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1. Very well connected founders. 2. Founder ponying up millions of his own cash. 3. Frighteningly Ambitious(TM) problem. 4. Reasonably good traction and prod
by staunch 15y ago
1. Very well connected founders.
2. Founder ponying up millions of his own cash.
3. Frighteningly Ambitious(TM) problem.
4. Reasonably good traction and product execution.
- larrys 15y agoHaving #1 and #2 are good for attracting the proverbial greater fools to take it off your hands. Also add #5 - use and/or answers by people the main stream public has heard of. Some more of those, particularly celebrities, politicians, entertainers saying sh*t, could have this become so mainstream that their answers will be quoted on the Nightly News. So it becomes a complain and explain platform like twitter.
- kjhughes 15y agoI like staunch's answers, plus 5. Investors are hunting for an Instagram-like Facebook spillover win.
- Androsynth 15y agoHow is 'Q&A site for venture capitalists' a frighteningly ambitious problem?
- kjhughes 15y agoOne Q&A site to rule them all is ambitious if not frighteningly so.
- flipp 15y agoahhhhhhhhhh
- Androsynth 15y agoYahoo Answers tried to be the One Q&A Site to Rule Them All. I don't personally consider Quora to be a general purpose Q&A site. Its possible that they launched as a general purpose Q&A site and then they may have switched when it seemed prudent. Or its possible that they may still be trying to be a general purpose Q&A site, but in that case their branding doesnt match their ambition.
- potatolicious 15y agoI simply do not see #4 happening. Hell, at this rate I'm willing to bet that StackExchange, itself a rather niche site (or network of sites) has higher activity than Quora. I don't know a single person outside the (somewhat incestuous) startup industry that uses Quora. In fact, I do not know a single person outside the tech industry who knows about Quora. Claims that Quora has achieved good traction are, to be polite, overly generous, but more frankly, bullshit.
- tptacek 15y agoThey have a reasonable diversity of backgrounds (it feels about on par with Reddit or MeFi in that regard) which leads me to think it's not entirely a tech industry phenom. Also: they have an interesting strategy of courting mainstream media distribution; there's a "Quora" section on Slate now, for instance. They could keep doing that. 9 figure valuation? No clue. Valley numbers, agreed. Just saying.
- Drbble 15y agoSlate is more mainstream than HN, but not mainstream. Forbes is a better example of mainstream reach, but also the risk: the Forbes audience is not a quality content crowd, it's an infotainment filler crowd, and infotainment is cheap these days.
- misiti3780 15y agowhere did you get (2) from ?
- mslate 15y agoWhat is the Frighteningly Ambitious(TM) problem?