SmugMug - TechCrunch Elevator Pitches

SmugMug

Pitch Posted: June 2, 2008
Rating: 3.40
Votes: 333 98

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SmugMug

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Comments

Sam 6/4/08 2:27PM

This is how you make a pitch.

Ray 6/4/08 2:56PM

Very nice

Edd 6/4/08 2:59PM

strong, simple, and effective. Excellent.

Alex 6/4/08 3:17PM

Any pitch that ends with "we're profitable, bootstrapped, and growing fast" is going to be good.

Matthew P. 6/4/08 3:19PM

I like this kid a lot, clearly the best of the lot so far.

Gopinath Sundharam 6/4/08 3:54PM

Best pitch so far. I like their idea of no "free" account.

mike 6/4/08 4:19PM

I wonder what kind of investor would have bought into their vision of "no free accounts" before they went and pulled it off. While the pitch is clear, my guess is that venture guys would have had a hard time agreeing. Ironic, though, that they're easily the most profitable of this bunch!

pg 6/4/08 5:59PM

The family has done a great job with the business. Ask people to pay for a quality product and then deliver. Amazing. Who would have thought of it?

Lawyer 6/4/08 8:32PM

Nice pitch... You gave us the strong points, no weaknesses, and left us wanting to know more.

Alan 6/4/08 8:47PM

Wow, quite a pitch. Sold in under 30 seconds. If only their logo wasn't in Comic Sans ;) (No, Don, I can't let it go!)

eric 6/4/08 9:4PM

like the pitch and the service. long time smugmugger

Ted 6/5/08 9:54AM

Excellent pitch - direct and to the point! Good use of analogies, too.

rand 6/5/08 10:26AM

what is the ask?

Holiday 6/5/08 4:52PM

Snappy pitch, although I have to wait 14 seconds in before I learn exactly what "premium photo sharing" means, I'd like to hear that earlier. Unfortunately the actual site seems lame - if I'm a professional - or even an amateur photographer - and I'd like to pay for a gallery style site, the design isn't good enough.

Nag 6/6/08 12:4AM

Yoo Man!You Rock! I liked the way you put it. Smart and i got your business in 30 sec. you are right, and your theory is right and u put it to practice. BMW --> Mercedes --> SmugMug. Smart..

Matt 6/6/08 2:49AM

Super duper ! Luv it!

Jim 6/7/08 3:17PM

What's this pitch for?

Steven Zenith 6/12/08 11:37AM

Amen

Adam 6/13/08 8:51AM

So I'm thinking ifyou are making profit, hundreds of thousands of users at $40+ a pop , in business since 2002 so why do you need a VC?. Go to the bank and get a loan.

hmmmm 6/18/08 4:1PM

hundreds of thousands of users? get outta town..

Josh C 6/20/08 12:59AM

Don't believe this guy. I agree with Adam above. Pitch is weak. Site is weak. How does the Wall Street Journal's pictures look any better on smugmug? (http://d.smugmug.com/) Explaining what the word premium means with BMW was stupid. People know Flickr. What are the various ways his site is different? Or did he not mention Flickr because he isn't confident? Hope he has the numbers to back up his claims. VCs will tear him a new one.

failed_artist 6/22/08 1:15AM

yeah minute's too long. noice!

stephanie 6/23/08 3:49PM

wouldn't how pictures appear online depend mostly on the camera taking the pictures? This idea doesn't seem overly original.

SomeDood 6/27/08 7:35PM

Are y'all applauding his pitch or the quality of his startup? There should be a distictioin, I think.

Don MacAskill 6/27/08 9:43PM

(I'm the pitchman in the video, co-founder, CEO, and Chief Geek at SmugMug) Thanks for all the kinds words! @Adam: Every VC in town wants a piece of us, but we don't need it - we're already profitable and growing strongly. We did this video as a favor to Mike and the guys at TechCrunch - much as Sand Hill Road wishes otherwise, we're not looking for investors and we've never had any.

Don MacAskill 6/27/08 9:43PM

@hmmmm: Pretty easy to verify for yourself. Do a little digging. Google can probably help. We have more than half a million paying customers. :)

Don MacAskill 6/27/08 9:44PM

@Josh C: I have the numbers, the VC continue to circle, and we continue to hold them at bay. I'm well aware of Flickr, but they're not our competition - they're a free site with a totally different (and great, by the way) value proposition.

Don MacAskill 6/27/08 9:46PM

As for better display, that's easy: 1) Show bigger photos. 2) No ads. 3) Better design. 4) Great fullscreen edge-to-edge slideshows. 5) Fast. The list goes on - but you don't get into these sorts of details in your elevator pitch or else you never get in the room with the VC. The elevator pitch is to sink the hook and get them asking *exactly* the questions you're asking - so you get invited to come spend an hour answering them. :)

Towanda! 7/8/08 12:4PM

Wow looks like someone saw Scanner Darkly... This sounds a lot like Photo Bucket. That's nice that you put your pitch up as a favor to Tech Crunch. What a pal!

ridiculous 7/10/08 10:37AM

I came on here to watch pitches geared to VC's not personal favors to Michael Arrington. Don, with all due respect (actually I have zero respect for you now), I think just about everything you mentioned in the video and your corresponding comments above are flat-out lies. And if they're not, you're using a pitching platform as a self-promotion tool. On the web we call that spam. So you're either a liar or a spammer, I'm not sure which is worse. I am baffled at how many people upvoted your sorry excuse for a site, simply baffled.

chrisco 7/19/08 1:12AM

Doesn't seem appropriate for here (that's just my perspective). Maybe the pitches need to be categorized by stage of the startup and possibly some other things so that people can watch the kinds of pitches they want.

Nick 7/21/08 10:55PM

@ridiculous: This site is about the art of the pitch, not necessarily the content or service being pitched. What this guy performed was a fantastic pitch that weighed in at 29 seconds. And that's why I upmodded it.

Jordan 7/27/08 2:16PM

Good job Don, well done. You are a confident person who knows what he is doing.

Holden 7/30/08 12:44PM

Now that is a damn pitch... I look to him for inspiration for this.

Ashesh 8/2/08 1:18PM

Great stuff Dan. Im a long time smugmugger and also a flickr pro. And I can tell ya these two are very different products. The comparison is futile. Smugmug should be a yummy pie for any VC. The fact that Dan doesn't need any only adds to the halo of smugmug. "Profitable, bootstrapped and growing fast" - what else do you need! @Dan - any new plans outside of Smugmug., you are a restless mind C'mon give us the scoop :)

mandoguy 8/6/08 6:18AM

I'm a long time Smugmugger (4 years and running). I'm very happy to be paying for the fabulous service I get and the great product. Sometimes it would be nice to have a slightly different design but overall I'm pleased and it has served my personal family needs well and will for years to come.

Rox 8/13/08 5:45PM

Site design looks good, but I can think of other sites that have a better presentation. Competition is tough when it comes to photography. www.redbubble.com is really starting to dominate and I think once www.myartspace.com opens their shops they are going to create a world of hurt many art and photography websites. Still confused as to why this was posted.

Lisa 8/22/08 6:56PM

They are profitable and growing fast...so it's not really a pitch is it? They don't need help, doesn't even sound like they are asking for it...more of a statement - a very confident, succinct statement no doubt

Nick 8/28/08 5:20AM

@Lisa Sure it's a pitch! And a great one at that. He's (not so) subconsciously telling the VC two things: 1) We're already past the valley of death. Risk is pretty low at this point. 2) Get in now if you want in on some massive growth. That said, he's not the typical startup in that he has no bargaining chips.