I think you've missed the point of Andy's post. As I read it, it is not so much about what he personally likes, as about what would form the basis of a successful business. He is perfectly aware, I am sure, that he can ignore what he doesn't like. Again, the point is, are there thousands of people who will do otherwise? Maybe you already know the answer. If you don't, I guess you soon will.
This thread deserves to just fade away, but I'll risk adding one comment to those who are second guessing our business model.
Firstly, between Kevin, Chis and me we have some 100+ years of real-world business experience...not just running web sites. This includes founding and building at least three publicly listed technology companies; one of the world's biggest labs, and being senior executives at major corporations in the imaging and communications business. We may not be among the smartest, but we're far from the dumbest.
Our move to a pay model was the result of long and serious analysis of the rapidly changing nature of the web model. After running LuLa for some 17 years, we know a thing or two about how these things work, how they used to work, how they work now, and how they're likely to work in future. We're betting the ranch on that.
Though the pay model is only a couple of weeks old it isn't too soon to say that it is meeting our highest expectation. Customer feedback is excellent (
with a few notable exceptions, of course), and take-up rate in well above forecast.
So... we're as excited about the future of this site as we can be. We see our new ideas starting to come to fruition and we believe that LuLa will continue on its new evolutionary path and become stronger and with greater and wider appeal. We may stumble along the way, but so many people seem to be rooting for us (and we
DO listen), that I'm confident that the months ahead will prove our plans to have been worthwhile.
Michael
