It has been a while since I posted - much has happened at tribe since the last time I wrote in briatribe. One thing is that now I have one of those nifty tribe.net blogs - which is where I write about the weekends. This has largely relegated briatribe to being the place where I talk about work and geek stuff - of which I have talked about neither of late.
First, work. Some of you know this, others do not. But it has been a few weeks now so it is probably safe to say that the last of Tribe.net's 3 founders is no longer with the company. Paul, our former CTO, has chosen to move on. This has obviously had an impact on my ability to code a lot or to write here. To say he "contributed" to the company is an understatement - for a while he WAS the company! Now we have moved on to a new phase of our existence, which many of you have been noticing today. We are now focused on becoming an ongoing concern, not just a hot startup.
Ah... remember the days when Tribe was a hot startup? All you SF technophiles joined up, met up, partied it up - the sky was the limit. As Tribe employees we just stood by and watched in amazement as people joined the site and actually used it to make friends. It has had a very positive effect on the lives of many. Those were heady days indeed - but always sitting in the background was that pesky question about how we would ever make money.
The last 90 days have been spent doing some user study and experimentation around how we can make money. The results have been interesting, and encouraging. We do in fact bring money in now. It isn't as much as we spend, of course, but it is a step in the right direction. Also, in Paul's absense, I have had a chance to participate at a higher level in the company and I can say with confidence that top to bottom, everyone is committed to keeping this thing going, and to finding new and creative ways to monetize it. Don't worry, we know that ads are very vulnerable to downturns in the economy - we are looking for other ways supplement our income that is more immune to such swings.
While I miss the days of just being able to sit down and crank out a feature and slip it into Tribe, I understand that after 2 years at this it is time for us to get serious about making a business. The big challenge is to find a way to make a business that is truly useful to the people who use it - providing value is after all the best way to charge a premium. We have been reluctant to charge you, the subscriber, directly. There are, however, 3 other things that we do on the site today that *do* generate revenue for us:
1) ADS! ADS! and more ADS!
2) Listings from outside services, such as CareerBuilder or Apartments.com.
3) Sponsored Tribes ( sponsoredtribe.tribe.net ) - which is still somewhat experimental but has potential (see scion.tribe.net ).
Anyway, I have blathered enough... Time to go get some dinner. If you guys wanna talk about this stuff I am always more than happy to oblige.
First, work. Some of you know this, others do not. But it has been a few weeks now so it is probably safe to say that the last of Tribe.net's 3 founders is no longer with the company. Paul, our former CTO, has chosen to move on. This has obviously had an impact on my ability to code a lot or to write here. To say he "contributed" to the company is an understatement - for a while he WAS the company! Now we have moved on to a new phase of our existence, which many of you have been noticing today. We are now focused on becoming an ongoing concern, not just a hot startup.
Ah... remember the days when Tribe was a hot startup? All you SF technophiles joined up, met up, partied it up - the sky was the limit. As Tribe employees we just stood by and watched in amazement as people joined the site and actually used it to make friends. It has had a very positive effect on the lives of many. Those were heady days indeed - but always sitting in the background was that pesky question about how we would ever make money.
The last 90 days have been spent doing some user study and experimentation around how we can make money. The results have been interesting, and encouraging. We do in fact bring money in now. It isn't as much as we spend, of course, but it is a step in the right direction. Also, in Paul's absense, I have had a chance to participate at a higher level in the company and I can say with confidence that top to bottom, everyone is committed to keeping this thing going, and to finding new and creative ways to monetize it. Don't worry, we know that ads are very vulnerable to downturns in the economy - we are looking for other ways supplement our income that is more immune to such swings.
While I miss the days of just being able to sit down and crank out a feature and slip it into Tribe, I understand that after 2 years at this it is time for us to get serious about making a business. The big challenge is to find a way to make a business that is truly useful to the people who use it - providing value is after all the best way to charge a premium. We have been reluctant to charge you, the subscriber, directly. There are, however, 3 other things that we do on the site today that *do* generate revenue for us:
1) ADS! ADS! and more ADS!
2) Listings from outside services, such as CareerBuilder or Apartments.com.
3) Sponsored Tribes ( sponsoredtribe.tribe.net ) - which is still somewhat experimental but has potential (see scion.tribe.net ).
Anyway, I have blathered enough... Time to go get some dinner. If you guys wanna talk about this stuff I am always more than happy to oblige.
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SF Bay Area
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