Mojungle, the mobile media sharing site that put itself up for sale on eBay last week, says it has taken the listing down this week and now plans to sell off five versions of its service to interested buyers. The company received zero bids during the eBay auction in which they expected to get at least $250,000.
The CEO Ophir Tanz says that the company made the decision to take down the listing because they received interest from a diverse group of buyers that were interested in the technology for different purposes. Tanz says those parties weren’t willing to use eBay to purchase the company for various reasons:
We have taken the listing down and will now be selling 5 copies of the platform/site/brand (or some combination thereof). It turns out that essentially all interested buyers are looking to use the platform in different ways and are interested in capitalizing on different assets (ie: the core parsing technology vs. the site vs. the brand vs. the user base/traffic) and this approach gives Mojungle an opportunity to provide a more customized solution to various players at a price-point that will ultimately [be] lower than purchasing the package in a competitive auction.
It could be that no one wanted to buy the company outright for even $60,000 or that eBay is just a poor choice for selling a startup. Tanz says even though no one bid on the site on eBay, his phone has been ringing off the hook, and that the company will likely earn slightly upwards of the $250,000 for selling the company in five parts. Wishful thinking again? He says around 30 people showed interest and that around 10 will likely try to buy.
We’ll have to take his word for it, though it still doesn’t seem like a good sign for other mobile media sharing startups. Now there will be another five more companies that will be adding mobile media sharing Mojungle-style, which have spent only some tens of thousands of dollars adding that feature. VCs that have been investing in these sites for months, watch out! You may find that valuable MySpace of mobile, but then again your startup could spend a week in an eBay auction and end up with no bids.
6 comments so far
2:14 PM PT
No bids. No surprise. Selling a startup with a starting price of $60,000 is like selling a Ferrari with a starting price of $ 3,000. It sound like I am paying for a Eclipse.
As far as other companies buying the technology, I hope this will be add-ons rather than primary features. By the way to all Web2.0 entrepreneurs: One product is not always one Startup.
On the plus side maybe this is a business model for Mojungle. License the technology to websites which want to offer a mobile feature to their audience.
2:27 PM PT
It would be nice if this could be verified at some stage. I think there are many of us that would be interested in seeing if this result is true!
3:30 PM PT
Sorry. I don’t buy this at all. It’s a PR stunt and everyone is falling for it, including this blog.
3:22 AM PT
Ha, I love their excuse for pulling the auction! It seems like their business model was to do as little work as possible and then cash out after a trying to hype their product in tech blogs and YouTube videos. I’m with John on this one. This is just a continuation of their PR scams.
9:55 AM PT
too bad the mojungle guy can’t cash out. Looks like people out there are still rational enough to look for real business to acquire.
1:23 PM PT
Hi guys,
I’m sorry to see this sort of negative speculation. I do see how things can look questionable from an outside perspective. I can assure you that all of our statements have been accurate and the decision to pull the listing was a result of interest that exceeded our [already bullish] expectations. I suppose only the ultimate sale of the platform(s)
will show this to be the case. We’ll keep you posted.
Best,
Ophir
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