Archive for March, 2009

If there is one thing I’ve learned about Start-Ups is that every day is an adventure; sometimes not necessarily a good one but an adventure nonetheless. Even in the healthiest economies, with the perfect product, solid vision and a fantastic team, tough situations come up that require tough calls. Sadly, in spite of an amazing community and one of the best teams anyone could ask for, we’ve got those tough calls to make in order to ensure b5media survives and thrives.

The Backstory

Over the fall we restructured blogger pay as well as over the winter restructured our back office team Through it all we’ve worked hard to keep costs down, people focused and b5 growing.

Thankfully, these efforts, as well as our recent reorganization of our blogs into larger content sites (Bizzia for business, Splendicity for beauty & style, EveryJoe for men and Blisstree for Lifestyles) have resulted in growth on all fronts and by all measurements.  The team has been fantastic and the results speak for themselves. Our bloggers are great, the content is great, advertisers love it and, most importantly, our readers have responded with more page views, friend referrals, and some great complimentary emails, tweets, and blog posts of their own.

When we’d done the cost-cutting, we’d originally projected (in Q3 of 2008) the economy recovering late 2009, early 2010. We have a variety of trigger points, forecasts, and other tools we’ve been using to track all of this.  Armed with all this data, we no longer see our original plan as being a safe bet.  Given that there is nothing more important than b5’s long term growth, the management team decided to act now while we had plenty of cash, controllable costs, and (most importantly) time.

We decided to do what is rarely done; start at the top and protect the bloggers and the team as much as possible. It made no sense for the management team to sit around and cut bloggers, blogger pay, or the working team until every other penny was squeezed out of the system to extend the cash, keep the operational team rolling, and avoid harming the bloggers.

What’s Happening

Effective Tuesday, March 31st (no, this is not an early April Fools joke), there will be a significant restructuring of the b5media team, starting at the top.

First, I’ve cut my own salary to somewhat above minimum wage (by about 60%).  Salim Teja, our COO, and Jon Prosser, our VP Finance are both coming off the payroll. They are top talent and they worked the budgets and supported the right things for the company knowing that it meant bad results for them.  They have been amazing to work with and I’ve learned many things about true professionalism from these guys.  I know that both will find fantastic positions elsewhere because both are absolute rock stars.

In addition, this also involves laying off three of the non-management team. Each of these people has our full support in their journey going forward.

What This Means

Clearly this is a significant change. But the biggest part of this is that the investors, the team, and I continue to believe in the value of the network, the quality of our writers, and the value of the assets we have created over nearly 4 years of working on b5media.

By taking this path, we have extended b5’s runway to the point where we can ride out this economic storm with no capital requirements, headcount adjustments, etc. Providing our bloggers and our team with this protection and confidence was one of the central goals behind this change.

To reiterate, b5media continues to remain a healthy, growing and valuable business. We continue to retain the confidence and excitement of our investors, advertisers, team and partners. And while this is a significant change, we believe that by starting the change at the top we will be able to continue to serve our bloggers, advertisers, partners and investors for many years to come.

What This Means for Me

I’m still involved in b5media. I’m not leaving, nor have I quit, I’ve reduced my salary.  My first love, passion, and responsibility are to ensure the b5 family remains on the right track, continues to grow, while continuing to serve our bloggers, partners and advertisers.

Given the pay cut, though, I am considering writing a follow-up to Blog Marketing (which has sold incredibly well, and been translated into an amazing array of languages and resources over the last 4 years), since it’s become more than a little dated.  I’m also available for Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, and the occasional car washing opportunity.

If anyone has any comments, questions, concerns, etc, feel free to leave a comment, drop me an email (jeremy@b5media.com) or give me a call (details on contact page).