Google Acquires Omnisio (YC Winter 08)

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/30/google-acquires-omnisio-to-spice-up-youtube/

by markbao • 18 years ago

168 45 18 years ago

techcrunch.com

kyro• 18 years ago

A thousand congratulations to you guys.

markbao3• 18 years ago

Much congratulations Omnisio!

First found out about Omnisio from the synced DHH talk at Startup School, and thought it was brilliant. Awesome that Google thinks it is too :)

spencerfry• 18 years ago

Congratulations!

thomasswift• 18 years ago

Huge! Congrats Gentleman.

staunch2• 18 years ago

Congratulations. Omnisio was extremely well done. I hope YouTube will be as good for presentations soon.

ovi256• 18 years ago

Bravo! Well done lads!

fallentimes• 18 years ago

Congrats Ryan and team!

ashu• 18 years ago

Dyamn! Congratulations, folks!

ajju• 18 years ago

Well done! Knew this would happen the first time I saw how awesome it was. Proof - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=169159

bbgm• 18 years ago

Now that's a good acquisition. Omnisio was very cool. Could slideshare be next?

wave• 18 years ago

Wow, this is really good news. Omnisio, how long did it take you from the inception of the idea to selling it?

Why did Google/Youtube spend $15mil acquiring the company instead of creating a similar service? I think more than the technology itself, Google would like to hire the Omnisio team.

aneesh• 18 years ago

This is about 10 months from when they started.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=169052

jmtame• 18 years ago

Startups consist of much more than just "number of lines of code written." It's not that black and white.

When you make an acquisition, you inherit not just code, but you inherit the massive amounts of iterations the product went through. That's part of the problem these days: everyone looks at a product and they forget the painstaking amount of time and dedication that went into getting it that far. It took a lot of sleepless nights and coffee.

Not to mention, you're inheriting the users (which also have an acquisition cost, even to Omnisio, it may have been going around and talking to people individually about feature requests and bugs, etc).

In addition, you're acquiring the talent behind the startup. These are people who not just understand how to code, but they develop products with the user in mind. They have the determination and persistence to get updates done and out the door. If you sit these guys in front of a board, or in front of investors, they have already proven that they will not flake out or give up. This is something that sounds trivial, but a lot of people lack the self-motivation to direct a project like this into completion and market adoption.

I'm missing a lot of other things, but that gives you an idea that the startup you look at is far more than just pages that show stuff.

Also, major props to the really strong UI work at Omnisio. UI is becoming one of the most overlooked aspects of technology. People focus a lot on the engineering or code or architecture or scaling, but forget that the usability is really what makes it enjoyable to use the product in the first place.

matt12• 18 years ago

Congrats!

Just for my education: say that TechCrunch is correct and they did sell for $15 million and that YC took 6% equity in the company. Does that mean that that YC gets a $900,000 payday too? Or is it more complicated than that?

helveticaman• 18 years ago

Unless Omnisio got other sources of funding. That also takes taxes out of the picture.

markbao3• 18 years ago

Omnisio only had funding from YC, no other funding rounds.

jsmcgd• 18 years ago

This one liquidity event must go a long way to cover all the investments of ycombinator.

mpc• 18 years ago

They've had quite a few now. I could imagine YC becoming profitable soon if they are not already.

jamiequint• 18 years ago

yeah, the only thing bad about quick sales is short term capital gains :)

jasonlbaptiste• 18 years ago

many many kudos

auston2• 18 years ago

Wow! That is awesome... they're like what 14 months old? So awesome.

auston2• 18 years ago

edit: 4 months?

blader• 18 years ago

wow! congratulations omnisio team!

rokhayakebe• 18 years ago

As I read this I happen to be listening to a selection of songs I put together using Omnisio. Great Guys.

beaudeal• 18 years ago

seriously, a huge congratulations to these guys... i remember hearing about them when they first came out, but only got around to using (and loving) the service recently when i watched the startup school presentations on their site...congrats again!

ian• 18 years ago

congratulations!

aschobel• 18 years ago

Congrats guys! Well done!

Baltropreneur• 18 years ago

Congrats..cool tech!

adrianwaj• 18 years ago

Omnisio - used it once and was impressed - viewed videos of speeches and could skip to various pre-determined points, with accompanying slides at left for viewing, and underneath for navigating.

http://omnisio.com/startupschool08

But, if one sells out, the startup never goes on to acquire other companies as seen at Sun, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google etc. Perhaps only early players in any industry or application type can obtain such growth to stave off the gorillas and sharks, and resist the temptation to be acquired in order to vye for a shot at the IPO brass ring.

siculars• 18 years ago

mazal tov!

mhartl2• 18 years ago

I just saw the Omnisios last night, and there wasn't a hint in their manner that this huge news was about to break. Great poker faces guys, and congratulations!

ivankirigin• 18 years ago

They were really smart about not talking about it.

ryan• 18 years ago

Believe me it was really hard to not tell you guys what was going on... but we were/are bound by some pretty strong NDAs

mhartl2• 18 years ago

No worries, mate!

lyime• 18 years ago

Congrats! Great news!

mchristoff• 18 years ago

party time!!!!

babul2• 18 years ago

Is this the fastest liquidity event for a YC company?

Well done all at Omnisio!

babul2• 18 years ago

Or was Zenter faster?

ashish1• 18 years ago

wow!! i'm now digging in omnisio to find the recipe for such hot cooked deal!!!!

andrewf• 18 years ago

You made the front page of news.com.au as well. Congratulations :)

Google Acquires Omnisio (YC Winter 08)

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