In the Trenches of Local

Local is hard. Local is fragmented. Local is long term.

To that end, Peter Krasilovsky posted a link to a blog entry by Andy Sack, CEO of Judysbook, cataloging the challenges the site has had. It’s worth a read — especially for all the people who think local sucks and they can do better.

Sack honestly discloses and discusses the challenges:

• Achieving critical mass in local
• Attracting + keeping people (i.e., consumer-users as opposed to businesses)
• Getting money from local merchants (”I think you need feet on the street to address this market”)
• SEO (”Google holds all the cards”)

I originally met with Sack in a restaurant before the launch of Judysbook, right about the same time InsiderPages was launching.

Both sites are in similar places in their development cycle, having come a long way but not quite being where maybe they thought they’d be at this point. Sack told me of some of his frustrations a month or so ago when we met in San Francisco. I really like and respect Sack and his partner Chris DeVore. I think they’ve built something of real value in Judysbook. But it’s fundamentally challenging to conquer the local space and there’s going to need to consolidation (or acquisitions) among some of the players to scale and succeed over the long term.

I wasn’t going to say anything about Stu MacFarlane’s departure from InsiderPages but it seems appropriate now. I had heard a rumor and was personally disappointed to learn of his departure. But I later spoke to MacFarlane who explained the circumstances, which partly had to do with not wanting to relocate to the Bay Area from LA. Stu, whom I personally like very much, chose his family over the demands of work, which I respect, though for him I think it was a very difficult choice.

New CEO Mitch Galbraith, who was previously at Yahoo!, will undoubtedly do well in this next phase of the company’s growth. I’m not speaking about Stu when I say this but it’s often difficult for founders to grow businesses beyond a certain point. Founding and running/growing a business are often two different skill sets. I’ve seen that in other situations I’ve been involved with in the past.

Today, Andy Sack posted what’s been easy at Judysbook.