“Three year old CouchSurfing, a beloved service used by some 90,000 members, had multiple database crashes, critical parts of the software and data were irretrievably lost, and the backups weren’t performed properly. They are not rebuilding the service. They literally put themselves out of business.” – reports TechCrunch.
Mike says it’s ridiculous – I’ll go a step further: it’s BS.
Of course the negligent approach about backups in itself is a serious issue, and in that respect I encorage everyone to read Dharmesh Shah’s thoughtful piece on why he considers $2K a month for hosting of his pre-launch startup money well spent.
So why am I calling this BS? Dharmesh says:
“What was the issue? Not lack of user interest or running out of cash or strong competition or any of the usual reasons that startups die. It was because of a series of infrastructure problems.”
Yeah, right. I haven’t been a CouchSurf-er, nor do I know the business, but I am calling it a BS, because the infrastructure problems are just an excuse – they may have been the last drop for the entrepreneur already fed up running the business, but definitely not the cause. Everyone knows that the single most difficult part in building any sort of marketplace / community business that relies on network effect is exactly that – reaching critical mass. Heck, anyone can throw together the databases, programs, infrastructure if the hundreds of thousands of users are somehow guaranteed. But of course they are not. My point is: if you do have the loyal crowd and your buiness is otherwise in good shape, you can start from scratch, and rebuild everything, no matter how bad (total?) your data loss is.
That leaves us with the other single most critical part (yeah, I am cheating, there are two “single” most critical/difficult parts…): monetization. This is where I suspect CouchSurfing may have had trouble, which turned it into OuchSurfing – after all, who throws away an entirely profitable good business after a technical fiasco?
Interestingly enough, although Dharmesh devotes his article to the importance of proper infrastructure, if you read between the lines, there is a second message there: eyeballs are not enough, you need to convert them to revenue.
You are absolutely right.
The death was caused by lack of business fundamentals (the lack of infrastructure was just a symptom).
My larger point is: I don’t see anything that makes this case atypical. How will all the other companies without clear paths to profitability and access to unlimited investment dollars pull through?
I think this touches on something that is often forgotten with the latest wave of web-applications, especially the “web 2.0” favorites; it should last longer than the initial six months of hype. For something like ta-da list (it’s a good site – i don’t imply something negatively about it) it’s not the end of the world if it goes under, but for more personal or business critical information, data recovery and application availability is critical. I think it’s great that we see new and innovative services pop-up but I hope the media and users will be more critical in terms of service stability and availability.
Wow, has anyone even thought that this might NOT have been a business ? Does EVERYTHING someone sets out to do have to have a business plan ? Just reading your post, and the other two comments, it is clear that you have absolutely no idea what that site was about, period. So, there we are again with yet another blog of people talking out of their **ses. And how does 90,000 subscribers not count as “critical mass” ?? Someone clearly needs to broaden up their horizons. Stop writing on blogs nobody reads and just get out there and experience a little something called “community spirit”.
If you really think the site is dead because there aren’t enough people willing to support it financially or otherwise, you sure are in for a world of surprise.
I do NOT know if it was a *business* or not, I clearly stated I had not known the site, and now that it’s gone, there’s not much I can find out.
As for not counting as critical mass, you completely misunderstood my post. The whole point was that reaching critical mass is the most difficult part of a business (OK, a site), so once you have it, which these guys obviously do, you don’t just give up due to a technical glitch, as disastrous as it is. If everything is wiped out, they are still better off rebuilding since they already have the critical mass than a new service would be without the loyal crowd.
Btw, thanks for commenting here, but I really don’t understand why you’re doing it anonymously….
Actually, that up there was my first comment here ever. (first time reading as well, stumbled upon here by a blog search for couchsurfing). Ok, so I understand your POV about the critical mass now though, but on the other end, if your main goal isn’t necessarily “profitability”, such a large user base can almost become a “liability”, ironically.
But anyways, what I can tell you, is that I’m pretty sure this letter was written out of frustration and fatigue from trying to recover the data. There’s basically no looking back now, if you just do a quick Google blog search for couchsurfing today, you’ll notice that dozens of message boards, blogs and web spaces have cropped up to pick up the pieces.
That community has obviously become way too big and passionnate to be stopped by just a website crash. It’s just gonna be very interesting to see what happens next. I wouldn’t be surprised if the site went back up pretty soon, one way or another.
He is already getting offers to help 🙂
Btw, a good 20 years ago I backpacked around Europe using an organization called Servas.
The same concept: hosts and visitors, friendship… back then there was no Internet, email ..etc, it took a few months of snail-mailing to organize such a trip. But it worked… and still does, they are still alive, even though the website is not particularly impressive 🙂
Dear Zoli,
We all have moments where we question our very own capacities and limitations. Fortunately for Casey that moment lasted only a few days, and as you probably know, Couchsurfing is back online, and we welcome you to sign up and find out what our great community is all about. 🙂
Duke
Couchsurfing Administrator & member
http://www.couchsurfing.com/duke
You can discuss the future of couchsurfing here
http://thecouchsurfingbuilding2.hyperboards.com
Discuss what should and should not be done to build a better couchsurfing site