Hey CMXers, Today I wanted to share an update with you on everything that’s happening behind the scenes at CMX. Kind of a State of CMX letter to the community. We want everything with CMX to be transparent, especially within our community, and we’re excited to hear any and all feedback you have on our direction. I’ll share a bit about where we’ve been, the big challenges we’re facing now, how we plan to overcome those challenges, and how you can help. First, where we’ve been: We’ve had a roller coaster first year in business. In the past 10 months, we’ve: a. Hosted three summits, bringing together over 900 community professionals and founders in SF and NYC, and we hosted the first CMX Series event with another 75 attendees b. Launched the CMX Hub publication, which will reach over 100k total visitors by the end of this year and is currently at 1,937 email subscribers (growing at 11% monthly) c. Grew the Facebook group to over 800 members with high engagement levels at ~500 interactions per week d. Helped dozens of companies find and recruit community professionals to join their teams e. Built the prototypes for our first two software products (currently in alpha tests, more on that soon…) In pursuit of our mission to fuel the community industry, we’ve also seen a clear shift in the conversation around the definition of community, the legitimacy of the community industry, and the rising number of companies who are hiring for true community roles. Things have moved extremely fast, and we’re proud of everything our small team has accomplished in such a short time. This progress hasn’t come easily, and we face some legitimate challenges in the months ahead. Everything we’ve done to this point has been aimed at creating lots of value and resources for the community industry while building a strong long-term brand and community around CMX. But we learned that while conferences are amazing for building brand and community, they can be unpredictable and carry a lot of risk. Some conferences make a lot of money, usually by selling tickets for thousands of dollars and selling speaking slots. CMX does neither of these, since it’s extremely important to us that CMX is unbiased in its content and is as affordable as possible for members of the growing industry. Basically, while everything we’ve done has created a lot of long-term value, in the short run, we’re going to need more sustainable, regular revenue to keep this train moving. There are also some recent changes to the team. Max Altschuler, my friend and co-founder in CMX Media, also runs the Sales Hacker Conference. That’s his baby and it’s taking off quickly, so he will be switching his full focus over to Sales Hacker while remaining on as an advisor for CMX and stepping in for specific projects when needed. We’re incredibly excited for him and for Sales Hacker, and we’re truly grateful for his help in getting CMX off the ground. It never would have happened without him. That leaves me and the unstoppable Carrie Jones to drive this ship (with Leah continuing part-time on events). A team of two. While it will be a challenge, I couldn’t imagine a team better suited to make this thing happen. We’re extremely clear on what needs to be done and how we’re going to do it. So… What’s in store for the future? Our short-term goal is to develop more consistent revenue that will give us the resources we need to continue to host CMX events, publish content on CMX Hub, and build out our software products. With that, we’re going to be highly focused on two areas over the next few months: 1. Consulting and Services: We’re constantly asked to help companies with their community strategy, but we haven’t made that a focus, so we’ve always passed on those opportunities. Now it will be a focus. We will take on a limited number of consulting contracts with companies we care about. We can’t wait to work with exciting companies with unique community challenges. It keeps our blades sharp and gives us many more success stories and case studies to share. 2. Training and workshops: The first CMX Workshops sold out three weeks before the event. It’s clear that there’s a strong need for more specific, hands-on community training. CMX will now develop online and offline training programs to help community professionals take their strategy to the next level. You’ve already received our survey for the “Coding for Community Managers” course, which we’ve partnered with Make it With Code to develop. There will be many more to come. How can you help? 1. If you or someone you know is in need of help with community strategy, community recruiting, or advisement, send them our way. 2. If you’re interested in community training and workshops, tell us what you want to learn (take 60 seconds to fill out this form: bit.ly/1HTOLz6). 3. Just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s your energy and involvement in this community that keeps us going. It makes it all worth it. If you’re happy and successful, then we are too. So here we are… many challenges ahead. But I can honestly say we’re not nervous. I’ve never had as much clarity with my previous businesses as we do with CMX. It’s clear what we need to do, and we’re more motivated than ever to keep pushing this forward. Let the roller coaster continue. -David
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 13:47:54 +0000