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Jumpcut

The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.

Event year2008

01 / WHAT IT BUILT

What the company did

Jumpcut was a San Francisco startup founded in 2005 by Mike Folgner and Ryan Cunningham under their company MiraVida Media. It built one of the first true in-browser video editors: a Flash-based web app where consumers could upload video, photos and audio, edit and remix them into movies, and share them with a community. Launched in April 2006, it was named one of TIME's 50 coolest websites of 2006, earned three Webby nominations, and was acquired by Yahoo just five months after launch.

02 / Jumpcut FAILURE REASONS

Failure factors

site would close 15 Jun 2009 as part of Yahoo's ongoing prioritization efforts; Dec 2008 TechCrunch noted FAQ language that Yahoo stopped new uploads to 'focus resources on other Yahoo! sites' after the 2006 Yahoo acquisition.

Parent Priority Shift

Yahoo closed Jumpcut as part of ongoing prioritization efforts after acquiring the product.

Resource Reallocation

Yahoo stopped new uploads to focus resources on other Yahoo sites.

03 / EVENT HISTORY

Events in the structured record

  1. Company founded

    Mike Folgner and Ryan Cunningham found Jumpcut in San Francisco as the online video editor of MiraVida Media.

  2. Product launch

    Jumpcut launches in April 2006 as a Flash-based in-browser video editor and remix community.

  3. Acquisition

    Yahoo acquires Jumpcut in September 2006, five months after launch; the founder and 13 full-time employees join Yahoo Video.

04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT

Difficulty of rebuilding this project today

Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.

Rebuild difficultyPending assessmentNot completed
Scoring basisNot completed
ScalabilityPending assessmentNot completed
Scoring basisNot completed

Overall assessment: Not completed

05 / CAUSAL CHAIN

How the factors connect

  1. 01

    Speed can substitute for scale: five months from launch to acquisition

  2. 02

    Being the world's best online video editor (Webby winner, TIME 50) gets you bought, not protected

  3. 03

    Joining an acquirer's video family means living on their strategy, not yours

  4. 04

    Betting the product on Flash tied Jumpcut to a platform that was already dying