Powazek's Progress

“Derek Powazek”:http://powazek.com/about/ recently left the digital publishing company he cofounded with “Paul Cloutier”:http://www.jpgmag.com/people/theorem in 2006 called “8020 Publishing”:http://www.jpgmag.com/about. Last week Derek wrote a moving and (in his own words) “radically transparent” piece about the pain of leaving the startup, and the frustration of being forced to abandon the “organic community” he helped to build around “JPG Magazine”:http://www.jpgmag.com/ after 10 issues and three years of hard work. (Powazek co-founded the magazine in September 2004 with his wife, “Heather Powazek Champ”:http://www.hchamp.com/about.html. She has also left 8020.)

The whole thing is posted to Derek’s blog under ” The Real Story of JPG Magazine”:http://powazek.com/posts/534. We encourage you to read it. Pay special attention to the six lessons Derek calls out at the end—they will be extremely useful to all entrepreneurs.

Also read “8020 Publishing’s response”:http://www.8020publishing.com/blog/2007/05/dereks_departur.html, published a day later, for the other side of the story in this unfortunate startup divorce.

Finally, read Derek’s “follow-up piece”:http://powazek.com/posts/542, where he endeavors to explain why he went public with his humiliating, but learning experience. Derek freely admits it is “the kind of story people don’t usually tell.” We’re glad he chose to share it, and would love to hear what you think about it.

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Wayne Mulligan
(15 points)
May 29, 10:05 am

Took a lot of guts to give a candid account of what went on at 8020 with the public like that. Giving back to a community of entrepreneurs in order to help them avoid similar mistakes – Right on!

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