So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

20Jul/07

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

It's been a busy six months and MyBlogLog is integrating nicely into Yahoo. We're on better servers, we've grown the team and there are some exciting new features in the works. Dare I say that the future is so bright that we gotta wear shades? So it seems like the right time to pull up stakes.

Maybe a little back story is in order:

About a month before my first son was due, the company I worked for laid off 90% of its staff. My wife and I were in Western Massachusetts, far from our families, and our entire social network was based around the fantastic friends we had developed among my co-workers. By the time Royse was born, nearly all of our friends had moved away. Since my job was to salvage the company, I took off about five days to spend with Jen and the baby and then I went back to work. It was a hard time. When Royse was seven months old, I had no income and I took out a second mortgage on the house so that I could keep working on MyBlogLog. My wife was willing to bet everything on me.

So now my second son is due on Tuesday and I plan on taking some time to enjoy it. I'm going to take care of Royse so that my wife can recuperate. Spend a lot of time with baby Parker. Maybe lose a little of the weight I've gained over the last two years from two startups and two pregnancies. Check MyBlogLog religiously to see how the new features are shaping up and how this wonderful community continues to grow (I'm member bpm140 and I'll be blogging at www.marcoullier.com).

It has been an honor working for you for the last two years. I've done some things that I'm really proud of and some things that make me want to hide under the bed. But these have been two of the best years of my life and I'm glad that I got to spend it with you.

As for the team, you all are simply the greatest group of people I've ever had the privilege of working with.

Emanuel -- We got to work with each other for what, eight hours? But they were a damn solid eight hours. You're going to kick ass with the team, I'm sure of it.

Ian -- You joined MyBlogLog because you wanted to get back to a place where things happened nonstop. Is it a coincidence that the week you started is the week we started developing full steam again? I think not. You've brought the fire back to the team.

Chris -- Damn, boy, you had one hell of a bar to meet. John and Steve are the finest programmers I've ever worked with and I didn't know how anyone else was going to meet my unrealistic expectations. Thank you for rocking from day one and blowing my mind.

Robyn -- You made what I thought was so hard look so damn easy. We were flooded with customer service and community management requests and I was in way over my head. Less than a week after you started, everything was running smoothly AND you had the gall to do it in four hours a day, leaving you plenty of time to make the community a better place day after day after day.

Micah -- Every time we met the site got better. It was like being in a jazz club and watching a master do his thing. Bonus: Friendliest. Guy. Ever. You know the janitors, man!

Rafer -- You may not be a part of the team anymore, but it would be criminal not to mention you here. MyBlogLog would still be a cool little stats feature if it hadn't been for you. You are my Yoda, amigo.

Steve -- It's not just that you do the impossible. It's that your so frickin' nice! I have no doubt that a little piece of you died every time I pinged you on IM at midnight and asked if you could make a tweak to the site for me. But you always did it, and you were always cool to this dumbass product guy who kept changing priorities on you. You are a good man.

John -- I go around stealing all the credit and saying "I'm the voice of the members" but it has always been a two-person job. Thanks for keeping us honest and having the guts to ask the difficult questions whenever the rest of us were rarin' to go. You're the heart of MyBlogLog.

Todd -- You are my best friend, bro. Thank you for everything.

I look forward to all the great things MyBlogLog's members will do in the coming years. I'm not going far -- it took me six years to get back to San Francisco; I ain't leaving any time soon. Feel free to give me a shout at eric@marcoullier.com if you ever want to play a little ultimate, go see a show at the Fillmore or just talk about the web.

Rock on!
Eric