- Image via CrunchBase
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has struggled with his ambitious solo start-up, the social network for activism Jumo, ever since its bumpy launch. Waning traffic and disinterested users were making it obvious that the site was not going to catch on, despite multiple redesigns; a tough pill to swallow for the wunderkind whose second act after Facebook, online strategy at the Obama presidential campaign, was another huge success story.
But Mr. Hughes found a solution: rather than folding the grant-funded, well-meaning and inordinately high-profile start-up and admitting what would surely be a very public failure, he arranged a deal with an old friend. GOOD, the publisher-turned-digital-media-platform with a focus on good design and social causes, announced today that it has acquired Jumo for undisclosed terms. But the “acquisition” is not quite the earth-shaker it was made out to be. Betabeat has learned the terms amounted to $0, a loose “advisory” role for Mr. Hughes at GOOD, and the opportunity for Jumo’s 16 employees to interview for the start-up’s new owner.
Although I do remember Stephen Colbert calling Chris Hughes out accidentally when he appeared on the Colbert Report a ways back:
I remember my girlfriend said it was “mean” that Colbert asked why you wouldn’t just use Facebook. I explained to her that the same thing that she called “mean” would have been supernice if Chris had a legit answer, and he would have had one of those if his solution had a problem.
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