Backfence's Mark Potts: We're reevaluating our strategy
Following my post summing up some of the buzz around local citizen journalism effort Backfence after the recent layoffs, I asked co-founder Mark Potts to clarify a few things about where the company’s at.
Here’s a quick email interview.
Me: I’m really curious about your business model. Is there enough money in the local market to support the sites just by ads, or do you have other ways to make money? I’d like to hear some of the success stories when it comes to local advertising.
Mark Potts: Backfence is entirely advertiser supported, and we believe in that model. We’ve sold ads to more than 500 advertisers in just a few months.
Me: Has the public response when it comes to participating on the sites met your hopes and aspirations?
Mark Potts: The participation varies by site and by post; that’s to be expected.
It depends on what’s going on in the community and what people want to talk about. We’ve had posts with dozens of responses and
fascinating dialogues by the community about what’s important to them.
Me: What was the reason behind the layoffs and what are you doing to turn this around?
Mark Potts: Can’t really comment on that, except that we’re reevaluating our strategy and planning several changes to our product to make Backfence scale into many more communities and become an even more valuable local resource.
Me: Where do you see Backfence in a year from now?
Mark Potts: Hopefully in many more communities and very successful!
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