oDesk - What is Benchmark Capital Thinking?
Sand Hill Road - smart money - right? Wrong!
Benchmark Capital - smart money - right? Not always!
An $8 Million investment! Has the world gone mad? Is this deja vu? What is going on in Silicon Valley? Did the brain cells forget the insanity of our recent tech crash past?
Beam me up Scottie! There's no intelligence here!
TechCrunch.com - popular - yes. But why? Because they provide a great service.
Advertisers on TechCrunch.com - like LogoJeez - crooks, as reported here before. Investors in today's markets - dumb or dumber than before?
Where's LogoJeez now? Replaced by oDesk. Why would Benchmark Capital invest in oDesk? Who knows. But this is smart money, remember!
What does oDesk do? An online bodyshop. A glorified headhunter. Is this the next big disrupter? I don't think so.
oDesk -
The On Demand Global Workforce that enables buyers of services to hire, manage, and pay technology service providers from around the world. Buyers choose oDesk for top global talent, comprehensive management tools, and a flexible hourly payment model. Service Providers choose oDesk for challenging jobs and guaranteed payment. Every day, thousands of buyers and providers work together through oDesk - a unique company at the forefront of reinventing work.Unique? I think not.
Smart investment? I think not. A twenty-bagger in the works? Nope!
Who's the winner here? TechCrunch with another $10K per month for the next two months. How long will oDesk last? Probably not long. Just watch the TechCrunch website.
This reminds me of the company my wife and business partner once owned - TechCrash. I kid you not! We actually had a company named TechCrash. TechCrunch the URL is probably for sale!
Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive
Comments
To further illustrate how sketchy LogoJeez is, they have an affiliate program that offers affiliates (website owners) 15% of the sale price if you refer a sale to them. But when a website owner sends a customer to them, logoJeez launches a full screen add telling customers to call an 800 number for a 15% discount? This way they don't have to pay their affiliates for the leads. This practice seems like it should be illegal.
Posted by: JT | March 19, 2007 5:52 PM