Twitter co-founder Evan Williams is on the Web video show Tekzilla in an interview conducted by Veronica Belmont on-stage last week at the Web 2.0 Expo. It was the same day that Biz Stone was in New York taping the Colbert Report. The best part of the interview is when Ev starts answering questions from the audience submitted via Twitter, which is where the clip starts above (you can watch the entire segment here).
The first question is what advice would he give to someone trying to build their own startup. His answer:
The core thing would be just do something awesome. Try not to get caught up in the echo chamber. That is probably the toughest thing when you are trying to break out and do something original.
A lot of things are evolutionary, and it is easy to get caught up on what the geek subculture thinks. There’s lots of valuable businesses that can be built there, but I think that is where a lot of people tend to spin their wheels, and I’ve been caught up there before. When I’ve had more successful things, I’ve thought, “Back to basics. What do I want? What do I want to see in the world?” And create that.
He is also asked what he thinks about Facebook’s Twitter-like redesign. “Did they redesign?” he jokes. Then he admits he is impressed and hints that some of the things Facebook did is on Twitter’s own design roadmap. (Maybe Facebook got some ideas from their acquisition discussions with Twitter which fell apart). One thing that Twitter plans to do better is make it easier to share videos and photos, perhaps with inline viewing. Now, that would be awesome. Williams says:
Yeah, I think we should support images and video better than we do today, it does not mean we should host them, maybe viewing inline. I don’t want to get into competition with Youtube. Twitter is lubricant for Web content.
And asked about a business model, he says Twitter will be experimenting with different approaches, but that for now it is still a “secondary” concern to building out the service. One thing Twitter won’t do: allow people to go beyond 140 characters.
Good for them – now let’s see them make some money.
Well said.
yeah, like you are going to get any of this money
You know, what Ev says about getting caught up in “what the geek subculture thinks” can be equally applied to the money subculture.
I dream of the day we stop calling things like Twitter a company, and start referring to them as hobbies. The tax law states that if you’re not trying to become profitable within 2 years you’re no longer a business.
Statements like “not focusing on making money right now” make me wonder just how justifiable their write-off’s are within the IRS’s eyes.
Twitter’s got so much potential as an essential basic communication service. You’re crazy if you don’t see it.
Dude -
I’d like to see a reference to the ‘tax law’ that you state (at least US tax law).
I’ve known people that have owned businesses (i.e. small, but real) that for years and years and years never made a profit. It was done purely as a tax writeoff for the people involved.
Usually something like a boutique owned by the doctor’s wife when the doctor desperately needs a write-off.
These ‘companies’, such as they are, are much much smaller than Twitter, but that’s irrelevant. The law applies equally.
- Bill
Bill, either I’m missing something or you are. Your example is exactly why there is that tax law. Just because the IRS can’t catch every little company doesn’t make it any less illegal.
@Bill: I believe he’s referring to the “3 of 5″ test that the IRS supposedly uses to determine whether to audit a company for attempting to operate a tax shelter.
If you claim losses for 3 of the last 5 years, it is said that you’re much more likely to be audited (and be forced to prove that you’re actually trying to operate a viable business).
Money is not that important in the big scheme of things. Think of the quality personal connections and friendships that you can make using Twitter, priceless.
I was thinking more along the lines of, “Come back and talk to us when you’re profitable.”
Idiot advice from someone who lost touch with everyday reality a while back.
Sigh.
Interesting news
i may get on him for not making money but the guy sure knows how to create companies. i am very impressive overall. a farm boy from nebraska with such success great story.
Do something awesome, as opposed to??
Something that doesn’t suck!
what is this awesome thing he is speaking of ?
Another social network. Duh.
We’re adding live video interviews on Bido.com next week (Tuesday), it isn’t easy to interview live as she makes it. Good stuff!
Cheers
Sahar Sarid – Co founder
Bido.com – Social Auction Platform
I love Twitter!
Clearly Ev wants to make Twitter as a platform and get people to create applications on top of twitter. And I do see a great value in it. For example, I kinda got addicted to one of the twitter applications called http://www.boilingpage.com that brings the real-time hottest pages on the web based on how popular they are in twitter. Clearly focusing on making Twitter as a platform is a great thing to do.
Did you just say “real-time hottest pages” .. wow.
I’m sure you have nothing to do with that page, either…At least you know the locator guy has a bias
He has a location based bias
I don’t see how anyone can consider what Twitter can do to be “awesome.” It is just truncated functionality of other blogging sites that serves it’s own niche.
“Do something awesome?”
So what’s his excuse?
If you are interested in seeing inline video results for tweets you can try out our new version of twitmatic:
http://www.twit...witmatic_search
we’re still working on some of the bugs but it’s very interesting to see what videos people are sharing.
we are…
The secondary concern should be the primary concern. This is the advice.
But if he starts saying, “Failure is not an option” enough, making money could become a tertiary concern.
What about making conversataions easy to follow like Facebook?
Ev knows what he is talking about and is a good guy, but they need to think fast about making money. These social websites haven’t made anything close to expectations. Building out the service is fine, and it is already built up reasonably, they need to make money and get away from this honeymoon kind of period.
if your focus isn’t on making money “right now” as Ev puts it, then IMHO, you’re not running a company “right now.”
it only becomes a company when you start becoming concerned with making revenue and, dare i say it, a profit. prior to that point it’s a diversion, a hobby, or a passtime. or a tax writeoff as others have pointed out. interesting sure but we all have better things to do surely…er, like, making money??
False. You do *not*, in fact, get to tell people, or even companies, what their values should be.
Correct. Just as we all *do*, in fact, get to tell people, or even companies, how their comments should be written.
Now let’s share some vodka and let our comrade reflect on his shortcomings alone for a while.
i *wasn’t* telling people or even companies what their values should be, i was merely expressing my view, and that’s that a company should have one primary value that supercedes others, which is making a profit. IMHO (notice this in my original posting).
happy to share some vodka anytime and reflect on my own shortcomings. as well as yours.
Their focus seems to be be maximizing the amount of money that gets made during the lifetime of Twitter. They’ve decided to build a large community of dedicated users, and then monetize. If they focused on making money ‘right now’, they may upset users, limiting long term growth, and thus lowering the total amount of money made.
That’s definitely running a company.
Yes. And they might not even be trying to maximize the amount of money they make in the long term. They might be trying to build something that is a force for good, both for the community, employees, and for the world, just like Ev has said.
That requires that they earn enough money to cover costs, sure, but it doesn’t require that they maximize the amount of money they make, ever, or that they adhere to any spectator’s dictum about what they “need” to do.
I’m glad Google didn’t think so small and chase money straight away back in 1998, and I’m glad companies like Twitter and Friendfeed aren’t, either.
I think we need to accept many people who comment on Techcrunch actually have no idea what they are talking about.
Twitter is doing extremely well and will continue to do so. A focus of making money NOW is not how you run a successful business.
The assumptions with so many of these ventures is that when they turn on the advertising spigot that their users will remain. Is this really a reasonable assumption?
Yes, that is their assumption. When they actually starts making money if they ever will, things will turn ugly by new user registration going down and people jumping ship, people not liking the ads. I mean Twitter is already a grown up company.
One way to make money on twitter is to use your page like the classified and charge for a listing link simular to adwords and price based on how popular you are with followers.
The core thing would be just do something awesome. Try not to get caught up in the echo chamber. That is probably the toughest thing when you are trying to break out and do something original.
In other words, don’t build a Twitter add-on or service that leverages its API
Dude needs to take some of his own advice.
lol @ his mic, looks like a guy from star-trek
I think he proves that he is a good guy in this video, and obviously has a good perspective on his advice.
My wife asked me “what is twitter” the other day and the bottom line is, even though it doesn’t connect with too many people at first, to created that level of buzzworthiness is to be commended.
…and lose other peoples money! ha,ha,ha
I think what he was saying is instead of trying to be the next, Digg, the next TechCrunch, the next Twitter, come up with an original idea. Stop just re-hashing others ideas. At least add a spin to it that gives it it’s own target audience instead of trying to compete for being a third rate copy.
Dear Evan,
We have a boring B2B lead generation and customer retention solution as a web service that helps to make money for our customers (that’s even more boring).
How can we do something awesome?
Gee twitter is just a poxy micro blog no wonder it hasnt took off over here in the U.K,it’s just ageek thing……
jonathan ross, stephen fry, jack dee, philip schofield et al. I think you’ll find that is has taken off, there is quite a huge celeb buzz going on. Now of course if they were all paid to endorse it, shared similar agents and it was being driven by a PR company then you’d have a point, but otherwise once they’ve managed to get pics into the tweetstream easier for non-geeks it could well be the david to facebooks goliath.
Does anyone know how Twitter makes money?
vc funds
Ahhh, if were only as easy as ‘do something awesome’………
Twitter secret: “One thing Twitter won’t do: allow people to go beyond 140 characters”.
I think the real takeaway here is that Twitter is web lube.
That is pretty damn arrogant of him. “Do something awesome…” Really? That is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I really like Evan and Twitter, they do things well, and they don’t try overly hard to be perfect or please everyone. They seem sincere and real, and I’m very happy to be apart of their community.
pretty funny.
Give me a break, Erick. The two biggest Captain Obviouses are Loic Le Meur and Jason Calacanis. Coincidentally, they also happen to be the two guys whoses asses TC constantly kisses.
I love how the advice is “make something awesome”.
The real advice should be “make something awesome, and also be hugely successful with a previous company sold to google, a popular podcasting site, an existing following in the geek press and a wad of cash to sit on forever while you spin your wheels trying to figure out how to deal with scale”.
This is very IRONIC because he advises not to get stuck in the geek subculture – but then he’s on stage in front of of that same rabid crowd and his advice is ‘do something awesome’.
LOL. This just proves my point that a lot of these conferences are just snake oil – get people excited about something harmless but charge for the privilege – like Ronda Birnes ‘the secret’. It’s marketing web flavor.
Oh, and if you don’t beleive me maybe you’ll believe the guy who actually wrote twitter – Blaine cooke – http://events.c...s/blaine-cook-2 . “Don’t build something new – twitter is SMS + Blog”.
LOL LOL LOL at the rabid crowds who probably left the conference thinking ‘yes! we’re going to have this idea and be millionaires!’ HAHA
I with anyone who believe that those sites are hobbys type. I dont really see any ways of making profit from twitter. IT just wont happen. Not because there are no ways of doing that, but only because people are USED TO the internet as a free media. anytime when you try to make a profit out of it, guess what, they turn around take five minutes of search and find something similar that is free! and thats the way it will stay for a long time. We, the people are the children of the first internet era. The internet stands for “free”, free download, free registration, etc. The moment you start making the money, users will switch to something cheaper. On the other hand, who remembers lycos or altavista? they have been the first search engines, some japan company pumped up 3 billions in lycos (!) and yet now it is worth just a little. So ,the bottom line: before twitter owners will get to the point: ok now we enough popular, lets try to get back that $100mil our investors put in, new internet era and their users will switch to new toys. it like driving a car — no matter how cool and sporty that oldsmobile or caddilac will be, your kid will choose cheaper bmw or mercedes just BECAUSE.
I hope that makes sense..