Mallary Jean Tenore of Poynter Online has published an interview she conducted with Daniel Bachhuber, co-founder of CoPress which announced they were closing their doors a few weeks ago. It’s apparent from the interview that a lack of motivation on the part of student organizations as well as having CoPress be easily accessible created the conditions where the support system could not scale.
There’s so much you can learn on the Internet if a) you have the motivation and b) you know how to look and ask the right questions and participate responsibly,” Bachhuber said, noting that he’d like to see all student news organizations have developers on staff. “There’s a little bit of hand-holding that can be done, but what it requires most importantly is initiative
Definitely some interesting business lessons to be learned from Daniels experience at CoPress. Furthermore, Daniel will be one of the panelists featured in April when I produce an episode of WordPress Weekly with a round table of guests that are currently or have in the past, offered services around WordPress as their business model only in this case, Daniel will be providing insight from the other side of the business coin.
There are several good lessons to be learned here. 1. Charge too little and you’ll go out of business. 2. Give all you can eat tech support for an open platform and you’ll go out of business. 3. Don’t get out there and sell your @ss off and you’ll go out of business.
Makes me wonder how long Page.ly will last….