Oh yeah, you know you LERVE a good survey. And this is the finest surveying that money can buy. We went into the future to bring this baby back for you. This survey is built by autonomous nano-bots, lubricated with genetically-modified omega-3 oils, and powered by Steorn’s free energy modulator (which finally came out in 2009 and completely destroyed the oil cartels… you had to be there).
Jon and Beti were raving about "Look Around You" at the last TPN dinner and I finally watched some of it tonight on YouTube. What a gem. Thank god for YouTube. This alone justified their $3 quadrillion valuation. If I had the funds, I’d buy three of ’em. Hey – the sun is up. It’s 5.40am. I’ve just pulled an all-nighter. Now I’m off to produce a video podcast for Tourism Victoria. By the way, listen to my interview with Melbourne businessman Geoff Lord if you haven’t already. Lots of good stuff in there. I especially liked his analogy of water-skiing and taking risks. Your goal for today is to take a risk you wouldn’t normally take with a view to pushing your horizons. This is the only life you’re going to get. Are you going to spend the rest of it doing what you’re doing right now?
Dave Gray aka Rooster aka the host of TPN’s Global Geek podcast, has taken the initiative and written a nice letter to Steve Jobs offering him a cheque for $1 for the use of the word "podcast". Legally I think he’s probably setting what they call a "precedent", but as long as the precedent is only for $1, I can live with that. Read Dave’s letter to Steve Jobs.
Today I’m kicking off a new series of shows that I’m calling ‘Melbourne’s Top Dogs’. I’m going to approach Melbourne’s leading business people and government leaders and try to discover a little bit about what makes them tick.
This first interview is with Mr Geoff Lord.
A quick bio:
After a business education at Melbourne universities, Geoff Lord joined Ford in the 1960s and moved to Elders in the 1970s, where he became a key lieutenant to John Elliott. In 1985, he formed Elders Resources and built it to a market capitalisation of $1.5 billion by acquiring assets such as forestry businesses in New Zealand. He is currently chairman of the Australian soccer club Melbourne Victory, Chairman of UXC Limited, Australia’s largest technology solutions company, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of his private investment vehicle Belgravia Group, and also sits on the board of many other companies.
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Podshow’s recent 2nd round of $15m financing raises the question again as to what The Podcast Network (TPN) is worth. I have no real metrics to measure TPN v Podshow other than Alexa. I know it isn’t very reliable, but it’s all I have.
So far Podshow have raised $24 million and TPN has been funded 100% out of Banco de Cameroni (that’s me, in case you are wondering).
Here’s the Alexa graph for TPN (in blue) vs Podshow (in red) for the last three months.
That puts Podshow, on average, about 2.0 – 3.0 times our reach? So, let’s say Calacanis is right and "To raise this money they must have had a $35-60M pre-money valuation.". Does that mean TPN is valued at a third of that? Let’s say at the low end it’s $10m?
John Furrier and Robert Scoble at Podtech.net have been doing great over the last few months as well. The Podshow investment (or was it the Podcast Expo?) spiked them big time last week. Here’s the graph comparing TPN to Podtech:
Last March John raised $5.5m which would place Podtech’s pre-money valuation back then at about $7 – 12m. TPN was tracking neck and neck with Alexa until last week’s spike. Again, on the low end (and we’ll wait to see when they announce their series B), that puts TPN at about $7m.
Where’s Ben Barren when I need him? He’s the guru at this kind of stuff. Ben, set me straight before I go buy a C-21 on spec.