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Instagram’s CEO

stratechery.com

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Re: Instagram’s CEO

#71

Post by opportune »

eldavido wrote: post #38
mooreds wrote: post #17

This is a sobering look at what it takes to build a business vs a product (vs, even smaller scale, a feature). You have to be willing to put in the long hours (err, years) and the schlepping to do all the business-y stuff: * distribution * monetization * back end systems for admin users * sales channels etc, etc Or, you can cash out and assimilate, err integrate, with a larger company that has done that hard work and…

I am a daily reader of Stratechery. It's a very "MBA" publication: the emphasis is always on strategy, distribution channels, markets, sales and marketing, etc. It's a soberingly different worldview than product-obsessed, hacker/maker/developer-centric worldview you get on HN a lot of the time. HN definitely skews toward the entrepreneurial/business end of software, but there's still a real emphasis on building great…

I think some of these businessy folk see real-world examples of boring enterprise-y companies that most developers aren't passionate about as proof that it really is about sales. And I also think that's how you end up with completely tone deaf business-folk based startups like Juicero.

The incumbent/legacy/first mover advantage is the one thing in tech that allows you to overcome better competition. Yes, as a mature company with a large integrated software suite, sales are extremely important. This does not apply to early stage companies.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#72

Post by jenks »

This article does a great job illustrating how it is easy to have IDEAS, but its hard to develop them to a point where they are bold enough to work yet feasible enough to where they're worth working on. Instagram never would have done stories if they were concerned about how a large group of users would think that they are:

> entirely stolen from snapchat

> a total sellout

but look what a bold idea and strong leadership brought to instagram!

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#73

Post by orliesaurus »

mandeepj wrote: post #41
orliesaurus wrote: post #11

Great article, this is how I feel about Instagram personally: - Great app who turned a camera phone into a powerful camera for those who couldn't afford one of those expensive Canon/other brands of good cameras. - Democratizing photography made phone vendors spend more time build better camera, we're at a point where cameras on certain phones are as a good as stand-alone cameras for photography. - Filters have been a…

> Snapchat turning down $3B acquisition offer I think it was $30 B https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/google-buy-snap/

Yeah I missed a zero in there - a big zero it seems, sorry!

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#74

Post by Yhippa »

> Controlling one’s own destiny, though, takes more than product or popularity. It takes money, which is to say it takes building a company, working business model and all.

How true this is for life in general.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#75

Post by dasil003 »

Mahn wrote: post #54
eldavido wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a daily reader of Stratechery. It's a very "MBA" publication: the emphasis is always on strategy, distribution channels, markets, sales and marketing, etc. It's a soberingly different worldview than product-obsessed, hacker/maker/developer-centric worldview you get on HN a lot of the time. HN definitely skews toward the entrepreneurial/business end of software, but there's still a real emphasis on building great…

> "It's not the technology that matters, it's the strategy". I don't think that's right. A big talking point that comes up over and over with Instagram was how well-built the app was. Yet that wouldn't have mattered if they hadn't pivoted from a location based app to photo sharing. Technology/product matters to get your foot in the door, but it's strategy/execution what ultimately makes it or breaks it.

But strategy/execution are not orthogonal to technology/product. Strategy is about which buckets are important (product, tech, sales, marketing, etc), and execution is about filling those buckets with the right people. Technology/product may matter a lot or not at all at any point in the lifecycle depending on the strategy.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#76

Post by subdane »

eldavido wrote: post #38
mooreds wrote: post #17

This is a sobering look at what it takes to build a business vs a product (vs, even smaller scale, a feature). You have to be willing to put in the long hours (err, years) and the schlepping to do all the business-y stuff: * distribution * monetization * back end systems for admin users * sales channels etc, etc Or, you can cash out and assimilate, err integrate, with a larger company that has done that hard work and…

I am a daily reader of Stratechery. It's a very "MBA" publication: the emphasis is always on strategy, distribution channels, markets, sales and marketing, etc. It's a soberingly different worldview than product-obsessed, hacker/maker/developer-centric worldview you get on HN a lot of the time. HN definitely skews toward the entrepreneurial/business end of software, but there's still a real emphasis on building great…

Also a daily subscriber to Stratechery. Ben (Zuck?) under-indexes on the feeling of good will associated with a good product experience. But I agree that we over-index on it here on HN. IG won on speed, usability and UX over early competitors like Hipstamiatic and Flickr. But for sure the network was the addictive glue that brought users back, new users in and made the entire product grow. FB feels like the opposite experience to me - crappy product decisions, bloated UX, bad will. My best guess is FB pushed IGTV on Mike and Kevin. They did their best to implement it, but it feels tacked on, like a FB feature, and it became clear that more and more feature pressure was going to be put on the product until it too became bloated and incomprehensible. I don't think Ben sees this, but the poor product choices (in deference to business and strategy) will pile up and the vein will collapse, just as it is starting to do in FB's main product. IG had a good run, it's hard to imagine a future where it gets better from here.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#78

Post by hbosch »

mooreds wrote: post #17

This is a sobering look at what it takes to build a business vs a product (vs, even smaller scale, a feature). You have to be willing to put in the long hours (err, years) and the schlepping to do all the business-y stuff: * distribution * monetization * back end systems for admin users * sales channels etc, etc Or, you can cash out and assimilate, err integrate, with a larger company that has done that hard work and…

>I will say that I think he dismisses Snapchat's founders too quickly. Yes, they've been struggling, but they are trying to build a business rather than just integrate with an existing conglomerate.

From yesterday: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/snapchat-amazon-visual-sea...

I am aware this is not the same as acquisition or total assimilation, but I think it speaks directly to your comments about how Snapchat is trying to create it's business side of things.

Re: Instagram’s CEO

#79

Post by hectorr1 »

matchagaucho wrote: post #61

It's easy to second guess... "if only they'd hung there, the $100B valuation today would be theirs" . But how many first time entrepreneurs would turn down a $1B offer after 2 years of work? Guaranteed the writers of these articles have never been in that position.

Very few people turn that down, and even fewer are capable of running $100B companies. But those who are in the second camp are also probably in the first camp, because being an effective CEO requires the irrational confidence of first believing you are an effective CEO with limited evidence.

It's a little tautological, but the fact that they took it means they probably wouldn't have succeeded.

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