This is a great story. But perhaps a story of survivorship bias as well?

It would be interesting to know if this happened 3 months, 6 months, or several years after TACODA was working on their product.

According to this Rho ventures article, TACODA was founded in 2001. http://www.rhoventures.com/new-media-Tacoda-case-sudy.htm They raised 12M from Union Square in 2006. Fred Wilson states he was an early angel investor, and that this conversation occurred early.

My question is - Did they pivot because they raised a lot of money and were under pressure from investors? Or was it the right thing to do?

They certainly had a successful exit by selling to AOL a year later for a good chunk. Hard to argue with that.

But, then AOL shuttered it, and there's not much data on why (other than the "AOL are incompetent" trope)

So, did they sell AOL a time bomb? Or did AOL screw it up?