

Raising money for StackOverflow - snowbird122
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/02/14.html

======
michael_dorfman
I've got mixed opinions of StackOverflow.

On the one hand, it's definitely better than ExpertsExchange, and does an
adequate job of providing answers to many developer questions.

On the other hand, it's far (far!) from living up to it's potential. The basic
premise of the site is that the wisdom of the crowd will separate the gold
from the dross; however, the incentives lead to a plethora of mediocre answers
which do _not_ converge (Wikipedia-style) towards some platonic ideal, despite
Joel's stated wishes to that effect. What's more, there's a well-documented
problem ("the fastest gun in the West") whereby the first semi-correct answer
will quickly rise to the top, drowning out later (but more correct, more
thorough) answers.

In short: they haven't (yet) solved the basic problem of "changing the way
people get answers".

What's more, gaining the critical mass of early users was leveraged largely
through Joel and Jeff's celebrity. Which is not transferrable to other
domains. Which means that the site can't easily scale out.

Based on the preceding, I'd say that VC money is a good way to go-- it should
give them the resources to a) solve the basic problem, and b) build subscriber
bases in other domains.

~~~
gecko
The "fastest gun in the west" bug has been fixed for awhile; answers at
equivalent ratings are ordered randomly. In my experience, that's eliminated
the problem 90% of the time and ameliorated it the rest.

~~~
Xavi
I agree, this does help fix the "fastest gun in the west" issue, but I don't
think it eliminates the problem.

A mediocre answer that was posted one minute after the question was submitted
often has more votes than a well thought answer posted several hours later.

A better solution might be to randomly order answers, regardless of votes, for
the first couple of hours (maybe even day). This will further help remove any
ordering bias.

I also feel that authors of answers should be hidden for the first couple of
hours (or day). Just because John Resig answered a question, doesn't
necessarily mean it's the best response.

~~~
CamperBob
Why not hide all submitted answers until 24 hours after the question is
posted? Once this interval expires, there would presumably be enough of them
to be shuffled and presented without any sort of fastest-gun bias.

Optionally, question submitters could pay for "Urgent" status, where the
submitted answers are posted as they come in. No ratings or votes would be
accepted for the same cooling-off period, however.

~~~
pbz
I don't think you should hide the answers, but you should definitely hide the
ranking (votes) for about a day (or half a day) or so. During this stage the
answers would be randomly sorted. After a day you get to see the votes for
each answer...

------
petercooper
One problem that seems to have come up a few times is their inability to make
serious revenue. This is a perennial issue for sites aimed at developers that
don't sell products - coders + advertising don't mix (well).

I get the impression Joel's looking at expanding the SO model into other non-
developer/non-geek niches where advertising could work, but I'm not convinced
he's proven the revenue model enough to make it a tempting investment just
yet. Anyone know any different?

 _Note: On another post, someone reminded me of the Careers move, so that's
one easier-to-monetize stream at least._

~~~
ShabbyDoo
"their inability to make serious revenue"

To somebody like me who doesn't really understand advertising, it seems like
the value of an impression ought to be really high for StackOverflow. Based on
the tags associated with my userId and the questions I've read, they pretty
much know which technologies I use everyday. How much would it be worth for
EnterpriseDB (the PostgreSQL folks)to advertise to someone who is wondering
how to covert his Oracle database to MySQL? Perhaps, even with 6M users, there
are so few people in any coveted niche that the friction overshadows the
value?

~~~
larrywright
I'm not sure I've seen anybody report hard numbers on this, but anecdotally
what I've heard is this: geeks don't click on ads. Any site that targets geeks
has a harder time making revenue from advertising than one targeting non-
geeks, by a significant margin.

~~~
petercooper
You're right, but since you follow me on Twitter, you must have missed my
numbers on this.. ;-)

On Ruby Inside, Rails Inside, and Ruby Flow, I run a cpl million ad
impressions each month and make an OK amount of money from it despite the CPM
being deathly low (say $2-$3 on a per ad basis). The CTR, however? It's south
of 0.5%.

I also ran an Adsense for Feeds experiment for a few days recently. Don't have
the numbers to hand but it was 1 click in approximately 16,000 impressions..
and these are real, unblocked impressions. I made 40 cents. Developers don't
click on ads. "Geeks" _do_ , though, IMHO.. otherwise sites like Slashdot
wouldn't bother.

Compare this to Adsense ads on my old, archived personal blog.. and they run
at over 20%.

~~~
larrywright
Yeah, I had seen your numbers, but I was referring to some sort of larger
study on the matter.

As for Slashdot, I always sort of wondered whether or not the appeal to those
advertisers was less clickthrough and more name recognition. That is something
that I think is a bit under-rated. I think that matters when evaluating
products - I know that I tend to favor brands that I've heard of in some way
vs something completely unfamiliar.

~~~
petercooper
_As for Slashdot, I always sort of wondered whether or not the appeal to those
advertisers was less clickthrough and more name recognition._

That has been cited by some advertisers, for sure - especially those who are
recently funded or have larger branding budgets.

Take New Relic, for example. They're sponsoring The Ruby Show for I'd _guess_
(and I don't know for sure, but basing on rates of similar podcasts) at least
$300-$500 per show? There's no way they're getting that much business from
people listening to the show checking them out at that very moment. In terms
of brand awareness, though, $5-8k a year is nothing if almost every Ruby
developer has at least heard of you..

------
frou_dh
I enjoy using StackOverflow.

Jeff Atwood seems to get a lot of flack, but in creating such a nice site and
community, he's walked the walk as far as I'm concerned.

------
barmstrong
One thing that wasn't clear from the article, what does he want to spend the
money on?

If it's marketing, I don't see why they can't do that with existing revenue.
It's not as expensive as say a retail location for a starbucks and they must
be doing some revenue with ads and job board already.

If it's hiring more developers that might make sense, although I can't think
of any huge features they don't have yet.

Overall, not sure I'm convinced this is a good play for VC. They are growing
nicely without it.

~~~
snowbird122
Obviously, they would need to target a larger audience if they are going after
VC. I can see them rolling out the site to 500 different niches. Image answer
sites for home improvement, gardening, small engine repair, microsoft office,
botany, project management, cooking...

------
ams6110
_Jeff and I started out with a goal for StackOverflow of changing the way
programmers and system administrators get answers to their questions on the
Internet, which was deeply broken. In 18 months we’ve accomplish that_

Have they? Whenever I have a question the first place I turn is Google, and I
usually find my answer on a site that's not stack overflow.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
It's getting better, but StackOverflow is still pretty dominated by C# and
.Net questions. If you're using something else there is a significantly
smaller chance that they'll turn up in your search results.

~~~
spolsky
Check out the "Tags" page to see the popularity of various technologies on
StackOverflow. Although C# and .NET are pretty popular on StackOverflow, I
don't think they are disproportionate to their overall popularity in the
developer community.

Look at how StackOverflow has displaced Experts Exchange, though, and it tells
a clearer story:

[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stackoverflow.com+experts-
exch...](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stackoverflow.com+experts-exchange.com)

I don't think there is ANY other general-audience programming site with more
traffic.

~~~
davidw
I've been watching that over time, as a potential data source for
<http://LangPop.com> , and StackOverflow has definitely "improved", but it has
historically had a .net/c# bias compared to what turns up elsewhere, just like
github has had a Ruby bias, which is slowly fading as github gains in
popularity with the developer population at large.

~~~
melling
Joel and Jeff don't create the content for the site, the communities do. The
fact that other communities haven't moved into their sections en masse is not
their fault. It's YOUR (ie. everyone else) FAULT.

For example, I tried to get the Grails community to use StackOverFlow when the
site first started and their attitude was that they would rather just use the
mailing list and sift through Nabble.

[http://archive.codehaus.org/lists/org.codehaus.grails.user/m...](http://archive.codehaus.org/lists/org.codehaus.grails.user/msg/8B7D5E3A-6DA7-4A32-86BD-08C150997125@gmail.com)

The problem isn't with StackOverFlow, it's with the other communities refusing
to adopt something new. "After all, IRC is where all the best people hang
out...who needs this .Net thing..."

I'm currently learning Lisp. You wouldn't be able to get this kind of an
answer on a mailing list or on IRC.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2264267/generating-a-
quiz...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2264267/generating-a-quiz-in-
common-lisp)

This .Net/C# site just made it easier to learn Haskell, Lisp, Erlang, Scala...
a little irony not to be overlooked.

~~~
plinkplonk
"The fact that other communities haven't moved into their sections en masse is
not their fault. It's YOUR (ie. everyone else) FAULT."

The first sentence is fine. The second not so much. "Fault" assumes that
moving to SO/contributing etc is unambigously a good thing. I would not be
suprised if at least some developers thought their existing communication
channels are just fine.

"For example, I tried to get the Grails community to use StackOverFlow when
the site first started and their attitude was that they would rather just use
the mailing list and sift through Nabble.

[http://archive.codehaus.org/lists/org.codehaus.grails.user/m...](http://archive.codehaus.org/lists/org.codehaus.grails.user/m..).
"

This sounds like a valid choice to me.

"The problem isn't with StackOverFlow, it's with the other communities
refusing to adopt something new."

They may have good reasons to do so. Just because you are enthusiastic about
SO doesn't mean everyone has to be.

(Due Disclosure : I don't use SO at all. I once saw an algorithm question on
SO I could answer and when I tried, I found out I had to use OpenID to log in.
Couldn't be bothered.)

~~~
melling
StackOverFlow provides structure and organization to the information. I've dug
through enough email threads that ended at a dead-end to be able to say that
the structure is welcome.

People tag their questions, while others vote on the questions and answers.
Question titles are matched against the database when people enter new
questions. Admins "close" duplicates, and stop trolling. The reputation
"economy" provides a way to get an answer.

StackOverflow isn't perfect but it is a _big_ step forward in organizing the
information so that that the data can be searched more effectively.

<http://stackoverflow.com/search>

There are 500,000+ questions tagged. Some are great, some are not. Joel and
Jeff don't provide either of these. We do!

Don't try this on a mailing list.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/101268/hidden-features-
of...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/101268/hidden-features-of-python)

------
netcan
One of the things that comes to my mind is this:

Craigslist is widely described as leaving 90% of the money on the table. Most
people don't think this is _why_ they are this popular. They could have
monetised more categories or cities and still kept their position. Maybe.

But maybe they did exactly what was necessary to become the number 1
classified site. What if the _right_ amount of revenue for some top 200 site
(or network of sites) is really a couple of million?

Can such a site survive VC or does the option of staying a certain size
disappear??

Starbucks was a perfect example. They new exactly where the business was going
if constraints got lifted. More stores. Potentially tens of thousands. If they
were less capitalised they would have to go slower but they knew where they
were going.

------
og1
I wonder how this modifies their StackExchange offering. Does this mean that
if you are doing anything beyond a internal knowledge base Stack Overflow is
now a competitor?

~~~
johns
The twist here is that StackOverflow is its own company (of which Joel is a
founder) and StackExchange is a product of Fog Creek, currently available to
everyone. If their pitch to VCs is "we can add sites for XYZ topics" what's
preventing a competitor in that vertical starting up a StackExchange site on
the same topic?

~~~
spolsky
Nothing. It's not so hard to code, either, if you have time. That's why it's a
land rush.

~~~
johns
In this land rush you offer would-be competitors a turnkey solution to compete
with you. So hypothetically let's say you were going to get into Automotive or
Cooking Q&A and Car & Driver (or Cook's Illustrated) sees you get a little bit
of traction and they sign up for StackExchange and heavily promote it faster
and probably more effectively than you can since they have a dedicated core
audience. This doesn't worry you? Or are you going to avoid verticals you
can't quickly get a critical mass in?

~~~
jasonkester
Seems like a nice position to be in, actually.

Either you get a successful site in that vertical, or somebody else pays you
$50k/year for the right to have it instead.

------
sireat
Lately, Stack Overflow has been a mixed blessing.

How it goes: I post a question(questions are rather specific, but technology
stack is very common on SO)

I usually get one-two answers very quickly and maybe one more slightly delayed
answer, all helpful but also rather generic. You definitely get the impression
people are just point whoring.

After a day or two I end up accepting the closest answer, even if it is not
that close.

Seems real experts have moved on or perhaps I am missing some trick in asking
questions.

If this problem persists on their scaled out sites, I am not sure how much VC
money will help them.

------
ntoshev
Someone has been envious on the Vark acquisition :-)

Of course VC makes sense in their case. There is no barrier to entry in this
field, the model is clear:

* users tend to type questions in search engines

* search engines tend to rank up exact matches (especially with some trivial SEO like put the question in the title and url)

* given the proper environment, users will help each other answering those questions for free, generating lots of content - exposing ever bigger surface to the search engines

------
gcheong
Why do they feel the need to publicize their desire to raise money? Surely
they can get their foot in the door of potential VC's based on Joel's
reputation with Fog Creek alone, so what do they gain by announcing that they
are looking for investment and giving a bunch of reasons why it's the right
thing for StackOverflow? Why not just quietly raise the money and then,
if/when they get funded, announce it along with the reasons?

------
tonystubblebine
As a user of some of the more recent Q/A sites (StackOverflow and Fluther) I
find one of the most valuable pieces to be the community. I don't think that
necessarily scales to a venture-worthy size or that venture capital leads to
long term care takers of that community. However, clearly the founders seem to
think otherwise. Joel's looking for money and Fluther took seed funding.

------
bootload
_"... There are a few indicators for the type of company that I believe can
benefit from, and should take, VC. ..."_

The question I'd be interested in knowing is, _"if SO was in accepted into a
YC intake, what advice would SO be given to evolve given the app is built,
idea is validated?"_.

------
jasonlbaptiste
someone needs to do this for shopping.

~~~
barmstrong
checkout <http://BuyersVote.com>

------
johns
Joel's going to the Valley to pitch SO while Jeff's off in New Zealand at
Webstock/on vacation. Do VCs care if only half of the founding team is there?
What if one of them is 1/3 of the development team and the primary technical
driving force?

~~~
spolsky
No VC would invest based on one meeting. Nor would they expect the guy who is
building the site to schlep along on every pitch meeting -- Jeff has better
things to do!.

Presumably if we found some interested parties, they would want to meet the
key team members, in a second or third meeting.

------
jgerman
OT but the bronze statue of the two "guys" with the coin... anyone know what
that is? There is a similar style statute outside of the ICC in Indianapolis.

~~~
gecko
Those statues are in the New York Subway at a couple of stations. I believe
that particular one is at 14th St. and 8th Ave., on the A line, but I'm not
100% sure.

------
apower
Jeff has to go in the new company. He is a liability for the VC.

~~~
dkasper
Care to explain this a little more?

~~~
blasdel
Jeff talks publicly all the time about how much of a fuckup he is, how proud
he is that he sort-of figured out something you thought was obvious, how he
just can't do anything right. It's his public persona, and the subject matter
for his formulaic blog, where posts usually end with an explicit confirmation
that it was a waste of your time: <http://blog.wekeroad.com/blog/nothing-to-
say/>

He doesn't talk so much about what a successful badass he is (see Joel),
despite obviously having accomplished some pretty major shit.

~~~
kmt
And all of the above presumably helped him to co-found a successful (in a
make-something-people-want sense) startup. Not too bad after all, eh?

