When you start a company you start down a path to not only create the legacy of your own being, but the legacy of a company. I’m sure a lot of people don’t sit back and think what legacy they want their company to hold, they just want to make it rich, but at 9rules we always seemed to keep that in perspective. Of course we had a plan of how we wanted to grow and the different ways we could make money, but we wanted to stick to a couple of principles no matter which way we decided to grow or how we wanted to make money.
In any decision we make we always ask ourselves if this will be a benefit or detriment to our Members and our readers. If it ever is we scrape the idea, no matter how much money it might make us or how popular we could become. Because of decisions like that we get asked what our business plan is and how do we make our money? We always have to smile back and ask why does that matter if all we do is continue to help out people.
If 9rules was to disappear tomorrow would our legacy be that we just couldn’t make a dime (we do make our money, just saying) or that we created something special to a number of people? What about any other web company that has started up in the last two years, what’s their legacy and were they even around long enough to have one? Today is our Round 5 and as of this writing we have been averaging over one submission per minute.
One submission per minute…
So many people were waiting for us to open the doors for this round that we had 100 submissions in the first 15 minutes. It’s hard for me to offer advice on how to make a lot of money since I haven’t done that yet, but I can offer one piece of advice that I think should apply to any company. Stick to your founding principles that aim to do good and even if you succeed or fail in other areas such as financials, you can walk away at the end of the day with your head held high.
Still going for those millions though.
I have been a World of Warcraft fanatic ever since the game came out in November 2004. While I was playing tonight my mind started to compare the similarities of this online game with the online applications and sites we use today. WoW has over 6MM online users willing to pay a monthly fee to run around and kill stuff and chat with buddies.
There are other sites that let us connect with people as well and chat with them, but people on WoW stay on for hours on end. On MySpace and YouTube you might get caught up in the just one more picture/video syndrome for a long period of time, but I doubt it is 3-8 hours a day. Maybe its not fair to compare an online game with static sites that don’t offer the interactivity of an online universe. But sit back and take a look at how great some of these sites could be if they implemented what WoW does just a bit more into their fold.
- An Online Economy. Imagine only getting to see secret pictures of someone on MySpace if you trade them some pictures of your own. Or maybe you want to create some widgets for your MySpace page and the only way people can get to them is by making you a friend and writing a comment. Lame examples for sure, but an online economy becomes addicting no matter which way you look at it and it draws people in even more.
Cyworld allows you to buy more acorns so you can customize while Second Life has become the king of producing a virtual economy.
- Real Time Chat. Remember IRC rooms? 9rules has one and whenever I dive in it becomes a great time due to the conversations that can startup at will. However, with social sites we have gone backwards and conversations aren’t even close to being synchronous or in real-time. There might be modules that add IM features, but where are the large rooms with people talking about specific topics? Why can’t we have those. Hell that might be a great idea for 9rules, but to a lesser extent where we only open the rooms up for certain hours so there isn’t dead time at 1am.
- Customization. This is where MySpace won the battle of social network supremacy. Facebook will make a charge, but users have to sacrifice the ability to customize with a clean interface that everyone shares.
In WoW you get to customize your character and overtime dictate what he wears. You can even customize the UI so the game really does become your own. There are restrictions to what you can do so things don’t get out of hand, but allowing customization in a controlled environment can be a very, very good thing.
- User Feedback. The WoW Community is both strong and vocal and its good to see when a lot of people agree on changes that should be made, many times Blizzard (the creators of the game) implement those changes in one of their weekly patches. Which brings us to…
- Frequent Updates. Updates don’t necessarily mean features, but even small tweaks allow your users to know that you still care about your site and are working on things. However, don’t tweak just because you want to look fresh, tweak for improvement.
The more I think about the size of WoW and how much is going at once I am marveled at how successful a company could build an online environment that people get sucked in versus some companies that can’t take the time to get their UIs looking crisp on their web apps. We should all play video games.
Running a business can be just like playing a video game. If its first time you either sit down and read the manual or you just dive right in. If you read the manual you might know what buttons to push, but that doesn’t mean you won’t die. If you dive right in you will probably take some time to learn the buttons. In which scenario do you learn faster and gain more experience?
Admittedly I never read the manual. Playing the game is more fun than reading about it. I know a ton of people who treat freelance design the same way. You have seen other people’s websites (watched them play the game) so you know what you need to do to make it. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.
There are a lot of different ways you could prepare before you just go about emailing potential clients. You can analyze the field to see what niches are being ignored in the design world. Bank interfaces suck. Most shopping sites suck. Online newspapers suck. There are a ton of areas that need our help, but get overlooked almost like the great video games that nobody plays because they aren’t talked about.
Once you find your niche go at it. Strategize (read the manual) about how you are going to approach things. Its fun to just dive right in, but have a clue of what you are getting into it. It will save you some trouble in the end.
Most importantly, execute. You have to play the game to really understand it. You can understand clients until you tackle them head on. Your first 10 might not be great experiences, but that 11th one will be great due to your experience in handling the situation. In any business execution is what’s usually missing in the ingredients to success. Talent and ideas can be found all over the place, but execution can not be bought.
Yeah, it might be a crazy analogy, but it’s Monday so work with me.
Video games Australia Buy video games from stores in Australia
Community. Social. User-generated content. These are the words that surround many of today’s most popular sites, but what happens when these words turn negative and the social community that creates user-generated content gets out of control? I wrote “Looking For Pr0n? Netscape.com Can Set You Up” to demonstrate when the community aspect of your site can backfire on you.
The community has turned on Digg at times, but not enough to warrant any major changes or effect it’s growing popularity. I don’t think 98% of the Digg community cares who the top Diggers are or why they are always on the frontpage. What Digg has to worry about though is what happens when those top Diggers start to post crappy content continuously.
Sure it’s a democratic system so bad content shouldn’t filter to the top, but if you know anything about gaming Digg, you know that all you need is a couple influential Diggs and you are on the homepage. Just goes to show that no system is really democratic and no matter what a group of individuals can seize control of the majority of the system. You see it on Wikipedia as well.
Is there a perfect solution to this? Not in my mind because you will always have certain members that are more dedicated to the site than others. Thing is though anybody has the power to either become part of the elite or form another group to take over the stop spot. That’s what makes these democratic systems.
I finally got Internet at my new place on September 16th and prior to that posting on this site was sporadic at best. I promised myself I would return this site to respectability (that doesn’t mean I will get respect, just the site :)) and that required frequent posting. Fortunately, last week three of my entries made the Digg homepage and for that reason I made Alexa’s Movers & Shakers list.
Now I don’t put much value into Alexa besides it giving you a vague idea of how sites are doing, but this is pretty cool and I’m glad I caught it before the site disappears, which will happen soon. So um yeah, I’m cool now.
Here is something to keep in mind. The traffic to 9rules jumped about 10%-15% yesterday because the ChaCha Search Engine was featured on Good Morning America. That almost has nothing to do with 9rules except a note was posted on the engine a couple of weeks ago. All of the traffic came from search engines and the three searches that brought the traffic were:
- http://chacha.com
- http://www.chacha.com
- chacha.com
People still search for the domain name in search engines while we worry about what type of feed we will offer on our websites. Amazing.
I don’t have a category called “Real Interviews” and I’m not sure if I will do anymore because people might be scared of the hard-hitting questions I ask. Anyways, my boy Mike Davidson agreed to do one a long time ago and I never got around to it simply because I forgot about him. Then he reminded me because he doesn’t get enough love from the South so I figured I would give the man a hand.
I have known Mike for a little over two years now and he is one of the cool web geeks to chill with. While everyone else is talking up AJAX in the room we are at the bar doing shots. What ensues are five questions that you won’t find anywhere else. If you want to know about Newsvine just do a search and you will find a million reviews. If you want to know what it’s like to run a VC-funded company while pushing the ladies away then keep on reading…
Let’s be honest, we are both CEOs (big title for little companies no?), but I haven’t seen an increase in my bed population with my change in position. Do you find that your title is getting you more female relations than the code monkey busting his ass making Newsvine run smooth?
That is a good question. I actually don’t mention my title much except on my business card and other business occasions. Sometimes I’ll just say something like “I work for Newsvine” and leave it at that. Part of me thinks you shouldn’t even be allowed to use the title “CEO” unless you have at least 50 people under you or your company is public. As for the ladies though, I seem to be remarkably unlucky or unskilled when it comes to translating professional stature into romantic opulence. When I first started working at ESPN several years ago, I remember thinking “Wow, I can’t wait to say I work for ESPN!” And in five years there, I met exactly two women who were impressed by that. I think most women figured that sort of job meant I would spend 12 hours on the couch every Sunday watching football. Sadly, there were correct. :)
You are not the best promoter of Newsvine as I am sure you will admit to yourself. You seem to let the site and its users speak for itself, but do you think we could all learn a lesson from Jason Calacanis and toot our horns when our company has changed to 2-ply toilet paper in the restrooms?
Yeah, self promotion is a tough thing to get comfortable with. You’re told as a youth to never brag, talk about yourself, or otherwise give the appearance of immodesty, and then when you enter the job world, it all of a sudden becomes acceptable — and even necessary — at times. Ideally, your product will speak for itself and your users will do most of the speaking. We see this with sites like del.icio.us, MySpace, and Digg. But then you have people like Jason who represent the other side of the coin. Derek Powazek recently called Jason “The P.T. Barnum of the weblog world”, and while it’s not a perfect analogy, it does capture a lot of what makes Jason both successful and disliked in parts of our industry. On the one hand, he is a tireless, energetic, take-no-prisoners force for change in both the industry and now at AOL. And on the other hand, he barks incessantly — and with a very promotional slant — about every little thing going on in the world and on the sites he’s responsible for. He calls it transparency, but others have called it soapboxing. Like you said, how many times do you want to be alerted in your newsreader of a new item only to find out it’s “We’ve changed to 2-ply toiletpaper in our bathrooms! My plan is succeeding!” Jason’s a real interesting case. You may not feel the urge to want him on your team, but you definitely don’t want to play against him either.
I view my blog like this: Every time I post a new item, I am basically knocking on the door of every single one of my 10,000 or so subscribers and saying “Hey, I have something to say!” If, as a user, someone knocks on my door more than once a week or two and what they say isn’t interesting, I’m unsubscribing. Given that, when I have something promotional to post, I try to either wait until I have a few more such items and gang them together in one entry, or I just ask myself if it’s really important enough to post at all. It’s probably a bit too conservative of a strategy for people running companies like Newsvine or 9rules, but we’re both obviously weary of turning our personal blogs into pure promotional vehicles.
I have spoken with a number of VCs on the phone the past year and they are really just boring folks. Whenever we hangout at a conference we hit the town and do our thing, but do VCs live such a life? Are your VCs down to do some Jager bombs?
Our VCs are definitely down to do Jager bombs. I’m with you though… VCs simply cannot be grouped into a single class of people who all act the same way. We’ve met smart ones and dim ones. We’ve met people who understand the industry very well and people who frankly should be in another field. I just talked to a senior guy the other day at a very well respected firm who told me that “Digg is just another voting site. There are a ton of voting sites out there.” A voting site? What a weird way to describe a company that is so much more than that. In any profession, you will have your standout thought leaders and your hangers-on. I think rare is the VC who is both super smart and will also do Jager bombs with you but Mike Slade and Nick Hanauer at Second Avenue Partners are just that… and we feel extremely lucky to be partnered up with them. If your experience with VCs so far is that they are boring people, it could be a geographical thing as well. You know how I love to rip on Florida, but maybe that’s just it. Perhaps there are a glut of retirement community startups that need funding in that area and maybe the VCs in that part of the country are just more tuned to that sort of culture. :)
*Note: For your information they have all been West Coast firms.
I have had three additional offers for sex since I started using your code over what I usually get per month. So I endorse Mikes quality product. If you use Mikes design code you will get more sex. Love ya’ll, talk to you later.
Would you be willing to give up your job as CEO of Newsvine to help unfortunate MySpacers get laid through creative layouts?
I wonder how big that market is. 100 million MySpace users. 10 million active ones. 7 million males ones. 6.99 million who would like to have more sex than they are currently having. And 500,000 who can handle the cutting-and-pasting of CSS. 500,000 x $5 apiece. That’s $2.5 million. Write up a quick business plan and I’m in!
Do you have to be nice to Michael Arrington for fear he will say something bad about your company? He doesn’t like us very much and we found that it has lowered our morale greatly around the office to the point where Mike doesn’t even take his dog out for walks anymore, he just lets it shit all over the place. I was just wishing that your company doesn’t fall to the same fate as us because the man has a lot of power and with his wise investment in Dogster his power will only grow exponentially.
You know, I hadn’t even met Mike until he hosted a party in Seattle this summer. He’s given Newsvine some really spectacular reviews since we came out of stealth earlier this year and we’re obviously thankful of that praise, but none of it was based on any relationship he has with us. Since meeting him this summer, we’ve also exchanged pleasantries in San Francisco and I think he’s a really smart guy. That said, Mike’s opinions, as expressed on TechCrunch, should not be taken as “speaking for the industry”. He is his own man, and nobody is going to always agree with him, especially given his strong opinions. Some things that he writes, I agree wholeheartedly with, and others, not so much… just like any blogger. In Mike’s defense, he gets hundreds of “pitches” from people who want to appear on TechCrunch every day so that’s gotta wear on you after awhile. If I were in that position, I would think that my skepticism would increase in step with the quantity of hopeless services pitched to me. I wasn’t aware he had any negative feelings about 9rules… maybe he’s anti-Florida. :) I do think it’s important not to let reviews get you too high or too low, but rather just to pick out the constructive parts and act on them if necessary. TechCrunch is one such source for those reviews, along with many others who may have different opinions.
*Note: It’s not that he dislikes 9rules, I just don’t think he likes Mike’s or my opinion on certain matters :-).
Thanks for answering the questions Michael Cornelius Davidson. You are a great guy and no matter how ugly those Newsvine t-shirts get, I will continue to use the site.
Bam! Glad you like the shirts! We’re quilting you a special tank top version in which you can walk around downtown Tampa and flexxxxxxx. Keep up the great work on 9rules as well. Great content and great design will win out in the end. That’s one of many philosophies our two companies have always shared.
