// startup autopsy

Piczo

A social networking and blogging website that allowed teens to create free advertising-supported websites with images, text, videos, and other multimedia content.

marketfitacquisition_distress

Fatal mistake: Failed to evolve beyond a basic teen profile page tool as Facebook's richer social graph made Piczo irrelevant.

Founded	2003
Closed	2010
Country	USA
Sector	Social

50%

Key Events Timeline

2003-01-01

FOUNDING

Piczo launched as a teen-focused social profile site, allowing users to create customizable personal pages.

2007-06-01

FUNDING

Raised $11M as user base approached 70 million, primarily teenagers in the US and UK.

2007-09-01

PRODUCT LAUNCH

Peak traffic period; however Facebook's aggressive teen market expansion begins cannibalizing Piczo's user base.

2008-06-01

ACQUISITION ATTEMPT

Six Apart acquires Piczo as the site's traffic declines sharply; acquisition seen as last-ditch effort to find a turnaround.

2010-01-01

SHUTDOWN

Piczo officially shuts down; Six Apart unable to reverse declining user engagement in Facebook's shadow.

Full Analysis

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Documented cause

Piczo was a teen-focused social networking platform that achieved significant early success, peaking at approximately 70 million users in the mid-2000s. However, the startup failed to maintain its competitive p...

osition as the social media landscape evolved. The primary cause of failure was market displacement: MySpace and Facebook emerged as dominant competitors offering superior features, network effects, a

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€27.5M

Peak valuation

HypeCycle · MoatType · ResearchTags

Piczo raised €11M before failed to evolve beyond a basic teen profile page tool as facebook's richer social graph made piczo irrelevant. ended it. See the documented cause, verified lesson and all failure signals.

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Key Events Timeline

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