How 9rules Almost Ended
With my last entry I gave some vague details about how we went from 2.5 years of moving down one path only to change it all up in 6 months. How and what made us make that kind of change? These and other questions were asked by Tyme’s readers so I figured I would tell the story of how we almost walked away from 9rules to go our separate ways.
When reading this story keep in mind that we live in three different states so there isn’t always the ability to see each other’s faces or reaction to get the gist of what they are saying. Also remember…wait for this one…Mike and I have never met Tyme in person before. I mean EVER. It’s not that we have been avoiding it it’s just time is never right so maybe one day we will just get stupid and sponataneous and make it happen. However, after waiting so long it will probably be more nerve-racking than if we had gotten it out the way earlier.
When it comes to how we run things I am the leader. This doesn’t mean that every final decision is made by me, but I steer the ship. This also means if Mike and Tyme are having a disagreement I can get caught in the middle and last year this happened a lot. Both of them are good people and if we were all in the same room we would have nothing but parties going on however we don’t have that luxury. We are all strong, emotional people so if we interpret something wrong we have no problem going after the other person. Because of this none of us are going to stand down.
I argue with Tyme. I argue with Mike. They argue with each other. There was a point though last year where they argued a lot more than usual. It could have been personal issues, but a lot of it had to do with the state of 9rules.
9rules has always been a great site with a great community. Why did we decide to add more stuff to it like Notes and Clips instead of creating a different site for those? Because we wanted to get more people to 9rules before branching out into anything else. I have a business theory about this one that I will write over at Expert Idiot, but for now let’s say that I learned that there is a limit to how much something can grow and when you can accept that you can move on. Because there was so much going on at 9rules it was almost impossible to make it grow.
This is where tensions start to rise and fingers start to get pointed. You look around to see if everyone is pulling their weight. You try a million things and if something doesn’t work then it must be because someone isn’t doing what they need to do. This is poisonous thinking. I think it happens in all organizations, but having it happen in a three person organization is deadly. This also showed another weakness that we had and that was not really understanding what was expected out of one another. Something that was totally my fault.
As the middle man you get to hear both sides and because I was the leader I could see where I had failed in so many ways that I became frustrated to the point of wanting to quit. I love Mike and Tyme as people, but there was a point where I hated them as business partners. I didn’t want to talk business with them. I didn’t want to move forward with anything for fear that there would just be more arguing. It sucked. You might remember us saying we took the month of December off and this was the reason why. We were online talking, but we did nothing related to work.
This was the greatest decision that I probably have made in the history of this company. Although it was probably always apparent what needed to be done with 9rules that doesn’t mean it was easy to accept. However, I was still uncertain as to whether or not I wanted to move forward with Mike and Tyme, but then I realized I was taking the easy way out only to try and make myself happy. I didn’t want to go out like that so I tossed out the idea of splitting 9rules into two sites to them and they liked it and in January we moved forward. Yes we had other talks to resolve our issues and really it all came down to the expectations we held for each other. If there was something deeper like personality mismatches we would be screwed.
One of the hardest elements that exists in this dynamic is that Mike and I have known each other longer than we have known Tyme so that can be hard on her. However, Tyme and I did a show together so that can be hard on Mike. You can’t ignore the human aspect and think that at times one person isn’t going to look for a partner to fight on their side to gang up on the other person. You don’t see 1 v 1 v 1, it’s usually 1 v 2 and that is never fair. At the end of last year it became 1 v 1 v me saying peace the fuck out.
I only share this story because you don’t hear about these things in this Web 2.0 era and people like to pretend that people only disagree at their jobs. I also know that the world thinks we are perfect, which we are, but there were a ton of rough spots we had to overcome to get here. I can’t explain how much better life is now than 7 months ago. We have new sites, a new start and an understanding of what we all bring to the table.
Not to look back and think fate had a plan, but I don’t think we could’ve moved forward with these new sites until realizing that we had a really fucked up dynamic going on within. We still argue because that’s how decisions get made at times and there are still misunderstandings (one happened 2 weeks ago between Mike and myself) so we are still growing together. I’m glad I didn’t pull the plug on 9rules or anything else that we do and I can honestly believe that now.
That’s my story. If Mike and Tyme disagree with it, don’t listen to them. They are stupid people.
Oli # —
I’m glad you managed to work through it. But now you’re on top form, time to look at the RSS, no? :evilgrin:
Love you all.
Eli James # —
Wow. I never realized you guys fought. I always thought … well screw what I always thought.
Thank God, you guys didn’t break up, though. And I’m willing to bet these experiences have made you stronger as a team.
Godspeed and onwards.
Tyme White # —
@Oli - is there an RSS feed working?
When I came to 9rules you and Mike had already attended at least one conference together, SXSW, you had Business Logs together, formed 9rules…your friendship was already established. Since having ownership in our company another SXSW was attended, Mike has been to Florida, you went to NC, was a groomsmen in Mike’s wedding, bachelor party…pictures of most of those events posted on 9rules, Facebook, etc. It wasn’t hard on me because that was the way it was when I came on board. Nothing changed.
However, you did bring up a good point about the human element. If I had been bothered by it bringing those feelings into our business would have been inappropriate. It never bothered me about Business Logs, SXSW, etc. because I never held the expectation of needing to be included in everything the two of you do. I wished the two of you the best with Business Logs and even offered to write some white papers without wanting or expecting a formal business relationship in that entity. I guess a good example of my line of thinking is Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. They have a show together, Diggnation, and are good friends. Alex has other shows without Kevin but they are distributed via Revision3, in which Kevin is one of the founders and Alex has no interest in). Kevin has outside business interests from Alex. When entering business the key is to get the best people for the tasks at hand, not “because we’re friends you’re obligated to include me in your business ventures”. There is nothing wrong with 2 of the 3 starting a venture or all three of us having outside ventures.
In both cases the success of those outside ventures (whether all three of us were a part of it or not) would have benefited our joint ventures due to the increased exposure, just as Kevin and particularly Alex’s outside ventures give exposure to Revision3 (his friend’s business), which potentially feeds back to Diggnation. Clearly for the task that Business Logs attempted to achieve you and Mike were the best combination. For a sex and relationships podcast the boy/girl combination was stronger.
This is why that mode of thinking is so toxic. The inability to accept what was apparent placed huge expectations and burdens where they did not belong.
Scrivs # —
@Oli: Feeds work just fine on all the sites but Chawlk
Post A Comment