One of Facebook’s original founders and Mark Zuckerberg’s former roommate at Harvard enters the limelight today with the official unveiling of Jumo, akin to an entire social network version of Causes.
Chris Hughes founded the charitably-driven company in February this year and made a beta version available this week. Jumo will do for charities “what Yelp did for restaurants,” he told the New York Times.
One can only hope that Hughes was thinking in very general terms when invoking Yelp. If charities spent money on the ability to prioritize good reviews and delete negative ones, that would seem counterproductive.
On the other hand, the reported $3.5 million in grants that got Jumo started would eventually run out. Perhaps a cut of the donations that members will make to charities could pay for the social network’s overhead.
It looks like the company has yet to get started with any of that. According to Jumo’s jobs page:
Jumo seeks a Monetization Director to develop, sell, and manage revenue-generating products. Duties and requirements include:
- Help Jumo achieve financial self-sustainability through the development of revenue-generating products, including a sponsorship and advertising program and online tools that yield a positive ROI to mission-driven organizations
- Launch and oversee revenue-generating products across multiple platforms, including web, email, mobile
- Establish and manage relationships with sponsors, including major non-profits, NGOs, foundations, and mission-driven businesses
- Experience in a sales-driven environment
- Preference for a fast-paced, flat start-up environment
- Excellent communication and relationship-building skills
- Experience in creating revenue models
- Ability to think strategically and interest in product development
- B.S. or B.A. required
These skills clearly go beyond the experience of Jumo’s founder, although he has other strengths. Hughes had left Facebook to coordinate the online aspect of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. In 2009, he became an entrepreneur in residence at General Catalyst Partners, a venture capital firm on the east coast.
So, readers have you tried out the Jumo beta version yet? What kind of odds for success do you see it having? Is there room for yet another social network?
