Link to Articlehttp://www.weissblog.com/archives/2006/10/29/wolves_in_sheeps_clothing.php
A while back I did a post on LostCherry.com (LC), an alternative to myspace without the teenybopper crowd. The place appears to be ran by one, Mike Hedlund. The whole amostphere of the place is suppose to be that of a cool place to hang out without the whole corporate world. Mike presents himself as the ever humble, yet overworked webmaster who is putting in a hundred hours a week for something he loves. And everyone believes him...
Well, for some reason or other I started getting a bit suspicious about two months ago. Forgive me, but I smelled some corporate influence. So I started checking around. But life got in the way and it has taken me about 5 weeks to finally get this blog post put together. So, if anything is now outdated, forgive me.
The domain name lostcherry.com is registered to LostCherry LLC, which is cool. Everyone wants to limit their liability. But all the contacts for the domain name include an email address at westcoastholdings.com which is owned by Joseph William Lee. Well, that name didn't ring a bell, so I check out his site.
WestCoastHoldings.com had quite a few surprises in store for me. The opening sentence read: "Specializing in control-oriented investments, West Coast Holdings (WCH) is a nimble, private investment firm focused on building businesses for the long term." Okay, so what does this have to do with LC? And why would a company who's advisor's list includes an investment banker and a co-founder of PayPal be interested in a small fry like LC?
The online search at the California Secretary of State's website did not return any record for either company. So far my investigation is turning up more questions than answers. After browsing the WCH site I learned that their main focus is acquisitions. So I look to their portfolio. No mention of LC there. So I start clicking links. About half way down the page I come across a link for Social Concepts (http://www.socialconcepts.com/). BINGO.
Social Concepts has a nice, simple homepage. Just their name, their slogan, and then a few lines of text. The first line of text being "View our current test product: LostCherry.com - It's not what you think...™"
So, where does that leave us? It seems that Lost Cherry, LLC is owned by Social Concepts which, in turn, is owned by West Coast Holdings. And to add to the name dropping, Social Concepts' board of advisors consists of the two founders of hotornot.com. And the online search at the California Secretary of State's website shows the registered agent for SC to be our buddy from the beginning, Mr. Lee.
As for Mr. Mike Hedlund and his poor little refrigerator with the keg of beer in it (check out LC, you'll see it)... well, since Social Concepts proudly proclaims that they closed a $1 million round of funding two months ago I'm going to assume that he can now purchase a full size refrigerator. Of course by this stage I'm wondering if Mike is even real.
So what does it all mean and why am I bothering to even blog about it? Well, I just don't like it when companies misrepresent themselves. LC was pitched as a small 'homey' type of establishment with no real reason other than the enjoyment of it's users. When in reality it seems that it was built as a way to study people and use that knowledge to make even more money down the road.
So much for stealth mode Social Concepts.
(update since my original writing, lostcherry is now called CherryTap.)
