If advertising is truly the Internet’s original sin, then the serpent is the venture capitalist who first surmised, “Sure, but what if you offered your service for free and made it ad-supported?” adding before or after any objection “Because isn’t your real value in the data?”
“The question” became so pervasive and well anticipated in venture capital meetings that many entrepreneurs eventually chose to skip the foreplay around whole swaths of their value proposition to ensure they could be first to explain that their company’s real value was, indeed, data. Cut them off at the pass. Leave them nowhere to go. Something like, “Hi, nice to meet you, Mr. Venture Capitalist. My name is—DATA! DATA! OUR REAL VALUE IS DATA!”
The question doesn’t seem that bad on the face of it. With so many companies giving away their goods for free already, what else can a company fall back on except data? Being cast out of the garden is called “The Fall” after all. But what of those startups who aren’t interested in just slinging pixels to marketers?
I say, pity those young startups who face the serpent’s question in the middle of a VC pitch. Pity Adam and Eve’s—I mean, the co-founders’—argument over whether to take a bite of that apple. And if you end up on the wrong side of that debate, be warned. You might find yourself fired. Like I was.