)

  • Datapoohbah April 17, 2006 @ 7:37 pm

    Uhm, you mean you don’t already have outsourcing? Isn’t WordPress development outsourced now? :)

    You don’t need funding to get calls from sales folks, they just need to think you have money. All it takes is a little PR :D

  • Matthew April 18, 2006 @ 2:31 am

    How did you get an Audrey Hepburn story thrown in there? :-)

  • Dougal Campbell April 18, 2006 @ 8:02 am

    On a similar note, when we bought our house last year, we were suddenly inundated with offers for credit, refinancing, lawn services, etc. in the mail. I wish I knew which party was responsible for selling our info. There was no mention of it, and no opportunity to opt-out in the zillion pages of legalese that we had to sign.

  • Mom April 19, 2006 @ 10:48 am

    They will also call your Mom.

  • Dennis Howlett April 20, 2006 @ 12:32 am

    Wow – that’s like money attracts a plague of locusts – simple solution – in the press release put: “We don’t need any of the following hangers-on so don’t bother trying to spam us – the filters are already in place….”

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