There's been a great deal of debate on tech blog TechCrunch Europe about the
demise of PopJam, the humour
site built by he of the MillionDollarHomepage, Alex Tew.
Although PopJam gained angel investment 'in the low six figures'
and a experienced brief period of hype on social media sites, it
has closed after just a few months, having failed to make much in
the way of waves among the general public.
In the
TechCrunch post, Tew is quoted cheerfully blaming a lack of
integration with Facebook and Twitter, before pointing out he has
another project in the pipeline. He seems positive, though: ah
well, he shrugs. Maybe next time.
TechCrunch's readers, though, are less optimistic. "Do you have
any idea* how much six figures buys in the right hands?"
gasps one reader. "Many business owners get three figures and they
start successful businesses."
Yes, ok - we get that at the moment, getting hold of any money
at all is nigh on impossible, so the idea of flushing a six-figure
sum down the toilet - however low in the six figures that sum might
be - seems a bit obscene.
But Tew is young. In entrepreneur developmental terms, he's
still a child - and as such, it's great to see someone be allowed
to exercise their creativity by, well, having a bit of a play.
If more entrepreneurs were given free rein to experiment - with
new business ideas, with new models - the UK's tech scene might be
considerably more lively. Heck, it could even be a bit more like
that Narnia its participants speak of so frequently: Silicon
Valley, where investors see failure not as some damning testament
to an entrepreneur's incompetence, but as life experience.
Tew hasn't let this setback stop him, and Smarta, for one, is
deeply impressed.
We'll leave the final word, though, to entrepreneur and PopJam
investor Michael
Smith, who posted the following on TechCrunch:
"It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where
the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs
to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by
dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes
short again and again; because there is not effort without error
and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who
knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself
in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of
high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he
fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with
those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor
defeat."
That, we think, says it all.
*Italics inserted by us. Well, honestly.