I listened to Donna Novitsky speak on the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Podcast about her new venture, Big Tent. I wanted to ask her a little more about the philosophy behind Big Tent and why she felt there was value there:
CartGuy: Where does Big Tent fit into the “collaboration space” of Wikis, SharePoint, blogs, forums, and so forth?
Donna: We believe that the strongest, longest lasting ties are in communities where there is an offline as well as an online connection. The most trusted sources come from established relationships with common ground. A great example of this is parents clubs, which often begin with playgroups that meet in parks and moms-nights-out and grow to be vibrant online communities for parenting and household management advice. These groups are lifelines for busy moms and the friendships formed last many years as their children grow up. It’s not uncommon for the members who move away to stay connected via the online resource, similar to but more intimate than an alumni association. Big Tent‘s members-only web platform supports these types of communities where there is both online and offline interaction.
CartGuy: If I run a soccer league, why would I use your service instead of, say, PHPBB? Do you feel the value you’re providing is in the fact that it’s a hosted service?
Donna: The primary reason is that it’s a turnkey solution, requiring no development or programming skills to set up, maintain or use. We also offer a lot more functionality than PHPBB such as rsvp to events, classified ad services, membership and dues management, etc, in addition to threaded discussion forums. It is a secure, private, members-only platform that lives behind a group’s public website.
CartGuy: Is your revenue model based on AdWords, or do you anticipate charging for different tiers of service in the future, or perhaps adding additional pay services?
Donna: We have our own ad products based on demographic segmentation and context. We do not anticipate charging our members or groups.
A very interesting product – collaboration for neighbors! We’ll be watching Big Tent to see where it goes in the future.
