One of our co-founders, Salim Ismail is a great guy. Period. We’ve known that for a long time. in fact, if he were anything but a great guy none of us here at Confabb would have signed on to start the company from less than zero when he asked for our help to fill an unmet market need in the meetings industry. So it’s with a lot of satisfaction we get a chance here to echo the recent well researched and written BusinessWeek piece by Reena Jana, which ran on Nov 15th. It’s a case study classic, edited with care in typical top-notch BusinessWeek fashion.
When Salim approached us about a start-up idea he and Cameron Barrett had tossed about for the meetings industry, none of us balked at jumping on board–even if it meant working gratis for a while and without the benefit of proximity to one another. Actually, that was part of the allure; here was a once (or at least a first) in a lifetime chance to do something unique using all of the web’s promise: start a company from scratch with a totally distributed team using all the 2.0 tools available to us to get the job done. Well, here we are. We just passed the one year mark in business and our prospects look amazing.
What a trip it’s been.
Confabb isn’t just a company; we started an experiment in entrepreneurship using the web as the project’s very foundation. The vision was all Salim’s, which he imparted to all of us (some were initially very skeptical, but were eventually won over). The payoff has been everything he said it’d be from the very start. We’re tremendously satisfied with what we’ve built under Salim’s direction.
Confabb was formed and launched for next to no money. And when I say “next to no money,” I really mean that: our time and effort has been donated and the product still leads its class. Some people have cycled in and out since its start, but that’s typical for any new venture. Those who have left continue to consult for us. Startups requre a unique leap of faith, and everyone invoived with Confabb has had the courage, (but sometimes not the resources) to stick it out in such a unique launch scenario as ours.
Salim’s busy running Yahoo!’s Brickhouse, but he chairs our Board and takes the necessary time to work with each of us to hit our goals–both professional and personal–while brainstorming new ways to reach these.
He’s a builder–someone who actually creates, and we’re proud to work with an executive possessing that kind of vision, energy, dedication and ability to get things done. It’s much more satisfying than working with or for someone who’s afraid to stick out their neck and actually try to create something, of which there seems to be a many around.
I, for one, would much prefer to look back at my career in a few years and feel good about having built something (as I’m sure Salim will) than take stock of my time having only chronicled the lives of others who had the sack to take some risks.
Jon and the Confabb Team
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