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I've never been more addicted to an app than when Secret first came out. It was all the rage in SF. I had to force myself to delete it after a few weeks in or

by gsibble 12y ago

I've never been more addicted to an app than when Secret first came out. It was all the rage in SF. I had to force myself to delete it after a few weeks in order to get back to productivity. I completely understand the hype. Personally, I feel this is a story about poor execution. They changed the nature of the app so significantly over time that it lost its appeal and never expanded successfully beyond the bay area. Shame.....it was so much fun and they are such a talented team.

smt88 12y ago
> never expanded successfully beyond the bay area This seems to be something of a meme. The Bay Area is a truly unique and bizarre place. People are incredibly busy and tech-savvy, and they're willing to spend way more on minor conveniences than people elsewhere. It seems like lots of companies raise on their explosive growth in and around the SV community. It may extend to people with similar demographics in other cities, but it's still a niche. I'm also thinking of all those gourmet snack-delivery companies, laundry-delivery, etc. Those might make a few million in revenue some day, but they're never going to have high margins or universal appeal.
- deleted 12y ago
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dvirsky 12y ago
It went extremely viral in Israel about a year ago. At first with the start-up community that's very connected to SF used it for internal gossip and anonymous whining and dissing. Then it expanded naturally to young creative types (developers, designers, bloggers, journalists, etc) who are connected to the start-up scene, and became big in the gay community in Tel-Aviv, that highly overlaps both groups. And then the mainstream media started raving about it, and it exploded with the masses and especially teens. At this point it just became a cesspool of online bullying for teens, and I lost interest in following its path. There was even a proposed law banning it in Israel or something (http://pando.com/2014/08/28/israel-becomes-latest-country-to-try-to-ban-secret-bullying-app/ http://pando.com/2014/08/28/israel-becomes-latest-country-to...). But seeing this expansion graph over a period of 2-3 weeks last summer was fascinating.

by gsibble 12y ago

smt88 12y ago

> never expanded successfully beyond the bay area This seems to be something of a meme. The Bay Area is a truly unique and bizarre place. People are incredibly busy and tech-savvy, and they're willing to spend way more on minor conveniences than people elsewhere. It seems like lots of companies raise on their explosive growth in and around the SV community. It may extend to people with similar demographics in other cities, but it's still a niche. I'm also thinking of all those gourmet snack-delivery companies, laundry-delivery, etc. Those might make a few million in revenue some day, but they're never going to have high margins or universal appeal.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

dvirsky 12y ago

It went extremely viral in Israel about a year ago. At first with the start-up community that's very connected to SF used it for internal gossip and anonymous whining and dissing. Then it expanded naturally to young creative types (developers, designers, bloggers, journalists, etc) who are connected to the start-up scene, and became big in the gay community in Tel-Aviv, that highly overlaps both groups. And then the mainstream media started raving about it, and it exploded with the masses and especially teens. At this point it just became a cesspool of online bullying for teens, and I lost interest in following its path. There was even a proposed law banning it in Israel or something (http://pando.com/2014/08/28/israel-becomes-latest-country-to-try-to-ban-secret-bullying-app/ http://pando.com/2014/08/28/israel-becomes-latest-country-to...). But seeing this expansion graph over a period of 2-3 weeks last summer was fascinating.