First I Phreaked Out
In the ten seconds following the email at 5:20am my first response was "Oh Crap!" A few seconds later I read that I had introduced my cofounder to this other project. My fiancé then mentioned I should never introduce people. But this was counter intuitive to everything I believe makes a great company.
I shot Tyler an email back and mentioned I understood his interest in branching out to explore other opportunities, but tried to sell the "need" of our project:
It does mean split development time so you have two different (or more!) projects that can draw on your resources. My first instinct was "oh crap someone snagged Tyler, dooom"
But if you feel the need to branch out I totally understand. Starting up a business is all about choices, you gotta want to take an idea as far as it'll go or drop a bad one quick if it's not gaining the traction you expected fast enough.
IMM needs a lot of work (really making the ad box look great, or adding css for site owners to customize its look and feel).
The tags need refinement to the point where they are spot on to the topics we chat about most. There should probably be some more clumping in the big lists, but more specialized tags for a user. I've got plenty to keep me busy.
You know what best keeps you motivated and excited, that's the most
precious aspect you bring to any project.
It's not often in my life I bump into someone who really shares my take on value vision and happens to be a hacking addict. I'd be willing to fight to keep Tyler on board Victus Media. Cash, bribes, public speeches etc.
As I help build a business one of my driving goals is to have that feeling for all my colleagues/coworkers. That and my early idea partner Vladimir had been consumed by another startup (he's sharp business/marketing we need code at this stage).
Then I found out it was open source
Tyler mentioned that Shane Becker was @veganstraightedge on Twitter. I had forwarded a share from @ChrisMessina that Shane was looking for help with a life streaming application because I thought it was paying work (rent and sandwich money for cofounder =win).
Things started looking much more awesome when I heard it was open source. We're going to need to hire excellent hackers as we push to expand. The coupling of a real market with matching liquid assets doesn't instantly translate into an epic engineering staff. Meeting skilled hackers and web designers in the open source community is an excellent channel to talent discovery.
Where better to find people so passionate about their work than those who do it purely out of love.
Whew!