Qbix

Founded in 2011 by Greg Magarshak, Qbix Inc. provides an open-source platform designed to enable organizations to create their own social networks and community applications. The company's core mission is to offer a decentralized alternative to major technology platforms, giving communities control over their data and digital identities. Magarshak, who has significantly subsidized the company's operations, envisioned a social calendar to help people organize real-world events, a concept that evolved into the broader community-focused platform it is today. Since its inception, Qbix has been bootstrapped with an initial friends and family investment of $107,000, which led to the launch of its first apps, 'Groups for iOS' and 'Calendars for Mac', attracting over 10 million users.

The Qbix Platform functions as a construction kit for building community apps that facilitate member connection, collaboration, event promotion, and payment collection. It operates on a business model analogous to WordPress for blogs, allowing clients to either enhance an existing website, build a new one, or launch standalone applications. The platform is designed to be highly customizable; users can install various themes and plugins to tailor the experience to their community's specific needs, such as voting, managing attendance, and organizing group activities. This open-source nature means organizations can host the platform on their own servers, ensuring data security and control.

Revenue generation for Qbix is multifaceted. The company builds custom apps for communities, partners with startups and resellers, and offers hosting, maintenance, and support services. While expertise currently resides within Qbix, the open-source license allows clients to engage other developers for maintenance. The business model is structured to benefit from the reusability of its software components, which reduces development costs over time. Additionally, Qbix is developing an economy around a utility token, QBUX, intended to facilitate micropayments for digital content and services within the ecosystem, offering an alternative to advertising-based revenue models. This system aims to create a marketplace connecting communities with app developers and hosting companies.

Keywords: open source community platform, decentralized social network, social operating system, community application builder, custom social apps, member engagement tools, online community management, peer-to-peer collaboration, event management software, white-label social network, group communication tools, digital identity ownership, data sovereignty, community-centric applications, social app development kit, modular platform, customizable themes and plugins, community monetization, QBUX token, decentralized ecosystem