Scott Alden and Derk Solko from Boardgamegeek.com

Scott 'Aldie' Alden and Derk Solko launched www.boardgamgeek.com in January 2000, from the ashes of a video gaming site Aldie had created years prior.  The goal was to coalesce all the great information about boardgames into one central location, with an emphasis on session reports and rules translations.  As the site grew in popularity, its purpose has changed from merely providing information to being a conduit by which gamers around the world can come and exchange thoughts and ideas on thousands of boardgames in our databases.  The website also supports the growing meta-community on a day-to-day basis with features like forums and Geeklists.  At last count, there were 350,000 unique visitors to the site each month, and that number continues to grow each month.

About six months ago, Aldie and Derk added a new feature to the website called GeekSpeak.  Riding on a wave of new internet-based "radio" shows called podcasts, the team records conversations with gaming luminaries and distributes them via the website as .mp3 audio files.   This new addition has really been exciting for Aldie and Derk as it allows them to communicate with thousands of users in totally new fashion; hopefully bringing more people to see boardgaming as a great way to spend time with loved ones.

Professionally, Aldie is a video game programmer.  He has been married to a wonderful woman, Michelle, for a year and change and she's very understanding about his obsession with boardgaming websites.  Derk works as a software development manager for a financial firm.  Both live in Dallas, Texas, but only one of them likes it.