and for some it’s a win, others a loss. Shopify is a RoR based hosted eCommerce solution that, over the last 9 months, I’ve fallen in love with and done over a dozen shops with.

First, lets focus on the win.

The 2nd screenshot from the right is the first Shopify store I ever did, Surfer Supplies online surf shop.

Shopify’s “brochure” site is now at a .info domain. The content is a cleaned up, reorganized version of the previous marketing site, and I quite like the look/feel. I also rather like their screenshots page, which currently has 2 shops I worked on (NoonaCo and Willotoons), though I’m a little sad it’s not paginated. What happens when the current featured screens get pushed out? I’d like to see them archived.

The new Shopify DOT COM site is featuring a screenshot of a global product search…interesting move, I wonder how this will pit competing Shopify store owners against each other. A cool move from a visibility perspective, a questionable one from a community perspective.

In fact, while I’m on the topic of community…thats one of my favorite things about Shopify. The development community has always been awesome, and incredibly supportive of each other. It was a great place to send newbie Shopify developer. Today, Shopify released a new pricing scheme. Previously, their service was free until you made a sale. At that point there was a 3% commission. While this was a tough sell to large volume stores, it was perfect for the MAJORITY of what Shopify is used for…small, boutique shops. Minimal cost until a sale was made. Beautiful. And for me, the sale was easy-as-pie. I had so many people geared up to use Shopify for their next shop.

Then, today brought change. And the people, oh, they’re pissed. The new pricing model is definitively geared towards volume sellers. Great…for them. But what about the little guys? Shopify’s Cody says:

I don’t think that paying $24 / month puts Shopify out of range of low capital startup projects. Installing, securing, backing up, and hosting your own server with Zen cart will surely be a lot more costly, either in dollars or man hours, than having a Shopify subscription.

That will help the sell…but nonetheless, I’m confident I’ll be losing customers to this. Luckily, current customers are grandfathered in. But if you haven’t put your credit card in yet, you’re lost. :-( Never mind the fact that I had the old selling points memorized…this grid is MUCH more complicated, and makes it much harder to make a decision and a sale.

At this point, I’m going to be keeping a close eye on this. I’ve come to love Shopify as a product, and as a selling point. I was able to enable my customers in a way no other product could, and consistently impress. Shopify’s staff has been incredibly responsive and supportive since day 1, so I’m hoping that they take the community’s interest and coming to a middle ground.

This is a great example of creating a passionate community and then, when they could have been involved with the discussion of the direction of the product, they weren’t and now the community is in dissent. It’s only a matter of time before someone starts posting HD DVD encryption codes all over the forum. *sigh*.

In the mean time…while the community and Shopify’s staff come to terms, I regret to say that I’m forced to look for an exit plan…and at this point in time, I’m really, really stuck to find one that fits as good as Shopify does. Well….did.

Scott, Tobi, Daniel, Cody, Paul, James, and the rest of Jaded Pixel: I’m a devoted fan of Shopify, and hope to stay one. Please, please do best by your community, your users, and your customers.

Wild and crazy final thought: what if Shopify had this plan as a hosted option, and then…open sourced the platform. That is, for people who want ease of hosting, deployment, maintainability, etc…you pay monthly for that service. For those capable of deploying patches, arranging hosting, security, backup, and all of the other costs that go along with e-commerce, provide a self-hosted and open source option. This would be an awesome way to go back to the community roots that you’ve served and have served you, and calm the community down by making every-body-happy.

Tags: shopify, jadedpixel, changes, community, dissent

Not only is Brian sharp as a tack, but he’s incredibly cool and way supportive of the things we’re doing here in Philly. Feel free to spend 12 minutes listening to his thoughts (this was moments after he and I met, actually).

Bit of Trivia: Brian’s the guy responsible for connecting me to Annie for BlogPhiladelphia.

Tags: brian oberkirch, marketing, social, SXSW07i

Sorry this is a day later than I had planned. I’ve got 2 events on my calendar this week that happen to be at the same time. Which one do I go to? I’m not sure yet! MAYBE BOTH!!!

Social Media Club Wednesday August 1st @ 6-8pm

This month’s Social Media Club meetup will be at the upstairs bar of Triumph Brewing, at 2nd and Chestnut (and right around the corner from the new home of Independents Hall…more on that soon!). I’ve never been to one of these, but it seems to be a catchall for social, marketing, and media folks. If you’re interested in any of that, think about checking it out! Plus, Triumph is a sweet, sweet spot, it’s where Indy Hall had our BlogPhiladelphia party for those of you who remember that shindig.

Green Drinks Wednesday August 1st @ 6-8pm

Green Drinks invites anyone interested in or curious about green, ecological, environmental, organic, renewable, regenerative, or restorative issues for drinks and conversation with like-minded individuals in their community.

WHEN: first Wednesday of each month from 6-8pm-ish

WHERE: Standard Tap 2nd & Poplar Streets in Northern Liberties Philadelphia’s Center City www.standardtap.com for menu, specials, directions, etc. several local beers, including: Yards, Victory, Stoudt’s, Flying Fish, Sly Fox, Troegs, Appalachian, Weyerbacher, McKenzie Brewhouse and more… A NEW location! We moved recently to support several attendees’ green ideas + requests, trying to support local businesses and breweries, and staying convenient to public transportation, bicyclists, and carpoolers/drivers.

Not in Philadelphia? Check to see if there’s a GreenDrinks in your ‘hood.

As always, if I didn’t get your event leave me a note in the comments and I’ll add it!

Tags: green drinks, social media club, philadelphia

IndyHall member Chris Conley has been blogging every 30 minutes since 9am today, and will continue doing so until tomorrow at 9am. He’s doing this…because he’s crazy? Well yeah, but it’s also for a good cause. You can pledge and when he completes, the money he raises goes to providing resources to break the cycle of homelessness…a problem we have in this city, and many many other cities share.

There’s a post where he interviewed me, of course, but there’s tons of other great interviews with entrepreneurs, local and abroad, plus lots of Chris’s own insight. It’s really some incredibly high quality posts, even without considering volume in a 24 hour period.

The top donation also receives a $50 itunes gift card. So do good, win free music, and enjoy Chris’s awesome posts. Go pledge!

Tags: startup or bust, entreprenurs, blogging, blogathon, drive

Roz made really great post on the urban family, and afterwards followed up with me offline about the format that etsy (an awesome crafty/boutique community) has run that really feels like a direction that IndyHall is headed.

Etsy has another “entity” called EtsyLabs, which allowed them to extend their successful community of people selling their things online into a resource to teach OTHER people how to experience that same success from doing something that they love.

Roz is spot on, part of the fuel for me wanting to start organizing Independents Hall was self-serving: I’d already built a successful business that was based around sharing of talents between friends and established talent partners. Since it worked so well for me, I not only needed a place to find more partners (thats the self-serving part), but also I wanted to show others the value of collaboration, and make it easier for them to be awesome at what they do.

Along the way, many of us have become friends, and encourage each other to succeed and be happy with what we do, even outside of the realm of “work”. The fact of the matter is, Independents Hall has allowed us to build the foundation of an “urban family” that’s much larger than just our circle of friends, acquaintances, and business partners. By taking an online community offline, and doing things face to face and not just for the purpose of business but for the purpose of improving the quality of our lives, we make huge strides to unify an otherwise segmented community that we live in.

Tags: urban family, community, philadelphia, Etsy, EtsyLabs

I made promise to some people that I’d start doing an event summary much like I did last week at the beginning of each week. This week I don’t have much new to add, but I’ll re-post in case you missed it from last week’s summary. Also, if you have an event (one time or recurring) be sure to drop a note in the comments so I can add it to my calendar and include it in these posts. But for this week of July 22nd, 2007:

Purple Cow Brainstorming Circle Tuesday July 24th @ 6-9pm

Monthly, the Purple Cows (that’s Seth Godin speak, for those who missed my previous post) have a brainstorming circle. This is kinda like a rapid-fire barcamp. The model goes like this:

You get 3 minutes to pitch an idea. Any idea. This isn’t just tech stuff, it can really be anything. At the end of 3 minutes you give 3 things you need to realize the idea, and 3 things you have to offer to it. Follow up with 3 minutes Q&A. So in ~7 minutes, you’re ready to move onto the next idea. Its fun, efficient, and a great way to inspire and be inspired.

The next one is at Joe’s Coffee Bar, - a socially-responsible business participating in the “Buy Local Philly” campaign. RSVP on the wiki.

Junto Thursday July 26th @ 6-10pm

Another monthly event held at P’unk Avenue. Born out of the pages of a history book, Benjamin Franklin created the Junto as an opportunity to bring everyone from the common man to the aristocrat together to share ideas, interests, and goals with the understanding that you can better yourself by bettering the community, and vice versa. Our Junto follows those goals, but updates it to current times and puts a focus on creativity in the community. Each month we have a different “keynote” topic or presentation, and from there it’s open forum for discussion and industry chat. Rumor has it that the Junto format wants to be a barcamp when he grows up. P’unk Ave chips in beers and tomato pie, feel free to bring other snacks or a favorite drink/mixers if you would like. We’re not quite a happy hour, but we’re not all business, either. You can sign up on the site to get notifications for this event.

This iteration of Junto will focus on a lot of Post-BlogPhiladelphia stuff, what we can do to carry the energy that started there, so if you have ideas or want to keep the ball rolling you’d best show up.

Cream Cheese Session Friday July 27th @ 9am-5pm

Every other Friday the members of Independents Hall come together for a coworking session. Since we don’t have our own space (yet), we move all over the city.
This next event will be held at National Mechanics, on 3rd just south of Market Street.

Tags: events, philadelphia, coworking

our comcast modem took a dive this afternoon, leaving us with a couple of open wifi networks that barely provide enough bandwidth to check email. luckily, my blackberry pearl can be a bluetooth tethered modem for my macbook pro, providing me with a slow but stable internet connection, surprisingly better than the wifi that I was on.

Until the iPhone can do this, I’m going to have a really hard time making it my primary phone. I still want one, though :-).

Also sent to the Indyhall ListServ:

To my esteemed Independents Hall list members,

This email is a long time coming. We’re coming up on 5 months since the
March 1st inauguration of this list, it’s pretty incredible to already see
the effect that we’ve had on each other.

From projects evolving with the help of one
another, to the city’s first large scale unconference, to a generous hat-tip
in Wired Magazine (among
many,
many
other
bits of
media
scattered about
the internet).

The time has come that our community has grown into our goal of
wanting and needing
a permanent shared
space of
our own. We’ve diligently researched, polled interest, and with
fingers
(and toes) crossed we should be hearing back in less than a week about a
space in Old City that
we’re very excited about.

Up until this point, Independents Hall has been 100% free, with open events
funded out of our own pockets or through donations of time, money, and
resources from individuals. Obviously, running a space won’t be free, but
we’ve done some number crunching and have made it a point to consider your
wallets, and make your involvement be as sustainable as possible. Here’s the
scoop on membership, tentatively, that you can read and figure out where you
fit with needs and buget:
http://wiki.independentshall.org/planning/membershipmodel

Here’s the part where you all run away screaming and my dreams are crushed
to pieces: I need to ask for commitments.
No engagement rings here, no “Its not you, it’s me” excuses.
I’ve been level and transparent through this entire journey so this should
be a simple decision for you, nothing is hidden, this is the real deal.

Respond to me, off list, that you would like to commit to a membership and
at what level. Also, since this is a 100% bootstrapped effort, we’re looking
to see if anyone is able to do a couple of months up front to help, or even
better, a charter donation. If there is interest expressed in that charter
donation, we’ll figure out what the return for that donation would be.

Many of you are listening in and going, “well, I don’t need a desk, what
does this mean for me?” It means that you should still become a member, at
$25/month, since you’ve followed along for this long and believe in what
we’re doing. That $25 goes to making desks affordable for everyone else,
supporting the community, funding events, and making sure that this can keep
happening. Not only are you giving to help that, but your name goes on the
member directory, you’re on invites for events, and you do get a free day in
the space and a free hour in the conference room built in and reduced day
rates, should you decide to drop by once in a while.

Also, being in the member directory is a great opportunity to find work as
well as workers for your projects, since our project is already getting some
heavy visibility.

Finally, if you’re a business listening and you’re interested in sponsoring
a desk, contact me off list and we can discuss options for that.

This is huge for us, so please be realistic and honest with your
commitments. If you have questions or concerns about any of this, speak up!

Thanks again, for all of your continuing support. This is really, really
incredible that we’ve gotten this far, we can’t slow down now!
Viva la Philadelphia!

Tags: independents hall, coworking, philadelphia, shared resources

Because working alone sucks, we work together.

Not much to say that isn’t already in the article!
Congrats, and thank you, to Amit for inspiring the piece, as well as myself.
Thank you to Anna Jane Grossman for including our activity in Philadelphia as part of the focus.

Now, does anyone know if it’s in the July printed edition?
I’d love to send a copy to my family to show them that I’m not wasting my life with all of this “community stuff”. :-)

Tags: wired, jelly, philadelphia, cream cheese sessions, coworking

UPDATE: I messed up the time. Its from 12-2, instead of starting at 2. My mistake. Sorry!

Most of you’ve heard me rave about PhillyCarShare at one point or another, and my desire to get them involved with IndyHall.

This upcoming Sunday the 22nd, at 2pmNOON(sorry about the confusion about the time, it runs until 2), there’s an event at 2nd and Lombard (Headhouse Square, by the Wawa). If you’re a member, you should go. If you’re not a member, you should go and sign up (and use me as a reference, this email: dangerouslyawesome@gmail.com…we both get free credit for rentals!)

Reason #1 to go: sign up or sign up a friend.

Reason #2 to go: Prizes.

• Share a free $100 driving credit with each friend who signs up!
• First 50 members to sign up a friend receive a free reusable shopping bag (we’ll be there starting at 10:00am, so come by early to be sure to take home this great goody).
• Current member who signs up the most friends receives a $100 gift certificate to the Farmers’ Market.
• New members get entered into a raffle to receive a $50 gift certificate to the Farmers’ Market.

Reason #3 to go: Michael Nutter will be there. Might be nice to introduce him to Independents hall

Reason #4 to go: Still trying to get PCS involved with IndyHall. If we show up in force to their event, it bodes well for us.

I plan on being there from 2pmNOON, if some people want to meet me there that’d be cool. Otherwise, drop by whenever you can and look for The Indies!
We’ll be the ones that obviously rock.

See y’all Sunday.

Tags: Philly Car Share, Philadelphia, Independents Hall, Headhouse Square, events