Brandon Kleinman™

@MikeElgan wrote a well thought out and articulate OP-ED about Google +’s strategy to make all their current products “features” in a single robust offering. Below is my response to both his piece and a series of conversations that I have had with the Google + product team and some other Googlers.

Mike is right, Google+ is being built to be the mother-ship for integrating all of Google’s products.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes and it has become increasingly clear as they have announced updates on the product.

About five months ago I was in Google’s new, New York office across the street from Chelsea Market in a room with about 10 other agency/brand executives the Google + product team walked us through the planned roadmap of what “+’ would become over the next year and asked for our feedback.  It was a long ambitious telling and to their credit  most of their predictions have unfolded exactly or close to as expected (Users, new feature integrations, specific Facebook comparison and a few other things that is still privileged).  That day  I saw a problem  and have only seen it grow.  Google seems to believe that a combination of their ubiquity, strong product offerings and cache will be enough to catch on with consumers.

I am not going to diver your attention to the already covered argument of whether or not Google + is suffering from the “try it and leave” phenomenon, but here is my take on the platforms problem.

The internet is crowded. I try tons of products each week. Every product I adopt to use consistently started by  solving a major problem in my life.  Facebook was good for checking/sharing peoples pictures and shooting them low commitment messages, Hacker News curated my technology news and Gmail was the most organized and specially large email client I had ever seen.  Each one of these products were a simple but “killer app” that fixed something in my life. Years later Facebook still serves those functions and has grown to become my central location for personal news happenings from friends.  This only happened because the killer app became so necessary to so many people that everyone jumped on the site and it became more valuable (The network affect).  After months of religiously reading  Hacker News I began to realize that the real insights came from the comments section and now years later I read the comments before the articles.  Google’s Gmail now runs my calender, low level documents and a keyword alerts, but none of these additional pieces were important until I picked up an Android and the combined seamlessness of the software/hardware as well as the tried and true reliability of Gmail led me to try it all.

Google + was tried and abandoned by general population because it doesn’t offer value in itself so people never integrated it into their life.  The strategy of “add more features!” looks like the old Hollywood starlet who keeps getting plastic surgery to try to stay relevant, but doesn’t realize it only alienates her more.  Instead be Betty White and embrace your situation and create a reason for people to care about you (she has got to be the most irreverent silver fox in entertainment).

If Google doesn’t create an easy to understand mainstream use out for Google+  outside of being a hub for their products, it will never the epic mother-ship that they envision it becoming.

While witnessing the Saints beat the Lions tonight I watched Rand Fishkin wax poetic on SEO (Video Here).  He touched on a TON of simple/brilliant ways to both increase your SEO and get peoples attention without begging.  The one that stood out to me most was to create awards for influential people.  A good example of what I mean when I say “create awards” is the “AdAge Top Marketing Blog,”

Basically AdAge is an industry magazine that was getting killed in explosion of digital.  So instead of telling people they now were experts on digital they figured out a way to get the respected leaders to tell everyone for them.  They created a badge/award that took a handful of seemingly random social metrics (Twitter, Facebook, Stumble Upon, Linkedin, Alexa and Yahoo) and started awarding badges.  Almost overnight high value high traffic sites like chrisbrogan.com started throwing AdAge branded badges on their sites.  It was a win-win the blogger gets to show off a bit and now AdAge is a respected arbiter of taste in digital.

For niche products there is almost no barriers of entry to create “honors” for customer or influencer targets.  There are a plethora of publicly available statistics that can be blended together to create a viable award for them.  So instead of telling people how good you are, give them a vested interest in telling others how good you are.

“Never let the facts get in the way of a good story”

-Mark Twain

This quote always gives me a hard time. Like most people I have this eternal internal struggle to always provide all the details sexy or not.  The older I get the more I value emotion, message and action.

“Mr. Obama, the first black to become president” – The New York Times

President Obama in fact is of mixed descent (white + black) and the story painted here, and everywhere else is technically untrue.

“Guns Kill People”

If guns started killing people without users, we would have to call John Conner.  Guns don’t kill people, people that shoot guns at other people kill people.  Here is an even better way to say it.

The art of a great storyteller is rarely the facts, but instead what facts are important to include.  If you want to be a great story teller and are concerned about telling “everything” you probably will never master the craft.  On the other hand if you tell stories that are completely grounded in exaggeration you are likely not to be listened to.

The skill of a story teller can be measured by the acuteness of ones “feeling” for leaving things in and leaving things out.

A couple days ago a story struck me.

As many of you have now seen, the Minnesota Vikings home stadium (The Metrodome) saw its roof collapse last Sunday — rendering it unusable for at minimum two weeks.  The Vikings are scheduled to play the Chicago Bears for Monday Night Football (the biggest game of the week) and officials have decided that the game will be played at The University of Minnesota’s stadium — a stadium that is completely outdoors and covered in a thick layer of Minnesota snow, rendering it football-less until cleared.  With little time to waste, U. of Minnesota officials decided to put out a press release asking for local volunteers to come help shovel the snow out of the stadium in time for Monday Night Football.

So, who the F%^k wants to shovel snow in, what is at this exact moment (Thursday @3p), 21 degrees with snowfall.  I must repeat: for no pay after a long work day.

Well, within hours the university got so many volunteers that it had to turn away many people.  At first glance this flies in the face of common sense.  But there are other examples of this like;

Diaspora’s meteoric Kickstarter fundraising campaign

These guys doing this extraordinary animation with just Google docs

Hands across America

Economists will talk ‘till they’re blue about the idea of a “tipping point,” social media heads will ask you, “Can we identify the major influencer in that made this happen?” These things are all small variables, but there seems to be a pretty simple idea at play.

If you tap into the pride of a group of people, whether it’s a group of Minneapolitan, ans “open platform” supporters, artists or whomever else and challenge them to a seemingly impossible task that is seen as meaningful, you will more often than not get a great response.

Pride/Purpose + Meaningful Directive= Noteworthy accomplishment (It also will normally go viral.)

So what mountains need moving in your community?

The conversation at Facebook headquarters likely went down like this:

Marketing or UI Guy:  Eureka!  I know why people love Facebook.  It makes them feel like celebrities in their own social circle.

Zuck:  Totally!

Marketing UI Guy:  We need to figure out a way to capitalize on this!  Something subtle that makes them feel more like a celebrity.

Zuck:  BUT HOW!? BUT WHAT!? (His hand slams the conference table, his Gap sweatshirt sleeves flying madly)

Marketing or UI Guy: I GOT IT! IMDB!

Zuck (With a second of hesitation):  OK, (yells at accountant) start filling out the paperwork to buy IMDB.  (To biz dev)  Get whoever owns IMDB on the phone and tell them….

Marketing or UI Guy: No, No, No Zuck pump the breaks.  Lets just redesign our profile pages to look like theirs.

Silence…

Zuck:  We’ve done it again! (Hops into Ferrari with ten models thats parked in the conference room for some reason).

(End Scene)

But seriously, the similarities are uncanny.  From the pictures carousel to the background information right under persons name.

What do you think?

(Big ups to Aaron at Harcos Labs for bringing it up).  Also I know the formatting is bad, but it was easier for readers to see the picture this way.

Brandon

The Application

The day arrived and my partner and I flew up to SF.  Our prep work for the interview was light (as all research called it a “rapid-fire conversation”).  We reviewed our major talking points and just kept loose.  In SF we borrowed our friend’s car and headed 45 minutes out to Mountain View.  We found the YC office in a sleepy office park:

Upon walking in, we saw that it was a very basic space bustling with enthusiastic young people of all walks of life (its not a weeniefest as you might expect). Even in the brief waiting time it was very easy to make friends like Stavros (you might be familiar with his experience).    After talking with a bunch of people it was clear the makeups was 40% alums and 50% YCW11s and 10% YC employees.  The past alums were mellow and calming – talking about what they were working on – and the people who had just interviewed were all sure they had failed.

Eventually we were flagged into the interview room where six people were waiting for us.  Everyone introduced themselves for a minute and we got to questions.  (We would later learn that the clock starts as soon as the door closes, so do one quick introduction if you can).  Jessica started with the basic “what is your idea about” question and we nailed it quickly.  Then the tangents started rolling out from different sides.  Some comments/questions were relevant, like, “Why haven’t you built more?” or “Speed it up, I know your back-story, just answer these questions directly,” but some were distracting like, “If I loved competitor X a lot, I would probably not switch products because they are big.  No?”  It seemed like we had just sat down when there was a knock on the door and a voice said, “Ok, time’s up.”

The way I described the interview to my friends was as if someone blindfolded you, spun you around five times, whipped off your blindfold, and then asked you to recite the alphabet backwards.  It was not a difficult interview, it was just incredibly disorienting.  I have had long sit-downs with VCs and Angels in the past, but this type of interview is absolutely unique.

When we got outside, we both felt a little nauseous.  We answered all the questions articulately within the time were given.  We admitted to getting a little heated about a pair of specific questions, but all in all we felt just mediocre about our ability to articulate just how awesome our product is.

There was a journalist from Wired there who asked a bunch of questions about our feelings on the process and who seemed like a nice enough guy.  After talking to him we chatted with couple other interviewees.  I have to note, everyone there was F’ing brilliant at something and it is immediately evident.  The strongest part of YC seems to be their ability to really motivate the best to come and see them.

The next two hours were spent consuming a liquid dinner at St. Stephen’s Green bar a few blocks from YC ground zero.  There, we mentally relived the interview and flirted with two of the pretty bartenders.  Eventually we headed back to the airport.

We knew the YC legend of “call if you’re in, email if you’re out,” and the wait combined with the traffic-induced two hour drive to SFO International was excruciating.  Every time the new message light on the phone would blink, our hearts sank and when it rang, they raced.   It was like a game of Simon if it was run by the Saw guy.  As we pulled up to the airport the message light went on and I had new email from Paul Graham.

The gist of it was: We have decided not to fund you. We love your idea, but we are concerned that it will be too difficult to get your product to critical mass.  Thanks a lot.  PG.  The man never wastes words.

I must admit I was far more disappointed than I anticipated.  Being there and meeting other companies gives the program a tangible existence that made it much harder to immediately put behind me.  After about 15 minutes, though, I knew that being here meant we were certainly on the right track.

A bunch of my friends and colleagues called and gave nice words like, “Damn man!  You got so far, this is more of a confirmation of your skills than an indication of your failings.”

I am certainly grateful for all this, but I hate losing something I think is right.  Hopefully I cross paths with all those brilliant minds down the line.  Until then, back to grinding.

See you around.

BK

Part 3 Analysis To Come

I am writing a three part series about my experience with the Y Combinator application process from beginning to end.

Tuesday: Application and Acceptance!

Wednesday:  The Interview

Thursday:  My Tips For Prospective YC companies For The Future

For those who don’t know me, my name is Brandon and I founded a stealth startup out in Los Angeles.  While I can’t give away the “secret sauce,” I can tell you that we are a Yelp competitor running on the premise that using Yelp is the equivalent of using a samurai sword from Hattori Hanzo when all you need to do is cut cucumbers for a salad.  It’s overkill.

After a brief conversation with my partner, we decided to submit our YC application at the last second before the deadline.   We filmed a video of ourselves talking about our company, our passions, and the fine whiskeys we were sipping.   It definitely showcased our chemistry, drive, and our personalities.  For the written portion of the application, I did what I always do when applying for something with a high volume of applicants: I answered the questions in a Microsoft Word document and once every hour (for four hours) went back and eliminated half the words.  My goal is always to say what I need to say in as few words as possible. Once we had each answer down to baby paragraphs, we sent it off.

We were excited, though realistic, about our chances.  We thought the YC community was the perfect solution to eliminate all distractions during final build and launch that would also naturally increase our creative output because of the surrounding intense competition.

The initial rejection/acceptance day came (where you either get the, “come see us in San Francisco” or “better luck next time” email) while I was traveling from LA to New York to work with some clients. (I do marketing consulting in my free time.)  I got off the plane at 10 p.m. and I had no emails from YC – neither good or bad.  At this point I began to think, “Wow! Our idea and personalities are so terrible that we didn’t even get a response.”  As I was hopping on the AirTrain from JFK to Manhattan, my Blackberry loaded a new email message (subway cell reception is awful) from Paul Graham.  Here is the exact message:

- Show quoted text -

———- Forwarded message ———-

From: Paul Graham XXXX

Date: Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 9:33 PM

Subject: yc application

To: XXX

Cc: XXX

Turns out you mistyped your email addr, so the first mail we tried

to send you bounced, but here it is again:

From:XXX

Subject: Y Combinator application

Your application looks promising and we’d like to meet you in person.

Interviews take place on November 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 and 21 at our

office in Mountain View, CA.

Please go here to read how interviews work and sign up for a slot:

REDACTED

We’ll be calling you to answer any questions you have about YC.  In

the meantime we encourage you to read this, which answers most of

the questions applicants have had in the past:

REDACTED

If you want to learn more about YC or interviews, we also encourage

you to ask founders of YC-funded startups.  They will usually be

happy to answer your questions.  (Bear in mind though that most of

them are busy trying to run startups.)

See you in California!

The Management

–

I called my partner the next day, and after five minutes of, “STFU!  Stop Playing!” he finally believed me.  We coordinated and picked an interview slot.  We would be up there on the last day at 3:30.  It was set.

Part II Preview: “The Interview” (Hail Storms, Pretty Waitresses, The 6 Wise-Peoples and More!)

I think people are falsely saint’ing Hollywood and the literature biz for not being hit as hard as the the music industry by piracy.  There are a ton of argument’s on why the music industry got hit the worst of the “three little entertainment pigs.”  They range from music exec; arrogance, greed, fan neglect, Napster and a ton of other reasons that put the blame somewhere on the music industries shoulders.  I recently explained why I thought books and movies made it out (and will continue to do so) in better shape than music.

Demand: The most obvious laggard here is books.  The people who are most able to steal things digitally are the younger generation.  While I won’t say they don’t read, they clearly read less than the previous generation.  As I told a friend who works at the Huffington Post.  “9 out of 10 kids are not racing home from class to check their bit-torrent for “The Kite Runner,” they want to be the first to grab “Kanye’s” new album.  The thing protecting books at least at this stage of the “digitally apt” generation’s life cycle is their indifference to the medium.  How ironic.

Length of Content: It takes to long to consume each piece of media (books and movies).  I have Netflix DVDs sitting on my Blu-Ray for weeks at a time when I get busy.  3 hours (Movie) or even 10-20 Hours (Book) is a lot of time, so the amount of media stolen is reduced to the limited time you have to consume it.

Immediate Social Feedback: This is the least obvious, but likely strongest reason.  The reason why singles are shared exponentially more than full albums is simple.  You can send a cool song to a friend and immediately get social proof back.  “Hey check out Lady GaGa and David Bowies new single, it doesn’t come out for three weeks!  Now I am sharing it with you.  How cool is this!”  You can have a complex social exchange that can affect someones whole week in less than 10 minutes with a pirated single.  For the same reason albums are shared less, so too are movies and books.  By the time you get the feedback from friends on books and movies it is often irrelevant.  So there is little added social value to sharing long content.

Things to Watch For:

Television shows are a piece of content that can be shared effectively.  The combination of shared long-term investment (on a serial style show) and relatively short consumption time, makes it vulnerable for mass sharing between friends.  It will be interesting to see if networks continue to give away staggered episodes of shows online for free (Like Hulu does), in order to get you frustrated enough to buy the DVD set to start from the beginning.

The music industry wasn’t any worse prepared, greedy or stupid than any of its entertainment siblings.  The wolf that is digital piracy just ate it because it was easiest pig to digest.