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Startup Tips From the Father of Gmail and FriendFeed

50 points by peter123 18y ago

goodkarma 18y ago
Oh my gosh, how annoying is the video at the bottom? I was hoping to just see the interview with Paul, not a sliced and diced version that screetches like he's pulling a needle over a record..
- AndrewWarner 18y ago
  Yikes! Alex, I'm still trying to figure out how to sum up long interviews in short videos. I'll keep at it.
  - toodlestech 18y ago
    I actually quite enjoyed that style of video interview. It broke it up for me and clearly separated each chunk of information, letting a few seconds for it to set in and moved on to the next question.
  - goodkarma 18y ago
    Sorry I was a bit harsh there. I had really hoped to see the full interview and got a little frustrated. Curious.. do you have the original (full-length) interview video? Would you mind posting it somewhere?
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - AndrewWarner 18y ago
      Nah. I appreciate the feedback. I'm uploading the full video to Vimeo. Will post a link here when it's done.
  - sheriff 18y ago
    As a video on it's own merits, I liked it. But I watched it after reading the post, which was already an abbreviated form of the interview. I only watched the video because the post had already interested me, but watching the video after reading the post didn't really add anything. Given this presentation, I think it would have made sense to embed the full video instead.
  - andreyf 18y ago
    Suggestion: keep (the time you're on the screen)/(the time Paul is on the screen) ratio as low as possible. There's no need to repeat what he just said, or spend a long time introducing him. Sorry if it's blunt, but I'd be interested in what he says even if he goes on for an hour, and not interested in your summaries of his opinions in the least.
    - AndrewWarner 18y ago
      You're right. Most videos need more of a setup, but I think Paul was clear on his own.
brlewis 18y ago
Paul surely is responsible for a large part of what FriendFeed is today, but the parents who were there at birth are Bret and Jim: http://friendfeed.com/about/team http://friendfeed.com/about/team
adamhowell 18y ago
Weird to see a "Top 5" list from the same guy who said "Limited Life Experiences + Overgeneralization = Advice"
- AndrewWarner 18y ago
  To be fair to Paul, I should say that the list of 5 isn't his top ideas. It's just 5 ideas that he told me in when we talked.
- colins_pride 18y ago
  That's fair, but numbers 2 & 3 are good points that you don't hear from everybody and their mother. And besides, I wouldn't want to bet against Paul.
mikeryan 18y ago
Not really very insightful. And the don't need virality if your product is good bit really hasn't been proven out. There are many superior products out there that have lost to the competition (especially in the social network space) because they never gained enough early traction.
- AndrewWarner 18y ago
  Mike, I agree that virality can't be dismissed so quickly. Seems if you don't have that, the rest of your marketing has to work much harder.
  - smwhreyebelong 18y ago
    I agree with Paul's point. Google's early growth was due to the product being superior and not because it had any sort of virality. I don't recall seeing any Google ads on TV/print/billboards yet soon everyone was talking about googling instead of searching the web.
- paul 18y ago
  I didn't really say that you "don't need" virality, but that the best kind is a product that people love so much that they want to tell everyone about it (which is a kind of virality). Obviously, the need for virality also differs based on what you are building. For social networks, having your friends there is a big part of what makes it a "good product". For a search engine, that's less important. What bothers me is the focus on virality over actual value creation. The best examples are some of the "zombie" type facebook apps that are pretty much just pure virality.
  - unalone 18y ago
    That's an important distinction to make re: virality. There're two kinds: the sort that forces you to spread it to gain functionality, and the sort that spreads because people like talking about it. It's easy to force the one, but very, very difficult to fake the other.
  - mikeryan 18y ago
sam_in_nyc 18y ago
The hardest part about his first point, "launch a scaled back version first" is determining what, exactly, that means to your product. For me, it's not at all a challenge to think of 20 incredible features that would completely blow away the competition. Does that mean I should only pick 10? What if I'd though of 50... should I now only pick 25? I wish he'd talked more about the purpose of scaling back. I'd presume that it's to save time, and to have something working with which you can improve. If that's the case, I'd much rather heed the advice of "launch early, launch often" then "scale back." The most difficult decisions to make, for me at least, are what features to spend time on. I consider every version of what I make scaled back, because to me, it's never done. About his argument for scaling back: "there are people in their garages building an electric car." What does this prove? It doesn't convince me that these people in garages are on a better track than Tesla. If, however, one of these people manages to build a better company than Tesla, based on their garage-built prototype, then maybe I'd take his point more to heart.
- goodkarma 18y ago
  Really? I think the whole point is to launch as early as possible. "Release early, release often" Plus you want to get up and running, get some users, and start building momentum (which comes from people using it, talking about it, giving you feedback, etc.) I recommend building the app for yourself. You will know what features need to be done first.
  - AndrewWarner 18y ago
    Alex, I'd love to hear how you did that for easytweets.com. Looks like you have a broad collection of features. How'd you decide which were core and needed to be put in before launching and which could wait?
    - goodkarma 18y ago
      I made the app for myself. I wrote the first code a few days before flying to Startup School last year. I wanted to be able to tweet things when I was traveling. Initially, all it did was schedule tweets. That was the feature I wanted most. Over time, as I wanted it to do more, I wrote more code. There are tons more features we will add - and a lot more that I'm sure we will add that we don't even know about yet. I am trying to constantly keep my ear to the ground and listen to my users and influential folks in the search marketing industry and trying to prioritize what needs to be done based on feedback and my own daily use of the app. It's kind of the whole premise of what PG says to do - launch early, and listen to your users. Many startups change their whole model after they launch. We now offer many features I would have never guessed when we launched the app last year.
AndrewWarner 18y ago
Here's the whole (unedited) interview: http://www.vimeo.com/3368761 http://www.vimeo.com/3368761

50 points by peter123 18y ago

Oh my gosh, how annoying is the video at the bottom? I was hoping to just see the interview with Paul, not a sliced and diced version that screetches like he's pulling a needle over a record..

AndrewWarner 18y ago
Yikes! Alex, I'm still trying to figure out how to sum up long interviews in short videos. I'll keep at it.
- toodlestech 18y ago
  I actually quite enjoyed that style of video interview. It broke it up for me and clearly separated each chunk of information, letting a few seconds for it to set in and moved on to the next question.
- goodkarma 18y ago
  Sorry I was a bit harsh there. I had really hoped to see the full interview and got a little frustrated. Curious.. do you have the original (full-length) interview video? Would you mind posting it somewhere?
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - AndrewWarner 18y ago
    Nah. I appreciate the feedback. I'm uploading the full video to Vimeo. Will post a link here when it's done.
- sheriff 18y ago
  As a video on it's own merits, I liked it. But I watched it after reading the post, which was already an abbreviated form of the interview. I only watched the video because the post had already interested me, but watching the video after reading the post didn't really add anything. Given this presentation, I think it would have made sense to embed the full video instead.
- andreyf 18y ago
  Suggestion: keep (the time you're on the screen)/(the time Paul is on the screen) ratio as low as possible. There's no need to repeat what he just said, or spend a long time introducing him. Sorry if it's blunt, but I'd be interested in what he says even if he goes on for an hour, and not interested in your summaries of his opinions in the least.
  - AndrewWarner 18y ago
    You're right. Most videos need more of a setup, but I think Paul was clear on his own.

brlewis 18y ago

Paul surely is responsible for a large part of what FriendFeed is today, but the parents who were there at birth are Bret and Jim: http://friendfeed.com/about/team http://friendfeed.com/about/team

adamhowell 18y ago

Weird to see a "Top 5" list from the same guy who said "Limited Life Experiences + Overgeneralization = Advice"

AndrewWarner 18y ago
To be fair to Paul, I should say that the list of 5 isn't his top ideas. It's just 5 ideas that he told me in when we talked.
colins_pride 18y ago
That's fair, but numbers 2 & 3 are good points that you don't hear from everybody and their mother. And besides, I wouldn't want to bet against Paul.

mikeryan 18y ago

Not really very insightful. And the don't need virality if your product is good bit really hasn't been proven out. There are many superior products out there that have lost to the competition (especially in the social network space) because they never gained enough early traction.

AndrewWarner 18y ago
Mike, I agree that virality can't be dismissed so quickly. Seems if you don't have that, the rest of your marketing has to work much harder.
- smwhreyebelong 18y ago
  I agree with Paul's point. Google's early growth was due to the product being superior and not because it had any sort of virality. I don't recall seeing any Google ads on TV/print/billboards yet soon everyone was talking about googling instead of searching the web.
paul 18y ago
I didn't really say that you "don't need" virality, but that the best kind is a product that people love so much that they want to tell everyone about it (which is a kind of virality). Obviously, the need for virality also differs based on what you are building. For social networks, having your friends there is a big part of what makes it a "good product". For a search engine, that's less important. What bothers me is the focus on virality over actual value creation. The best examples are some of the "zombie" type facebook apps that are pretty much just pure virality.
- unalone 18y ago
  That's an important distinction to make re: virality. There're two kinds: the sort that forces you to spread it to gain functionality, and the sort that spreads because people like talking about it. It's easy to force the one, but very, very difficult to fake the other.
- mikeryan 18y ago

sam_in_nyc 18y ago

The hardest part about his first point, "launch a scaled back version first" is determining what, exactly, that means to your product. For me, it's not at all a challenge to think of 20 incredible features that would completely blow away the competition. Does that mean I should only pick 10? What if I'd though of 50... should I now only pick 25? I wish he'd talked more about the purpose of scaling back. I'd presume that it's to save time, and to have something working with which you can improve. If that's the case, I'd much rather heed the advice of "launch early, launch often" then "scale back." The most difficult decisions to make, for me at least, are what features to spend time on. I consider every version of what I make scaled back, because to me, it's never done. About his argument for scaling back: "there are people in their garages building an electric car." What does this prove? It doesn't convince me that these people in garages are on a better track than Tesla. If, however, one of these people manages to build a better company than Tesla, based on their garage-built prototype, then maybe I'd take his point more to heart.

goodkarma 18y ago
Really? I think the whole point is to launch as early as possible. "Release early, release often" Plus you want to get up and running, get some users, and start building momentum (which comes from people using it, talking about it, giving you feedback, etc.) I recommend building the app for yourself. You will know what features need to be done first.
- AndrewWarner 18y ago
  Alex, I'd love to hear how you did that for easytweets.com. Looks like you have a broad collection of features. How'd you decide which were core and needed to be put in before launching and which could wait?
  - goodkarma 18y ago
    I made the app for myself. I wrote the first code a few days before flying to Startup School last year. I wanted to be able to tweet things when I was traveling. Initially, all it did was schedule tweets. That was the feature I wanted most. Over time, as I wanted it to do more, I wrote more code. There are tons more features we will add - and a lot more that I'm sure we will add that we don't even know about yet. I am trying to constantly keep my ear to the ground and listen to my users and influential folks in the search marketing industry and trying to prioritize what needs to be done based on feedback and my own daily use of the app. It's kind of the whole premise of what PG says to do - launch early, and listen to your users. Many startups change their whole model after they launch. We now offer many features I would have never guessed when we launched the app last year.

AndrewWarner 18y ago

Here's the whole (unedited) interview: http://www.vimeo.com/3368761 http://www.vimeo.com/3368761