Guides started over 5 years ago as an uncluttered place for anyone to share useful information. It was an overnight success, with several hundred guides being produced within only a few weeks. There was obviously an appetite for people to share their knowledge with the world.

Fast-forward a year, and thousands of Guides were created. As with many startups, our focus was on "growth" and "audience" in the early days. We thought the best way to serve our stakeholders was by helping them connect with broader audiences. We also gave readers a chance to consume useful information in an ad-free, mobile-friendly medium. What we failed to realize in those early days, is that not every company or organization is interested solely in growth and reach. Sometimes, organizations want exactly the opposite. That is, a medium where ideas can germinate, share and evolve privately. Luckily, some amazing organizations and companies saw this before we did, and asked us to create a private version of guides. We created this for them, and called it Guidehub.

A Fortunate Turn of Events

Demand for Guidehub was high so we focused on it, almost exclusively. Small franchises, mom and pop shops, all the way up to some of the most sophisticated large companies in the world, were happily using this new team-empowerment platform. These customers deserved our attention, and we delivered. We carefully crafted the platform to meet the needs of a broad range of organizations and companies. We are proud of what we built and what we achieved for these cherished early adopters. But meanwhile, as our focus turned to Guidehub, the original Guides was taking on a life of its own.

The Big Decision

We had two related, but separate platforms, both with great potential. Not the worst problem to have, but we certainly had to make a decision about where to focus our finite efforts. We didn't want to abandon something as magical as Guides, but yet, we had a responsibility to a very different set of users: paying clients who were running mission critical business applications on the Guidehub platform. So we spent literally months figuring out what to do. We considered every option. Abandoning Guides seemed irresponsible. Selling Guidehub before it could really shine was an equally unpalatable option. So we asked ourselves: is there any way that these two amazing platforms could be merged into one? After months of brainstorming, whiteboarding, and meeting with stakeholders, contributors, organizations and companies, we figured it out.