Biznik Blog

Since I started blogging last November, I’ve discovered that the hardest posts to write are the ones about people I really like. So I’ve been staring at the cursor for about an hour trying to figure out how to introduce Daniel Doubrovkine, whom I’ve simply known as dB ever since we went to Burning Man together a few years ago with the Space Virgins. At the time, I had no idea what he did for a living. But it was impossible not to notice him for his wry humor, his height (he must be at least 6’4″), and for his squirt gun (which he packed on the Playa loaded with Vodka). Turns out he’s a brilliant software engineer, good enough to be a development lead at Microsoft in his mid 20s. He quit that place (as creative types tend to do sooner or later) and left Seattle for New York two years ago, and I didn’t hear much from him until one day last fall he emailed me an invitation to join FoodCandy, a social networking site for foodies that he created. Lara and I’d just launched Biznik at virtually the same time. I’ve been wanting to interview him about what he’s up to ever since, and guess what? Today’s the day…

Q: Tell us the dB story – how did a nice Russian boy like you end up in New York?

Dan, living in New York has been a dream of mine since 1989. I was then 12 years old and member of the Samantha Smith peace organization. Samantha Smith became famous when she wrote to the Communist Party General Secretary Yuri Andropov, congratulating him on his new job and expressing her concern about the upcoming nuclear war. I made a trip to the United States with this group of Soviet kids and spent three days in New York City. It was virtually impossible for a poor Jew from Moscow to be part of that experience and was the result of partly a miracle, partly some shady connections. In any case, Manhattan marked me for life. That’s when I made a decision to, one day, live here.
 
Shortly thereafter we immigrated to Europe and I got my first computer geek job in the United States in 1999 in Seattle, to finally move to New York, just over a year ago.
 
Q: What’s the story behind FoodCandy? What’s your ultimate vision for the site?

There’re many food-related publications. I starved for food reviews in Time Out Magazine and salivated over recipes in Food and Wine. Then, I hungrily consumed hundreds of wonderful food blogs from amateur and professional chefs. I gazed every personal review and experience about a new venue in New York city and jealously wished I had been first to write about it. I sought advise on public food groups and forums when it came to such serious decisions as what knife to buy. And I was joined by many good friends and we ate and talked. But it wasn’t enough. One day, I tried to eat my computer. I didn’t taste very good and so I decided to create FoodCandy.
 
More seriously, I worked for a very humorless social networking startup, Visible Path, for about a year and learned a great deal about SNA. Visible Path has recently raised 17 million dollars in funding, but I am no longer with the company. I got a chance to see the rise and demise of the many Friendsters on the net and to meet a number of movers and shakers in the world of six degrees of separation. I examined carefully what was successful and what not from the inside. I found that only the niche concepts work well (eg. MySpace with music, Biznik). Being “niche” is not a new concept and is well known from basic marketing lessons. I strongly recommend reading “Crossing the Chasm” on that matter. So I spent a month full time and built a social networking SDK and finally launched an implementation that is dear to my heart and stomach, FoodCandy.com.
 
FoodCandy is simply put, “Friendster for Foodies”. You won’t read about music or baseball here. It’s about the people on the subject of food and an opportunity to meet those who have similar tastes and interests. In the future I see the entire world talking about food and salivating over food photos. And it will be on FoodCandy.
 
Q: How are you spreading the word about FoodCandy? 

It’s entirely word of mouth. One can join FoodCandy and invite friends. I am not interested in advertising because this is part of a true social networking experiment rather than a marketing effort. I am working very hard on helping people getting the best of the network, implementing the features that they want. I try to avoid shameless advertising and ask my friends to do that in my place.

Q: How do you like New York, and what are you doing there for a living (and for fun) besides FoodCandy? 

New York is a tough green apple. You can close your doors and windows and nothing will happen around you. You will get an impression that everything has stopped. But when you walk out of the door and into a small gallery opening you might find yourself two hours later in a SOHO loft for a private concert of the Misfits reunited. The city will juice you as long as you can stand on your feet. Just in the last couple of weeks, I saw two plays: Brecht’s “Three Penny Opera” on Broadway with Alan Cumming and Cindi Lauper, and “Guardians” with the very pretty Katherine Moennig from the L Word. I went to at least ten different restaurants for either lunch or dinner, including some new favorites like Frankie’s 17 Spuntino. I easily drank a bottle of vodka in $17 martinis between Bar 89 and the tenth anniversary party at Pravda. I also saw the preview of the “Notorious Betty Page”, chatted with Kiki from Kiki & Herb sitting, no laying, on the gorgeous bed sheets bought from the Seattle-based Sin-in-Linen, and said hi to Gretchen Mol, although she surely doesn’t remember me. I also took about six hundred photos somewhere in between, a little hobby of mine and interviewed Heather Tierney from TimeOut magazine for FoodCandy.
 
Oh and yes, by day I work for a software company on 38th street, building security software. It’s complex, challenging and fun.
 
Q: What’s your take on the current crop of social networking apps (such as blogs, wikis, digg, myspace, social tagging, etc.) Anything you’re paying attention to that’s particularly innovative or useful? 

I would pay attention to two areas. The first is business social networking, particularly LinkedIn. With eleven thousand IBM employees alone on LinkedIn and growing, it’s only a matter of time till they figure out how to make the big bucks. Expect SNA business applications to popup like mushrooms. You’ll see integration into Microsoft Office and heavy use of the Messenger platform. Because when you connect all these things together and you have a business social network of an incredible value. Visible Path called it Relationship Capital.
 
The other is business blogging. It has becoming mainstream in corporations just like word processing did. Microsoft has already understood the shift and you will see an increasing number of companies that encourage employees to use blogs and communicate directly with customers trough very thin filters. I think Google has completely missed this point. Google is also a slow and disorganized follower in the social networking arena, in my opinion. It has aquired Dodgeball last year, but fails to leverage it to its true potential. I use Dodgeball every other day.
 
I also have to give lots of credit to Biznik, because this is a very fine idea and very well implemented. I think the human aspects of Biznik are right on. Well done!
 
Q: Thanks dB. I believe that a key factor fueling the growth of your site and mine is that we’re really focusing our efforts — in my case, on independent professionals who think outside of the box, and in your case, on foodies. We’re not trying to be everything to everybody. We’re not afraid to have a personality, and show it. It just astounds me how many business are terrified of doing that. Do you think that limits our potential for growth? 

It does not. Being terrified of narrowing down the niche is a common mistake. There’re four distinct groups of people that you should be focusing on, in order: the enthusiasts, the early adopters, the general population and finally the laggards. Between each group there’s a chasm. These businesses you are talking about are concerned about a very late stage of their affair before crossing the first gap. It’s a textbook mistake and a multitude of these companies typically fail. Now, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a story ready for the later stages and the late majority – but you should worry about that after you are successful with a handful of people. Gaining the respect and the support of these few enthusiasts is best done with strong statements that differentiate you from others. The Biznik manifesto is a wonderful example of such a well underlined signature and probably won the hearts of most members here at first glance while turning others away. It’s a good thing, those gone are not motivated by the value you have to offer them today and would be useless dead accounts. They will be back after the first million users on Biznik!

Q: What’s your favorite restaurant in New York (besides McDonalds)? 

Finally we’re back on a lighter subject! Yes, the McDonalds ranks high on serious food review sites such as FoodCandy.
 
I think that I’ll have to give the honor of being my favorite place to Felix in SOHO. I loved eating there alone when visiting the city, watching the gorgeous euro-trash crowd. The food is consistently excellent, but the atmosphere is really what makes this place such a landmark in New York. My plan this morning includes walking to West Broadway with my camera to have a drink at the Felix bar. Want to join?

I’d love to, but I’ll settle for a picture this time. Thanks dB!

dB’s social networking site for foodies is FoodCandy.com. His vast personal blog is dblock.org.

dB recently interviewed a couple of Biznik members on FoodCandy:

• Heather Tierney – founder of Sorted NYC, New York’s first personalized dining concierge service
• Jeff Snodgrass – sushi chef at Liberty in Seattle

This entry was posted on Monday, May 1st, 2006 at 5:04 am and is filed under Interviews. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.