Me. and Mr. Jones (minus me)

In the past couple weeks, two startups from Science (the Betaworks of Los Angeles!) have tried to break into the New York City market, so it seemed like high time we gave Mike Jones, the CEO of Science and former CEO of MySpace, a call.

The Betaworks comparison refers to the fact that Science, which raised $10 million last November, uses its capital to "take deeper equity relationships" in startups than a typical VC firm, Mr. Jones said over the phone, noting similarities to Obvious Corp. and Idealab as well.

Science both launches its own companies and is intimately involved with the operations of the businesses it invests in. Like Betaworks, Science also eschews the i-word—i.e. "incubator"—opting for the more Hollywood-appropriate "studio."

The incubator studio has added a number of companies to its portfolio already, including monthly subscription services Dollar Shave Club (razors), Whittlebee (kid's clothes), and MeUndies (self-explanatory), as well as peer-to-peer marketplaces Dog Vacay (an Airbnb for dogs) and Eventup (an Airbnb for spaces) and Uncovet, which TechCrunch likened to a fancier Fab.

Indeed, it's hard not to look at the Science club and see its startup influences. "There's certainly new business models being created and in certain cases we like to apply those business models to segments of the market that they haven’t necessarily been applied to," said Mr. Jones. "We don't shy away from that by any means. We obviously really like subscription commerce, but we were not the first people to do subscription commerce."

However, he noted, in many cases the subscription service pioneers that come to mind--like Shoedazzle and Birchbox—weren't first-to-market either. "We all fail to talk about Columbia House and people that really understood this model—even Guthy-Renker for instance, the master of this stuff."

Mr. Jones said Science gravitates towards, "businesses that have really high user-value, which typically means they’re in a role of facilitating transactions between users. Generally, we’re not focused on content-only business, like it’s just not part of our DNA."

What about Los Angeles overall? If New York startups are characterized as being too lightweight on the tech side, what do people say about L.A. companies? "One of the general stereotypes for L.A. that you might hear is that L.A. startups are typically very revenue-focused," said Mr. Jones. "I think that’s fairly true and I think one of the reasons for that is that in L.A. not a lot of large technology companies have big technology teams. [So] there’s not a lot of acqui-hire ability. Because of that, a lot of the companies that get built in LA. are focused on revenue and building sustainable businesses."

Mr. Jones's answer sounded a little like responding "I work too hard," when an interviewer asks about your weakness. After all, isn't the inability to monetize the worry about of companies coming out of the current boom? He insisted that's not the case. "You could easily take the opposite view and say Instagram was not focused on revenue, it was focused on audience. Facebook built a fantastic business with a lot of revenue, but one could argue that if Facebook had focused on revenue in the early days, it would have diminished their ability to become the big audience business they are today."

How does a tech scene function in a town fixated on the entertainment industry above all? According to Mr. Jones, it's a unique opportunity. "I think when you look at companies like BeachMint and Shoedazzle and Honest Company where you have celebrity talent that’s really spending time and leveraging their audiences into launching new companies that’s certainly interesting and can be a strategic advantage for L.A.-based businesses, so I love that."

In this case, the "talent," Mr. Jones is referring to is Kim Kardashian for Shoedazzle, Jessica Alba for Honest Company, and everyone from the Olsen twins to Jessica Simpson for BeachMint.

But Mr. Jones swears it's not just about the fame game. "We’re also seeing a lot of ecommerce companies coming out of L.A. and I wouldn’t have said previously," he said. "Being in L.A. for a long time and doing a lot of investing in L.A., I’m seeing higher-quality businesses and concepts coming out of L.A. than I’ve seen in the past."

So is everyone there sick of reading Alley vs. Valley headlines? "No, not at all. At the end of the day, I think each market has things that make it competitive. I love the financial services companies coming out of New York. Silicon Valley is a monster. We don’t compete against Silicon Valley. There’s no one that’s the next Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is the next Silicon Valley. It’s fantastic and we should all love it."

The Hirschhorns

Accumulate enough animal-loving friends and you're likely to find yourself on the receiving end of emails like: Anyone want to stay in a sunny 2-bedroom apartment next weekend FOR FREE . . . and watch Buster while we're out of town? We promise he doesn't bite! Or, even the occasional: Okay, so maybe he does bite, but we'll leave a six pack in the fridge.

The idea behind Dog Vacay, a new service opening shop in New York today, is to offer pet-owners a third option besides pricey kennels and begging/bribing friends.

Like Airbnb, Dog Vacay lets users search a marketplace of homes by location--only in this case, it's for their fur-covered friends. The company vets potential hosts and lets customers leave reviews. It also offers insurance and veterinary care (through a partnership with VCA Animal Hospitals). Hosts are permitted to set their own price and schedule. Including insurance, range is about $15 to $100 per night, depending on the location.

"Kennels are crowded, overpriced, your dogs are in a cage all day," said CEO Aaron Hirschhorn told Betabeat when and his wife, cofounder Karine Nissim Hirschhorn stopped by our office last week. "You can ask a friend or a family member to pet sit, but you’re always calling in favors."

The startup, which has $1 million in seed funding from First Round Capital, Quest Venture Partners, and Baroda Ventures, launched in Los Angeles and San Francisco in early March, but this is its foray East. In fact, Dog Vacay is the second startup from Science, a Los Angeles-based incubator run by former MySpace CEO Mike Jones and Color cofounder Peter Pham, to try to break into the New York market in as many weeks. Eventup, another play on Airbnb, but for the events spaces, launched last Tuesday.

Thus far, Science hasn't shied away from picking startups that offer a different twist on a proven concepts. For example, Dollar Shave Club, a subscription-based service for razors, reminded us a lot of Birchbox.

The Hirschhorns, who own two dogs named Rocky and Rambo, started out of their home in California. Mr. Hirschhorn has a background in venture capital as a principal at Monitor Ventures; Ms. Hirschhorn was a screenwriter and filmmaker. After the concept took off, she said, "I quit my job, I wrote from home, and took care of dogs all day. Aaron helped me walk them and it was pretty remarkable the way we grew without advertising."

Understanding other pet-owners helped them build the site. "We’re neurotic about our pets, obviously," said Ms. Hirschhorn, which prompted them to offer meet-and-greets with potential hosts. She compared it to a dating site. "You have hundreds of options to choose from, so knowing your dog as well as you do," she said, owners are able to assess whether a dog that's socially anxious would work in a home with, say, another pet.

As of last week, Dog Vacay had about 400 hosts signed up in New York and another 1,500 waiting for approval. Thus far, about 30 percent of the hosts are professional dog-walkers or pet-sitters. "The stay-at-home moms, retirees, artists, writers, anyone who has a home-based business that can afford to take care of a pet," make up another large chunk, said Ms. Hirschhorn, adding, "We also see a lot of professionals, especially in New York, who want a pet, but maybe can’t commit to it fulltime and might take in a dog during the weekend." Betabeat would be lying if we said we'd never googled 1-800-RENTAPUPPY.

The main difference between New York and L.A. seems to be the lack of yard space and ranches, said Ms. Hirschhorn, although she noted a recent booking in Brooklyn where a customer found the host in the building next door. "It was ideal because it was right next to Prospect Park. They had maybe a one-bedroom apartment, but they were getting three long walks a day, which was more than the owner could ever do with their schedule."

As for monetizing this peer-to-peer marketplace, Dog Vacay takes a 5 to 10 percent cut from the host, but that fee goes down if you do more business on the site and incur more positive reviews. (Airbnb charges guests a 6 to 12 percent fee for booking reservations and charges hosts a 3 percent fee for every booking completed.)

Although the Hirschhorns have personally hosted over 100 dogs at their home, they're less active in that department these days. "On my profile," Mr. Hirschhorn noted, "It says, 'We’re very busy trying to grow this thing, but occasionally we do take another dog or two."

Fun fact: Myspace's adult users are younger than those of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

A dispatch from the sad saga of Myspace, the Tumblr-Facebook precursor once thought to be worth $327 million, comes to us from the Pew Center, which today issued a comparative report on "social networking services." Myspace had a still-impressive 35 million visitors last month, according to comScore (although that number is dropping) and Pew has one statistic that contrasted starkly with the other social networks. A supermajority of Myspace's users have been on the site for more than two years: 76 percent. For the other sites, that number is around 33 to 36 percent.

This is a reflection of Myspace's inability to recruit new users, sure. Just three percent of its users joined in the last six months. But isn't it a basic rule of sales that new customer acquisition is much more expensive than existing customer retention? Myspace's users are highly familiar with the brand and the interface. Considering all the money flowing to start-ups whose main challenge is the struggle to recruit users, it's hard to believe its corporate overloads (this bloodbath is all your fault anyway, News Corp.) are having so much trouble finding a buyer.The headlines about Twitter changing the world, Tumblr growing like crazy, and Facebook and LinkedIn's IPOs must be rough on Myspace's executives. But Myspace.com still has valuable technology, a sizable userbase, years of data, a front page with a lot of traffic on which ads can be placed, and a staff of social media veterans.

Tumblr's David Karp studied Myspace's missteps, he told Betabeat. Myspace employees told him among other things that the company had gotten bogged down with trying to bring musicians onto the platform, losing sight of other areas where they should have been innovating. If Myspace can share its lessons with Tumblr, why can't it learn from them itself?

Recently, a brand-new social network got $40 million for a product with zero users, botched its launch, and then lost a co-founder. At the same time, AllThingsD says there is just one group of investors that wants to buy Myspace. What the hell?

Last year's massive redesign, which restyled the brand to My[____]--note to CEO Mike Jones: not calling it that--now looks like News Corp.'s last-ditch effort to resurrect the network. Maybe this is News Corp.'s problem: It secretly believes the site is worthless. To believe otherwise would be to admit failure.

Incidentally, we're wondering how Myspace developers introduce themselves in Beverly Hills bars given all the Myspace haterade. "I work at Myspace, haha. No, seriously." Maybe they call it My[____]?