Cyborganic is facing a financial crisis that could jeopardize everything the small but influential ISP has built up in the past four years. In a letter sent to customers Wednesday, CEO Jonathan Steuer expressed his regret at not receiving the funding he had hoped would let the company pursue its broad, eclectic business plans.
"There is no evidence to suggest that our financing will close within a time frame that will permit Cyborganic to continue on our current course," Steuer's note said.
Despite a harsh outlook for funding - initial calls for investment asked for US$5 million, and have since been much reduced - Steuer is hoping his letter will precipitate some last-minute funding. "Interesting things often happen at the last minute," Steuer told Wired News. "This note was letting everyone know that, 'Hey, this is the last minute, hurry up and happen.'"
"I really feel like we've made the best possible go of it," Steuer said. The main priority for Cyborganic now is ensuring the survival of the community that formed the core of the company, he said.
"Cyborganic started out as a community idea, with a potential plan as a business," said Steuer, who was also a founding creator of HotWired. Steuer is nonetheless disappointed that the company "never got a chance" to try out its ideas for running a venture that would have combined online community with real world equivalents.
"Money isn't everything," Steuer allows, but without it Cyborganic's future doesn't look good. So far money from several hundred members is the company's only revenue. Staff has been cut back to the point that Steuer has recently been the only person working full time.
The company is investigating plans to offer alternative venues to members for hosting their Web pages.
If Steuer's plan for preserving the community seems similar to Electric Minds', that's no coincidence - Steuer and E-Minds founder Howard Rheingold are friends who often brainstorm ideas together. Although there are many differences in their approaches to community, the main one, says Steuer is that Cyborganic "never got venture funding from Softbank."
The two best-known Cyborganic products have been the Web serials The Couch and Geek Cereal, both featuring content created mostly by audience members who choose to participate. Those two programs will continue, says Steuer, noting that the company's approach to "bottom-up" content creation has the advantage of staying power. Even without support from Cyborganic, the two serials are "so much a product of their participants that it's easy to see them continuing."
