December 11, 2018 · community

Imzy Closing

Imzy / TechCrunch Article

Imzy is the second large community to close this year, the other being Yik-Yak. I think it goes to show that the market for social places online is particularly tough. One of Imzy’s founders, Dan, posted on hackernews that they shut down because they were unable to find any growth of users and they over-built (aka didn’t take the time to find product-market fit).

A common theme with both of these companies is that they raised ten’s of millions of venture capital as they started. Perhaps finding your market fit and reaching profitability before setting your sights on Facebook, Reddit and the like would be a wise approach.

They both also had issues with trolling. Imzy tried to offer a safe space, which the fundamental architecture of the internet seems to prevent. And Yik Yak also could not stop trolls (bullying) from making it’s way into the community. These examples provoke the question: how can we understand and control trolling (rather than stop it entirely)? Which is probably gonna be another post.