It's probably become obvious to the careful observer that all is not well in the Land of Pyra. Rather than wait for the public speculation and debate, I'm going to say what exactly is going on (from my perspective -- not speaking for anyone else on the team or as an official Pyra/Blogger representative). I'm sure the public speculation and debate will happen anyway, but I don't plan to take much part in it. I have other things to do.

First of all, the company (Pyra) is not dead, and the service (Blogger) is not going away. However: We are out of money, and I have lost my team.

Meg, pb, Matt, and jack no longer work for Pyra. (The other Matt hasn't really worked with us for a while.) Just me. (And I'm not even sure I'm technically an employee.) Everyone was actually laid off back in December but stayed on out of hope and faith (and because they are great people who care about what they do more than they cared about being financially compensated, even though everyone has to eat...eventually). Then we got a little more money and were able to keep people on while we worked through a couple different merger/acquisition opportunities.

We found out last Friday that the one most people on the team were hoping for was not going to happen. This took the wind out of the already limp sails people were surviving on, and it was largely decided we couldn't keep this up.

There were different perspectives on what we thought was still possible at that point in the game, but there are no right or wrong answers to that question. Everyone just had to make the call about what was right for them, and I probably would have done the same as each of them (which, btw, wasn't all the same thing).

What Happened
Meg and I started Pyra in January 1999. It's too early for me to do a post-mortem. Suffice to say, the last two years have been a long, hard, exciting, educational, once-in-a-lifetime, painful, and, ultimately, very rewarding and worthwhile journey for me personally (one I hope to more fully, publicly document sometime in the future -- fortunately, we have the company and personal blogs for reference :-). I hope everyone else involved can honestly say it was worthwhile for them, as well.

It really breaks my heart to see the group of awesome people that I was so damn proud of having assembled break apart, feeling beaten and with dreams unrealized. As the CEO of this company, I, of course, hold myself largely responsible.

Yes, things would have been very, very different if the Internet Bubble wouldn't have burst and we were still in that...that, Other World in which we started. In that world, things that seem dumb now (such as launching a product and letting it grow for so long without making revenue from it a priority) made sense. And if it would have continued just a little longer, there's little doubt we'd be telling a different story now (then again, it could be a sadder story). Nonetheless, I'm always uncomfortable blaming outside circumstances for the results I create in life. And since we never subscribed to the grow-at-all-costs, IPO-or-bust mania that left so many companies with no alternative, we could have, theoretically, adjusted.

Hindsight, 20/20. You live, you learn. Yadda, yadda. I know I can't beat myself up.

What's Next?
While it sounds like I'm writing a eulogy, the mourning I'm doing is for my team and the exciting era that is now so clearly passed. I truly wish my fellow Pyrates Godspeed and joy in their future endeavors. Hopefully our friendships will survive the natural stress these situations cause, and perhaps we'll even get the chance to do something cool together again someday.

As for me, I'm still fighting the good fight. The company (in terms of the legal/financial entity and infrastructure in which to do business), the product, user base, brand, and vision are still somewhat in tact. Amazingly. Thankfully. In fact, I'm actually in surprisingly good shape. I'm optimistic. (I'm always optimistic.) And I have many, many ideas. (I always have many ideas.)

So what am I going to do? It's too early to say much about that. Mostly because I need to think. I've had more stuff happen in my life in the last seven days (much of it unrelated to all this) than I could properly digest in six months. And that's on top of the last several months of chaos, flux, uncertainty, and stress (including, an incredible number of positive things). I really need some time to process and think. And feel.

I can tell you, at this point, I definitely plan to keep Blogger going. If you're a Blogger user, you know that things have not been working great with the product for quite a while. I'm not going to make excuses about that. But I'm not walking away. The good thing is, I have relatively low costs (though, I still need to bring in more cash than we have been), adequate server power for a while (thank you!), and the ability to focus on what I'm good at: Creating Things.

I'm going to have to say no to some opportunities and do a ton of work to streamline processes, so day-to-day management doesn't kill me. But I think it's reasonable that I can keep things going. And then some (eventually).

I'm going to concentrate like I haven't been able to concentrate in a long time on making Blogger reliable, fast, enjoyable, and -- importantly -- economically sustainable. Then I plan to take it to the next level, which will make it exciting, way cooler (at least to me), and possibly even...profound. (More about that later.)

I don't pretend I can do all this by myself. Nor that this path is going to make my life easier anytime soon. But I can't give up. And I have to (re)start somewhere. So here I go...

Ev.

ps - If anyone wants to share some office space for a while in SOMA (SF), lemme know. I could use the cost savings (and the company).