About Us

Current Projects

Our group is currently working on two projects: SocialEngine and Advious. SocialEngine was launched in mid-2007 and is being used on over 2,500 client websites. Advious is currently in private alpha.

Legacy Projects

Two of our past projects, BlogHoster and the IMS Pro, were acquired in 2007. They are now owned and maintained by Splashpress Media Ltd. and Turnkey.org, respectively.

Our History

2009	After a very strong 2008 for SocialEngine, sales continue to grow with a monthly average of about $75,000. As of April, we now have over 2,300 clients. We've tripled our office space with a new loft in the heart of Old Town Pasadena, but with the addition of Sami, Noam, and Phil, even that's getting a bit cozy. Sami Zerrade, a recent Caltech graduate, is now working alongside John to improve our platform's scalability and performance for larger installations. Noam Katz, a recent Floridian transplant, is our new project coordinator and has assumed many of Alex's duties. Phil Warren, hailing from Silverlake, is now managing our support workflow and delegating to our external support staff. The atmosphere in the office is getting livelier with every addition. Needless to say, IKEA is making a killing off us. Meanwhile, the team has been focused on planning SE's longer-term future, namely by laying a foundation for it to evolve into a broader, more useful community-building tool.
2008	This year looks to be our first major tipping point. Sales of SocialEngine have increased 10% every month until a sudden 25% increase April with $50,000/month in revenue. Charlotte has also created a live community for SocialEngine clients and enthusiasts. Needless to say, she used SocialEngine as the platform for our community. It's established a valuable connection between our customers and ourselves and is helping to guide the project's development. We've also had the pleasure of hiring another talented individual, Brett Haddock. Brett will be working on developing some interesting new features for SocialEngine. Our team rolled out SocialEngine 3 toward the end of the year. This new version introduced some great new functionality and customization freedom to the platform. We've closed the feature gap with the other self-hosted social network scripts out there, and we are now discussing some long-term plans for SocialEngine.
2007	After over a half year of intense planning, development, and countless Diet Coke pyramids, SocialEngine was released on June 6, 2007. Just a month later, BlogHoster was acquired by UK-based Splashpress Media for $90,000. Armed with substantial savings and a new product, Webligo moved into a new office on the fourth floor of the historic Citizens Bank Building in Old Town Pasadena. Using a similar model to Webligo's past products, SocialEngine was designed to be a white-label social network platform. The software lets webmasters install a social network on their website and customize it with their unique theme and social structure. SocialEngine earned $20,000 in the month following its release and then averaged between $15,000 to $20,000 each month until the 2.0 release on December 14. SocialEngine 2.0 included some immensely useful features not found in any other white-label products, such as a Facebook-style news feed and a user profile-targeted advertising system. Since the 2.0 release, SocialEngine has earned between $25,000 and $30,000 each month. John Boehr, an extremely bright 21-year-old developer, was added to the Webligo team near the end of the year.
2006	Following the successful and much-anticipated 2.0 release, BlogHoster continued to sell dozens of licenses each month and earned another $85,000 for 2006. Meanwhile, the BlogHoster customer community was so increasingly active that it became difficult for the team to manage. Stirling Algermissen - a fellow Polytechnic student - was brought on board to help manage the growing community. This gave Alex and Charlotte some time to begin planning their next project, SocialEngine.
2005	Juggling college and work, Alex and Charlotte continued to improve BlogHoster. A separate website was created for it and an entire back-office area was designed to manage orders, customer support, and news announcements. Webligo built an active community of BlogHoster customers and developers, opening up the program for development and allowing customers to share their own modifications. BlogHoster went on to earn Webligo about $90,000 in 2005. With dorm-room offices and virtually zero operating costs, Webligo enjoyed extraordinary profits. In May, Webligo found new digs in eastern Pasadena with a modest 300 square feet of office space. Sure it was a sardine can, but it was our sardine can. The summer also brought flashy articles about BlogHoster in the Pasadena Star News, the Press-Enterprise News, and the Web Host Industry Review. In celebration of BlogHoster's first birthday, Webligo released a 2.0 version on December 1, 2005.
2004	This was a busy year! After making substantial improvements to the IMS based on feedback from customers, Webligo released a $200 version named the IMS Pro. With merely a small sponsored listing on Hotscripts, the IMS Pro ultimately earned over $15,000 and was eventually acquired by Turnkey.org. In the spring, Webligo worked on a contract basis for a Japanese employment consulting firm. In a few months, they were able to reduce the company's average faxed documents per account from twelve to one. This contract gave Webligo some additional capital to spend on their next project. During the summer and fall, Webligo began planning and developing a new product called BlogHoster. Incorporating the same white-label business model, BlogHoster was designed to install a blog hosting service (also known as a "blogging community") on any website. While BlogHoster did include basic social networking features like friendships and comments, the platform was more geared toward the individualized activity of blogging. After many long nights, BlogHoster was finally released on December 1, 2004. With only $80 spent on marketing, BlogHoster earned nearly $6,000 in December.
2003	In 2003, Alex and Charlotte authored a PHP form mailing script called DynaForm with the goal of offering a form mailer that could be installed by webmasters of any skill level - something that practicaly didn't exist at the time. DynaForm was a huge success on Hotscripts.com, and Alex and Char watched with glee as its download counter shot upward. Nothing was more thrilling to them than seeing people around the world installing their script! Later in the year, Alex and Charlotte created a new PHP program that they named the Image Management System. The IMS was a multi-user web-based file manager geared towards offering a basic image hosting service. Without fully realizing it, Alex and Charlotte had created their first "white-label" product! Thereafter, this became the central theme of all their products and eventually the central aspect of Webligo's business model. The team sold about a dozen licenses at $100 per license with no money put into marketing. Realizing they were suddenly running a small business, Alex and Charlotte decided to form a partnership with the name "Webligo", combining the Web-theme of their products with the latin root "ligo" - meaning "together" - resembling their unique cohesion as a team.
2002	Webligo began when Alex Benzer and Charlotte Genevier met as Pasadena Polytechnic high school students in 2002. The two quickly became friends and began learning to program together. They were surprised to find excellent teammates in one another, as Alex's eye for design and Charlotte's programming skills were instantly magnetic. Alex and Charlotte began deconstructing popular PHP software to discover how they worked and could be improved.