Monday the 3rd of April, 2006 | Business | Humor | Must Read | Posima |
Caterina Fake, the co-founder of the wildly popular photo sharing webapp Flickr says that it’s a terrible time to start a web company. Here are her reasons:
Everybody else is starting a company. It’s crazy. Every single person who leaves a tech company isn’t going to Microsoft or Google or Apple or whatever, they’re going to a startup. Trying to operate in this environment is crazy. I’m getting late-onset ADD from trying to keep track of them all, and it’s impossible to get attention for your product amidst all the buzz (er, noise).
Your competition just got funded too. You’ve got $5 million in the bank, and they do too. Their VCs want them to succeed every bit as much as your VCs want you to succeed. This gets you into a horse race, which no one wants: it’s exhausting and expensive.
Talent is scarce again. Hell, I want to find someone to write a little bit of PHP for Wench.com and I can’t find anyone (Hey if you are a PHP webapp builder and have some spare cycles, email me at caterina-at-gmail). Everyone’s gainfully employed, and fielding several offers.
You can’t operate in obscurity anymore. We started our company in 2002 when nothing was getting funded anywhere and everyone was still licking their wounds from the big bubble bang. Nobody cared about us except us. We were in Vancouver fer crissakes. But we were able to focus on finding and connecting with the people who mattered most: the customers, the users, the community. You get more done when no one’s looking over your shoulder.
Web 2.0 isn’t all that. Hello? I don’t think there’s a rising tide lifting all boats here. I don’t think Web 2.0 is the magic bullet some people seem to think it is either. It ain’t the features, it’s that AND the business. Tagging was a great feature, no doubt. But Flickr was at break even—about to tip into the black—when we were acquired.
There’s too much going on. Every night there’s a Mashup get together, or a TechCrunch party, or it’s Tag Tuesday, or SuperHappyDevHouse or SXSW or this conference or that conference. And this stuff is fun. It’s a real community. But all of these things are great by themselves, but terrible in combination. I see some entrepreneurs in photos from *every single event*. Who’s talking to the users, writing the code, tweaking and retweaking the UI? It ain’t the Chief Party Officer.
Damn, I guess I’d better close up shop then and write off the last 16 months of my life as a loss. I think what Caterina is forgetting is that if you provide a valuable product or service that people are willing to pay for, you’re already halfway to success. The only other part of the equation is running the business properly, i.e. produce more than you consume.
Tuesday the 21st of March, 2006 | Posima |
Coming Soon...
We are very close to launching a new account structure that will include an option to have a free webpage. The current options are Geocities and if you were lucky...Googlepages. In my opinion, both of these options simply suck. Who wants a webpage at www.googlepages.com/ADK%&FS#4*/mynewwebsite? Not me. Here at Posima, bring your own domain name and we’ll link it up to your new page. Check back here for updates on when this will launch.
Monday the 27th of February, 2006 | Business | Marketing | Posima | Web Apps |
I found this interesting web application that helps people raise money for various things. Here’s how it works:
What I like about this and other very simple tools is the lack of restriction. The website allows you to raise money, that’s it. It can be for a charity, a concert for a small band, an indie film, selling products to a group of people… etc. I see a lot of potential for this site from a business standpoint.
Say I want to start a business selling a new local publication (a magazine). I could create a simple website with Posima explaining the mission, target demographic, content, and show example mockups of the magazine. I can discuss how much it will cost to get the magazine off the ground and ask for money from advertisers for the first x amount of issues and link to my Fundable account. I pound the pavement and make calls to businesses that might be interested and give them the address to my website that will describe more. If they are interested, they give money to Fundable. If I raise enough money from advertisers, I can get off the ground. If I don’t, the money is never charged.
I’m interested in hearing other ideas on how Posima and Fundable may be used together… any ideas?
Monday the 6th of February, 2006 | Posima |
Here at Posima we believe everyone would benefit from a web presence. Big business, small business and especially non-profits. Unfortunately, those who would benefit the most can justify it the least. Non-profits are always juggling so many necessary tasks with so little support, that many can’t justify the time and money necessary to create a website. Posima cares. We understand that non-profits are working hard to make the world a better place and we want to help. We have the tools to give them a web presence quickly, easily, and beautifully… without the restrictions traditionally faced.
For the month of February, we are giving away 100 free year-long accounts to non-profit organizations. To read more go here
Thursday the 19th of January, 2006 | Posima |
I’ve been fortunate to have been receiving some pretty righteous buzz about Posima over the past two days. I especially like Fraser Kelton’s entry from Disruptive Thoughts, here’s an excerpt:
There has been an explosion in user generated content recently – blogs have made it simple and cost effective for individuals to share content online. Blogs have solved the problem for the individual.
The problem still exists, however, for the small businesses of the world. Small business owners generally don’t have the time to learn how to create a website, or the resources to afford a website developer. There are lots of small businesses who would love a web presence but can’t justify it.
In my opinion there exists a (growing) market for a website development solution for small businesses. The solution has the making of a disruptive technology: it would offer fewer features, fewer capabilities, and less choice. But it would be easy and cheap.
Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside to now know that my hard work wasn’t in vain. Thanks to everyone that has been helping me get this out into the open.
Tuesday the 13th of December, 2005 | Posima |
There are four guys I definitely need to thank for this website. Steve P. Sharpe was in charge of everything that looks pretty on the site. He designed the look of the site, the application, the templates and their various color combos. If you think the site looks nice, comment below and let him know. Arup Bhanja did 100% of the coding for the application and has been helping me on this project for over a year. If you like the way the site does its groove thing, give Arup a shout out below. Maxim Kipot created the registration scripts that open and close every Posima account. There is a lot more to it than meets the eye, the opening script registers the domain name, sets up the dns, opens the account on the server, creates a folder all the files get saved to and creates the user account that accesses the site and forums. Keith Gable was there whenever I needed some uber advanced stuff done on the dedicated server. I’m pretty sure this guy is in high school, but man does he know his way around the IT stuff!
Thanks again to all four of you, I was a pain in the neck sometimes...most of the time I’m sure.
Chad
Monday the 12th of December, 2005 | Articles | Business | Personal | Posima | Tools | Web Apps |
After 13 months and 2 days of torture we are finally launching this application. “But Chad, I thought you were joking this whole time about actually having a website in production. You mean it wasn’t a cover and you’re still living with your parents at 24 for a reason?” I can understand your skepticism, I have been planning on launching next week for what seems like forever. I have to say that even though the past year has had its ups and downs, this process has taught me more than what I learned in all my years of schooling. Call it a Masters from the University of Hard Knocks. Anywho, I’d like to thank all my friends and family that helped me from point A to point B. I’d like to name names, but there are too many and you all know who you are.
Without further ado… Welcome to Posima. We are an all in one website management system. We provide the design, content management tools and if needed a free domain name while using the service. From what I understand, this is the first service of its kind. No one else has ever provided everything a user needs to go from nothing to a fully functional website in mere hours without having to know any code. Sure there are blogging tools out there, but people/businesses who want a website want it to look like a website...not a blog.
Bits and pieces of the posima.com site are still not quite finished. The application is done and fully functional, but the features and support sections of the site are still works in progress. The gallery page will come into its own once we obtain clients, so check back from time to time to see what people are creating. I’ve setup a demo account for everyone to play with and see how the site works. Comment and let me know what you think. Here are the login details:
username: demo
password: demouser
More goodness to come soon,
Chad