Tribe Hires New CEO to Replace Entrepreneur

SILICONVALLEY.COM -- Apr 8 -- Tribe Networks, an emerging player in online classified advertising and social networking, has appointed Jan Gullett to replace CEO Mark Pincus.  Tribe is backed by VC firm Mayfield, with additional funding from the Washington Post Co. and Knight Ridder.  Knight Ridder Senior Vice President Hilary Schneider serves on Tribe's board.  Gullett aims to bring a more consumer marketing focus to Tribe, and his background fits the bill. Early in his career, he rose through the ranks at Procter & Gamble, Sara Lee and PepsiCo. Pincus, a serial entrepreneur, started Tribe in 2003 at his kitchen table. Tribe lets users gather in virtual communities and offers classified ads for geographical regions in an attempt to integrate the classifieds offerings of Craiglist with the social-networking capabilities of Sunnyvale's Friendster.

Mark Brooks: Tribe is consistently growing.  Alexa rank is 3,000.  Craigslist has never needed to advertise and has barnstormed it's way to an Alexa rank of 63!  Similar with Friendster which is at an Alexa rank of 66 but showing signs of losing ground.  This is the power of viral marketing.  People love to talk about stuff they bought and sold, looked for and discovered.  The high utility and no agenda, unassuming styles of these sites have driven growth, without million dollar ad budgets.