If you weren’t paying attention to Skylum before, it might be time: they’ve hired the founder of 500px

 

 

It's been relatively easy to ignore Skylum, formerly Macphun, for many years now. Their software has always been good, but seems to lose the public's eye when compared to the giant that is Adobe. Since rebrading as Skylum, the company behind Aurora HDR and Luminar has been doing quite a lot to make their software better and dedicating more resources to growth. The momentum they've been building since last year hasn't abated, it seems, especially given today's announcement that Evgeny Tchebotarev, the original founder of 500px and the mastermind behind its wild success before its acquisition by Visual China Group (at first as a strategic investor and then finally wholly owned as of 2018), has been hired as the VP of Growth in Asia. 

Skylum expects that with his 14-year experience at the helm of 500px (including its creation) Tchebotarev will be responsible for establishing Skylum’s presence and fostering partnerships in the Asia region to build a strong photography community there. This may not seem like a big deal to those of us in the United States, but if he can bring the vast population of photographers in Asia over to Skylum, that influx of users means a massive increase in revenue. And more revenue means more budget to build better product... hopefully. That would be the best case scenario for consumers, given that any competition in this Adobe-saturated market is good for everyone. 

 

 

Under Evgeny's leadership, 500px flourished. It was only once Visual China Group started to take more and more control, until usurping total ownership as of this year, that the brand started to lose its luster. If you look at his LinkedIn, Evgeny hasn't been an acting part of 500px since early 2016, just after the once-loved photo sharing platform started to implode.

Skylum is on the rise, meanwhile 500px without Evgeny guiding it continues to spiral hilariously.