Boo.com has taken the top place in a compilation of the 101
“Dumbest Moments in e-Business History” published by eCompany, a
San Francisco-based magazine belonging to the Fortune group. At
number three is e-business consultancy MarchFirst which spent $50
million in a national branding campaign last June to help it
recruit employees. It has since laid off 2,100 employees.
At number nine, eCompany notes a town in Oregon that changed its
name to Half.com to support a local e-tailer of secondhand books,
music and videos.
At number 14, the following quote is taken from the prospectus
of Buy.com: “We sell a substantial portion of our products at very
low prices. As a result, we have extremely low and sometimes
negative gross margins on our product sales.”
Boo.com, the failed (though subsequently re-launched) fashion
site, gets frequent mentions in the chart. Among purchases made
with its $135 million venture capital:
“$150,000 annual salaries for the founders,
plus $100,000 apiece to rent apartments in London and another
$100,000 to redecorate them; $654,100 on promotional giveaways like
disposable cameras and snow globes; $600,000 in public relations
fees to the firm of Hill & Knowlton (mostly for setting up
lunches with fashion editors); a $42 million ad campaign; a staff
of 420 people, a.k.a the boocrew, housed in offices spanning from
New York to Paris to Munich to Stockholm; and $5,000 per day to a
crew of fashion consultants and hairstylists to perfect the look of
Miss Boo, the site's computer-animated mascot.”
ECompany quotes co-founder Ernst Malmsten speaking to the New
York Times: "It's easy for the press to say that we spent $135
million on Concordes and Champagne, but we only drink vodka."
At number 32 is streaming-media company Pixelon which had a $16
million launch party in Las Vegas, wasting 80% of its latest round
of financing. The company’s CEO Michael Fenne turned out to be a
fugitive con artist named David Kim Stanley; he is now serving an
eight-year prison sentence.
At 35 is the well-known purchase of the domain name business.com
for $7.5 million. Founder of buyer eCompanies said: “It is going to
be the bargain of the century. It is going to look like we bought
the island of Manhattan for $7.5 million and some beads."
The full list can be read on eCompany’s
site.
