Pioneering podcaster and PodTech CEO John Furrier has posted a defense of the company, which has struggled to become profitable, failed to find new investors and has had to let go some of its content creators. The company has also been subjected to scathing coverage recently, especially from “tech gossip rag” Valleywag, which described PodTech as “the Valley’s worst video network.”

PodTech raised $5.5 million in 2006, and has spent much of the last year developing video podcasts by geek-tech personalities like Irina Slutsky, Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis. While PodTech has featured well-respected techies, none has yet demonstrated that they have mainstream appeal.

PodTech’s View

In a blog post this morning, Furrier offers his “basic facts” about PodTech:

1. 38 full time employees
2. Rent approx 12,000 sf office space in Palo Alto
3. PodTech Studio in Palo Alto for video production and show development
4. Record revenue growth every quarter
5. 45 corporate clients and growing
6. Fullly funded to hit projected cash flow positive (break even and profitable) with our current mix in business not including new products that we are developing
7. Focus of the company:
   1. editorial content;
   2. develop media franchises through signing (aggregation) of professional producers and in house development (our studio);
   3. continue to be the leader in social media for our clients;
   4. innovate on the social media ad models that we are developing; and
   5. media technology platform
8. I and the board are looking for a CEO specifically someone who can take the day to day operations off my hands and build a team to scale the company. This will allow me to focus externally on developing media and working with leading marketers and advertisers. This is a very similar situation that Ross Mayfield recently posted about – CEO 2.0.  I’m proud of PodTech’s market position, team, platform, and our client base. For the company it’s about getting to cash flow positive and then scaling. The business is doing well but we do need to improve in many areas.
9. The changes will continue. PodTech is in the middle of massive change and growth.  I expect that change will be part of our company culture.
10. We are not getting out of the content creation business but will continue to focus on aggregation.

One of the key points in Furrier’s message is that PodTech is in the business of developing and signing podcasts in order to create profitable Internet media franchises. PodTech’s new CEO will face a lot of challenges, but the biggest is likely to be turning the company into one that can deliver great podcasts with broad appeal.

More discussion at TechCrunch, MakeYouGoHmm