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Clinkle is the New Color
Greetings from Palo Alto. Over three years (and thousands of posts......) ago, I wrote Color and the Mania in This Valley. The thrust of my post was:
+ Color.com had received $41 million to develop an app;
+ The app sucked out loud;
+ The company deserved to fail.
Well, fail it did (as I announced in the 4th post I did about the stupid place), and in those three+ years, the bubble has just continued to inflate. 2014 makes 2011 seem downright sensible.
Which brings us to Clinkle, which is a firm founded by a 22 year old with no business successes behind him (which at least Color.com's founder could claim, as he sold his firm to Apple for a fortune). Clinkle initially received $25 million (fun fact: the same amount used to fund Google, which went on to bigger successes than building a single app) and has been ostensibly hard at work on this thing for years. Here is the mature and world-changing lad after he landed the funding:
Well, as Clinkle continued to produce nothing, they continued to garner funding, reported to be upwards of $40 million now (a number strangely coincident with Color's). Recently, at long, long last, they launched their app. Here's how they try to explain it:
So let me get this straight........I download an app........and then I sign up..........and they send me a Prepaid Visa Card (which I don't need), and then I can put money on the card. The wrinkle to this, apparently, is that if my friends also use Clinkle, I can transmit cash to them if I want.
Allow me to express my reaction with three letters: B, F, and D. So this is what $40 million and a crack team of engineers was able to create? (Although the money wasn't entirely wasted - - you can go to this page and check out the team member photos which, as you mouse over them, turn into zany poses - - hilarious! My goodness gracious.)
Perhaps I'm just a cranky blogger who likes to pee on the parade of this youngster who has been endowed with so much start-up cash, and in fact Clinkle is an awesome app. Let's check out the reviews on the App Store, shall we?
So from what I saw, there were 19 reviews posted: 18 of them were 1-star (the lowest possible), and one of them was 5-star (which, I would wager, was posted by the man-child above clutching the dollar bills).
Clinkle has also added an elitist wrinkle to their little product by making it available only at certain colleges (as if the demand for this thing would otherwise overwhelm them). Perhaps they figure since Facebook started that way in 2004 (Harvard, Stanford, etc.) then surely that must be the pathway to billions.
What a bunch of feckless douchenozzles. I can't wait for this damned bubble to finally pop, because I'm not sure how much more we can all endure this without becoming irreversibly nauseous. It's not enough for Color.com............or, soon, Clinkle..............to collapse into a pile of worthless ashes. All this overfunded silliness has really got to end, because it's an unsustainable distortion of reality.
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You're so fucking right. I recently attended a board meeting of an obscure local utility. Someone (banker) told them they'd give them a million bucks if they borrowed a million bucks. Everyone was slobbering over themselves, thinking about "all that free money." Yeah, utility rates would go up in order to pay it back, but IT WAS FREE MONEY! THIS MAY NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!!!!
I asked, "Can we afford to borrow the money?" The reply was,
CAN WE AFFORD NOT TO?????!!!!!!
I was one of only three no votes.
You're so fucking right. I recently attended a board meeting of an obscure local utility. Someone (banker) told them they'd give them a million bucks if they borrowed a million bucks. Everyone was slobbering over themselves, thinking about "all that free money." Yeah, utility rates would go up in order to pay it back, but IT WAS FREE MONEY! THIS MAY NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!!!!
I asked, "Can we afford to borrow the money?" The reply was,
CAN WE AFFORD NOT TO?????!!!!!!
I was one of only three no votes.
Yeah, but he's the one with the wads of cash. He's probably blown it all on coke & hookers, & had the time of his life.
My thoughts exactly. The biggest loser(s) here are the ones who gave him $40+ mil... the douchenozzle has a loaded douchebag behind it.
No, the biggest losers are those with savings that have just had their "share" of US Dollar purchasing power further erroded by the unbacked, naked emission of "start-up capital" that was created out of thin air for the purpose of funding this monstrosity...
That would be the rest of us. Suckers.
Heads they win, tails we lose. Actually, we lose either way as the "money" has been spent already whether we like it or not.
The kid's holding $30k. If he was smart, he'd be holding 25oz of gold.
Oh well... Easy come, easy go.
Re-read step #3. That's not investor money he's holding in the picture...
Reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons .
Didn't South Park do this last week with their Washington Redskins episode?
Wow. that 's some story. and people want to know if this is a market top?? YES, this is a market top ! PetsRus.com, anyone?
Clinkle makes me want to tinkle.
An American, not US subject.
Listen Chrisc,
I tell the ladies I have Clinkle, and they beg to suck on my pinkle.
OH!
Remind me never to apply for a green card to come and work in the States. And if I ever do, for the love of God, don't let me in. Just kick my sorry ass back to where I came from. It'll be kinder that way.
I also suspect that Apple Pay will snuff out whatever minuscule potential this startup might have had years ago.
I hope he fails the class this toy project was done for.
Unless of course the class was WS Thievery, then he gets an "A"
youre blowing smoke up yer arse......Bitcoin are the likely scaliwags to do this
Are these the venture capitalists tearing down all the historical old buildings and houses in my town to put up punched out of cardboard condos?
So, like with Micorosofts ZOON,(sic) instead of lol "squirting" favorite songs to a friend you can squirt money!? ha haha ha ha!
$40 million collected from select rich WASP kids?
i think you meant to say bitcoin, but, yes, i agree.
Or Paypal?
Isn't a 'clinkle' some sort of really deviant gay bondage sex practice?
It's not even legal in Thailand.