Re:Ways Founders Sabotage Themselves
by ryandrake on Saturday June 07, 2014 @11:50AM
(#7862328)
Wow, a lot of this rings true. I've witnessed #5 directly, and it's maddeningly frustrating. Once the execs get this idea that viral is this magical path to user growth, the idea can't be killed. This is the plan:
1. Start with our product that has nothing to do with social networking
2. Spoon in some "social" and "sharing", and mix.
3. ROCKETSHIP VIRAL GROWTH OMFG!
...and when you don't get to step three, just keep adding MORE SOCIAL!
Force people to log in using Facebook! Put share buttons everywhere! Harvest the user's address book and spam it! Harvest their Facebook friends! Add Twitter! Add Google+!
What's worse is when you're resource constrained and you stop working on the core features of your product: the features that actually bring real users to your product to.
1. Start with our product that has nothing to do with social networking
2. Spoon in some "social" and "sharing", and mix.
3. ROCKETSHIP VIRAL GROWTH OMFG!
...and when you don't get to step three, just keep adding MORE SOCIAL!
Force people to log in using Facebook! Put share buttons everywhere! Harvest the user's address book and spam it! Harvest their Facebook friends! Add Twitter! Add Google+!
What's worse is when you're resource constrained and you stop working on the core features of your product: the features that actually bring real users to your product to.