You’re Shit And You Know You Are

I hear this chant often standing on the terraces at Barnet FC and often feel it should be chanted directly at me.

Like what do I know about startups and running businesses. It seems not a lot.

I am in some areas considered the grand daddy of social networking. FriendsReunited was probably one of the first social sites –I suppose I should at least be proud of that, but the world was a very different place then in terms of the internet technology and take up – and that was only 12 years ago.

So I built a community of 20 million UK people from nothing – with no investment (apart from seed capital from some friends but we didn’t actually spend it) Developed the site ourselves. We introduced a subscription model and became profitable from day one with 97% margins. Cross sold to other sites including GenesReunited (still very successful) and dating. Grew to a few dozen people. Did all the PR, did the accounts and customer services for a time. Sold for a stupid amount. And yet it seems I know nothing. Well that’s how it feels when taking to some people. Maybe I just bore them.

Proud but past it. People can take it or leave it. Funny though how they like to take my money. It's just very disrespectful to yawn when I give you advice that is not what you wanted to hear.