The “four biggest voices” who left TechCrunch (Sarah Lacy’s words) have started PandoDaily, a new tech site aimed at covering start-ups that sounds, well, exactly like TechCrunch.
Lacy is leading the charge, and the site will also feature writing from Michael Arrington, MG Siegler and Paul Carr.
In a post by Lacy, called “Why I Started PandoDaily,” Lacy says:
We have one goal here at PandoDaily: To be the site-of-record for that startup root-system and everything that springs up from it, cycle-after-cycle. That sounds simple but it’ll be incredibly hard to pull off. It’s not something we accomplish on day one or even day 300. It’s something we accomplish by waking up every single day and writing the best stuff we can, and continually adding like-minded staffers who have the passion, drive and talent to do the same.
As a founder, I have a personal goal that’s just as important and just as core to our culture: I do not want to sell this company. I have opened nearly every meeting by telling potential investors and potential employees this, so I guess readers should know it from the beginning as well.
Of course, there’s the caveat that if someone calls me tomorrow and offers $1 billion, I might cave. I do have investors after all, and everyone has a price. And I’ve been around enough entrepreneurs to know the journey changes you in ways you can’t expect. I’m as aware as anyone this resolve might soften over time.
Arrington adds on his Uncrunched blog:
Pando Daily has a single overriding goal – to be the paper of record for Silicon Valley. That means every story of importance will be covered with an unbiased look at the facts. Along with a healthy dose of the analysis that you’ve already come to expect from her and the people she works with.
There’s a big void in Silicon Valley right now, and I believe readers are aching for something to fill that void. Pando Daily is going to do that.
Speaking about TechCrunch in a video interview with AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, Lacy said, “I think it’s on a downward path obviously or would have stayed. They’re not breaking news as much as they used to be…”
It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how the new site competes with the established TechCrunch, which does still retain some of its writers from the pre-AOL days.
They’re also going to have a monthly series of events (with fireside chats).
Arrington’s CrunchFund, by the way, is also an investor in PandoDaily. Other investors include: Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Tony Hseih, Zach Nelson, Andrew Anker, Chris Dixon, Saul Klein, Josh Kopelman, Jeff Jordan, Matt Cohler, Greylock Discovery Fund, Accel’s Seed Fund, Menlo Ventures Talent Fund, Lerer Ventures, SV Angels and Ooga Labs.
One more interesting aspect of PandoDaily is that it says it will honor embargos to put stories in its “PandoTicker,” but will require something exclusive for the main blog part. TechCrunch has been known to break an embargo or two in the past, under Arrington. Granted, Arrington was very up front about this in a post called “Death to the Embargo“.
It will be interesting to see how this strategy plays out. My guess is that it will work pretty well, given the fame its writers already have within the industry.
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