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Svbtle Funding

blog.svbtle.com

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Re: Svbtle Funding

#51

Post by dcurtis »

w1ntermute wrote: post #42
teej wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thread in which you call a person you've never met a douchebag for trying to build something?

You must've missed this post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996236

I now find those posts somewhat embarrassing. The vitriol was unnecessary and diluted my arguments. In fact, I no longer even link to those articles from my website.

Still, I don't think something I wrote several years ago in a completely different context should impact your opinion of Svbtle as a network.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#52

Post by brown9-2 »

steveklabnik wrote: post #19
pdog wrote: post #17

"Svbtle now has more than 200 writers with expertise spanning at least eight disciplines, including entrepreneurship, business, finance, political science, and literature." Is there a directory of all blogs in the Svbtle network? The only ones I've seen have been about technology/entrepreneurs, but I'd be interested in finance topics.

There is explicitly no directory. There is a feed: https://svbtle.com/home But it's only for 'featured' posts.

I'm curious what the rationale of this is if one of the ideas behind this network is it's "exclusivity" and curation of authors.

Why be cautious of who you pick to be in your network yet not promote who you've picked to be in your network?

Re: Svbtle Funding

#53

Post by pg »

Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've funded. Partly because what they're doing is hard to understand, and partly because Dustin has alienated a few people along the way, who now in the usual way with haters want to misunderstand what Svbtle is.

One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations. Beyond that few of the details are figured out. But costs are low and traffic is growing steeply, so although in most cases I'd be nagging founders to figure out more details, in this case I've advised Dustin to let this grow and see what it turns into.

I encourage neutral observers to do the same: let's see what this turns into. And as for the haters, it's fine with me if you want to keep hating. Though this was not a deliberate strategy by Dustin (he is actually confused and hurt by all the hate), being controversial is actually a good thing for a publication.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#54

Post by SeoxyS »

In order to be a respected author and build a personality online, I think we'd all be much better off taking the time and care to build our own personal theme and identity.

Our blogs are our online identities. Using something like Svbtle take all the personality and brand recognition out of it.

For me, I designed my own blog around my personal tastes in minimalism, and the way I want to brand myself: http://kswizz.com.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#55

Post by il »

swombat wrote: post #34
steveklabnik wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What benefit can membership get from joing Svbtle network? I applied (and got in) to Svbtle because of two things: exclusivity and the interface. Svbtle at least attempts to have only high quality writers there, and it was made clear that sometimes, if posts were of low quality, they'd be asked to be revised. There was also talk of helping Svbtle members with their writing through things like copyediting. I haven't…

So, are you gonna pay $50/m for this, to make them profitable? Assuming they've taken, say, $500k, to get that back from 200 writers they'd need to make $2.5k from each of the current writers. Even doubling the number of writers, that's still $1.25k - 25 months at $50/m. So actually, to recoup the investment from writers in any reasonable time they'd need to charge more like $100-200/m. I doubt many of their 200 writ…

You're failing to make the distinction between revenue and enterprise value. EV could be a manyfold multiple of revenue.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#56

Post by brown9-2 »

waxjar wrote: post #36

> The future of journalism I can't help but laugh at this. All Svbtle does is slap a pretty, unified design on the articles of people that have interesting stuff to say. It's very good at doing that and I appreciate it for doing that. Like Curtis intended, when you see the Svbtle design you can expect something interesting. Most of the articles I've read on it were indeed interesting. However, these articles would al…

I think in the full context of the quote this makes more sense. He is saying that now they have the resources to build something that could maybe be "the future of journalism", not that the current state is "the future".

In other words, what they build next could be "the future of journalism".

Re: Svbtle Funding

#58

Post by oinksoft »

pg wrote: post #53

Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've funded. Partly because what they're doing is hard to understand, and partly because Dustin has alienated a few people along the way, who now in the usual way with haters want to misunderstand what Svbtle is. One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a trad…

Can we all agree to stop calling critics "haters"?

Re: Svbtle Funding

#59

Post by [deleted] »

oinksoft wrote: post #58
pg wrote: post #53

Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've funded. Partly because what they're doing is hard to understand, and partly because Dustin has alienated a few people along the way, who now in the usual way with haters want to misunderstand what Svbtle is. One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a trad…

Can we all agree to stop calling critics "haters"?

[deleted]

Re: Svbtle Funding

#60

Post by sharkweek »

pg wrote: post #53

Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've funded. Partly because what they're doing is hard to understand, and partly because Dustin has alienated a few people along the way, who now in the usual way with haters want to misunderstand what Svbtle is. One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a trad…

I can appreciate an organic ecosystem, and the exclusivity of writing for Svbtle sure has an appeal, but monetization on something like this seems incredibly difficult. Do they take it a full WordPress direction with hosting, etc? Or does it fully flesh out into a reputable online magazine with ads and the like. Maybe I'm not creative enough to see another viable option, but either way, I still think it's a cool project.

shrug

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