Blue mountain cards survives
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by: anirutpae
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| What is Blue Mountain Cards? It all started back when ecards became big in the 1990s. It seemed like everyone thought somehow giving away ecards was going to be a business model. What you must remember is that advertising revenue models were seen as very acceptable back then. This is a difference with todays focus on real revenue. However, there are some painful similarities in web 2.0 to this idea of building big applications that will make money only from advertising. Ecards are a difficult business space for me to understand. This is the space that is eating the lunch from the old paper greeting card space thats been around forever and a day. It seems like the classic case of doing something through technology that was previously manual. But I dont think its that simple. An ecard is not the same thing as a paper card. You buy a paper card at a store and physically write on it. Electronic cards are bought online and never touch paper. The products here are just not the same. So we are actually seeing technology change the wants and desires of the buyer here. This is not unique, just look at tvs, video games or any other electronic based market. So what exactly did blue mountain cards do that was so special? Im not entirely sure, but I think that Blue Mountain Cards had a serious lead going into the game. They planned well.. It seems like the executives at Blue Mountain Cards new they were onto something big, but that it wouldnt last. So the company was sold while things were still really really hot in the dot com sector. What a move that was.. Looking back, there are many things I wish I had done differently. So now its 2008 and what is a business model like Blue Mountain Cards still doing around? You could argue that the management team at Blue Mountain Cards were the luckiest people on earth to have gotten such a valuation at such a time when that was seen as appropriate. I often wonder if management teams like that are really lucky or create luck due to their experience. The greeting card business is huge. Regardless of their underlying financials, this business made a name for itself in a multi billion dollar business space. I am betting that this is why they are still around today. They built a brand and have a name worth something. The part this is far from any text book case study is how they exited at the height of the crazy valuations. I guess thats where a little luck goes a long way. |
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