Grokker Status
August 24, 2009
This news stuff ruffles the addled goose’s feathers. A post in response to my observation that Grokker was not answering its telephone brought this post to the Beyond Search Web log. The author is Randy Marcinko. Here is his response in full:
Let me clarify the purported mystery…. As many of you know, Groxis had gone through tumultuous times following the dot.com days. Having survived the dot.com generation as a company able to create glowing expenses, it needed to learn how to come to terms with revenue generation. My predecessor (Brian Chadbourne) and I attempted to right the ship and seek out the best path forward.
I took over as Groxis’ CEO in September of 2007 and it became almost immediately apparent that Groxis’ sweet spot was and is with content creators and aggregators–publishers large and small, traditional aggregators, syndicators and others of the content world. This is a group of clients who have a need, for whom Groxis is compelling and a “need-to-have,” not “nice-to-have” purchase. They are also a group of prospects with sales cycles that are manageable for a small company. So we moved down that path. With a great team we were able to make quick changes to the product, making it more vital and current. We jettisoned many old product lines in favor a short list to whom we had the resources to sell. The results were great and we were on track to a cash flow positive Q4 of 2009.
Unfortunately, in Q2 of 2008, we were also on track to close a Series D round of funding, necessary to allow Groxis to move quickly enough to succeed. The round was all but completed in Q3 along with the onset of the economic downturn. With the change in the economy our Series D investors decided that it was not feasible to continue with that financial plan. This was a reality, despite a rich pipeline and refurbished products.
Thanks to a diligent and hardworking team at Groxis, we did our best through 2008 but by the end of Q1 of 2009 the only feasible next step was to close down the current operation. We closed down the day-to-day operation in March 2009. Since that time I have been negotiating with possible acquirers and investors. We have had a great response only time will tell whether a long term solution will emerge.
As information becomes available, I will post it.
Stephen Arnold, August 24, 2009
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