The End, The Beginning

There’s a certain allure to starting over from scratch, when things have gotten all muddled and nerves are frayed and ideologies have gone off in completely different directions. Logically, it makes sense to just tear it all down and rebuild, but emotionally, it’s another story entirely. Our previous startup, a social software design house with dreams of world domination, was just barely getting off the ground when we collectively decided to call it quits, and to say that we were upset about the whole situation would have been a major understatement.

But those are the kind of decisions that have pretty much defined us from the very beginning—nobody in this company is here because of the perks, or the coolness factor of working in a tech startup, or the allure of a big fat IPO in the undefined future. We’re here because the work that we do has become such an intrinsic part of our beings that doing anything else would be a disservice. We help people find what they’re looking for, and we build software that brings them together. Our work is, quite literally, our lives.

In keeping with this singularity of vision, this blog will focus on the things this small band of rabblerousers find interesting. We’ll talk about the social software revolution in all its shapes and forms, what other companies are doing, and of course, what we’re doing. We’ll talk about real-world social software development, real-time search marketing techniques and real-life business strategies.

Our collective skill sets make for some interesting opinions: I come from the DIY school of social software, a screw up-prone, home-brewed approach involving four online communities that I have been slowly developing since 2001. Hunter, in contrast, led the design team at AOL Australia for several years before dropping out to work full-time on the software platform that would eventually bring this company together. Hans was a search-engine specialist who made a living bending Google and Yahoo’s search results by (what certainly seemed like) sheer force of will. Also on the team are Raymond Brown, Tom W. Lee, Kaye Inigo, Kai Rivera and Jasper Bautista, each of whom continue to amaze us both with their resilience, their dedication and their unwillingness to believe that we have no clear idea what we’re doing.

But in many ways, that’s kind of the point isn’t it? This industry is so young, and the various proponents are so pioneering, that to stand up and say, “We’re the experts in social software design” would be optimistic at best (and delusional, at worst). We’re not the experts. At this point, nobody really is. But we’re enthusiatic, we’re young and we’re not afraid to make great, big, embarassing mistakes.

We’re here to learn. We hope you are as well.

Luis Buenaventura II, Hunter Nield, Hans A. Koch, Raymond Brown, Tom W. Lee, Kaye Inigo, Kai Rivera, Jasper Bautista

October 2006