I learned about Product Hunt because of stupid app YO (Product Hunt is a place for us to share new products and discuss them). Business Insider has the role it played in getting the hype cycle geared up. Some lessons about YO for entrepreneurs: 1. The press is looking for stories. YO didnt get launched seriously. Why not? Its a stupid app and no one would be able to pitch this with a straight face to anyone. But that made it different than all the other app pitches journalists (and me) have gotten. Because it was different it stood out. 2. It messed with the Israelis are smart belief. On my trip to Israel I saw smart entrepreneur after entrepreneur. Doing companies with real technology. I got pitched by Thetaray, for instance, and they have security software that has algorithms that are way beyond what Ive seen from other companies. Thats what we expect from Israel. But YO? No, thats what we expect from, well, I wont say. But it wasnt Tel Aviv that came to my mind. 3. It wasnt a story until it got adoption. Adoption is what gets the attention of the press, of investors. So the day I saw it it was just a stupid, lame, app that was a funny inside joke in the Tel Aviv startup scene, pushed by someone who had several serious successes under his belt. 4. Moshe Hogeg (the guy who caused YO to be built) is well connected. That Sunday I was doing interviews in his lobby and the cofounder of Tencent walked through my interview on a way to a meeting with Moshe. When you are that connected an inside joke can spiral out of control. 5. I have no idea how YO gets to the place where itll survive beyond being the Pet Rock of 2014 (when I was growing up, a guy in Los Gatos sold millions of dollars worth of Pet Rocks which sold BECAUSE of the humor, same way YO got to the top of the app store). What can Moshe add to YO to make it stick around? More words? Better contact list? Every idea I can come up with makes the humor of YO go away, but maybe thats what it needs, headlines like Download YO again, it now is a serious in-office communication tool. I dont know, though. If I did know Id start companies instead of just doing videos about them. 6. It found a new social graph, at least at first. I only added people onto it that I met face-to-face in those early days. Why? Because you needed to be on the app to get the joke and, so, I only showed it to people who I knew would like a joke. Well, and all of you on Facebook, but I assume you all like a joke too. 7. If you are a rich guy and want an app built for whatever reason (Moshe wanted to get his assistants attention) youll get that app built, particularly if its only gonna take eight hours. Later, if it gets traction you werent expecting, you can raise money. Dont assume this formula applies to you. 8. Timing. I think YO still would have broken out if I hadnt seen it. It was already getting discussed by press people in Tel Aviv. Seemed a lot of people in Tel Aviv had gotten the same pitch by Moshe and had largely ignored it as the folly of an eccentric entrepreneur. But when I came along I saw the humor in it and wrote a post about it, which did speed up adoption and made it a story OK to post on Facebook. Oh, and thanks to Ayelet Noff and Motti Peer who had arranged for me to see Mobli (Moshes other company). While I was there, you might forget, Mobli had 175,000 comments in four minutes on a single post on its service. So, at least at some level Moshes other company was doing well, which made YO even funnier. It was a way for everyone to blow off some steam (most of the Mobli team was working that Sunday to keep its servers going). Anyways, my warning to entrepreneurs: if you try to apply humor to the wrong kind of product you might get off track of serving your customers so dont overthink this. A perfect PR storm doesnt happen often and just because one happened this week doesnt mean you can manufacture the same next week. By the way, Moshe is still on YO and so am I. Its the stupid app I just cant delete. On a week where we got Slingshot from Facebook and a new phone from Amazon thats continuing the inside joke. To me its funny. To get me to see funny, you gotta show me serious first. I dont really want to be pitched on 1,000 funny apps now, thats not what Im about. I want to see the next mind-blowing technology. Thetaray is far more interesting to me than YO is, for instance.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:40:32 +0000
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