The road has been rough for JudysBook ever since the management changed business venue in September 2006 moving away from online reviews to shopping deals and coupons.
JudysBook ranking in my monthly deal sites list has gone down from #10 in May to #16 last month and it doesn’t seem like the new direction has picked up despite the team’s attempts to spice up the site with such features as local search and embedded maps.
TechCrunch reports and I got a confirmation independently from Rahul Pathak, the VP of Product Development at Judys Book, that the company is looking for a buyer. Here is Rahul’s reply to my question about what will happen to the team and CouponLooker, another site JudysBook launched this year:
The team will largely be moving on to other things. We’re currently in the process of selling the company and our preference is to sell it as an operating entity so presumably couponlooker would stay around. Definitely can’t say for sure.
As to what happened between then and now that caused the demise of JudysBook, I think this comment by Tom Grubisich to the post at TechCrunch sums it up pretty well.
10.5 Million in VC money is a lot of money to recoup with a deal site.
I wonder what they are looking for in terms of a sale price?
I am sure it is nowhere close to the $10.5 million. ;-)