Being long time friends of all 3 I had known about Dogster/Catster since it’s inception but always thought of it as a ‘hobby’ website. I then joined the company in February and my impressions immediately changed. I could see how much they cared about this site as a business and that passion is infectious! It really is a joy to work for such dedicated and passionate people!

I applaud all of you for succeeding to the point of $1mm in revenue as well as securing the same amount in funding!

To greater success!

- Greg

For me, I’m running under the assumption that the pre-bubble days of valuing a tech/Net company are basically over. If that assumption holds true, I think $1M in funding actually does tell more about the company than $1M in revenue does because I don’t think financiers would invest any money at all unless they thought there was potential for a lot MORE than $1M in revenue (e.g. revenue growth).

I’m not sure angels would invest if they thought revenues would decline or stay flat, so getting funding by a group of investors that have clearly done their own due diligence is a big nod in my book. Also, $1M in revenue (by itself) tells me nothing about the management of the firm, and not that $1M in funding tells me much more, but if I know anything about the investors themselves, one can deduct in all likelihood that they also are giving a nod to management or they wouldn’t have given you a $1M to spend in the first place.

Additionally, it broadcasts to me loud and clear that you guys were not in a position to grow in line with your potential, or as fast as you might have liked to, without the funding. So, the fact that you did get some funding tells me that revenue growth is now more likely to increase in the future, whereas if you were still unfunded, my guess would be that revenue growth would have been less steep.

Now granted, in the prior days of the bubble, one might not have been able to infer some of these things, but in traditional finance and VC circles, the fact that you got funded “signals” (or implies) a lot more than a simple $1M in revenue factoid (not to trivialize that enormous accomplishment by any means).

Anyway, I see your original point, and I think it’s a valid one, but I thought I’d share my take on what might be driving some people like me to put more weight on the funding achievement than the revenue one (although at the end of the day it’s going to come back to earnings and free cash flow). Basically, getting funded tells me some really smart, mostly outside, people did a whole bunch of due diligence and liked what they saw enough to invest, which (superficially at least) gives me more reason to believe that $1M in revenue is likely to get much bigger in the (hopefully) not too distant future!

– Swerb

Maybe the meaning of my words had not sunk in right away as people may have still getting settled and it was a combined applause, but from the thumbs-up and significantly increased attention I got after mentioning the funding, I’m not so sure ;>

Maybe it was a combo applause for both your revenue/earnings as well as your VC.

Either way it struck me as odd =)

Congratulations on all your success

I remember some old posting somewhere about when you were first getting started trying to monetize the site, and had tons of pageviews but AdSense just wasn’t cutting the mustard alone.

I too have found that selling your own inventory can skyrocket your earnings 10x over or more.

Dogster/Catster is truly a success story – maybe if the rest of us hear the revenue story enough, it will eventually sink in!!

Cheers .. kate