Category Archives: musings

On the limits of constrained media and self expression

painting-june_detail_C.25201028

After writing my last post on easing content creation, I’ve found myself repeatedly thinking about constrained media.

Here is the excerpt that got me thinking (with the most salient part of it bolded):

You can drastically simplify content creation by constraining the media format. There are many examples of this

  • Twitter limits you to 140 characters. Now you don’t need to worry about content length.
  • Tumblr makes certain types of posts super easy: photos, quotes, links, chats, audio files, and videos. You could write a long blog post, but it is easier to quickly share an image or quote that you like.
  • Pinterest and Instagram limit you to a single image, with an optional block of descriptive text.
  • Vine limits you to a six seconds of video.

The flip side of constraining the media format is that it limits self expression. Fortunately, media often has weird properties related to self expression, similar to doing arithmetic with infinity. Divide infinity by 2, and you feel like you’d have less, but you still have infinity. Divide it by 10, or 100, and you get the same thing. Media often works the same way. A blog post offers an infinite amount of self expression. An image or a 140-character tweet feels like less, but still offers infinite self expression.

If you follow this line of thought, it naturally leads to some interesting questions. Are there limits to constrained media? At what point do you lose the potential for infinite self expression?

Coincidentally, the YO app has just recently exploded and raised $1.2M. For those who haven’t seen it yet, it is a stupidly simple app: press a contact’s name, and the app will send the a push notification which says ‘YO’. Did I mention that it is stupidly simple?

Whatever you may think about it, the YO app is gaining traction and gaining in usage. And from a constrained media perspective, it is fascinating. The YO app is about constrained as you can get from media creation. It is effectively a 1-bit creation app. You either get a ‘yo’, or you don’t.

So what are the limits of self expression for a single bit of information?

It turns out that there still aren’t any limits: the potential for self expression is still infinite. Why? Because all of the context around the ‘yo’ matters: the sender, the receiver, the timing, and the situation.

A ‘yo’ could mean:

  • Yo, whats up?
  • Are you free?
  • I’m free now.
  • (from your SO) Love you — just thinking about you.
  • (from your annoying friend who send you 50 yo’s today) I’m going to continue bugging the shit out of you
  • (after a date, from a friend) How was that date last night?
  • (after a date, from the date) I had a good time. Would like to see you again.
  • (a week after a date, from the date) Why haven’t you called me back?
  • you could go on and on varying people and situations…

This is exciting.

The Internet has been around for quite a while and we are still inventing new ways to create content and express ourselves. On one end of the spectrum, we have apps like Medium and Storehouse who are letting users create elaborate stories using multimedia. At the other end of the spectrum we have apps like YO. And in between, there is a ton of possibilities.

When it comes to content and self expression, there are no limits.

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Photo credit: paintingsthatmove

Content creation for all: 8 ways to simplify online publishing

 

artforkids-brushes2

The World Wide Web enables publishing at an unprecedented scale. Anyone can create content, and any piece of content can be instantaneously distributed to anyone in the world.

Pretty awesome, right?

There is just one thing: although content creation has never been easier, the number of people who create is surprisingly small. This has become known as the 1% rule: 1% of people create the content, 99% of people consume.

There isn’t anything wrong with the 1% rule, but it isn’t ideal. The web enables everyone to have a voice, yet 99% of people don’t take advantage of it. If more people created content online, we would have more shared perspectives, more communication, and in general, more people connecting over their passions and interests. You have to believe that the world would be a better place.

Content creation should be easier, and fortunately, it can be. Seemingly small product design decisions can make a big impact for encouraging content creation.

As a thought experiment, let us start with this blog post. Long form blogging turns out to be a particularly difficult form of content creation. If we study what makes this post difficult to create, we can uncover several ways to simplify and ease content creation.

 

1. Strip away identity.

If you look at the top of this blog, you’ll see my real name. Do you know how difficult it is to write under my real name? I’m afraid of publicly being wrong, sounding like an idiot, or even worse, coming off as a complete jackass.

If we separate my real identity from my online identity, writing becomes easier. I become less fearful of what others think, and may write things that I otherwise wouldn’t.

Historically, handles (or user names) have been used for anonymity. They were used back in the days of IRC and forums, and are still used today on many popular sites like Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. Handles help with anonymity, but don’t ensure it. As time goes by, users leak information which can often be pieced together. With enough time, a motivated third party may learn the real identity behind a handle.

You could go further with anonymity by dissolving the idea of an online identity. For example, Secret uses transient handles. You have an identity, but it is a weak identity, a random icon that lives within a single conversation. Or, you could go all the way and completely dissolve online identity (e.g., Startups Anonymous).

The more you strip away identity, the easier it gets to create content about anything. And the more honest people get. It isn’t surprising some of the juiciest secrets are surfaced in anonymous social networks.

 

2. Constrain the audience.

This blog is public. That means that anyone anywhere in the world can read any bit of this blog and catch me looking like an idiot. As I continue to write, the chances of looking like an idiot increases. Doesn’t sound too good, huh?

Writing for the world is hard. There are things I will publicly announce to the world on this blog or on Twitter, but it is a small subset of the things that are on my mind. If we constrain the audience to my Facebook friends, things get easier. I’m more likely to share my current status. If we limit the audience my close friends and family on Whatsapp, I may share a rumor, a racy joke, or what is actually on my mind.

Audience matters, and the more comfortable the audience is, the easier it is to create honest and authentic content.

 

3. Constrain the media format.

The content in this blog is unconstrained. A post may be of arbitrary length and include any combination of images, videos, and text.

The unconstrained nature of a blog post makes it flexible and expressive, but also brings up many questions for content creators. How long should a post be? Should I add images? How many images? Where should they be placed? What about a video? Or a GIF? Should I have split this post into two posts or leave it as one? There are many questions to ask, and each question makes it less likely that the ‘publish’ button will be pressed.

You can drastically simplify content creation by constraining the media format. There are many examples of this

  • Twitter limits you to 140 characters. Now you don’t need to worry about content length.
  • Tumblr makes certain types of posts super easy: photos, quotes, links, chats, audio files, and videos. You could write a long blog post, but it is easier to quickly share an image or quote that you like.
  • Pinterest and Instagram limit you to a single image, with an optional block of descriptive text.
  • Vine limits you to a six seconds of video.

The flip side of constraining the media format is that it limits self expression. Fortunately, media often has weird properties related to self expression, similar to doing arithmetic with infinity. Divide infinity by 2, and you feel like you’d have less, but you still have infinity. Divide it by 10, or 100, and you get the same thing. Media often works the same way. A blog post offers an infinite amount of self expression. An image or a 140-character tweet feels like less, but still offers infinite self expression.

If you can simplify the media format while still allowing for infinite self expression, it is probably a win.

 

4. Remove the feeling of permanent publishing.

Most bloggers have a complex relationship with the ‘publish’ button. I definitely do. The button is the source of accomplishment (it feels great to ship a post into the real world!), but it is also a source of stress.

Blog posts feels final in two ways.

First, publishing a blog post feels like a one-time action. Once I hit that ‘publish’ button, it gets sent out to the blogosphere to RSS, my WordPress followers, and email subscribers. Most likely, if it is going to be read, it will be read at this point. Later on, someone may stumble upon it through a Google search, but old blog posts quickly loses interest as well as discoverability on the Internet. Second, the post feels final because it kind of is final. Once it gets cached in a search engine, or archived by archive.org, it is accessible forever.

Removing the feeling of publishing makes content creation much easier, and there are several ways to do this.

The first way has already been mentioned in (2) constraining the audience. A Facebook startus or a Whatsapp message doesn’t feel like publishing because it is relatively private (compared to this blog post).

Second, you can also remove by feeling of publishing by encouraging works-in-progress. In college, I used to manually write HTML for websites. I wouldn’t have any problem leaving my work online for people to see because it was a work-in-progress. Wikis are the same way. You can easily add to them because it is expected that the content will be edited/removed at some point in the future.

Third, you can delete by design. This has become a big thing with ephemeral content. Snapchat and Frankly are two great examples here; your content lives for only a few seconds, and then it disappears. Or, it feels like it disappears. I would bet that the content lives on their servers forever, but what matters is the ephemeral feeling.

 

5. Enable references to existing work.

This post includes original content. Original content is difficult to create.

You know what is easier to create? Existing content.

It sounds a little funny, but people do this everyday sharing links on Facebook, Twitter, and Delicious. Or, sharing images on Pinterest, imgfave, weheartit, etc. Or quotes from other websites.

“Creating” such content isn’t as much creating as it is identifying with content. There is so much content out there on the web, and more gets churned out on a daily basis. While we consume existing content, it isn’t difficult to find something that we identify with and want to share.

It turns out there is an extra big benefit to sharing existing content: it is simple from an interaction standpoint. Websites have employed one-click buttons for resharing, reblogging, repinning, etc.

 

6. Add context.

This post started with an empty text input field. There was no context. Just an intimidating blank canvas.

Creating content within a vacuum is difficult. Adding context makes creation easier.

A common way to create context is to add a prompt, such as an image to caption or a URL to comment on. Creating content within a context tends to be an emotional response, a sign of agreement/disagreement, or a perspective/comment. Sites like Quora, Quibb and Reddit lets users create prompts for other users to react to. Sites like Pinterest and Tumblr let users write a note within the context of an image, video, etc.

Oftentimes, a reaction to a prompt becomes another prompt. For example, a message which requires a response. Or a comment that invites a reply.

 

7. Constrain reactions of others.

Allowing others to comment on your content can be intimidating. Unconstrained commenting allows anyone to come along and shit on your thoughts.

Because of this, it is often a good idea to constrain the reactions of others. Products do this in different ways. Quibb constrains its membership, only allowing vetted members to comment. Secret constrains comments to your friends and friends of friends, effectively removing the vast majority of trolls on the Internet. Tumblr is designed to encourage likes and doesn’t emphasize comments. Medium and many other blogging platforms require comments to be OK’ed by the original poster. Some bloggers implement a timeout functionality where the comments section for posts become closed after a fixed number of days.

Most people enjoy thoughtful comments and reactions, but this is the Internet, and there be trolls everywhere. Finding a way to limit reactions to content can be a big win.

 

8. Watch the content container.

This blog post doesn’t exist on it’s own: it lives within a blog called ‘On life and startups’.

Blogging isn’t easy. If you’ve ever started a blog, you’ll know friction involved here. There are a lot of question involved with creating a blog. Which platform should I use? What should the tagline of the blog be? Will the tagline be too restricting? Should I blog about everything on my mind, or specific topics? How often should I update the blog? What if I stop writing? What if I run out of ideas?

Giving users a single container often has these problems. For example, I have the same problems on Twitter. My twitter stream has become the startup version of Alex. I don’t share many other things on there, even though I have other interests in my life outside of startups.

One approach is to give users multiple containers. A great example is Pinterest, which gives users the ability to create multiple boards. The boards allow a user to be their full selves. They can share DIY stuff in one board, good recipes in another, and their favorite infographics in yet another board.

Another approach is to free containers from user accounts. Medium makes posts and collections feel independent. I can curate multiple collections, and my posts can be syndicated on all collections that want to contain them.

Yet another approach is to simply free content from containers. Secret does this by making each secret independent. Secrets don’t live within a user profile. And since user identities only exist within a single secret, all secrets feel independent.

It may seem like a small thing, but the relationship between the user, content, and the container makes a difference when it comes to content creation.

 

Enable content creation, change the world.

Did you notice a trend throughout this post?

Some of the largest and most successful social media sites are defined by their methods for simplifying content creation. Twitter is defined by its 140-character tweets. Pinterest is defined by allows users to curate multiple collections of images. Snapchat is defined by images that self-destruct. Medium has been purposefully vague about intentions, but it is clear that it changes the relationship between users, content, and collections.

One of the biggest promises of the web is that is allows anyone to publish. Anything that makes this process easier is a huge win for the world.

Have some other ideas on how to simplify content creation? I would love to hear them in the comments.

Better yet, build the idea and get it out there. If you discover a new way to simplify publishing, or create a new combination from the examples above, you just might change the world.

 

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Photo credit: want2scrap

All that matters..

Sisyphus

 

Pretty awesome huh?

It is funny how all that matters in many products is the feeling of progress.. the feeling of leveling up. It doesn’t have to actually mean anything. It just needs to feel meaningful.

And the best way to indicate progress is a number:

  • Your like count
  • Your follower count
  • Your karma score
  • Your experience points
  • …whatever…

Gamification baby!

Now, please don’t mind me. I’m going to hit the publish button, and see if the follower count goes up on this blog 😉

Blogging everything you know

Two-rules-for-success

I came across this awesome and hilarious picture today on Twitter. After laughing a bit at the picture, I immediately began thinking about blogging.

Specifically, I was thinking about bloggers in the startup world. Is it possible that with the seemingly endless supply of startup-related blog posts, the best secrets to success are still unpublished? It makes some sense, right? If you have knowledge that puts you at a competitive advantage, why would you risk that advantage by revealing it in a blog post?

My guess is that for the most part, this isn’t true in the startup world.

Founders, entrepreneurs, and VCs could write everything they know, and it probably wouldn’t hurt their chances of success when compared to others. One, startups are all different; there is no recipe for success. Two, even with the best advisors/mentors, startups still seem to have a ridiculously high failure rate. Three, most startup advice isn’t 100% right or 100% wrong. There is a gray area, and they may apply in certain situations but not in others. Four, entrepreneurs tend to be the kind of people who forge their own path. They have their own ideas, vision, and strategy. Even if provided “perfect” advice, many probably wouldn’t follow it exactly.

There is probably more to say, but you get my point.

I’m not sure how to feel about this as a blogger. It means that no matter what I write, it probably won’t hurt my chances of success. But it also means that no matter what I write, there is no guarantee that the writing will be useful to others. Chances are, what I write is flat-out wrong, or wrong for many people.

I suppose that is OK.

Earlier, I wrote about my reasons for why I write. In retrospect, I still very much agree with it.

I write for myself. I can’t guarantee that what I say is right. And I can’t guarantee it is right for the reader. But I can guarantee that the thought process is useful to myself.

Building a startup? There are no rules.

No_Rules_by_Fallen0113

Building a startup is tough. Because it is so hard, it makes sense for entrepreneurs, founders, and VCs to trade advice. We see advice everywhere. The blog posts. The essays. The coffee meetings. It is all useful. Yet, it kind of isn’t.

One of the things I’ve begun to realize is that there just aren’t any hard and fast rules to building a successful startup.

OK, there may be one: create value in the world which can scaled and captured.

That seems true and obvious, but unfortunately isn’t very actionable. Other than that, I’m not sure I can give you a rule which is 100% true.

You may hear that design matters, but I can point you to successful website that are ugly and janky.

You may hear that you should raise as much money as you can, but there are successful companies which have been bootstrapped.

You may hear that the Lean Startup movement is the way to go, but I am show you many of the Alexa Top Sites that didn’t follow the principles.

You might hear that you need a cofounder, but there are startups which have succeeded with a single founder.

You may hear that these accelerators and incubators are great, but many great startup successes have been built outside of these communities/ecosystems.

You may hear you should move fast and break things, but there are other successful startups that don’t seem to move fast on product at all.

You may hear about the benefits of a private beta, but other founders have found success just getting their stuff out there.

I could go on and on.

For any piece of advice, you could follow it and be successful.. or you could not follow it, and be successful.

How do you proceed?

Too much analysis results in paralysis. And, at any moment, there are a ton of decisions to make. For each one, you can deliberate and ask for advice, but at the end of the day, you have to make a decision and run with it. If it is a mistake? Change directions 😉

Wrong, stupid, boring writing

coffee-writing-flickr-HeatherHeatherHeather

Many people don’t write because they are afraid.

Even if they do write, they may not write as often as they could… because they are afraid.

They fear that they have nothing to say, that they may not write well, that they may make incorrect arguments, that they may end up sounding stupid, or that their writing may be boring.

I’ve certainly felt all of this before. I have always enjoyed writing. For years, I have toyed with the thought of starting a blog. But, I only started about two years ago. And once I started, I had a hard time writing more than once a week… or even once a month.

It was always these fears.. I don’t want to be wrong, stupid, boring, etc.

If there is one thing I am proud about from the 100-day blogging challenge, it is overcoming these fears. Looking back on it, there were two big things that contributed to getting over these fears.

  1. Just do it. A very effective way to get over the fear is force yourself to do it. And then continue forcing yourself to doing it. I actually went through the process of writing (and publishing!) each day for 100 days in a row. Yes, the first few days sucked. But surprisingly, it doesn’t take too long to hit a rhythm. If you aspire to write more, find a way to force yourself to write every day. You don’t have to publish, but I would suggest it because it forces you to do the next part.
  2.  Make your fears come true. Writing high quality stuff is really hard. If you publish often enough, you will quickly reach a point where you fears come true.  It is pretty easy to quickly publish something wrong, stupid, or boring. It didn’t take me long to look back at my previous posts, and find some that I just didn’t like very much. But you know what? It doesn’t really matter. That is the funny thing about making your fears come true: you find out that most of the time, the outcome isn’t that bad.

There is one more thought that has made writing considerably easier, and it is this.

Writing is simply a form of expression. And at its best, it shares the human condition. If we want our writing to be expressive and honest, perhaps it is good for it to represent all of our human experience. It can represent our awesome, profound, and insightful sides, and it can also represent those parts of us that aren’t as sexy: being wrong, stupid, boring, etc.

Now isn’t that a freeing thought?

I sure thing so. It makes writing a hell of a lot easier for me now.

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(image credit: flickr/HeatherHeatherHeather)

24 hours of happy

I stumbled across a Medium post a few days ago on how Pharrell’s song “Happy” has been topping the charts around the world, but somehow hasn’t made it here yet. The post says it will probably grow in popularity, and then because the summer hit of 2014.

After two days, I would not be surprised. The song is bouncy, and catchy, and just makes you want to dance. The music video just adds to it, showing a bunch of people dancing to the song.

As if the music video wasn’t enough, it actually comes from a much larger project: 24 hours of happy. Pharrell and his crew actually recorded 24 hours of people dancing to the song. You would think the song would get old, but after 2 days of watching it for a few hours a day (it was in the background as I worked), I’m not sure it will get old. There is something magical about seeing someone dance. Each person has their own personality and style, and each dance feels like a new video. Amazing.

The 24 hour video is the best thing I’ve stumbled across in a while. I can check in at any hour, and there is always joy and entertainment. Beyond that, it is a great example of how we music and technology can be fused to create the type of art that has never been created before. I hope other artists get inspired, and push the boundaries of what modern art could be.

Not yet a good bet

sprout

Yesterday, I wrote about my new goal to be more open on this blog. This means being more personal about my own strengths/weaknesses, delving deeper into my own psyche, and writing more about what I am actually doing on my enterpreneurial journey. It will make blogging more cathartic for myself, and should hopefully make a better read for you.

Here is an example of what I mean.

Earlier, I wrote about securing investment from others. The main idea behind that post was that in order to secure investment from others, you must seem like a good bet.  The problem is that you won’t always seem like a good investment. In those circumstances, the only thing you can do is bet on yourself. With time (and of course with working smart), you will eventually become a good bet.

If I look at that blog post, it sounds interesting in theory. The problem is that it is abstract. If you read between the lines, you will see what I was trying to get at. But, to make things easier, I could just come out and say it.

What I meant to say is:

I am not yet a good bet. But I hope that one day I will be.

Specifically, I speak in terms of startups. I am not yet a good bet for seed or angel funding. I know this because if I was looking at myself from an outside perspective, I wouldn’t invest.

In startups, a good investment seems like it has some sort of unfair advantage. There are several ways you could have an unfair advantage, and I don’t meet any of them. Here are what I can come up with:

  • Experience: Founders or early employees with a success under their belt have valuable experience. It gives them an unfair advantage compared to most, and it is no wonder why some of these people can raise on simply an idea. Guess what? I have no experience in startups. Zero points for me.
  • Team: You hear about team all the time. An experienced team is the best. If they aren’t experienced, a few super smart friends who have banded together may also be a good bet. It isn’t surprising that accelerators prefer teams. The bad news is that I am a inexperienced solo founder at the moment. Again, zero points.
  • Market insight: This is another form of experience. Even if I have no experience in startups, if I had deep knowledge about my niche, that would give me an unfair advantage; one that may be worth betting on. My area of expertise is in computer architecture, and now I am building a social media web app. Those aren’t the same thing: zero points.
  • Traction: If there is one thing that trumps everything else, it is traction. If doesn’t matter who you are. If you go to a VC with massive traction in a big market, you will be probably be a good bet. I have no traction.

Let’s check out my total score: zip.. zero.. zilch. This is why I am not yet a good bet.

So, I’m doing the one thing that I can do: investing in myself.

21 months ago, I quit an industry research job and jumped into the deep end. I picked up front-end and back-end web programming. I’ve dabbled in product design. I’ve built and scrapped three different products along the way. I’ve played with different consumer web apps and studyed them to figure out why they are great (or why they aren’t). I’ve spent a good amount of time on Hacker News, reddit, USV.com, etc. I’ve been blogging to develop my own thoughts. And, I’ve been slowly building a network of founders and operators. Through this time, I’ve been living off of savings, which obviously won’t last forever.

To be honest, I haven’t gotten far. But I still feel good about myself because I have learned a whole hell of a lot. I can feel the growth. Yes, there is a lot more to do, but progress matters.

I’m like a tiny sprout in the middle of the forest. Around me are the giant redwoods; the Googles and the Amazons. They dominate the forest, and are impossible to miss. Some are smaller, but still difficult to miss: the AirBnbs, Dropboxes, Pinterests, and Tumblrs. And even smaller, you see all the saplings. They aren’t huge, but they have grown a good bit, and show potential. These might be worth investing in.

But the sprouts? They are tiny. As an outside observer, there isn’t much you can do with all of the sprouts. You can’t really see them unless you look close. And if you look close, they are everywhere. Which one would you bet on?

As a sprout, the only thing you can do is (1) remember that everyone started as a sprout, and (2) give yourself the chance to grow.

So that is where I stand.

I am not yet a good bet. But with time, I think that one day I will be. Hopefully, it comes sooner than later. My savings won’t last forever.

Entrepreneurs: the eternal optimists

 

boats-sunset-flickr-jeantil

Recently, my girlfriend and I have started running together a few days a week. It is the perfect chance to exercise, talk about how our days went, and chat about anything that may be on our minds. So far, it has been awesome.

During our run today, I began to get excited about my current work on Soulmix. I started talking about how great things could be, and how exciting the big vision could be. I didn’t get more than a minute or two into this before my girlfriend stopped me.

The following conversation went something like this:

Her: “Alex, the big vision is great and all, but you need to figure out how to get it off the ground from nothing.”

Me: “I know, I know.. I’m just talking about how I’m starting to see more potential in the project.. of course, if it pans out.”

Her: “I just don’t want you to count your chickens before they hatch. In the past two years, you have gotten this excited 3 times already, and then later on decided to work on something different. It might be good to not focus on the big vision that much right now, and keep focusing on what comes next in the short term.”

Me: “Yes.. it has already happened a few times. But hey! I’ve been learning a lot, and I have to choose something to be working on. I’m only going to choose, it might as well be something which I believe has a big vision behind it. Whether it actually does? I’m not sure. I guess I will find out somehow. But I need to believe it.”

The last sentence seems to be one of the defining characteristics of entrepreneurs: we want to believe.

We are eternal optimists. Actually, it is more than that. We have to be eternal optimists.

The entrepreneurial journey is tough. It is a rollercoaster of a ride, and it would be difficult (if not impossible) to withstand the continual ups and downs without believing in ourselves, and believing in the vision. At times, that belief is all there is.

We are eternal optimists, but not eternal blind optimists.

The trick is to believe, and then forge ahead with eyes wide open, looking for the obstacles and market realities that will render the belief useless.

How do you manage this?

I don’t know.. I’m still figuring it all out. But I can tell you it certainly ain’t easy.