TechCrunch
Mike Butcher | July 13th, 2009 | view article
My best case study for the death of “London 2.0″ and the re-birth of “London Something Else Oh” is Skimlinks, or Skimbit as was. Two years ago an irrepressible Alicia Navarro badgered me into listening to her pitch. Printed out. On A4. In a coffee shop.
I wasn’t wholly convinced by Skimbit’s model: group decision making for friends, linked into affiliate deals with retailers. Very hard to get consumer traction and “social shopping” has been a very hard nut to crack. Arguably, no-one has done it.
What happened to Skimbit? It’s “2.0 boom” era business model didn’t get traction, but Alicia Navarro, being an extremely good entrepreneur, realised the affiliate part of her business was the *real* business she was after. She turned the company on a dime. A few months later Skimlinks was funded by NESTA and pulling revenues.
