BackFence CEO Resigns Amidst Downsizing

Authored by Peter Krasilovsky on January 5, 2007 - 12:15pm.

Vienna, VA - BackFence CEO and co-founder Susan DeFife has resigned from the company, amidst a major downsizing that saw 12 of 18 employees let go. Co-founder Mark Potts will serve as interim CEO as the company looks to solve what he calls “BackFence 2.0.”

DeFife says she will join with VPs Amanda Graham and Bob Kelly to form a consulting team that will focus on reach, engagement, and “getting high CPMs” from local businesses. She notes that Backfence has built 13 sites in three metro area (DC, Chicago and Bay Area), sold 550 ads to local businesses since April 2006, and got two percent of community members to register in its most mature communities (i.e. Reston, McLean and Bethesda).

“Ultimately, we did not share the same strategic vision for the company as the Board of Directors,” says DeFife. BackFence had received $3 million in funding from SAS Investors, The Omidyar Network and several DC-area investors back in October 2005.

Peter Krasilovsky

Related Links:
Readers Comment on BackFence Downsizing
www.backfence.com

Note: This post originally appeared on Peter's blog, Local Onliner. His bio can be viewed here. Additional comments on this piece can be read here.

Published in DMW Daily, January 5, 2007

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Comments

Wonder why?

Submitted by Alistair Brown (not verified) on January 7, 2007 - 11:42pm.

Sad to see. Wonder how they were doing traffic wise? Was always going to be tough but it sounds like they have had a a hard time convincing advertisers - 550 ads since April (is this classified or display?) works out at 60 or so a month.

Had a very brief look at the "Advertise" area of the site and the Rate Card (http://sf.backfence.com/about/index.cfm?page=/advertisers/rateCard&mycom...)appears to be based on a fixed monthly rate for each format - making it difficult for advertisers to determine whether they are getting a return for their investment.

Perhaps low cost, volunteer-based model is workable?

Submitted by Steven Clift (not verified) on January 9, 2007 - 4:28am.

If revenue, much less profit, remains elusive in local online efforts like Backfence.com, let's not give up on the idea of connecting people online based on local geography.

At E-Democracy.Org, we've been hosting very active local Issues Forums for over a decade with extremely limited resources. We are now in seven communities in Minnesota and England. Our model starts with the low low cost "forum" at the center including a local volunteer forum manager and steering committee (think Rotary) and builds out from there. See:
http://e-democracy.org/if

I think the starting point for local citizen media should be what can you do online for almost nothing that is sustainable and engaging. Then build up from there as your grow your participatory audience.

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org