Blue mountain cards survives

11/13/08

What is Blue Mountain Cards? It all started back when ecards became big in the 1990's. It seemed like everyone thought somehow giving away ecards was going to be a business model. What you must remember is that advertising revenue models were seen as very acceptable back then. This has no changed with people wanting to know where the real revenue is coming from. However, with web 2.0, you could argue that it's started all over again.

Ecards are a difficult business space for me to understand. This is the space that is eating the lunch from the old paper greeting card space that's been around forever and a day. In some ways it's a normal case study of technology advancement over a paper based product. But I don't think it's that simple. An ecard is not the same thing as a paper card. You buy a paper card at a store and physically write on it. An ecard comes from a company like Blue Mountain Cards and is completely electronic. In this way, it's a real product transition. So in essence, the technology is really impacted the very product. You see this also in pcs, telephones, tvs and other electronic products.

How exactly did blue mountain cards dig out of this hole? First, Blue Mountain Cards had a big lead going into the game. They planned well.. The top management at Blue Mountain Cards seemed to know that the ride would not last forever. So the company was sold while things were still really really hot in the dot com sector. What a move that was.. Looking back, there are many things I wish I had done differently.

So now it's 2008 and what is a business model like Blue Mountain Cards still doing around? You could argue that the management team at Blue Mountain Cards were the luckiest people on earth to have gotten such a valuation at such a time when that was seen as appropriate. However, these were experience people who were also making a serious move in a serious industry. This is not a small business. Regardless of their underlying financials, this business made a name for itself in a multi billion dollar business space. I think this accounts for why they are here today. They built a brand and have a name worth something. The part that is not text book is how Blue Mountain Cards got out at the top of the market. I guess that's where a little luck goes a long way.

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Blue mountain cards survives