Derek Powazek: Pixish Closing 10/31 (What He Learned About Community, User Generated Content, and Launching)

by brm • 18 years ago

36 11 18 years ago

ojbyrne3• 18 years ago

I've never met Derek (we've exchanged emails), but I feel a certain kinship. His previous startup was http://jpgmag.com. The real lesson for me is that there's a lot of luck in every startup. You can do everything right, and still fail, or do everything wrong, and still succeed.

MicahWedemeyer• 18 years ago

In nine months we only grew to about 5,000 members

sigh...My startup has been running for almost 2 years and I've only got 4000 members. Still, we're profitable now, so I try to focus on revenue and not think too much about raw membership.

Still, I wonder why someone would just shut it down? A site with a community of 5000 is surely worth something to someone. Sell it to a friend for a beer or two?

brm2• 18 years ago

If I had to guess he's shutting it down in large majority because of the tiresome spec work debate

bjplink• 18 years ago

I agree. I know it was discussed ad nauseam all over the web but I wish he would've addressed it a little more in this post. He mentions being upset that they didn't develop "one" community but it's difficult to be surprised by that when he basically built a system that thrived on abusing the "one" community it wanted to foster (intentional or not).

gojomo• 18 years ago

Powazek mentions "We underestimated the “spec work” issue." You mention "the tiresome spec work debate". Not having followed Pixish previously, can someone give a nutshell summary of this debate/festering issue?

ojbyrne3• 18 years ago

5000 members in SF/the Valley = 50 elsewhere. Are you actually profitable enough to support an employee? Because otherwise you're not really profitable.

ojbyrne3• 18 years ago

Derek, if you're out there -- beer or two? I'd do that. Have some experience with crowd-sourcing, plus some experience with "specs" (since I made a living of sorts off of elance.com)

crosscompile• 18 years ago

I have a community that grew to 50,000 members in the first year and still growing, but now much more slowly. Please tell me where this friend is that I can sell it to. I've made some attempts at monetizing it, made about 50cents per user. However, just lost day job pay vs. the time put into it blows away any revenue or buyout I could hope to receive.

For a while I thought that it would at least reflect well on my resume. I've had it on my resume for a while now and no one has given a damn. No one person has even clicked the link...

To advertisers it's worth dirt because it's mostly just existing members visiting again and again.

The valuation of online sites really presents a "Winner takes all" effect.

So, why would someone shut their site down? I think there is a Picasso quote to this effect. The idea is that it's an insult to the value of your time, and to your entire field to sell it at 100x less than it cost you to make.

callmeed• 18 years ago

I have to admit, until now I hadn't heard of Pixish ... and I work in the photo/imaging space.

Out of curiousity, is Derek on HN? What is to become of Pixish's assets and IP? I know people that could leverage this platform.

Derek Powazek: Pixish Closing 10/31 (What He Learned About Community, User Generated Content, and Launching)

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