angles and distance they wanted. The investment in this technology cost Boo.com over $6 million to develop and $0.5 million every month to maintain. Burn rate Boo.com spent £125 million in just six months. Boo.com's sales did not match expectations, due partly to a higher-than-expected rate of product returns (a service that was offered for free, but charged for by their logistics supplier Deutsche Post). Poor management and a lack of communication between departments resulted in rapid growth in costs. The effectiveness of an expensive ad campaign was limited since the website was not ready in time, resulting in curious visitors being greeted with a holding page. Staff and contractors were recruited in large numbers, with a lack of direction and executive decision about how many people were required, resulting in high payroll costs. Aftermath The biggest loser among boo.com's investors was Omnia, a fund backed by members of Lebanon's wealthy Hariri family, which put nearly £20 million into the company. Creditors, most of whom were advertising agencies, were owed around £12 million. Over 400 staff and contractors were made redundant in London and around the world, and many had not been paid for several months. In a widely circulated article, former Interim CTO Tristan Louis broke down the problems that plagued the company, in one of the first post-mortems of a technology company posted online. Fashionmall.com, which had been operating since 1994, bought the remains of Boo.com, which included brand, web address and advertising materials but did not include any physical assets, software or distribution channels. The deal also included the Miss Boo character. Boo's main assets, its software and technology, were sold to Bright Station, a British company run by Internet entrepreneur Dan Wagner, for $250,000 and served as the basis for Venda Inc. Wagner credited the technology he acquired as key to the success of Venda (and its eventual acquisition by NetSuite for US$50M in 2014). Less than $2 million was earned by selling all Boo's remaining assets. Of the original global boo.com staff only one worked for both boo.com incarnations. Bill Burley of the original boo.com staff in New York City is a retail executive in buying and merchandise planning. Burley was hired by fashionmall as the Global Fashion Director of the new boo. He reported directly to Ms. Buggeln. In 2005 CNET called Boo.com the sixth greatest dot-com flop. Current state of the domain In