Tycoons Row

Generating 5 million monthly unique views & growing past 1.7 million users is just the tip of the iceberg for this evolving web2.0 company. This January (2007) marked a milestone admired by most and coveted by many for 2 young entrepreneurs who just wanted to have something different. That “something different” has now garnered these young Tycoons in the making $4.1 million in a Series A Round of funding from First Round Capital & U.S. Venture Partners.

In less than 2 years, founders Catherine Cook (17), David Cook (18) and older brother Geoff Cook (28) took an idea and a passion for innovation and wrote a new chapter in their lives. MyYearBook, started in April 2005, is a digital yearbook targeted at highschool students. It’s a social networking site that allows all the bells & whistles that Facebook & MySpace offers, however, a few more are unique to MyYearbook. The site also has:

• Private & Secret Admirers: You can secretly admire your crush & know one would know.
• Sharing Classwork: You have the ability to add your class schedule & share notes, assignments — The real way to get the A.
• Superlatives: Create one your own or vote on “Best Looking”, “Most Likely To Change the World”
• Locker Room: A place to upload, store & share music files
• Comments, Viewing other Yearbook profiles, voting on submitted pictures

Check out Catherine featured here on Donny Deutshe.

This is definitely a disruptor to Classmates.com, given that with MyYearbook, you won’t have to go and “re-find” your classmates in the future if you lost touch with them. Or have to “hope” that one of your classmates gets an account & then can be searched. With MyYearBook, the greatest value of the site is that it begins in high school. Looking back myself personally, some of your strongest relationships and bonds are made in highschool & through MyYearBook, it allows you to keep in contact with your whole class easily.
I noted an article from USA Today, where Co-Founder, Catherine Cook, stated that yearbooks will become obsolete. This is where I disagree, as a matter of fact, I think the printed Yearbook will become a stronger commodity & be in more demand. Already, you see companies creating DVD Yearbooks, but still, I think they want something more tangible. The way that MyYearBook will destroy the Yearbook market is to plain & simply join them! And here’s exactly how to do it.
It’s the “Traditional Yearbook” - the ones created from pictures of some organized group, pre-made by XYZ Incorporated and shipped to the highschool, and passed out to the individual classmates. One influential way for MyYearBook to join the Yearbook publication market is to allow for Customized & Print-On-Demand Yearbooks. You have already given the opportunity for individuals to connect & have a digital yearbook, but what about actually creating their own printable & customizable versions. A creation that is tangible, and self-created. This would be the ultimate type of yearbook. The fact is that it won’t go on a shelf to collect dust, because after high-school, those who go off to college, I’d have to say a vast majority of college students bring their high school yearbook with them. I know I did. Not only would students then have a conversation starter online, but now they have a tangible entity which they created, printed & have in hardcopy. What other Yearbook Publisher could offer that?

The company generates over $40,000 per month in revenue from banner ads on the site. I noted on a few sites that there are no infiltrating banner ads, as MySpace does on profiles. The ads are strategically placed on the site not to get in the way of the user experience. The venture capital funds will be used for product development, adding & evolving the technical infrastructure & sales. This company is definitely on the right track. If I had to define the business they are in the digital yearbook publishing business, creating and preserving memories because “You’ve Got Friends.”