innonate - Latest Comments in BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

wiliam143 — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:52:40 -0000

What are you currently up to? If entrepreunering (my word), tell me about your startup.
Today, I’m days off of launching my baby, BricaBox.com. BricaBox is a new kind of web publishing platform, focused on the social content market. We aim to power thousands of consumer and publisher generated websites, where, like with YouTube, Flickr, Yelp, and Wikipedia, people come together with the intention of collaborating on a base of content.

Why are you doing this? You could be doing so many other things in the world, what about this particular idea strikes you?
In a word, opportunity: Opportunity in the industry as a whole; opportunity in the web publishing market; opportunity in the social web space; opportunity in the semantic web. With so many opportunities floating around, it’s hard not to be in this business, doing what we’re doing. I really couldn’t imagine doing something else right now.

All startups should be addressing a problem in the market of backup. What is that exact problem and how are you solving it?
The problem has been that tools to create social content sites have had a restrictively high barrier around them. We think there’s a ton of opportunity locked up when those tools are out of the hands of the masses.

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Nate Westheimer — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:56:06 -0000

Thanks Thomas!

Very insightful!

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Thomas — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:45:21 -0000

"Companies should tackle Market Problems, not Technical Problems." Are you kidding me with this? Who doesn't know this? How about this: get some life experience before learning lessons that are widely known by people who have been there/done that?

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

kangas — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:10:14 -0000

Nate, very sorry to hear this. We met at BarCamp NYC, and you clearly seemed to be going somewhere with BricaBox. I went though the same with my own startup last year (which shall remain nameless, since it's offline now. sigh.)

Best wishes, hope you land on your feed ASAP!

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Danny — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:40:46 -0000

Great post, Nate. Very much looking forward to seeing what's next!

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Willo Sana — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:55:24 -0000

Hey Nate! Finally getting a chance to read this today. First, I just want to say that I'm so glad we met last year. If it weren't for BricaBox, you two wouldn't have been in Vegas that weekend, and none of the insanity could have taken place! hah.. Seriously great memories there, eh? :)

Second, since we met I've truly admired your leadership & entrepreneurial spirit. You are a force in this web world! Congratulations on being courageous in making what I know was very difficult decision.

Lastly, I'm sooo excited to hear about & hopefully participate in your next awesome venture!

You're awesome and I love you!
xo
w

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Nate Westheimer — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:35:28 -0000

Major points for open source, coming from Chris Pirillo.

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Jim Hirshfield — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:40:19 -0000

Nate - You're stronger for it. I know this is tough - been there. But you come out the other side better prepared for the next one. People that don't "fail" never succeed because they aren't pushing the envelope. Looking forward to seeing you again soon. Jim

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Nichelle Stephens — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:12:58 -0000

Thanks for the shout, Nate. You are smart to know when to hold em, and when to fold em. I look forward to your next projects!

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

bryanthatcher — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:01:04 -0000

Nate, the most important aspect of creating and building a company is honesty, honesty with yourself and what you are building. My hat's off to you for having the balls to be honest with yourself. Tough decision are part of business, you just made the toughest one. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger :)

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

earwood — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:14:19 -0000

Nate- Man that is a very tough decision to make as I know first-hand. Kudos for giving it a hard run and good luck with the next one. Wasn't it M. Cuban who had to fail 7 times before his first one hit? I'm sure there's more great things to come.

Todd

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Fraser — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:00:23 -0000

All worthwhile journeys have their ups and downs. Happy to see you step towards the future and the next adventure with more wisdom and experience. We all know great things are coming.

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Scott Trudeau — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:51:06 -0000

Nate, I'm looking forward to your followups here, especially your thoughts on "When in doubt, build off Open Source." -- you guys built off of CodeIgniter, which is an open-source framework -- but you seem to really be saying that you may have been better off starting off with a more feature complete CMS and working your way back down. For the problem you were trying to solve, I think you probably picked the right "layer" to start with.

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Paul Dix — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:46:56 -0000

Hey Nate,
Sorry to hear about BricaBox. But as you say, onward and upward. I'm sure you'll be doing many interesting things in the time to come.
Best, Paul

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Nate Westheimer — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:29:06 -0000

Thanks Jeremiah. You've been a great help during this adventure!

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Matt Zarzecki — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:48:31 -0000

Good Luck Nate, look forward to what's next.

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Conrado — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:14:58 -0000

Good luck Nate. Your post shows integrity and bravery. You'll have many good things coming.

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Ryan Spahn — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:25:09 -0000

Sorry to hear this; hope you can keep it up and running!

StartUp Camp 07 sure had a lot awesome people there!

Good luck with your new endeavors!

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Peter Laudati — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:21:14 -0000

Nate,
While most here might express sympathy at the end of Brica Box, I'll throw you a 'congratulations' on the efforts you made and the lessons you learned going through the start-up process! Your efforts to put a start-up together and be a leader in the NY Tech community stand above any thing else.

Good luck on your next endeavor and looking forward to more community events like BarCamp NYC!
-Peter

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Jeremiah Owyang — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:54:36 -0000

That's a shame, I was hoping to see you evolve. Best to cut while you can, take a few bruises and walk out with the life lessons. Thanks for sharing your lessons, this is a sign of a true leader.

Look forward to your next venture

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:39:22 -0000

Open source it, please. Please.

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

georgezhao — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:21:18 -0000

sorry to hear about bricabox dude. best of luck on your next thing!

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Christien — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:10:37 -0000

Nate, sorry to hear about it closing. I'm sure it's not easy to pull the trigger on something like this. You will learn and grow from it. I will continue to read your blog and look forward to seeing your new projects.

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Egor Bacardi — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:04:02 -0000

Sorry to hear, body. Best of luck in future doings!.

Re: BricaBox: Goodbye World!

Nate Westheimer — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:49:05 -0000

Thanks, Rishi. It was a tough decision. I'd say The Dip was about two
months ago when I was left co-founderless... I plowed through with a
few strategies and at times things looked good and then bad. Leaving
it was certainly the difficult choice, not the easy one.

But thanks for the thoughts!