Loving euthanizations, difficult moderation, and Facebook schemes: my interview on The New Disruptors
Do you want to listen to me talk for an hour about the Offbeat Empire? Glenn Fleishman interviewed me last week for his podcast The New Disruptors, and you can listen above! I talk about everything from humbling failures to recent commentroversies to my revelations this last year about how I was doing Facebook all wrong. Oh and Metafilter. And putting all your eggs in the Google basket. And how the web keeps me young with its shiny new toys. It’s a pretty dense interview, but for those of you who really want to get into the nuances of how I run the Offbeat Empire, feel free to listen in.
Four years is a good run: why Offbeat Families is ceasing publication (and how it will live on)
Over the years, I’ve made no secret of the fact that Offbeat Families (formerly known as Offbeat Mama) has been a challenge. The site launched in September of 2009, and I invested four years and about $40,000 toward growing the site into a sustainable, financially viable business. Ultimately, these efforts have failed. Offbeat Families will no longer be producing new posts.
Small business mercy killing: When to euthanize a project
Fall of 2010, I launched the Offbeat Bride Vendor Directory, which was immediately one of the biggest business successes I’ve ever had, grossing over $20,000 the month it launched. Listing vendors reported great results (some getting inquiries within hours of their listings being published), and readers loved that they could finally easily view vendors in their area via a big clickable map.
Excited by the success of Offbeat Bride’s Vendor Directory, last year I propagated the directory concepts to both Offbeat Mama and Offbeat Home.
They didn’t work, SO I KILLED THEM.