Last week Mike Arrington wrote about the changes that are happening at eSnips (He called it eSnips Drama). As he mentioned, Yael (founder & CEO) left for personal/family reasons (In this case, it's really personal reasons. I always think that "personal reasons" is a nice way to hide something. Not in this case). The company is now run by Nahum Sharfman, the best possible candidate. Nahum is not only a successful Internet entrepreneur (Commtouch, Shopping.com) but also knows eSnips well, as he is an investor and has been the chairman of the company since its inception.
The past couple of months have not been easy for us. Yael was the heart & soul of eSnips, and her departure was hard to digest. However, we are now back on track and the site is alive and growing. Here are some data points:
- eSnips is still ranked as one of the top 350 sites on Alexa.
- According to Comscore the site had over 8M unique visitors in January.
- The DJ and Karaoke communities are still growing, with thousands of active members.
- The company is planning to be profitable this quarter.
- The user growth continues, and we hope to enhance it with a few product changes that will be introduced in the near future.
In general, the departure of a founder/CEO is always hard for a company. I have learned the hard that the long-term commitment of an entrepreneurs cannot be taken for granted. It wasn’t an easy lesson to learn.
I am saddened with the possible closing of ESNIPS. It's a daily part of my personal and professional part of my life. The question is what alternative is/are there to content sharing in a package as elite as ESNIPS? Do you have any suggestions? So far what I've seen on the web has not impressed me.
Thanks for your help.
David
Posted by: David Siegel | June 26, 2008 at 01:28 AM