Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Ian McKenzie, Founder at Enderbook:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?
A: Enderbook is a one-man show run by me, Ian McKenzie. After starting and successfully growing a digital agency, I quickly learned that I did not want to be an employer. I was kind of a jerk to my employees (I like to think they would say otherwise, though). Plus, the stress of being responsible for their livelihoods was too much for my schizophrenia disability.
I decided to restructure how and what I chose for work. Now, I am moving my business in the direction of doing what I have desired for so long: serving the people and community that I passionately care about. It is a riskier endeavor. But, I now have a strict policy of only having contractors to help me. Knowing that I can move forward without the burden of the livelihoods of others at stake.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: As mentioned in the video I recently produced, people love this app. All they want is more people on it. Currently, we have around 600 users. Once we have about 6,000, I think the website will have enough activity to get a really fun ecosystem going. I know in terms of online tech those are pretty small numbers, but I’d rather start small and go with the flow.
Relationships are important to me, and if things get big quickly, I may miss some important lessons. Lessons that could have an enormous impact that I may never know about or understand. Humans are literally an extinction event on this planet, and most of it ties back to our social systems. I do not take my creation of a social platform lightly. Fun is the name of the game for me, and it would suck if the opposite happened.
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Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?
A: My target market is almost completely composed of anarchy Minecraft players – typically men and young men aged 13 to 35. I serve them through this platform and an open API for the large coder community to engage. However, I do understand the overall Minecraft player base is mostly children. I have already found youngsters unrelated to the anarchy community on my platform. I know that inevitably, my target market will be vastly outpaced by Minecrafters of every variety – mostly children.
Outside of my recent press release, I have done zero advertising. I want these children to be safe on my platform, and I know I cannot do it alone. At some point, I decided, why not give parents the option to make sure their kids are safe? Not only that but make it my initial business model?
That’s where Aetherbook comes in. Aetherbook is coming out July 1st and will empower parents to make sure their kids are safe on Enderbook – without having creepily sprawling access to their privacy. At the end of the day, kids need to make mistakes and learn from them. Most often, that isn’t possible in a police-state-like household. I am attempting to find a balance.
Long story short, I’m offering a social media experience for Minecrafters, an open API for Minecraft coders to have fun with public Enderbook data, and a sense of peace for parents of children on the platform.
Q: What can we expect from your company in the next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: My plans right now are to fulfill my current users’ 2 primary requests:
- More people on the platform
- The ability to upload posts from within Minecraft (via Minecraft modding)
The bulk of my efforts with Enderbook will be toward these ends. As said before, I think 6,000 users will be a phenomenal starting point.
Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: Something that no one talks about in business these days is that we quietly let bad things happen because we are afraid. We are afraid that a business won’t succeed unless we do X. Even though X may hurt others in some way. We justify X. We ignore the harm X can do, and so on.
I know how to live without money. I know how to be happy without money. I am not afraid of failure. I have already failed many times. I know it cannot hurt me. I am not afraid of being a small fish in a very big pond. I have already earned the respect and admiration of those I care about. I have already launched myself beyond what I had expected for myself and for my life.
Ultimately, this means that I will not make money from my customers in questionable ways. Certainly, I can profess my superior morals and ethics, but those are easily empty words to anyone that does not know me. What I can know truthfully within myself is that I have lost any and all incentive and desire to do so.
