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SmugMug Update From Baldy
Baldy
Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
Hey everyone,
In my 11 years at SmugMug, I don’t remember a time when there was such a gap between the excitement our employees feel and the concern many of you feel. For this I blame....Baldy.
Honestly, I felt the best thing I could do for everyone was to ship, and make it great. So I immersed myself in hiring, investing in systems, product design, etc. I would occasionally respond to interview requests, like with Fredrick Van and open up as much as I could. But I didn’t really say in one easy-to-find place on dgrin what Don and I had said elsewhere.
And poor Michael Bonocore... He’s a great guy, widely loved and a long-term customer, but we didn’t let him talk about future product releases. Our fault, not his. But credit to him for getting me to post this. That is, if you find it helpful, credit him. If you find it to be corporate blah blah, blame me (and spread a little blame to our lawyers, please, who don’t approve of this message).
In 2011, we showed some markups of "SmugMug's New Design." The post was a big hit and got many customers excited to upgrade. Now in early 2013, many people are wondering where it is.
The feedback we took away from the thread and customers we spoke to was we need more than a pretty face. What about customization (a huge topic), and more powerful, easier organization?
If we were just a template-driven site, we could have been live long ago. But we made the decision many years ago to allow very deep customization, something not many sites do. And the customization capabilities that so many of our customers want makes this a very big challenge, not something we could do by placing a pretty skin over our existing software.
So we made the boldest decision in our 11 years, to pause incremental development (except for back-end infrastructure to give us more uptime and speed) while we focused on a far more ambitious release than we had envisioned when we posted that thread.
It’s so very painful for both you and us to not be releasing incremental improvements, because we know it makes it look to the outside world like nothing is happening. The good and somewhat unfair news is we get to see it every day and get so excited we keep burning the midnight oil. The demos we’ve been able to do under NDA have been key to building an amazing team of designers and engineers, who are buzzing (some of them customers, like Michael).
But... Why don’t you give us a date?! Surely you have one.
We wrestled with this. We have sometimes had success announcing dates in years past, hitting them, and holding a launch party.
We chose not to with this release for several reasons. The primary one is as we take some people and companies under NDA (a few of them here on dgrin) and get them involved in the development, they sometimes have important insight that changes our roadmap. They really value the fact that we would take the time to incorporate their needs. We always ask, “Is this critical for the release or can we do it sometime later?” And when the answer is it’s critical enough to delay, we try to take that seriously.
I know some of you have worked at companies like I perceive Adobe to be where they adhere to a date and ship an update to Photoshop every year or two. And some have worked for companies like Apple (I used to work for Steve Jobs at NeXT) where they have an ambitious goal and sometimes sacrifice the date for the goal. That’s where we are on this project. We missed an internal date, which was hard, but decided the most important thing in this case was to achieve the product goals that evolved into what they are now.
Can you share some screenshots?
Oh how we’d love to. The legal and competitive costs of doing so are just too high, as we learned the multi-million dollar way. For example, some companies constantly patent what they expect us to develop, in hopes that they can beat us to the patent office and then to court. We wish that didn't have such enormous repercussions on our roadmap and costs. But we’ve spent millions on patent lawsuits, money that could have been spent on product development. We understand now why companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google have to operate the same way.
How do you justify raising prices before releasing an updated product that has been promised for a while?
That was my idea and I don’t think an hour has gone by when I haven’t thought of it. My guess is Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, did the same after their price change, which must have been devastating for them to read about in the media. I’m inspired by the success they achieved in the year that followed, but you can bet I know exactly what will happen to your loyalty if we don’t turn our price raise into the improved product we’ve alluded to. I’m just grateful you’ve given us this chance. But I’m also very confident that we’re building the product we could not have built without either raising prices, raising venture capital, or losing our independence.
I call a customer a day and if you want to be one of those, send me a PM and I should be able to get some of you on the list. Otherwise, as I tell everyone who invites me to anything, I’m on lockdown 24x7 working on product.
All the best,
Baldy
In my 11 years at SmugMug, I don’t remember a time when there was such a gap between the excitement our employees feel and the concern many of you feel. For this I blame....Baldy.
Honestly, I felt the best thing I could do for everyone was to ship, and make it great. So I immersed myself in hiring, investing in systems, product design, etc. I would occasionally respond to interview requests, like with Fredrick Van and open up as much as I could. But I didn’t really say in one easy-to-find place on dgrin what Don and I had said elsewhere.
And poor Michael Bonocore... He’s a great guy, widely loved and a long-term customer, but we didn’t let him talk about future product releases. Our fault, not his. But credit to him for getting me to post this. That is, if you find it helpful, credit him. If you find it to be corporate blah blah, blame me (and spread a little blame to our lawyers, please, who don’t approve of this message).
In 2011, we showed some markups of "SmugMug's New Design." The post was a big hit and got many customers excited to upgrade. Now in early 2013, many people are wondering where it is.
The feedback we took away from the thread and customers we spoke to was we need more than a pretty face. What about customization (a huge topic), and more powerful, easier organization?
If we were just a template-driven site, we could have been live long ago. But we made the decision many years ago to allow very deep customization, something not many sites do. And the customization capabilities that so many of our customers want makes this a very big challenge, not something we could do by placing a pretty skin over our existing software.
So we made the boldest decision in our 11 years, to pause incremental development (except for back-end infrastructure to give us more uptime and speed) while we focused on a far more ambitious release than we had envisioned when we posted that thread.
It’s so very painful for both you and us to not be releasing incremental improvements, because we know it makes it look to the outside world like nothing is happening. The good and somewhat unfair news is we get to see it every day and get so excited we keep burning the midnight oil. The demos we’ve been able to do under NDA have been key to building an amazing team of designers and engineers, who are buzzing (some of them customers, like Michael).
But... Why don’t you give us a date?! Surely you have one.
We wrestled with this. We have sometimes had success announcing dates in years past, hitting them, and holding a launch party.
We chose not to with this release for several reasons. The primary one is as we take some people and companies under NDA (a few of them here on dgrin) and get them involved in the development, they sometimes have important insight that changes our roadmap. They really value the fact that we would take the time to incorporate their needs. We always ask, “Is this critical for the release or can we do it sometime later?” And when the answer is it’s critical enough to delay, we try to take that seriously.
I know some of you have worked at companies like I perceive Adobe to be where they adhere to a date and ship an update to Photoshop every year or two. And some have worked for companies like Apple (I used to work for Steve Jobs at NeXT) where they have an ambitious goal and sometimes sacrifice the date for the goal. That’s where we are on this project. We missed an internal date, which was hard, but decided the most important thing in this case was to achieve the product goals that evolved into what they are now.
Can you share some screenshots?
Oh how we’d love to. The legal and competitive costs of doing so are just too high, as we learned the multi-million dollar way. For example, some companies constantly patent what they expect us to develop, in hopes that they can beat us to the patent office and then to court. We wish that didn't have such enormous repercussions on our roadmap and costs. But we’ve spent millions on patent lawsuits, money that could have been spent on product development. We understand now why companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google have to operate the same way.
How do you justify raising prices before releasing an updated product that has been promised for a while?
That was my idea and I don’t think an hour has gone by when I haven’t thought of it. My guess is Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, did the same after their price change, which must have been devastating for them to read about in the media. I’m inspired by the success they achieved in the year that followed, but you can bet I know exactly what will happen to your loyalty if we don’t turn our price raise into the improved product we’ve alluded to. I’m just grateful you’ve given us this chance. But I’m also very confident that we’re building the product we could not have built without either raising prices, raising venture capital, or losing our independence.
I call a customer a day and if you want to be one of those, send me a PM and I should be able to get some of you on the list. Otherwise, as I tell everyone who invites me to anything, I’m on lockdown 24x7 working on product.
All the best,
Baldy
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"Being a photographer is not about taking a photograph, it is about being curious about life."
~ Jared Platt
http://www.jamesgeigerphoto.com
Thank you for communicating this status to us even if the lawyers are uncomfortable with it. Its very unfortunate that lawsuits have to play a part in all of this. But I guess that's the nature of the beast once you get to this level as a tech company.
My Smugmug Gallery
I also appreciate your communication and empathize with the minefields that SM have to go through to get to your end result.
I have to admit, that I am even more intrigued now to see what is happening.
I think a lot of frustration would be averted, if you could give some sort of time-frame (I understand your concerns about this as well). The time-frame could even be to the nearest six months. I believe that many would feel assured if you were to do this.
My renewal is due within the next couple of weeks and before this post, I was uncertain as to what to do, but I Will most definitely renew as a result of this post.
Kind regards
Clive
Clive,
That makes Baldy, myself, and the rest of us here at SmugMug very happy to hear. Believe me, it is hard to be in my position, saying no no no. It does not fit my personality at all, but we have a very clear vision, and personally, behind all of the no's, I am incredibly excited for the future and ecstatic to be a part of this team.
Michael
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--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Michael, "Baldy" - Despite my criticism of some of the aspects of the current system I know what it is to design a product (on technical and business level). As someone mentioned - it was pretty obvious that you are going a way beyond a simple facelift. There were nor there are any expectation on my account for you to complete this task tomorrow:) Nevertheless - I am paying and renewing two business accounts with you. My criticism and sarcasm (sometimes) comes from a different perspective. You are not a small company and do not operate out of a garage. A company of your caliber should be able to maintain two teams - one primary that works on a new product/deliverable. Another, secondary, that is not only maintaining the old (current) system but ACTUALLY fixing things as they come based on the severity of an issue. Instead, you have a damage control strategy (Michael and Heroes) who can only .. well... talk to customers. And it is not an easy position as Michael admits. Which is totally understandable. And before you assure me that I am wrong and there is a team that handles the legacy system modifications - please, search on the issues I have pointed to before. Just a Facebook bug is severe enough to address it immediately. In fact, I personally would considered any issues that are broken and that are, at the same time, directly and clearly advertised being a candidates for an immediate rework. But that is just me... too afraid of liability issues:)
Thanks for your heart felt and informative post.
Now a few thoughts of my own for those who live far away and haven't had the opportunity to see SmugMug in person or meet the owners or crew:
While I don't know Baldy, one thumb and the family in any great depth, I have been a SmugMug customer for awhile now, live close to and have visited their headquarters in Mountain View CA.
I have been impressed, struck, and pleased to find them to be an honest straight forward group of folks driven by their internal belief and value system. They are NOT greedy, how do we make a fast buck, kinda people.
They seem to have real knack in finding and hiring high quality employees who are not only technically savvy but also posses great attitudes and customer service skills.
They ain't perfect, but they really do try very hard.
NO, I do not get anything out of this post except the satisfaction of sharing my thoughts with all of you.
Sam
Thank you for the kind words and support Sam. I hope to meet you someday!
Michael
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Hi Michael,
I do understand your point of view. In these few short months I have been here, we have interacted alot, and I see your pain points. Believe me, I do. But Baldy, me, and the rest of SmugMug have vision, and, as Baldy says, burning the midnight oil to see our vision come alive, for you, our customers. Sometimes, unfortunately, that does mean having to put off some issues, even if our customers see them as important.
I do apologize, but thank you for your understanding and I hope to work with you here on dgrin for years to come!
Michael
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I've been able to read in between the lines on here and other sites as to what the real causes of the price increase are (cough cough patent trolls of a nameless media company) and that really just about kills me.
I'm anxiously awaiting what you are working up!
Langford Photography
http://www.langfordphotography.com
james@langfordphotography.com
"Being a photographer is not about taking a photograph, it is about being curious about life."
~ Jared Platt
http://www.jamesgeigerphoto.com
Some of you are too young to understand the "E.F. Hutton" but I'm sure listening!
I'm new to all this, but I thought I would share the fact it was AFTER the price hikes, and more importantly, after listening to the interview with Frederick Van that I decided that Smugmug was the service I wanted to use, mostly because I appreciated the candid way that you communicate with your customers, as you have in this post. You lose some, you win some.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what the future brings for Smugmug, and in the meantime I shall return to smacking my head against the wall of my own incompetence at customisation.
Looking forward to the update!
-g
Thank you for being frank and open with this insight. It's because of this open and frank candor that you earned my business in the first place in 2005, and I'm really glad to see it's still alive and well.
Want faster uploading? Vote for FTP!
Thank you so much for your post. I've been frustrated by the long wait like may others but at the end of the day there really is nowhere that comes close to Smugmug. I hope that Michael will become a much more active and responsive member of the team when you are able to launch the new Smugmug, it must be so frustrating for him.
Hoping the wait isn't too long, best wishes to all those working hard behind the scenes:)
Caroline
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James,
This will be a sticky post, but I wanted to keep it as unsticky, so it can easily be viewed and "bumped" to the top when someone comments on it.
I will probably make it sticky on Monday.
Thanks!
Michael
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Frustration is my middle name! :ivar
It is actually not bad at all. Years ago, I used to manage (and decide to pay/not pay) health insurance claims to psychiatrists. Believe me, you don't want to mess with a psychiatrist who hasn't been paid on a claim in over 6 months. They were BRUTAL...and they obviously were very well trained in getting into your head. But I was there 3 years, until I moved into the software sector. Everything after that job is a cake walk.:D
Michael
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Sure thing and thanks for the suggestion!
ahh! ok, Got ya! ;-)
"Being a photographer is not about taking a photograph, it is about being curious about life."
~ Jared Platt
http://www.jamesgeigerphoto.com
I've hesitated to use that term because we've done many back-end architectural changes to scale our systems that we aren't touching, such as the switch to Amazon CloudSearch to power searches. It gave us a lot more search speed and the ability to search on more attributes, plus it gave us more search uptime.
But the look, the interaction, the way you customize and organize, how many tiers deep you go, we would have been crazy not to re-think all that based on what we learned and the multi-window world we live in.
Thank you Paul. We are glad you have found Baldy's update helpful!
Michael
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This is great news. With technology moving so fast, it's reassuring to hear that one of my favorite companies is doing the right thing by taking a step back in order to get a larger, firmer grip on the moving target. I've met Baldy in Seattle a while back and that's all the reassurance I needed hearing him speak about what photography means to him. SM will leapfrog their competitors and continue to pioneer this space, mark my words. Sean Hoyt - www.affinityseattle.com
/// www.affinityseattle.com /// <-yes, you want to check that out.
Thanks for the kind words Sean! And you are correct. I thought I was passionate about photography, but I don't hold a candle to Baldy's obsession.
Michael
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Lynne
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Shameless plug for New Skin Media.
Thank you for hanging in there. We know limbo isn't fun, and waiting is the hardest thing to do, so we appreciate your confidence.
Michael
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