The problem which I faced while trying to bootstrap a social product is that without some previous reputation/success, getting traction for your startup is very tough, and at times even demoralizing. It's better to focus on a single user product which is not dependent on a network effect for success...
getting traction for your startup is very tough,
and at times even demoralizing.
Amen, sister! It can be even worse when relatively non-social folks build a social startup. It isn't uncommon for someone to realize that they aren't actually users of social media only after they build a social application. Nothing worse than building something only to realize that you have to convince other people to use it when you aren't interested in using it.
Nice article. AFAICT, "social" is a bit like TNT. If you don't know how to handle social/TNT and you're handling social/TNT, you're in deep shit. If you mention social/TNT, you better have a strong argument for why you are able to use it correctly. I've heard very well connected and regarded folks say "when we get to scale, we can monetize easily...". The question back is always "awesome! when can you come back with proof? Say 50k users and growing?" Carrying the analogy forward too far, there are some applications that are 100% dependent on explosives, but they're few and far between (see Fireworks), but I hear tons of people talking about social applications as though they're super-common and easy. More often than not TNT/social are added to existing applications to enhance the application: see Mining or Music; rarely are TNT/social used to build stand-alone applications (see Fireworks, Facebook, Twitter).
I'm definitely in favor of the article's advice to: build a tool you'll use, get others to use it, figure out how to add network effects, then figure out how to add social. Much less risky and, probably, much more satisfying.
From TFA:
my latest venture is Buffer,
a new Twitter application.
I appreciate the author's points on adding-social and I'd certainly be curious about his perspective on building an applications that is 100% dependent on a capricious social network.
Very well written. This is something that has been obvious to me for a long time, but I've never been able to explain it in such a simple and clear way before.
I'm saving this article to show to the next person who approaches me to work on a social startup.
I totally agree. The best case scenario is to make a product that is useful for 1 user, but becomes even more useful as more and more users use it. The best example is FourSquare. You can check in, and earn badges, but as you tell more and more friends about it, those badges become a bigger status symbol. Yet even without any friends, it still feels good using it
I also agree with the article but FourSquare seems to me more like a counterexample rather than the best example. Its utility is arguable even after the network effects, let alone without them.
Yes, Foursquare would be a "social" idea in my mind. However, Dennis Crowley has had an exit previously, so I think it makes social ideas easier for him to pursue. I think social ideas with network effects are very difficult to succeed with when you're a first time entrepreneur with no track record.
How is FourSquare doing nowadays? I never used it, but it was a big deal about a year ago and I haven't heard much from 'em since (I'd pretty much forgotten about them).
With competition from facebook checkins, isn't FourSquare more or less doomed right now?
I just did a quick analysis with Google Insights for Search and posted the results. To me, it looks like 4sq is flat since April globally, and down 30% from its peak in Aug 2010 in the US:
Don't forget that Facebook started as a "tool" - essentially a preseeded online yearbook. Social ideas are fine as part of your vision, but they are essentially impossible to bootstrap without being useful in other ways first.
