TeeBeeDee
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
TeeBeeDee was a San Francisco social network launched in 2007 for people over 40 — a niche aimed squarely at baby boomers. CEO Kat Brannon, who also founded a parenting magazine, built a well-designed network where boomers could share insights and learn from each other. It raised $4.8 million in a first round from Shasta Ventures and Monitor Ventures, and peaked at 200,000 unique monthly visitors and 9 million monthly page views.
02 / TeeBeeDee FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
TeeBeeDee never found a way to tap the baby boomer market more substantially: its traffic peaked at a fifth to a tenth of what successful social networks drew. It could not raise additional venture funding and soon ran out of steam. A late attempt to add a virtual goods system, much like Facebook's gifts, failed to bring in meaningful revenue.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Launched
TeeBeeDee launches in San Francisco as a social network for people over 40, raising $4.8 million from Shasta Ventures and Monitor Ventures.
- Shuts down
Unable to raise more funding, TeeBeeDee implodes and the site is taken down in July 2009; the company seeks to sell off the website and assets.
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.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
TeeBeeDee shut the site down within two weeks of the announcement.
- 02
The company looked to sell off the website and its assets.