Business Story

Salient points

• Pbwiki is the world’s largest wiki host with well over 200,000 wikis created
• Recently accepted an investment from Mohr Davidow Ventures of $2.1 million
• Recently struck an agreement with online calendaring service 30Boxes
• Recently struck an agreement with VOIP service YackPack
• Recently acquired competitor, Schtuff, from JanRain
• PBwiki is successful enough in what some see as a “saturated” sector that it's acquiring other wiki companies, which none of their competitors are doing
• They made this acquisition using revenue, not VC investment
• Their model is a very lean one and have only six employees
• Infrastructure is big enough that they can support millions of PBwiki users per month and are in a steady state of growth

PBwiki Receives VC Infusion, Acquires Schtuff

PBwiki is the largest wiki provider in the world, with over 200,000 groups using its service. It was started by David Weekly (of SuperHappyDevHouse fame), who remains the CEO. It was begun after an eight hour programming session. Within 48 hours of launch, 1,000 groups had started PBwikis. Because of excellent programming, product development and a lean business model (the company, wic still has only 6 employees), Mohr Davidow recently invested $2  million in the company, unusual considering the wiki sector is said to be saturated. Saturated or not, MDV thinks PBwiki is going to be the sector's success story. They're already telling that story. The company, which started with one founder and about $300,000 in angel funding, still only has six employees and is run lean.

Recently, PBwiki acquired JanRain's Schtuff wiki host, adding thousands of wikis to their company and eliminating and competitor. They did so, please note, without touching a penny of the MDV $2 million. It was all out of their own revenue.

PBwiki also recently struck a deal with popular online calendaring service 30Boxes and introduced a new version of their software with an extremely easy-to-use "Point and Click" editor.

So, the stories here:

• VC has seen fit to invest in a company they believe is ahead of its competitors in this same sector.
• Revenue-based acquisition
• The old fashioned virtues of leanness and quality still have a role to play.
• PBwiki has all its ducks in a row to be able to thrive in a competitive sector.  
• PBwiki is technically equiped to handle a significant increase in users.

PBwiki Links

1. PBwiki: http://pbwiki.com/
2. PBwiki team: http://pbwiki.com/team.php
3. The Daily Peanut (PBwiki blog): http://blog.pbwiki.com/
4. VC announcement: http://blog.pbwiki.com/2007/02/21/pbwiki-raises-2m-to-make-wikis-awesome/
5. Schtuff announcement: http://blog.pbwiki.com/2007/03/02/pbwiki-acquires-schtuffcom/
6. 30Boxes partnership: http://30boxes.com/blog/index.php/2007/02/23/group-calendar-30boxes-pbwiki/
7. YackPack partership online press conference info and podcast: http://press.pbwiki.com/Prior-Press-Coverage
8. A bodying forth of PBwiki's legendary abstemiousness: http://blog.pbwiki.com/2007/02/27/thanks-for-the-fridge/

Business use of Pbwikis

1. http://slbusinesscommunicators.pbwiki.com/ (Second Life)
2. http://prelude2cinema.pbwiki.com/ (marketing)
3. http://dallasblue.pbwiki.com/ (Dallas business directory)
4. http://epowerbusiness.pbwiki.com/ (business plan services)
5. http://odysseycmc.pbwiki.com/
6. http://sochub.pbwiki.com/
7. http://skypejournal.pbwiki.com/
8. http://cosaemergencyprep.pbwiki.com/
9. http://boisehomes.pbwiki.com/
10. http://jmkt.pbwiki.com/