Built In Chicago launched nearly 18 months ago using Ning, the simplest and cheapest social platform available. As it grew and Maria Katris came on board to manage our growth, it became apparent that we had outgrown Ning. We wanted to add a company directory and a job board and improve other areas of the service. The problem was that we had no technical staff. So like any lean and mean startup we found a contractor who knew Drupal and started working with him to move the site to the Drupal platform. Unfortunately 75% of the way into the project he totally flaked out and fell off the face of the earth. Fortunately our friends at Duo Consulting helped us pick up the pieces and push toward a full launch.
Unfortunately Ning does not make it easy to leave their platform. And Drupal is also missing some social features that they really should have. So everything was a little harder than we would have liked. But Maria and Adam worked every angle to get it done.
The site now sports a much cleaner and more usable design. We have our fair share of kinks to work out, but the big challenge of getting off of Ning was the first big step. So bear with us as we work out of the kinks. And thank you to everyone who was shared the love on Twitter. Finally, thank you to Stedfast Networks for providing awesome and speedy hosting services.
So congratulations to Maria and Adam and thank you for your tireless devotion to the Chicago digital tech community.
