Ok I understand CH sold the Chaordix™ platform to VenCorps... but it sounds like they also sold us (our memberships) to VenCorps as well... my question is what are we worth?
What happens to the Council? are we getting any payout? Do I (the community) own 1% of CH still or do we now own 1% of VenCorps?

Posted: May 19, 2008, 7:27 pm

What is Chaordix?

Posted: May 19, 2008, 7:37 pm

On May 19, 2008, 8:37 pm chrischen said:

What is Chaordix?

The platform CH is built on... the voting, colaberation, CROWDSOURCING that goes on in CH.

Posted: May 19, 2008, 7:39 pm

If you want to know as far as glory points. Thats in the FAQ here is the link:
http://www.cambrianhouse.com/faq/

The rest I think has yet to be posted. I am pretty sure there is some exchange on ID though I am not quite sure how they arranged it yet. I assume most of it has been kept the same except for a few key changes.

Posted: May 19, 2008, 8:32 pm

On May 19, 2008, 8:27 pm Brenden said:

Ok I understand CH sold the Chaordix™ platform to VenCorps... but it sounds like they also sold us (our memberships) to VenCorps as well... my question is what are we worth?
What happens to the Council? are we getting any payout? Do I (the community) own 1% of CH still or do we now own 1% of VenCorps?

Do you want to sell your share?

Posted: May 20, 2008, 2:12 pm

On May 19, 2008, 8:27 pm Brenden said:It sounds like they also sold us (our memberships) to VenCorps as well... my question is what are we worth?

Hey guys, just to clarify what I told Brenden last night (as my inaccurate wording is probably where this stems from), we didn't sell the community. We're paid for an instance of Chaordix, and we still have every right to launch more Chaordix verticals, and bring the Cambrian House community into them, although such a vertical doesn't exist at the moment. We are being paid for our time not just to customize the VenCorps instance of Chaordix, but to help transition any CH members who want to join into VenCorps. This is good for VenCorps as they need innovators, and its good for Cambrian House as we don't want terminate CH2 without a new destination for the CH community.

Posted: May 20, 2008, 5:59 pm

sorry gord, I am still interested to know what we are worth. The community was sold to VenCorps and I just want to get a idea of what they paid for us.
(note this is not an attack its a request)

Posted: May 22, 2008, 8:27 am

I don't know.

I don't also don't want to say the question is necessarily a correct one... you know what I mean? That by answering a question its assumed the question is technically accurate.

But we both know what you're getting at. Let me bounce it off those who did the actual transaction and I'll share the response.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 9:12 am

On May 22, 2008, 10:12 am GordonMcDowell said:
But we both know what you're getting at. Let me bounce it off those who did the actual transaction and I'll share the response.

Thanks Gord!

Posted: May 22, 2008, 9:56 am

On May 20, 2008, 6:59 pm GordonMcDowell said:

Hey guys, just to clarify what I told Brenden last night (as my inaccurate wording is probably where this stems from), we didn't sell the community. We're paid for an instance of Chaordix, and we still have every right to launch more Chaordix verticals, and bring the Cambrian House community into them

Hey Gord, I have a question regarding the CH privacy policy, particularly the part that says "We do not sell your personal information". Did you sell my personal information?

Will all of the Chaordix sales be opt-in through CH, or will I be contacted by the new Chaordix instance owners?

Posted: May 22, 2008, 10:22 am

On May 22, 2008, 11:22 am cyberdong said:



Hey Gord, I have a question regarding the CH privacy policy, particularly the part that says "We do not sell your personal information". Did you sell my personal information?

Will all of the Chaordix sales be opt-in through CH, or will I be contacted by the new Chaordix instance owners?

No, we have not sold anything on our community members (myself included!) If you want to go over to VenCorps (and why wouldn't you!), you have to accept your invite for your info to go over.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 10:35 am

On May 22, 2008, 10:12 am GordonMcDowell said:

I don't know.

I don't also don't want to say the question is necessarily a correct one... you know what I mean? That by answering a question its assumed the question is technically accurate.

But we both know what you're getting at. Let me bounce it off those who did the actual transaction and I'll share the response.

I see Blue has provided an answer but since apparently you and Brenden know "something else" it'd be nice to share, wouldn't it?

Posted: May 22, 2008, 10:46 am

On May 22, 2008, 11:46 am CyberCerberus said:

On May 22, 2008, 10:12 am GordonMcDowell said:

I don't know.

I don't also don't want to say the question is necessarily a correct one... you know what I mean? That by answering a question its assumed the question is technically accurate.

But we both know what you're getting at. Let me bounce it off those who did the actual transaction and I'll share the response.

I see Blue has provided an answer but since apparently you and Brenden know "something else" it'd be nice to share, wouldn't it?

CyberCerberus, I think what he's saying is something to the effect of "since we both understand what the question you're asking is.....I'll go find out if it's actually an accurate question to be asking."

I don't think there's anything to hide, Brenden wants to know what he's worth as a CH member (a seemingly easy but technical question when it comes to mergers and transactions) and Gord is basically making sure he's giving him the correct answer.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 11:15 am

MJ is busy in the valley at the moment, but here's his response (Gord note taking):

We did not sell the community, we are providing technology and technology services to VenCorps. This includes creating mechanisms by which community members profiles can be easily replicated from Cambrian House to VenCorps. It does not mandate that CH be deprecated or those CH accounts be closed. We didn't itemize costs down to the "replicate member profiles" detail. BUT, the Cambrian House website, as it exists today, will be decommissioned in 120 days. Until then, we're going to be assisting any/all of our community members who want to move to VenCorps.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 11:29 am

On May 22, 2008, 11:22 am cyberdong said:
Hey Gord, I have a question regarding the CH privacy policy, particularly the part that says "We do not sell your personal information". Did you sell my personal information?

Hey I know Blue already responded to this, I'm like catching up as I fetch responses to prior posts. I can reiterate on this. We are NOT selling personal information.

Can't think of a witty thing to tack onto that.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 11:35 am

On May 22, 2008, 11:46 am CyberCerberus said:

On May 22, 2008, 10:12 am GordonMcDowell said:

I don't know.

I don't also don't want to say the question is necessarily a correct one... you know what I mean? That by answering a question its assumed the question is technically accurate.

But we both know what you're getting at. Let me bounce it off those who did the actual transaction and I'll share the response.

I see Blue has provided an answer but since apparently you and Brenden know "something else" it'd be nice to share, wouldn't it?

I don't know anything... all I am saying is it sounds like we were sold... I know that I have bought customer lists before from other company's that are changing their focuses or closing, your customers are worth a lot... so im wondering if the same was done here... no inside information sorry CC.

Its a lose lose situation because if our info was given away (invites to VenCorps) and they didn't charge anything then that was a revenue opportunity missed.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 11:51 am

On May 22, 2008, 12:51 pm Brenden said:

On May 22, 2008, 11:46 am CyberCerberus said:

On May 22, 2008, 10:12 am GordonMcDowell said:

I don't know.

I don't also don't want to say the question is necessarily a correct one... you know what I mean? That by answering a question its assumed the question is technically accurate.

But we both know what you're getting at. Let me bounce it off those who did the actual transaction and I'll share the response.

I see Blue has provided an answer but since apparently you and Brenden know "something else" it'd be nice to share, wouldn't it?

I don't know anything... all I am saying is it sounds like we were sold... I know that I have bought customer lists before from other company's that are changing their focuses or closing, your customers are worth a lot... so im wondering if the same was done here... no inside information sorry CC.

Its a lose lose situation because if our info was given away (invites to VenCorps) and they didn't charge anything then that was a revenue opportunity missed.

Gords post was not there when I responded last time.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 12:35 pm

my confusion comes from the following 4 places... and sorry one of them is from TechCrunch.

1) CAMBRIAN HOUSE AND SPENCER TRASK ANNOUNCE TRANSACTION press release the few paragraphs that MADE me jump to this conclusion are the following:
Cambrian House today announced an agreement where it sold certain assets to Spencer Trask Collaborative Venture Partners (STCVP).....
"The Cambrian House crowdsourcing community has attracted 50,000-plus smart, creative people who work together to turn ideas into real, successful businesses," said Michael J. Sikorsky, chief executive officer of Cambrian House.....
The sale to Spencer Trask is the natural next step in Cambrian House's ChaordixTM strategy from hosting and developing a mass crowdsourcing community itself, to instead move behind the scenes to support partner communities on the ChaordixTM crowdsourcing platform. Cambrian House chose Spencer Trask as an opportune new home for its community members.

After the transition of members to Spencer Trask, the Cambrian House crowd sourcing community will no longer be active.


2) This post on TC
"A press release issued by Trask today confirms that Cambrian ’sold certain assets’ to them, including a wholesale transfer of the Cambrian member community."
I have asked for that press release today but have not heard anything. So that could be just hearsay.


3) MJ famous comment at Web 2.0 “We really are built to flip. I’m the only guy who says that out loud. I don’t know why everyone lies.”

4) in the old demo days MJ was all about page views... I always wondered if thats why GoN was around for so long... I assume it is not making money which could be wrong. I would hope that CH brings in a good deal of page views, so the only reason I could see for MJ trading them off was that he sold the community.

Those are the 4 things that make me scratch my head...

I just want to say once again this is not meant to be an attack... I am just very confused about this whole thing and want answers.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 4:27 pm

I'm not sure there is ever an accurate calculation of the value of the community with respect to such a deal. In CH's case, how do you value something that is neither directly or indirectly bringing in a revenue stream?

Most likely there was some consideration of the value of goodwill in the transaction relating to US but the software platform and the integrated crowdsourcing process IP is surely the majority of the transaction value.

Thinking from the perspective of CH, if I was going around publicising the value of such a deal, I'd be impacting my future negotiating ability and potentially also the deals of others in the industry. Putting out any more comms than you have to during or after a M&A is not always good when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. That is, unless you're a public company and you're forced to divulge a fair amount of information.

It'll be interesting to see how much info Gord can divulge after speaking to the deal makers.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 6:06 pm

On May 22, 2008, 5:27 pm Brenden said:
"A press release issued by Trask today confirms that Cambrian 'sold certain assets' to them, including a wholesale transfer of the Cambrian member community."

Your TC source made a loose interpretation. The release says "Cambrian House chose Spencer Trask as an opportune new home for its community members. After the transition of members to Spencer Trask, the Cambrian House crowd sourcing community will no longer be active." Same as in your first source.

Posted: May 22, 2008, 7:06 pm