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March 31, 2009 05:54 PM
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This is a great question, thanks for asking!
My philosophy is to try a lot of things and rapidly change what's not working. That's why we've gotten to over 5m unique visitors a month and will hit our breakeven point within the next year. We are going to continue making mistakes until Mahalo hits 50 million uniques.
"Fail fast" is my credo, and it's worked at the last three ventures I've done. All have had great exits and amazing brands like TechCrunch50, Engadget, Autoblog, and Joystiq continue to delight folks around the world.
.... now on to your list of our greatest failures and what we've learned from them.
1. The Greenhouse where we paid folks $10-20 to make a search result was actually a fairly solid success, but we've learned a lot from it and we've learned how to lower that cost down to more reasonable level.
Lesson Learned: Our biggest problem with getting people to write search results was teaching them MediaWiki. as you can see folks are doing hundreds to thousands of answers per day in Mahalo Answers with no training at all. So, in the next version of Mahalo search (and the greenhouse) you'll see us using a more "Mahalo Answers" like system.
Look for Mahalo 2.0 in June!
2. Mahalo Follow/Mahalo Social: This has been download tens of thousands of times and we've had a LOT of links submitted. however, i think the bookmarking space is a very niche business (i.e. delicious, magnolia RIP, etc). No one has made bookmarking into more than a niche property.
Lessons Learned: 1. If you pick 20 amazing links there is really no reason for folks to add more links. 2. Most folks do not want to use a bookmarking service.
Mahalo Daily: The show is at breakeven right now--in fact it's modestly profitable. This was only ever designed as a marketing tool and it's served that purpose well. We've been smart enough to refocus it and get to breakeven--which is critical in a market like this.
Liveblog: The live blog was a very cheap experiment as well, but it's done well. Folks have praised our coverage during big news events, which is where i think it really shines. i don't think you really need it 24 hours a day however.
Mahalo Answers: you're kidding right? it's getting 1m visitors already and there are tens of thousands of questions already answered. It's turning into a huge machine!!!!
I'm going to guess you're joking about the last two things, but I was just told that you're one of the folks we had to layoff. I understand that being laid off was difficult and I've very sorry we had to do it.
I'm being very honest about that... it's no fun having to lay folks off.
Anyway, go ahead and bust my chops... I deserve it at this point. Thanks for riding me hard on these issues because it helps me get more focused on solving the big problems of search and knowledge exchange.
... also, thanks for the page views. :-p
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It's still a work in progress and with the help of members who ask and answer thought provoking questions it will continue improve - as a site and as a community.
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When I started with Mahalo about a year ago my main duty was to monitor the incoming links in Social, delete the spam, and approve the quality links. In my opinion this was a great way pad links on the current Mahalo archives and keep them updated. My eyes looked at 100's of old serps, ones that the writing guides never go near.
Users had the ability to recommend sources that guides potentially missed while they were building the archives from scratch. Everyday we got 100's of submissions and good percentage of them where quality. I loved the idea of improving the older serps that were build in a time when Mahalo had different standards. Also lots of links were submitted to pages we hadn't even started building yet, I always salivated at the idea of being able to find time build those pages someday.
Because there were 100's of submissions and only a couple of us in the department, there was an incredible backlog of links that could potentially be built into pages, but we didn't have the time, since it took an entire shift just checking links it was hard to find time to build those links out into pages, so I started categorizing them in the off chance that other specialized guides could find time to help users finish up their pages.
http://www.mahalo.com/Category:Mahalo_Social_To_Do
Then, Mahalo started to allow Anonymous users to submit links, this increased our workload and decreased the quality of links to the point where almost no recognizable members were submitting links anymore, plus we ran into technical problems that were simply put on the backburner, and as I check, they are still there today, I've simply been told there is no point fixing the problems as the Social aspect will soon be overhauled anyway.
But that's the beauty of working for a startup, some things work, some things don't. As a labourer I just have to be flexible and be ready to be moved onto different projects when they come up, and I think all Mahalo guides understand the importance of flexibility. I started exclusively in Social, now I work exclusively in Answers. I am pretty sure Answers in it's short time around has already surpassed Social in regards to traffic/members and activity, so Answers certainly is not a failure.
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And of course I may be biased, but it's hard for me to figure how Mahalo Daily could be considered a failure...our viewership and subscription rate continues to grow, and we're even getting close to profitability at this point. No show could be a failure that allows me to meet Rosario Dawson twice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Sja1LEoMc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snjEkuwvABY
I think the term "failure" may be a bit harsh, but I was disappointed in the results with Mahalo Social. The "social network" aspect of Mahalo never really took off, and we quickly got overwhelmed with links and user-generated pages that didn't really seem to "match" the rest of our product. Obviously, we learned A LOT from this experience, and got a lot of ideas from Social that turned into other Mahalo features (particularly Answers!), so it still wasn't a complete wash...
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And if Mahalo Answers is the only remnant that makes it, with 1m + visitors, then this one potential huge profit center will wipe out the other losses.
Jason & Mahalo management are brilliant for taking this kind of start-up experimentation and making a serious go of it, and giving the rest of us so fun a place to opine on.
And Jason must be the best boss in the world (unlike coffee-cup-holding Michael Scott in the NBC hit series "The Office" -- watch it now on HULU.com <-- uncompensated product placement -- doing my part to see about monetizing Mahalo --> An idea for Jason: if a winning answer also contains product placement, have an arrangement where the winner gets 50 points, and the sponsor gets billed for the views generated by the winning answer), because in many other workplaces for someone to blatantly use the word "failure" and "Mahalo" in the same sentence would get you fired, banned, etc.
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Answered Question
Mahalo is adding a tip to all questions that don't offer a tip.
What has been Mahalo's biggest failure?
From the following list of failures, which idea has been the biggest bust for Mahalo?
Human-powered search
Greenhouse
Mahalo Follow
Mahalo Social
Mahalo Daily
Liveblog
Mahalo Answers
Jason Calacanis as CEO
Mahalo.com as a whole
Human-powered search
Greenhouse
Mahalo Follow
Mahalo Social
Mahalo Daily
Liveblog
Mahalo Answers
Jason Calacanis as CEO
Mahalo.com as a whole
Interesting Question?
Yes (6)
No (2)
Interesting: jefflauras78, easyeboy, csandoval, jasoncalacanis, jduvall, stacy90802
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Best Answer Decided by Votes
| March 31, 2009 11:24 PM |
My philosophy is to try a lot of things and rapidly change what's not working. That's why we've gotten to over 5m unique visitors a month and will hit our breakeven point within the next year. We are going to continue making mistakes until Mahalo hits 50 million uniques.
"Fail fast" is my credo, and it's worked at the last three ventures I've done. All have had great exits and amazing brands like TechCrunch50, Engadget, Autoblog, and Joystiq continue to delight folks around the world.
.... now on to your list of our greatest failures and what we've learned from them.
1. The Greenhouse where we paid folks $10-20 to make a search result was actually a fairly solid success, but we've learned a lot from it and we've learned how to lower that cost down to more reasonable level.
Lesson Learned: Our biggest problem with getting people to write search results was teaching them MediaWiki. as you can see folks are doing hundreds to thousands of answers per day in Mahalo Answers with no training at all. So, in the next version of Mahalo search (and the greenhouse) you'll see us using a more "Mahalo Answers" like system.
Look for Mahalo 2.0 in June!
2. Mahalo Follow/Mahalo Social: This has been download tens of thousands of times and we've had a LOT of links submitted. however, i think the bookmarking space is a very niche business (i.e. delicious, magnolia RIP, etc). No one has made bookmarking into more than a niche property.
Lessons Learned: 1. If you pick 20 amazing links there is really no reason for folks to add more links. 2. Most folks do not want to use a bookmarking service.
Mahalo Daily: The show is at breakeven right now--in fact it's modestly profitable. This was only ever designed as a marketing tool and it's served that purpose well. We've been smart enough to refocus it and get to breakeven--which is critical in a market like this.
Liveblog: The live blog was a very cheap experiment as well, but it's done well. Folks have praised our coverage during big news events, which is where i think it really shines. i don't think you really need it 24 hours a day however.
Mahalo Answers: you're kidding right? it's getting 1m visitors already and there are tens of thousands of questions already answered. It's turning into a huge machine!!!!
I'm going to guess you're joking about the last two things, but I was just told that you're one of the folks we had to layoff. I understand that being laid off was difficult and I've very sorry we had to do it.
I'm being very honest about that... it's no fun having to lay folks off.
Anyway, go ahead and bust my chops... I deserve it at this point. Thanks for riding me hard on these issues because it helps me get more focused on solving the big problems of search and knowledge exchange.
... also, thanks for the page views. :-p
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Helpful: mike, lon, danielle, stacy90802, hashim
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Other Answers (10)
March 31, 2009 06:35 PM
Hi George, As a newer member here I think you may find in fact that the Mahalo Answers site is a huge success in many ways. It's still a work in progress and with the help of members who ask and answer thought provoking questions it will continue improve - as a site and as a community.
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March 31, 2009 11:24 PM
Yes, Answers is a huge success with over 1m visits a month in month three. folks love the product clearly.
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March 31, 2009 07:38 PM
I think it's Mahalo Social, only because I had the unfortunate task of watching it go from an excellent resources for Mahalo, to being one that was neglected and I think pretty much shut down. When I started with Mahalo about a year ago my main duty was to monitor the incoming links in Social, delete the spam, and approve the quality links. In my opinion this was a great way pad links on the current Mahalo archives and keep them updated. My eyes looked at 100's of old serps, ones that the writing guides never go near.
Users had the ability to recommend sources that guides potentially missed while they were building the archives from scratch. Everyday we got 100's of submissions and good percentage of them where quality. I loved the idea of improving the older serps that were build in a time when Mahalo had different standards. Also lots of links were submitted to pages we hadn't even started building yet, I always salivated at the idea of being able to find time build those pages someday.
Because there were 100's of submissions and only a couple of us in the department, there was an incredible backlog of links that could potentially be built into pages, but we didn't have the time, since it took an entire shift just checking links it was hard to find time to build those links out into pages, so I started categorizing them in the off chance that other specialized guides could find time to help users finish up their pages.
http://www.mahalo.com/Category:Mahalo_Social_To_Do
Then, Mahalo started to allow Anonymous users to submit links, this increased our workload and decreased the quality of links to the point where almost no recognizable members were submitting links anymore, plus we ran into technical problems that were simply put on the backburner, and as I check, they are still there today, I've simply been told there is no point fixing the problems as the Social aspect will soon be overhauled anyway.
But that's the beauty of working for a startup, some things work, some things don't. As a labourer I just have to be flexible and be ready to be moved onto different projects when they come up, and I think all Mahalo guides understand the importance of flexibility. I started exclusively in Social, now I work exclusively in Answers. I am pretty sure Answers in it's short time around has already surpassed Social in regards to traffic/members and activity, so Answers certainly is not a failure.
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Voted as best: littleghost
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March 31, 2009 11:28 PM
I think social bookmarking is a niche, niche activity. Most folks don't like to do it.
however, what we called "social"--the public helping build pages--will be back in Mahalo 2.0 search which is coming in June.
Jeff: Imagine if the ease of use in Answers was applied to Mahalo SERPs and that's the idea. Come to a Mahalo Search result for a new movie, say Iron Man 2, and we don't have a guide note. It says "Write a Guide Note for One Mahalo Dollar" and "fill in these Fast Facts for Two Mahalo Dollars.
That's the future and that's where all the learning from Mahalo 1.0 will get put to work.
Bottom line: Knowledge search is a HUGE problem to solve and we're getting there. I've always said this is going to take five years and we just getting to year two. Keep in mind that Facebook took five years to get where they are and twitter has been around for over three.
Great projects take two to five years to break out.... and I think Answers + Mahalo 2.0 will be our breakout.
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however, what we called "social"--the public helping build pages--will be back in Mahalo 2.0 search which is coming in June.
Jeff: Imagine if the ease of use in Answers was applied to Mahalo SERPs and that's the idea. Come to a Mahalo Search result for a new movie, say Iron Man 2, and we don't have a guide note. It says "Write a Guide Note for One Mahalo Dollar" and "fill in these Fast Facts for Two Mahalo Dollars.
That's the future and that's where all the learning from Mahalo 1.0 will get put to work.
Bottom line: Knowledge search is a HUGE problem to solve and we're getting there. I've always said this is going to take five years and we just getting to year two. Keep in mind that Facebook took five years to get where they are and twitter has been around for over three.
Great projects take two to five years to break out.... and I think Answers + Mahalo 2.0 will be our breakout.
April 02, 2009 02:26 AM
I'm going to agree with Jason that social bookmarking is a niche of a niche. The only area with more widespread adoption would be librarians who use online tools heavily. FriendFeed is getting used for that a lot as of late although for some Delicious holds strong.
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April 01, 2009 08:26 PM
Who's to say what babes of what caliber have remained, or arrived since? ;) And are you a hunk that didn't leave? Explain that!
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April 01, 2009 12:12 AM
Yes, a lot of these DEFINITELY would not qualify as failures. The Greenhouse system, for example, was amazing, and is responsible for not only a great deal of the Mahalo pages currently in the system, but the vast majority of remote guides who continue to work on producing and updating Mahalo pages to this day. And of course I may be biased, but it's hard for me to figure how Mahalo Daily could be considered a failure...our viewership and subscription rate continues to grow, and we're even getting close to profitability at this point. No show could be a failure that allows me to meet Rosario Dawson twice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Sja1LEoMc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snjEkuwvABY
I think the term "failure" may be a bit harsh, but I was disappointed in the results with Mahalo Social. The "social network" aspect of Mahalo never really took off, and we quickly got overwhelmed with links and user-generated pages that didn't really seem to "match" the rest of our product. Obviously, we learned A LOT from this experience, and got a lot of ideas from Social that turned into other Mahalo features (particularly Answers!), so it still wasn't a complete wash...
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April 01, 2009 08:22 PM
I think the question as worded, is simple to answer. As long as the site is up and any part of it is useful, no part of it -- whether it worked out as anticipated or not -- is a failure. And if Mahalo Answers is the only remnant that makes it, with 1m + visitors, then this one potential huge profit center will wipe out the other losses.
Jason & Mahalo management are brilliant for taking this kind of start-up experimentation and making a serious go of it, and giving the rest of us so fun a place to opine on.
And Jason must be the best boss in the world (unlike coffee-cup-holding Michael Scott in the NBC hit series "The Office" -- watch it now on HULU.com <-- uncompensated product placement -- doing my part to see about monetizing Mahalo --> An idea for Jason: if a winning answer also contains product placement, have an arrangement where the winner gets 50 points, and the sponsor gets billed for the views generated by the winning answer), because in many other workplaces for someone to blatantly use the word "failure" and "Mahalo" in the same sentence would get you fired, banned, etc.
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