Interview with Bizik Founder Dan McComb

HatchThat: Tell me the Biznik story. Where did the idea come from and what makes it different from all of the other business networking groups out there?

Dan McComb: Shortly after we got married, my wife started asking me questions like, “Honey, what sort of plan do you have in place to build your business?” Like a lot of independent web developers, I was lucky to be billing 20 hours a week at the time, which is enough to make a living, but not really to thrive. She suggested I join a business networking group. I checked out the options here in Seattle, and was shocked to discover how bad they were. For example, one group expected all their members to say the pledge of allegiance at insanely early morning meetings, and penalized you for not referring business. I couldn’t believe the way they treated their members as if they were in kindergarten. Another needed $400 from me to “lock out the competition.” I didn’t really want to lock out the competition - I’d found over the years that my “competition” is actually my biggest source of referrals and most interesting to me, because we have a lot to talk about. So I came home and said to Lara: “Know what? You and I can build a better networking group than anything I’ve seen - in our spare time.” She laughed at me. Then agreed to try.

<img src="http://www.hatchthat.com/data/biznik20.jpg" alt="Biznik 2.0" />One of the ways Biznik is different from a lot of other groups is that it’s a community first, and a business second. Lara and I didn’t start out to create a business - we set out to create a community that we wanted to be part of. That community-based approach is apparent throughout the site - for example, there is no advertising (although we’re looking at creative ways to accept sponsors - we’re not anti-money!) Also, events have to be 95 percent useful information, and no more than 5 percent blatant self-promotion. Because nobody likes an infomercial.

In the business networking space today, on the one hand you have really traditional established groups like BNI, with successful face-to-face events, but whose websites are frankly an embarrassment. On the other, you have purely online business social networks like LinkedIn and Xing, which totally lack genuine opportunities to meet people in person. They are basically just big online directories. Biznik gives you the benefits of both: a cutting-edge social network, made into a genuine community through face-to-face events, all hosted by members.

HatchThat: The Biznik website is a social network, do you put yourself in the same category as Myspace andFacebook?

Dan McComb: I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from social networks like Facebook, and their precursors likeCraigslist. I credit them with pioneering a lot of brilliant ideas. But their audience is general, and ours is specific. We’re part of a larger trend, I think, toward development of niche social networks, which better serve the needs of their specific audience. We’re focused like a laser beam on the needs of “indie” business: people who are bootstrapping a business, with big ideas and small budgets, who have the most to learn and share with others who are doing the same thing.

<img src="http://www.hatchthat.com/data/biznikjam.jpg" alt="Biznik Bizjam" />HatchThat: What type of businesses has Biznik attracted? And can you give us a story of how Biznik has helped people?

Dan McComb: Biznik’s membership is dominated by cultural creatives. With a tagline like “business networking that doesn’t suck,” we have tended to attract scrappy, bootstrapping indie businesses that aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo. We’re the business networking group for creative people who treat their business as a form of self-expression.

People have been reunited by stumbling over Biznik profiles, and I know of several people who have started dating someone they met at a Biznik event. A few people are getting the majority of their business through the network. But my favorite stories are about people who met someone in Biznik that enabled them to take their business to another level through collaboration. And I can speak from experience: I met John Adair that way, a Ruby on Rails developer, who is now Biznik’s lead developer. Biznik is all about collaboration, and doing more together than you could do alone.

HatchThat: Who would have thought it could become a dating site! The previous Biznik website is great already, but I’ve had the opportunity to trial Biznik 2.0 and it totally blows the first version away. What was it about your design and development process that you believe allowed it to be such a success?<img src="http://www.hatchthat.com/data/biznikjam2.jpg" alt="Biznik Bizjam Seattle" />

Dan McComb: The biggest problem with the previous version of the site was that, well, it was built in my spare time! It wasn’t designed to work outside of Seattle. So when we noticed people joining from all over the place, we realized we needed to create a site that would work well for them, too. Our design and development process is pretty simple - we just listen to members. And watch how they use the site. And think about what we’d like it to do for ourselves. We actually ARE our users. We’re what social psychologists call “embedded observers,” solving our own problem with the tools we create. Very different from the way most larger organizations are run.

Hatch That: The last few years have seen many web design businesses rolling out their own web application products on the side. What are your thoughts on that idea having now done it yourself?

Dan McComb: The ones I’m thinking of, like 37 Signals, did the same thing we’re doing - first identify a problem, and then solve it. Along they way, they discovered that their solution also worked for a lot of other people, and realized they could create a business out of that. I think that’s great for everyone involved - for customers, because they get something that actually works with a lot of soul behind it. And for the creators, because it allows them to step off the getting-paid-by-the-hour treadmill, and create something that has a lot of value in itself. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Hatch That: The BizJam event which you billed as Seattle’s First Indie Business Conference has just finished and Biznik2.0 is about to be released to the public. What’s next for Biznik?<img src="http://www.hatchthat.com/data/biznikjam3.jpg" alt="Biznik BizJam Pathable" />

Dan McComb: We have a ton of ideas that we’ve had to shelve while producing BizJam and working on the new site, and we’ll be developing those now that we have more time. We have a few features we want to release quickly: Groups, for example, is about 3/4 finished and will be one of the first updates to the new site. Groups are very important to the adoption of Biznik outside of Seattle, because it will allow people to essentially create their own networking groups using the Biznik platform. We’re also going to be adding a lot of profile enhancements, like more in-depth interviews (with option to include video). And adding more tools for supporting members, such as an easy way for them to post and syndicate press releases. We also plan to spend a lot more time focused on building partnerships with other organizations that share our mission. One of our first will be with the organization that developed the “not-just-for-profit” business model, which we’re big fans of. We plan to introduce a series of workshops that teach indie businesses how to be successful by embracing the 5 points of a not-just-for-profit business model: profit, community, individuals, ethics and the environment. You can learn more at http://www.notjustforprofit.org.

Hatch That: Thanks for the interview Dan.

This interview was published in July 2007 at HatchThat.com.