“Nobody will ever pay to show up on search”
A few days ago I was at some sort of networking event in London and met a couple of Italian guys. We started talking about our background, and when I said I was one of the two founders of Godado they came out saying they clearly remembered the search engine and used to use it years ago. I was surprised and pleased, as I have left Godado more than 5 years ago, and to see that there are still people remembering it is cause of great pleasure and satisfaction.
And sadness and bitterness.
Godado was the first European sponsored search engine, with offices in Milan, London and Paris. We were in Europe months before Overture arrived, and were selling sponsored search before Google discovered it (well, actually copied and improved).
We never got any VC funding. Only private investors, business angels and our own money. We never got VCs money because, despite Overture was growing pretty well, all the VCs we went to (mainly Italian, but also a few in London) said: “You must be crazy guys. This is shit. Nobody will ever pay for search. It’s FREE! If you can’t see this, you got serious problems”. I will spare you the list of these savvy investors.
They all passed on us. Despite our growing revenues, a good product, and rock solid performance from Overture. They preferred companies working on WAP (do you remember it?), CD ecommerce and a long series of company that all went bust.
They all passed on what would have soon become the fastest growing industry in the history of capitalism. The industry that kept internet afloat from 2001 onwards.
If this isn’t sad, what else is?
I still can’t understand why they passed on us. We checked all the boxes, honest. Well, most of them. Definitely more than many other start-ups.
Management, check. Brand, check. Revenues growth, check. Techonology, check. Customers, check (more than a thousand in 2001!). Traffic, check (25,000+ affiliate websites and a fair reach in 3 countries with a reasonable and growing number of searches).
The two things that probably weren’t quite right? I think it might be the country, and the timing. We were pitching just before the top of the internet bubble. After the top, it was downhill. Yet, even before the top, VCs were not impressed.
We were also missing a lead investors. But that was a rare breed in Italy at those time. And still is.
People struggle to believe that professional investors said “Nobody will ever pay for search” just 6 / 7 years ago. We were struggling because they were saying that!
Thus the bitterness for something that could have been fairly big, but never got the chance to really try.
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