Since Gothers.com is quietly reaching 600 members I was rather surprised to see this on WSJ.com:
Thirty-five percent of the online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members – despite the fact that close to 60% of these businesses have spent over $1 million on their community projects. “A disturbingly high number of these sites fail,” Moran tells us. Full article (subscription required)
A million dollar uber-flop with less than 100 users – sheesh. Meanwhile I’m just letting the old Gothers.com site slowly tick up to 1000. It is only a matter of time and patience and only cost a few hundred plus some amateurish coding to string together.
I guess I am not tied to satisfying customer (company) needs and dreams, just to what I think the user/member may like. No need for fancy logos or company colors, just what I think or can do. But at a million dollars even a failure would need to pull in 1000 surely? Maybe not.