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James Hong

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Wow, I presume this will never happen again in my career

Just got back from a bar, where I attended my first ever company drinkfest where the occasion was celebrating turning OFF over $10k a day in revenue!

Feels Surreal... but still feels good! I think (I hope) we are doing the right thing here!

5 Comments:

Blogger Simply Me said...

I don't know if I could do it but it shows me how much you and Jim care about HoN.

You guys could have milked it for all it's worth and then let it just die off, but you are choosing to try a new approach.

You two started something back in 2000 and everyone else followed your lead. I jumped on the bandwagon a month after HoN started and have been hooked ever since. I'm sure there are thousands of people just like me who have always loved HoN just the way it is..and now that it's free, there are going to be so many more.

I've read millions of profiles from people complaining about HoN charging a fee for "meet me" ..well, with it being free now, hold on to your hats, I think it's going to be huge!

5:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Plunging into the deep end without a life preserve. Did you have a choice though?

Good luck

8:57 AM  
Blogger james said...

We absolutely had a choice. We could have continued milking it for many years to come. To be honest, although i do think this is the better route, our subscription service was not dying off at the rate people presume it was. We have a LOT of very loyal subscribers, like the one who commented first above.

Ultimately, we didn't quite make the decision ourselves, we let our users make the decision. We actually asked them for their thoughts before a final decision was made. I'll write a bit about that soon.

9:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very cool. I dont know enough to say if this is the right decision or not, it just feels that you have managed the transition well and if you can now take the huge subscriber base and help them to get value in the next wave it will be very beneficial to you and them.

9:56 AM  
Blogger IsThisGuySerious said...

I just happened across the blog this morning, and it was refreshing to read. As an aspiring web entrepreneur, I've idolized the concept behind HON for years, wishing I would have done something similar. I did "grow up online", having gotten my first computer at 10, in 1994. I can identify with a lot of what you've written, specifically in talking about reveling in the "old days" of computers, which for me was playing around with Visual Basic 4.0 to write stupid programs for AOL 3.0. At any rate, just wanted to say thanks for providing some insight. After reading these blog entries, I consider myself like-minded, and I think there's a lot I can learn from you. If you lived in Minnesota, I'd invite you out for a cup of coffee to that I could pick your brain. In the meantime, just keep writing and I'm sure I'll keep learning!

10:14 AM  

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