Judy’s Book and Insider Pages are two companies that launched at roughly the same time, raise roughly the same amount of venture capital, and had very similar products. They also face fairly intense competition from a number of similar services (Yelp, Zipingo, others). Insider Pages just had significant layoffs and entered the TechCrunch DeadPool. Judy’s Book, in contrast, made some fairly dramatic strategic changes last fall, in the hope of avoiding the same fate. They de-focused on local reviews, and went more towards the shopping angle and local deals.
From a bystander’s point of view, the best part of the Judy’s Book evolution is the play-by-play we’re getting from CEO Andy Sack’s blog. Most of the action took place in October, when Sack first started talking about the decision making process. The executive team decided to stop swimming upstream, and focus on doing things that were easier. They identified what had been hard to do, and what had been easy, and went from there. This is something I hear from a lot of successful entrepreneurs who changed their business plans on the fly. When things stopped working, they poked in a few different directions and then dove headfirst into the path of least resistance.
Next came angry customers, who liked the old Judy’s Book just fine. Sack wrote about that too, even responding directly to a particular customer rant. More recently, Sack has given his thoughts on Insider Pages and how things are going with Judy’s Book.
Whatever happens with Judy’s Book, it’s clear Sack is getting some serious front line experience and his transparency is admirable. I’m glad he’s sharing the ups and downs of his business evolution with us. Munjal Shah, the founder of Riya, has been doing the same thing (and Riya has gone through similar strategic changes). Good stuff for other entrepreneurs.
This new trend of sharing the ups and downs of companies are a result of BLOGs Replacing PR Releases.
Blog are written from a different perspective because they mostly allow comments or trackbacks and are read by savy techies, who will just not tolerate hype.
PR releases are people trying to please their bosses, and offer digestible marketing hype to the media, and to a headline-oriented public.
But the term DeadPool should be reconsidered. These are real Human Beings with Hopes and dreams that are being lost.
Andy Sack is a grizzled enterpreneur who is going to win with Judys Book. He has been to the Deadpool before and aint going back.
I think it’s kind of ridiculous to ask me to change the name. Fred Wilson started this whole thing with his post suggesting that I was celebrating the death of companies. Anyone who reads my blog knows that isn’t true. Companies die, it sucks. It’s part of the cycle.
Judy’s Book will end up in the deadpool. Site is lame and overfunded.
When I read about the amount of Venture Capital and number of employees behind some of the sites you review I just have to laugh…some of these sites provide nothing special, and pose no huge technical challenges - so why do they need millions in funding and several employees?
The cost of getting sites and services online has become so low that often just a minimum amount of cash is needed to get started…and if so little money has been invested, there’s no danger of going bust - there IS nothing to go bust.
I’m left wondering what all these companies that are going bust were thinking - were they just trying to get the funding to live high on the hog for awhile, or were they just not smart enough to know how to ‘jam econo’ (to quote the Minutemen)?
Tom - the money is needed to scale once the initial application is built. Raising a few million isn’t a bad idea. It’s the entrepreneurs who blow that money, usually on over hiring, that should be taken out and shot. So I disagree on your comment about raising money, but generally agree that some startups spend it too fast.
It seems like Yelp.com has a pretty good hold on this area and I don’t see them losing their grip anytime soon. What makes these sites beneficial is content and Yelp has it and keeps adding more so why go somewhere else that is just getting started and has little to no content?
The need for massive amounts of funding and how these sites can’t be profitable with an Alexa rating under 5,000 (I know that isn’t always accurate) is beyond me and I’m still new to the game and have a lot to learn but I would kill for that kind of traffic and I’m pretty sure I could pay the bills.
Maybe most people have their sights set on bigger payouts them me but I just want to create something that people enjoy and hopefully make a little money along the way. So maybe the next company with a 4,000 Alexa rating can just point their domain my way so I can have some of that traffic and pay some bills.
So, it’s the good news with the bad. (?) — Meaning parenthetical question.
Sorry, I don’t believe it. You can blame Fred, but come on Michael…YOU LOVE IT! You’re looking for fodder for your dead pool.
Before you started writing, small start-ups were starting and falling all along. They just didn’t get your attention … ala Paparazzi.
Bob - For a year I was constantly criticized for being a cheerleader. Now, some people are saying I love to cover the failures. Perhaps…just perhaps, I’m just doing what I did all along - saying what I actually think.
It’s so damn odd to me that different groups of people can accuse me of exactly conflicting actions at the same time.
Failure is part of the system. It’s going to continue to happen.
That writing doesn’t help them avoiding a deadpool. It is a way to please investors and justify their salaries.
way to go #4Mike - that’s a really strong argument with a lot of good points. Too bad you didn’t leave a link to your blog, I’d love to start reading you regularly.
yelp has really nice functionality - but man, they sure seem to throw a lot of parties for a lot of people.
Mathew- And for that very reason (among some others), Yelp has turned me into cheerleader for the site. I probably use the word Yelp on a daily basis now. I’ve become not just a site user, but a site promoter for them. The marketing is pretty powerful.
So pissing off your users to make a buck is a good idea now? None of the more profitable changes will mean anything in the long run if you can’t keep your community.
Worse still is having a bunch of vocal people (the kind that write reviews) that have a negative reaction to your site. Look at the {foolish?} Yelp cheerleaders commenting on this post, imagine if they were all angry - that’s what’s happening at JB.
Yelp’s success (vs. other local destination start-up sites) is leading me to believe the social aspect of a site is more important than the local aspect when dealing with a social/local site.
Come on, this place is full of hypocrites.. I don’t know the exact numbers of the deadpool, but I am sure it is doing fine with the visits and pageviews, everyone wants to read that, and it is not because we want to see companies dieing but because it’s a good place to learn about where the market is going. Companies die, that happen and will continue happening, but if entrepreneurs can learn form it an avoid making the same mistakes those companies did, then the deadpool is a good place.
At least that’s what I think.
Michael, I like to to read stories of failures. Many times, there’re more to learn from failures. Thanks for covering these stories; and yes, please stick with it.
Ever hear of learning from mistakes? I say bravo to calling out errors, identifying where the problems occurred and putting out out there so that perhaps some folks can avoid making those mistakes … and of course make brand-spanking-new ones. Of course that shouldn’t be confused with talking smack about the people who’ve made the errors. Per the first comment in this thread, yes these are people, but as I read it the DeadPool doesn’t slam any people to the ground, just their actions. And Munjal Shah is a great example of a smart entrepreneur - Riya had some bobble steps early on, but they’ve managed to right themselves quite nicely - a case of learning from mistakes.
I have interviewed Andy Sack for my site and have met with him over coffee. He is a very smart guy who will definitely alter course if he needs to. Same for Munjal Shah at Riya. Their launch of like.com is a great utilization of the core software they built for Riya. I wish them both well.
Interviews can be found at:
Andy Sack:
http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00130
Munjal Shah:
http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00129
JudysBook changed the venue some time ago and they were in a hurry I should say. The change pissed off a lot of old timers. My blogpost about the subject collected 56 comments and I had to close it due to the amount of anger people were pouring out to the management…
http://probargainhunter.com/20.....oks-green/
the insiderpages gives an impression of made-for-adsense site.
is it google giving them the scripts or whatever thing to make the google ads look like content of the website?
they put a little “ads by googl” to the very left bottom corner of the ads but put huge “local offers” right on the top of ads.
i think this is fooling visitors, the links are there not because the staff has chosen them as good links to visit but because these links will pay good.
this is not a good sign, they look like want to start profiting from the first day.
Sebastian- I think you’re right about the social aspect. There are those of us on Yelp who meet outside of the Web site (not official Yelp events). We know one another on a personal level because of the site. We encourage one another to write more reviews. Being able to have Fans and Friends, send Compliments and communicate on the Message/Talk Board all make the site feel more personable, rather than a sterile wasteland of reviews.
j.d.a. - I get something tangible from the Web site, so promoting it for free for them doesn’t feel foolish at all. And it’s the social aspect of the site that makes it great for me. The more I talk about it, hopefully the more social it gets. Win-win.
Oh, and for the record, I’ve never been to Judy’s Book before its change to a coupon site, so I don’t know what it was like. I’m not stating Yelp is better than any of the other review sites, just my acclaim for it.
I am not sure that a radical change in direction is such a good idea. It confuses the regulars. Unless that direction has been there (even in a rudimentary form) from the very start, it is a hard route to follow.
I’ve met with Andy and he is an intelligent guy with impressive credentials. Still I don’t know how any one of the second-tier companies in local space expect to compete with CitySearch and craigslist. Only time will tell.
Dr.Oogle Guy - It’s probably a better idea than shutting down…
Heh, crap. Looks like Yelp is pretty much exactly what I wanted to for Portland, OR with my site the portland scene, but one for everywhere. I really like the way they auto-discover your location seamlessly.
Of course, the fact that I’ve done this for free (well, time ain’t free, but whatever) in my spare time is different. Kudos to that site…it’s nice looking.
The buzzword this year will be MONEY, rather than web 2.0.
http://mediavidea.blogspot.com.....-2007.html
The infamous DeadPool. Should one be honored to be included in it?
Adapt or perish. Judy’s Book adapted - Insider Pages did not.
http://johntreadway.typepad.co....._judy.html
Who says Judy’s Book is now making money? There are a zillion deals-based sites – just type “deals” into Google. With reviews, Judy’s Book at least had a niche almost to themselves, even if they, Insider Pages and Yelp haven’t figured out a way to make money.
Yelp is nowhere near profitable, and sells its (very few) ads for peanuts ($300/month is their maximum). The recent MBAs and wannabe titans of industry who jumped into the “local” field are simply hallucinating over their spreadsheets. They have NO idea how to sell advertising to tiny, mom ‘n’ pop, very unsophisticated, blue-collar businesses.
In March last year, I met Stuart Macfarland at the InsiderPages office in Redwood Shores. Big, brand new office park, next to Oracle, rent $20,000/month minimum). Lots of empty cubicles, no visible employees, quiet as the grave, nobody making sales calls, and no phones ringing!
Insider Pages and the other review sites were/are working on the “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” model, aka a wing and a prayer. Well, they built it, and they haven’t come.
Which is bad luck, but also bad business judgement and terrible execution.
I’m late to this conversation - but I’d be curious to know what other think. I love Yelp, but I definitely see them show up in organic google results - certainly WAY more than Judy’s book. Does anyone think Google is a key factor for success or failure?
What about Angie’s list? http://www.angieslist.com/
the reason startups fail is depicted in the documentary startup.com (2001). It has to do with ego. It starts with two people who think they have a brilliant idea and then go seek funding. They get funding and then overhire programmers and over spend on infrastructure. meanwhile they don’t have a clue how to manage the show so they probably created two or three hierarchies of project managers. they probably hire their friends and give them elaborate titles with no real responsibilities. they fight with each other when the pressure is on and in the end fail to generate revenue or capture marketshare. I hate to say it but it’s textbook.