Edgeio Joins Deadpool, TechCrunch Lives On

Edgeio, a Web 2.0 jobs classified service that was the initial driver of ProHipHop Jobs, has joined the TechCrunch Deadpool.

This must have been a sad moment for Michael Arrington, TechCrunch founder, who was also a cofounder of Edgeio.  Now Arrington is opening up a bit about what killed Edgeio:

It seemed like every board meeting I was saying the same thing - stop spending money, stop hiring, stop. I was out voted, and the company followed its own path. The fact that they ultimately failed, though, doesn’t mean I was right. The investors felt that the time to spend and try to grow was now. It doesn’t matter that Edgeio failed, what matters is that it is the right approach if you are trying to make something big. If you want to be conservative, don’t be a silicon valley entrepreneur.

Michael's slant in this post comes partly from his observation that pre-crash entrepreneurs are playing it way too safe with current efforts but one has to ask what were they spending so much money on and just how big could they expect such a limited product to get?

I got onto Edgeio fairly early and it quickly became obvious that it was not well designed for general use by web publishers.  The biggest issue was that I could not screen advertisers.  People could buy advertising on my site and the only way I could remove them was if they violated Edgeio's terms of service.  My publication's values had no place in the process.

My queries and concerns were treated politely but I basically recall that the person with whom I dealt couldn't really see what I was getting at or why that would be considered a necessity.  I got a strong sense that Edgeio was so deeply embedded in the assumptions of the techie subculture that they couldn't really see what the rest of us needed.

Suffice it to say, I wasn't going to be charging $200 a pop for job listings on ProHipHop and I wasn't going to make myself vulnerable to some nut who could afford whatever I would have charged.  Maybe that would have all worked out fine but it indicated a serious disconnect between the folks at Edgeio and the realities of web publishers outside of their milieu.

So, sure, Silicon Valley is about taking risks for the big payoff and it's fine that Arrington's taking a positive view about things but I think what he's done with TechCrunch is the way to go:

What I saw happen to startups in the first bubble makes me hesitant to raise money (we never have), hire too many people, or generally spend money (our offices are still in my house). I think less about growing the business sometimes than I do about losing what we’ve built so far. That’s part of the reason why I hired Heather as CEO to take over the business side of things. She’s conservative, but knows when its time to take risk and grow the business.

He didn't overextend or build too fast and he brought in others to cover his weak spots moving forward.  And TechCrunch is now much more than a blog, it's an important media and events company. 

Edgeio launched in an incomplete (i.e. beta) version that was missing key elements (call it [crippled] beta) and then found some way to run through what was probably more money than all my web projects have required over the last 6 years.  So far nothing indicates that the story of Edgeio was about taking risks so much as it was about making mistakes.

But it did get ProHipHop jobs launched and, though that started me down a path that got rather muddled, I'm pretty clear about what should focus it once I have time to return to that task.

So, Edgeio's dead yet TechCrunch is bigger than ever and we have plenty for which to thank Michael Arrington.

Thanks!

Comments

Edgeio always seemed like Craigslist without the community. The idea is good, and I'm sure the technology was cool, but the site didn't give you any reason to hang out there.

I hope Arrington and the Edgeio crew listens to your story. Early in the company's history, Craig Newmark wondered aloud how Edgeio would deal with publishers who wanted to delete ads - the very issue you raise.

Peep:

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2006/02/20/edgeio-and-the-distributed-world/#comment-29925

[Clyde Smith]

That's a great link. Thanks!