Path is Marketing Genius But I Don’t Get The Hype
Their momentum is impressive, product looks slick, team and investors are among the best in the world, but I think their biggest attribute at this point is their marketing power. Not a bad thing. The product is photo and video sharing with your close friends and family, yes it’s delivered beautifully, but it’s photo and video sharing which isn’t anything new (Tumblr, Flickr, Posterous, etc). TechCrunch said they were intrigued with Path because they’re attempting to do things by thinking outside the box. That might be a stretch at this point.
Until now you needed their iPhone app to capture moments via mobile, but today I see that they also are able to share those photos and videos with your network, get this…. through email. Epic. Again, I can’t knock them too hard because when your Series A is 8.65M (11.2M total funding) from some of the largest angels and VCs in the Valley and your team is stacked like it is, something interesting has to be happening beyond a great iPhone app and producing killer marketing videos. Seriously, they are cool videos. Kind of Apple’ish.
I’m being a critic and using Path as an example here, but I truly am fascinated with their ability to attract the talent and investors/advisors in addition to the number of early adopters they have. It’s remarkable.
Lesson:
Path, along with other daily TechCrunch’ed startups are proof of just how critical it is to get some early wins under your belt (as a founder) to gain momentum. Having shown the world that you made your idea happen despite everything being stacked against you speaks volumes with investors and advisors when you bring them another “good idea”. There are a few people who will fund “just a good idea”, but many more who will fund a winner with a good idea.
