John Enright, VP Marketing and Business Development of Lime Labs LLC
HostSearch interviewed John Enright who is a VP of Marketing and Business Development at Lime Labs - a company that promises to make the web more free, open, and accessible by utilizing the power of open source community.
- HOSTSEARCH: John, thank you very much for an opportunity to talk with you today. Can you please give our readers some background about yourself.JOHN ENRIGHT: I've been in the hosting business for - wow - I guess it's been almost 15 years now. Scary. Back in 1995 I started what was then one of the first "discount" hosting providers, ValueWeb. Back then, discount meant $19.95/month - which was less than half of what most other providers were charging. It felt good to help make such a critical service both more functional and more affordable - and I'm thankful to now be in a position to help lower the barrier even further.
- HOSTSEARCH: It's interesting that you have been in the web hosting business for such a long time. What make you decide to join Lime Labs and what are your day-to-day roles here?JOHN ENRIGHT: Lime Labs is about making the web more free, open, and accessible. The company is honestly more concerned about making a difference and doing something beneficial to the open source community than it is with making a quick buck, and it's great to be a part of such an energetic and motivated team. I am currently in charge of Business Development and Marketing for the company.
- HOSTSEARCH: Lime Labs isn't just a web hosting provider. I noticed you have a wide range of products. First of all, what is LimeBits?JOHN ENRIGHT: LimeBits is a collaborative application sharing platform. The goal is to make the process of building a website or web application as simple as copy & paste - and to provide an easy way for developers to share their apps with the community. It's still in the alpha phase, but you can sign up for free at limebits.com and check out the interface.
- HOSTSEARCH: And LimeDomains is for web hosting and domain registration services, correct? What's special about it?JOHN ENRIGHT: Two things set LimeDomains apart from other hosting and domain registration services: 1) Apps. We have a full catalog of powerful open source applications that our users can install in their account - and we've automated the installation and configuration process. 2) It's free. Really. Anyone can go to LimeDomains.com, pick an app, and publish a website free of charge. No mandatory ads, no spam, no string attached. We figured the best way for someone to determine if an application will meet their needs is to let them jump right in and start using it.
- HOSTSEARCH: I noticed another product line. It's LimeExchange. What is it about?JOHN ENRIGHT: LimeExchange is a services marketplace where developers can register for free and connect with people who are looking to get a variety of projects done. LimeExchange has been live for just about a year now, and we already have over 70,000 registered service providers. Bits & Exchange are both part of our effort to build a different kind of hosting service - one where developers can interact and collaborate with one another instead of working in a vacuum.
- HOSTSEARCH: How will you market each product? What channels are you using and planning to use?JOHN ENRIGHT: The fact that any one of our services can be utilized free of charge is driving quite a bit of word-of-mouth growth. We've also got a very aggressive referral / reseller program, and our free level of service makes for some very interesting partnership opportunities.
- HOSTSEARCH: What is your core product? Which one is the best selling?JOHN ENRIGHT: All three of our main products are designed to stand on their own and compete directly in their segments of the market. However, when you combine them, you get more than the sum of the parts. We're the only services marketplace that has an integrated hosting platform, for example, and we're the only hosting service that has 70,000 developers available to help you with your web project. In total, we now have more than 100,000 users, which is not bad for our first year in operation.
- HOSTSEARCH: What can we expect from Lime Labs in 2010?JOHN ENRIGHT: Our focus throughout 2010 will be on making web applications as easy to obtain and publish as possible. Our application catalog is already the easiest way to compare and obtain a wide variety of web apps, but we want to push the envelope even further. Look for a steady stream of exciting stuff from us throughout the year!
- HOSTSEARCH: Well John. Thank you for your time today. We look forward to talk with you again soon.
