"RIGHT NOW I am having conversation with social networking pioneer and Friendster founder @abrams. Learn about company building, the pitfalls of hyper-growth and entering the big time in Silicon Valley."

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Brian Norgard started a conversation 1 year ago

RIGHT NOW I am having conversation with social networking pioneer and Friendster founder . Learn about company building, the pitfalls of hyper-growth and entering the big time in Silicon Valley.

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Excited to hear some of your adventures.
Dan Gould • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Dan • +1
Hello, @Jonathan Abrams . Thanks for joining us.
Scott Magoon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
Today we're lucky to have @Jonathan Abrams up for, "A Namesake Conversation." I can't wait. @Jonathan Abrams always gives me a hard time. Today's goal: break Namesake.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Thanks for joining @Jonathan Abrams
Chris Van Dusen • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Chris • +1
hello members of compuserve!
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Already got me laughing!
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams My mom's dial up is working just fine!
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
this isn't compuserve? oops, I think I'm in the wrong chatroom!
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Okay, this is going to be awesome. We expect a nice showing today so things could get a little sketchy—be advised.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Please be cordial and respectful everyone—it's the Namesake way. If you have questions for @Jonathan Abrams make sure they are in context and timely (off topic stuff usually gets ignored).
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Today our guest is @Jonathan Abrams . Currently he's the co-founder and Managing Partner of Founders Den, and co-owner of the San Francisco nightclub Slide. In a past life @Jonathan Abrams forunded Friendster, Socializr, and the social bookmarking startup HotLinks. He's had a busy decade to say the least. How are you feeling on this great day?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Today I'm going to reveal the secret emails that show I own 50% of Namesake in exchange for $1000 I provided Brian back at this junior high school graduation
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams That's 50% of my Mom's stake sir.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
If you all could do me a favor and retweet this link (so more people are aware of the conversation it would be greatly appreciated).

http://twitter.c...42948353
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams At least you know the statute of limitation isn't expired...
Erik Engstrom • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Erik • +1
@Jonathan Abrams namesake-leaks?
Chris Dumler • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Chris • +1
@Jonathan Abrams You've been busy of late. I noticed you have a new project Founders Den. Whats that all about? Sounds like a cool concept.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
I have yet to see anyone on Namesake post ASCII art in the middle of a convo. #whynamesakeiscoolerthancompuserv
Ezra HaLevi • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ezra • +1
I'm feeling good, the weather is beautiful as always in San Francisco
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams i'm excited to check out founders den next week
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
gonna be there for the dennis crowley talk
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
@Jonathan Abrams That's not something that happens all that often. Fantastic.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
I'm curious what @Jonathan Abrams thinks other businesses can learn from "the pitfalls of hyper-growth." We're doing a similar talk re: MySpace soon and I'd like to compare notes.
Kimberly Kohatsu • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Kimberly • +1
Yep, I'm always busy, and launching Founders Den with my 3 partners has been a lot of work
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Is an accelerator? Incubator? Place to hang?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
I think @Jonathan Abrams needs to install a bigger doorbell at Founder's Den. Some of us are blind.
Eric Ingram • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Eric • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Welcome, great to have you here on Namesake. How has Founder's Den gone so far in it's short life?
Andrew Skotzko • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Andrew • +1
Most of our events at Founders Den are private, but we are hosting a Girls in Tech event coming up like someone said with Dennis Crowley as the speaker. that's a rare chance for the "public" to get a peek inside the private club of Founders Den
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
although I think the Girls in Tech talk with @dens is already sold out
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
Hey everyone
Jeff Bajayo • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jeff • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Love the concept. Who are your partners in Founders Den?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
i got my ticket for the @dens event
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
@Brian Norgard its neither an incubator nor an accelerator, both of which buzzwords I associate more with programs like Y Combinator. We actually have a lot of YC founders and startups at Founders Den. But FD is a invite-only co-working space with a focus on experienced entpreneuers, as well as a sort of proviate club/hang-out for the SF entpreneurial community
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams If someone was an established entrepreneur from another country but live in SF now, do they need to just be hanging out with the right people to get invited to Founders Den or are there other approaches that make more sense?
Jeremy Hubert • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jeremy • +1
@Jonathan Abrams what kinda events do you guys do that are for members?
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
My partners (as well as our advisors) at Founders Den are listed here: http://foundersd...m/people
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Are you angel investing in companies via Founders Den? If so, how does one approach you to see if you're interested in their deal or joining the workspace?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Hi @Jonathan Abrams , I remember meeting you at Sunfire a couple of months ago and Founders Den looks quite similar. Could you go into the similarities and differences between these two spaces?
Xianhang Zhang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Xianhang • +1
and there's a lot of info about Founders Den here: http://foundersden.com/news
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
Hey @Xianhang Zhang !
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
hey @Ben Tseitlin
Xianhang Zhang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Xianhang • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Is Founder's Den similar to Sunfire?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Hi everyone, nice to meet you Jonathan
Nova Spivack • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Nova • +1
@Jeremy Hubert to get invited to founders den you need to be referred by someone we know. if you look at our web site , you will see we have over 20 startup tenants, 4 managing partners including myself (and the 4 of us know a lot of poeple), over 15 amazing advisors, and some great sponsors like Norwest Venture Partners and DLA Piper. If an entpreneur with some hustle and intiative cannot find a connection to ANY of these people to get an intro, that would surprise me
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Note to self: hustle
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams interesting that you have VC partners
Dan Gould • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Dan • +1
Any plans to franchise or scale to other cities and regions?
Jay Resio • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jay • +1
@Jonathan Abrams "One of the goals of Founders Den is to appeal to experienced entrepreneurs who would rather work out of their home offices than work at one of the previously existing co-working spaces." -- I like that line.
Erik Engstrom • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Erik • +1
Hi Jonathan Abrams.
Matt Gray • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Matt • +1
@Ben Tseitlin most of our events are private for the internal community (tenants, advisors, sponsors) only. for example we recently had Naval Ravikant of AngelList and VentureHacks give a private talk, and we soon will have a visit from the Chairman of the FCC and another private talk by Steve Blank. But we only launched in January so we are still figuring out our proceses and plans
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams so it's like CoLoft here in Santa Monica but more exclusive? I wonder what @Cameron Kashani Rasouli and @Avesta Rasouli think about it?
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Before Founders Den you were running a bar right? Was that better than running a social network?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard there are startups at Founders Den that one of the managing partners was an investor or advisor in, but that's certainly not required. And we expect we might meet startups we didnt know at the den that we might want to organically get invovled in, if there is mutual interest. but there is no requirement for this.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
How do the VC partners help? Do they fund the Den, or do they give funding to ventures, do you have discretionary control of some of their funding or is it arms length and just up to them if they want to - are there any special benefits you give to VC's?
Nova Spivack • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Nova • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I think it's fits into nicely with the current environment.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Does it have a foosball table? Nostalgic for 1997.
Dave Churchville • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Dave • +1
@Brian Norgard Founders Den may be a bit similar to Sunfire, but Sunfire is in Mtn View, not SF, and is very small, and from what I understand they offer free rent in exchange for participation in mandatory events which I think the sponsors view as recruitment opportunities
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Nova Spivack Great question sir.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
threadlock achieved...
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Yeah, I've been through the list. Seems like there are enough people to make it reasonably approachable. Do you have a "hot or not" style rating system for approving new members? ;)
Jeremy Hubert • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jeremy • +1
@Jonathan Abrams question. Did you ever have people come after you like the Winklevoss Twins & Ceglia ?
Matt Gray • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Matt • +1
@Jonathan Abrams You've obviously seen a ton of consumer companies coming through the doors. Do you think we are in a bubble of sorts? Curious to hear ...
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard haha I don't run a bar, but I am co-owner in one of San Francisco's best nightclubs called Slide. I have great partners with deep industry experience in nightlife who actually run it. And now that I'm a Dad, I'm afraid I'm rarely there, or at any other nightclubs anymore. I did go to Slide recently for my Citizenship party, and I also had a 40th birthday party there this year for one of my co-founders of Founders Den
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
Hi Jonathan. I've just moved to SF and plan on "getting invited" to Founders Den. Just a heads up and look forward to meeting you at some point in the near future :)
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Sound like a nice change of pace from the madness that is building companies.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
The Namesake community is obsessed with learning about hyper-growth—can we talk about the early days of social networking?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I am sure you have an opinion or two...
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Nova Spivack Our sponsors all get to work and hang out at Founders Den, use the desks, conf rooms, common area, take meetings, and they are part of our events and community. Access to cool investors like David Lee of SV Angel or Tim Chang of NVP is a cool thing for our tenants, but Founders Den is ultimately run by entpreneurs for entrepreneurs and independent, so none of our tenants are required to take investment from certain investors
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Or a hundred.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I applied to Founder's Den but never received a response. Does that mean a) We're not cool enough b) The partners are still considering it or c) Mason's dog ate my e-mail?
Eric Ingram • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Eric • +1
@Jonathan Abrams ditto @Brian Norgard 's question on hyper growth, what did that look like with Friendster? What were the unique challenges it brought you?
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
Afternoon @Jonathan Abrams It's great you've take time out of your day to chat with us all.
Kyle Ellicott • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Kyle • +1
@Dave Churchville nope no foosball, we do have wine and liquor and nice couches etc. but we have gone for a more mature vibe for the den, vs. 1999 dot com cliche... maybe more like Mad Men?
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Nice. Upscale, no? Interesting...
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
.... has the chat frozen?
Jeremy Hubert • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jeremy • +1
PLEASE refresh your browser. Sorry.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
hello, nice to meet you jonathan abrams et al
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
@Jeremy Hubert any startup that get's referred to Founders Den's management by someone we know has to get unanimously approved by the 4 of us. we look at a variety of factors like team, investors, product, personality, etc. to do our best to pick folks that are a good fit for Founders Den. we actualy dont have that much space, we have room for around 55 people and there are coworking spaces in SF that are 3x bigger or more
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@chris dixon happy to have you with us again!
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
@chris dixon Nice to see you sir (other than on TechCrunch TV)
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Alright, it's back.
Jeremy Hubert • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jeremy • +1
@Jonathan Abrams For a b2b internet business, do you advocate raising a small amount of money ($75k - $100k) and proving out a concept first -- or raising several million and going strong from the get-go? I've been in the camp that people invest in traction, not ideas -- am I wrong?
belsito • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention belsito • +1
@Jonathan Abrams How did you initially conceptualize the idea for Friendster? Did anything you saw at Netscape as a engineer inspire Friendster?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Is there anything similar to Founders Den in Los Angeles?
Michael Fisher • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Michael • +1
Happy to be part of the conversation! @Jonathan Abrams How do the needs of experienced entrepreneurs differ from those of people on their first company?
Kirin Kalia • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Kirin • +1
Hey @Jonathan Abrams, thanks for coming by today. My co-founder and I are moving our startup to San Francisco from DC. What advice would you give to founders who want to make the most of the SF for their startup?
Pius Uzamere • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Pius • +1
@Brian Norgard "bubble" is kinda like "incubator" a buzzword that just confuses things and get's in the way of a good clear disucssion I think. In some ways today is nothing like 1999. But in other ways I do see a level of everyone wanting to start their own thing that I havent seen since 1999 and does remind me of that period. certainly there are "hot" areas like mobile, groupon-like discounting, social games, etc. that we are seeing a lot of
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
[pro tip] if the realtime updates have stalled for you, just hit the toast notifications as the fly out at top right, this will refresh the page with new comments.
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
Hey Jonathan, would Founders Den be interested in hosting a Product Design Guild (http://productde...uild.com) event?
Xianhang Zhang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Xianhang • +1
@Jonathan Abrams [I'll drop this one again for context] How did you initially conceptualize the idea for Friendster? Did anything you saw at Netscape as a engineer inspire Friendster?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams that sounds awesome- the fcc guy sounds particularly interesting. i noticed you guys also had gavin newsom working at the office. is that the only 2 ties to government or do you guys try to start a convo btwn start ups and govt ppl?
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
sure I'm happy to talk about early days of Friendster. hard to believe, but that was almost 10 years ago (2002). what would you like to konw?
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams You mentioned on Quora Friendster achieved product/market fit rather quickly. Was that luck or were you simply working around the clock to get it right?

Source: http://quora.com...rk-today
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
good question. i'd also love to know how data driven/split test driven friendster was or wasnt
Farb Nivi • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Farbood • +1
Hey @chris dixon !
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
hmm i had to refresh my browser to see more stuff
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Farb Nivi Good to see you my friend.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@chris dixon hey Chris! one of the few people whose blog I find worth reading
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams great to meet you on Namesake. I was part of the original MySpace team in 2004-06 and Friendster's early success as a pioneer in onlinen social networking obviously served as great inspiration for our own product. Curious to hear your perspective on the more decent decline of MySpace after having seen Friendster's business follow a similar boom-and-bust cycle.
Antone Johnson • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Antone • +1
@belsito I'm definitely in the lean startup camp. test your hypotheses as cheap and fast as possible. I'm not a big fan of huge pre-launch funding. But obviously there is still some of that going on these days! there is no magic single path to startup success!
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams thanks! flattered to hear that coming from a great web pioneer. would love to hear more about your experiences with friendster and after.
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
@Jonathan Abrams do you think Friendster achieved product / market fit quickly in the parlance of today's startup world?
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
@Brian Norgard The ideas behind Friendster (social graph, non-anonimity, real names, real pictures, real friends, degrees of separation, a site that could be used for dating but wasnt a dating site, a site were mainstream people (not just daating or business networking) would post online profiles, etc) came from a bunch of different influences including my professional networking as an entrepreneur, my friends and social life, observation of online dating sites, the work of stanley milgram, sites like geocities, ryze, hotornot, match.com, egroups, etc etc, the tipping point by malcolm gladwell, and probably a ton of other stuff. but no, I dont think it had much to do with working at Netscape on browsers and Java platforms
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Thanks! In taking on early stage pre-launch seed funding, what's the best approach to valuation? Or, do you not even try and hope that the investor is willing to take a convertible note of some sort?
belsito • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention belsito • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Love that response—the sum of many parts Friendster was!
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Did you do any special marketing for Friendster or was the growth purely people inviting friends?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams that reminds me how people used to criticize friendster for kicking of "fakesters" but it seems that with facebook etc you were right about enforcing real identities.
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
@Ben Tseitlin Yes Gavin Newsom does rent a desk at Founders Den. Before being Mayor of SF, he was an entpreneur himself, and he's a cool guy so we decided to rent one of our desks to him as a special case for fun. But we don't really have that much ties, at least at this point to government.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
and he's hot!
Kimberly Kohatsu • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Kimberly • +1
@chris dixon Great comment. Was killing 'fakesters' accounts distracting early on?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Very interesting. Did all this come together as an epiphany or over time?
Steve De Long • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Steve • +1
Hi @Jonathan Abrams . I was wondering how you kept out the trolls and kept the interactions relatively civil at Friendster. Thanks for having this convo BTW.
Andrea Fuentes • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Andrea • +1
@Brian Norgard I'm not sure if it was luck but I would say that when people have an organic idea and fool around with it, and then it happens to take off and leads to a business that's one way things can get started, and that's kinda similar to how Yahoo started for example (as Dave & Jerry's bookmarks). These days so many people are trying to start some new startup in a way that's not organically inspired, so you see the overhyped "pivot" buzzword where people think they can just start with some random thing and pivot and pivot and pivot and end up with something good. not sure that's really realistic
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams You really dislike buzzwords huh? :)
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Did you see MySpace as a competitor early on?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
The feed is crashing too much for me
Matt Gray • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Matt • +1
@Matt Gray sorry, we got a huge flux of traffic.
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
1.16 gigawatts!
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
@Farb Nivi Friendster's original prototype from 2002, which is surprisingly similar to how Friendster, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, Facebook, etc. are still used today, was not the product of data or A/B testing. I don't think I could have come up with what was at the time such a counterintuitive wacky idea (everyone in the world should create a page on the Internet with their real name and photo and list all their friends who will have to confirm yes/no they are friends with that person) via a data driven approach or testing a fake landing page via Google adwords, etc.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
Wow. high quality conversation so far.
jonathanjoseph • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention jonathanjoseph • +1
@chris dixon you are in New York right? would love to catch up and give you a tour of Founders Den (or have you speak) the next time you are in SF
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Yes, I don't think any product can start with A/B testing. But it can come later and help with optimizing.
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
@Jonathan Abrams data rarely gives us access to the intuitive leap, it's good for incremental improvement and validation though
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
@Jonathan Abrams yeah in ny, would love to check out founders den. usually come to sf every month or two.
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
@Jonathan Abrams You were quoted as saying here, ""I brought on experienced investors to help Friendster fulfill its potential. But the all-star team was the curse of death." Can you elaborate?

Source: http://inc.com/m...n_2.html
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams can/should I read between the lines and suggest that you are among the non-believers in some of the lean startup principles?
jonathanjoseph • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention jonathanjoseph • +1
@belsito early stage (i.e. seed) valuations are largely market driven... see all the blogs by superangels in the last 12 months complaining about valuation creep. I'd read Paul Graham's recent essays on "Hi res funding" and try to use AngelList to get a market valuation
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
Can someone link to that Paul Graham piece right now? Thanks.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@chris dixon the criticism about fake profiles on Friendster was a fake controversy itself really. it was silly then but even sillier now in retrospect as Facebook has proven over having a site with fake friends like Tom or Tina Tequila...
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Brian Norgard it was pure viral growth from zero to millions in 12 months
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
Believe it's this one? http://paulgraha...und.html
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I'd make an argument is was also a function of the times. People 'get' real identity now and it's importance—that was not the case in the Friendster days.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Wow. How did you seed the initial user base?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams @Clint Ivy thanks a lot!
belsito • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention belsito • +1
@Jonathan Abrams just looking at myspace data on techcrunch today i'm wondering if social networks inevitably grow and then fall. perhaps they get taken over by parents or whatever and kids run away. would be curious to hear if you think it's inevitably cyclical like that.
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
@Brian Norgard we werent really killing a lot of fake profiles. facebook and even myspace probably deleted many more. this was a sort of faux controversy that drawfed the reality but was popular in certain circles for certain reasons. our actual users were really annoyed because the site was so slow and buggy throughout 2004 and 2005
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
"coke" -- for friendster old-timers
Dan Gould • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Dan • +1
thanks @Jonathan Abrams !
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Great question from @chris dixon , "Are social networks cyclical?"
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard it's true. our industry is way to hot for buzzwords that are kind of ambiguous at best. like "web 2.0" or "incubator" or "pivot" or "game mechanics" or "social media". I'm still a programmer so I do have a literal mind at times! 8-)
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@jonathanjoseph Lean startup stuff is just tools... But they are not the only way, or even THE way. Lots of examples of successes w/o lean startup methods being applied. Sometimes (and maybe lots of the time), it's just chance.. I think. There are also no examples of self-identified lean startups succeeding yet. Just lots of talk so far :)
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
@Deena Varshavskaya 37 Signals was a lean startup - seems pretty successful, no?
belsito • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention belsito • +1
@Brian Norgard sure we saw MySpace as a competitor, but they certainly werent the first. Before MySpace or Facebook, there were a bunch of others including Ringo (bought by eMode which became Tickle and sold to Monster), Tribe.net, Friendzy, Orkut, Yahoo 360, etc. I'd admit I dont think we thought a company from LA that had been delisted from the stock market was going to be the one to worry about. I was more concerned with Yahoo and Google in the early days, obviously that was wrong.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@belsito As in it was "official"? I wasn't aware :)
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
@Brian Norgard @Jonathan Abrams I think a better question is how the survive teenage-faddism to adult longevity. Them youngsters are always going to migrate to the new hot thing. How do you survive that initial tide and create a sustainable business. Facebook is actually being smart here I think. They started with the college kids, then started letting in others sort of on an age band scale to the point where they are locking up a lot of intergenerational communication (kids, parent, grand parents, etc). It does make them more of a utility (are they the new post office?) than something 'cooler' though
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
@Deena Varshavskaya A/B testing is great for some things, not right for others, just like any tool
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@chris dixon cool send me an email next time in SF
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams What a comment! "I'd admit I don't think we thought a company from LA that had been delisted from the stock market was going to be the one to worry about."
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams There's some key social networking patents floating around (especially ones owned by Facebook). Should startups be worried about the prior art in the space?

Source: http://gigaom.co...-for-40m
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Clint Ivy It seems people have made both arguments in regards to this. 1. Once a social network has critical mass, it's impossible to get those people to use another social network. 2. Social networks are cyclical and everyone hopes from one to another.
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
@Deena Varshavskaya I agree. Was just clarifying since there are many disciples of pure lean startup theory here in the Bay Area. Lean is a tactic, not a strategy
jonathanjoseph • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention jonathanjoseph • +1
@Jonathan Abrams people seem to forget myspace was originally a spyware company
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
@Brian Norgard well unfortunately that's from an article in Inc magazine that's around half made up stuff. so any quote may have been something I really said or not. But I think it's clear that Friendster was more succesfull in the first 12 months after launch before VC funding, when it was still small and scrappy and I was still CEO. during that period our tech was improving and we were growing very fast and had a great brand. obviously things didnt go as well during later periods. from 2004-2005, the period where MySpace really grew, Friendster's website did not work well, and the company had 4 CEOs in 2 years
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Deena Varshavskaya @jonathanjoseph @Clint Ivy These are all awesome ideas for future conversation.... (hint)
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
I find it interesting to watch how people communicate their attitudes and beliefs in these twitter feeds
Steven Diebold • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Steven • +1
@jonathanjoseph no actualy I'm a HUGE fan of the lean startup concept. but it's not all about A/B testing. it can be just as appropriate for some crazy idea like social networking. I believe strongly in creating a Minimal Viable Product as fast and cheaply as possible (that's what I actually did at Friendster out of neccessity during the dot com crash preiod, although it was not called "lean startup" back then) and then testing your hypothesis as soon as possible with real users or customers
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Do you believe the venture business has changed at all?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Paul Graham's stuff (at least most of it) is awesome
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@chris dixon really what was the story of them getting into social networking?
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
conjecture is fun.
Steven Diebold • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Steven • +1
@Jonathan Abrams It's so funny, I remember a friend telling me about Friendster, and I was just incredulous that Friendster didn't charge for anything. And I thought I was being so smart! Ah, youth.
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
@Brian Norgard I think it was Friendster that started paving the way for real identity on the web. If you read 2003 press coverage about it you kinda see that, or the ABC World News Tonight peice from back in 2003
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Clearly there's pressure from the bottom (McClure, Angel.co, etc) and the top (Yuri). Does that force the venture business to change at all in your opinion?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard it was actually just seeded with my personal friends in the SF area
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams How many friends?
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
@Brian Norgard and their friends, and then their friends, and so on... just like the old shampoo commercial
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Ben Tseitlin well, myspace==intermix where you can learn more about here http://eweek.com...ownloads
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Great segue to Facebook. Do you believe they will one day surpass Google in revenues?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams And another: why has Facebook been so successful? (product vision, Mark, timing, VCs???)
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@chris dixon that's a very good question and it's so hard to know. Because what would have happened if I had stayed in control of Friendster and contiuned my vision of real friends and identity (more like Facebook than MySpace) and made sure our tech was fixed? we will never know. or what if MySpace had not been subsumed by News Corp or had been let to operate indepedently a la YouTube instead of dealing with News Corp corporate politics? the analogy has been made that social networking sites are like hot nightclubs by nature inevitably become passe and get replaced. I'm not really sure. It's only been 9 years and both Friendster and MySpace had the possible progress interrupted by circumstances. In the nightclub world there are places that are only hot for 12 months and others that become landmarks that are porular for decades...
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Brian Norgard nice conversation here...thanks for the invite...
Omid Ashtari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Omid • +1
@Jonathan Abrams did you have a invite system for users to email all of their friends invites to join, or was it organic word of mouth viral?
Grant Miller • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Grant • +1
@chris dixon I worked at Intermiz after they acquired my first company. I've got some stories for another day...
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard I'd love to hear some of those....
jonathanjoseph • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention jonathanjoseph • +1
@Jonathan Abrams yeah i tend to agree with you that friendster and myspace where special cases. you lost control, myspace got acquired (and frankly i think was an inferior product). so the 60 billion dollar question now is can facebook which seems well managed maintain their position or will social networks like them inevitably decline.
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Do you still believe people building social products should focus on building with real identity?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Deena Varshavskaya it's not just social networking sites that rise & fall. I remember when Yahoo was the kind of the web, after having beaten Go, Excite, and Lycos in the "portal wars"... things change over time
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams That would essentially nullify twitter's oauth as a onboarding channel....
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard I think the venture business is very resistant to change, but change is hapening slowly but surely: examples: DST, AngelList, Y Combinator, Andressen Horowitz
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Ben Tseitlin that's the story as normally told among investors/entrepreneurs who know the space.
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
Oh the portal wars... *sob*
Erik Engstrom • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Erik • +1
@Jonathan Abrams So the entire consumer network is cyclical is your thesis. Intersting.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard yes, I think so, eventually...
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@chris dixon interesting
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
whatup @Omid Ashtari !
Ben Tseitlin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ben • +1
@Jonathan Abrams What's your feeling on Twitter's product? Like it?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
I'm curious why entrepreneurs like case studies so much and like to try to repeat things that are not repeatable given a business is like DNA.? is it because entrepreneurs think there is a silver bullet way to make a successful company and they don't want to admit that it doesn't exist and never will?
Steven Diebold • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Steven • +1
Hi, thanks for the invite. Jonathan, what was the working relationship with Jim Scheinman like?
Brian Fischer • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard I think a big part of it is that they have had a singular vision, instead of a parade of CEOs or a company controlled by the investors. I think Friendster was a big idea and Facebook is the one that implemented it best. And there were several ex-Friendster investors, advisors, and employees who helped with this at Facebook too. They've done an amazing job with the their tech, and in executing.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
It's incredible how one product decision (real identity) could essentially make or break a social system. Product designers and developers be advised.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard It's scary
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Do you think they can translate their vision into mobile? (Facebook)
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Grant Miller yes we had an invite system, which of course was copied by the subsequent social newtorking sites. intially when Friendster launched, no one had ever heard of something like this, so getting an email saying "Jonathan Abrams wants to be friends with you on this web site" was something that confused a lot of people, and often they would ignore it until they received more than one of them from different friends and got curious about what it was all about
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
what up @Ben Tseitlin you well?
Omid Ashtari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Omid • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Were you consciously prioritizing and pursuing user acquisition in the first 12 months? Or was it just more or less happening on its own?
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
speaking of tech execution, I'm afraid I need to keep refreshing my browser to see new questions
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I want to say on record: my most inspired moment on Internet was the day I logged into Friendster for the first time. Fireworks went off in my brain @Jonathan Abrams . Thank you.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Thanks for chatting today. Maybe this is an odd question, but could you talk a little about the necessity of luck vs. planning? You mention earlier that viral growth for friendster just kind of occurred- was this in any way planned for, or did it just kind of happen?
Nathan Moore • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Nathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I'll own that. We're working on scaling this real-time experience. It's my fault.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams i'd just like to tell you that as someone who continued to love consumer internet in early 2000's friendster was a real inspiration and incredibly ingenious product. that was a time when there were relatively few of us and friendster was like a bolt of lightning shock for people like me. i look forward to what you come up with in the future.
chris dixon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention chris • +1
I would be interested in hearing more about the initial growth as well. In particular, any particular strategies you guys pursued beyond the obvious friends, family, contacts, to increase the user base during the first few months?
hemang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention hemang • +1
@chris dixon I'll agree. I remember exactly where I was when I first logged on (Brown dorm room). I literally jumped when it rendered my graph. I was screaming, "Oh, my God!"
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard I can help with that...
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I am sure you can.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@chris dixon thanks Chris, that's very kind
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams that's funny...first mover disadvantage! do you recall any of the numbers that drove your virality in the beginning?
1) the average number of invites a user would get from friends before joining
2) the average number of invites a user would send out
3) how long after joining a user would start sending out invites
Grant Miller • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Grant • +1
@Jonathan Abrams at what point do FB users actually get scared about how much of their personal info is being shared with all of the FB partners?? will there ever be "too much" social?
Omid Ashtari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Omid • +1
@chris dixon I'm going to be in NY next Friday. Would love to buy you coffee if you're able/willing to give advice/feedback to an Ohio guy going through pains of figuring out early-stage decisions. Even if it's just 10-15 min.
belsito • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention belsito • +1
@Jonathan Abrams do you think entrepreneurs like to try to repeat what other entrepreneurs did that worked for them in hopes it will work for them too even though they might have something that has different characteristics and applying the same way that worked for one product would actually kill their own product?
Steven Diebold • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Steven • +1
first mover advantage can be a real myth. because Friendster faced such greater and unexpected scrutiny and scalability challenges as an innovative product and was then copied by over 100 companies in our first year. Look at AltaVista, WebCrawler and Lycos vs. Google. Many other first movers like Match.com were too early and the founders made nothing
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams did friendster have patents? could it have pursued that as a way to block bigger competitors?
hemang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention hemang • +1
@Jonathan Abrams "first mover advantage can be a real myth." Something I've chewed on for years. Happy that you can educate the community about how hard it is to the the 'first' in any market.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Steven Diebold I think there is way too much focus these days on trying to find the Hackers News post about "the 5 secret characteristics that every successful entpreneur needs to have". There is no secret magic gauranteed path to startup succes. vc vs angel, Silicon Valley vs elsewhere, lean vs fast, single founder vs cofounders, none of this gurantees anthying and the idea of being able to repeat the unique and somewhat random success of antoerh startup or entpreneur is often not realsitic
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams From @Omid Ashtari ,"at what point do FB users actually get scared about how much of their personal info is being shared with all of the FB partners?? will there ever be "too much" social?"
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@hemang Friendster had patents, but it takes years to get patents granted. The first ones were granted in 2006, shortly after the company went through a cramdown recap, and 2 years after I was replaced as CEO. Eventually Friendster was bought by a Malyaysian company who sold the patents I am inventor of to Facebook.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan_Abrams Are you still interested in mining this area now deemed social networking? What projects are you pursuing now? I still believe that the degrees of separation aspect to Friendster has more meaningful layers to explore today than either linkedin or facebook currently leverage. Not everyone is "my friend," but indeed like geneaology may be a friend of a friend.
Brian Fischer • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard @Jonathan Abrams Would love to learn your thoughts on managing the "first mover disadvantage".
Mike Puangmalai • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Mike • +1
@Jonathan Abrams amen to that. I wish more entrepreneurs understood that. so many blogs out there that are trying to offer recipe for success type pedagogy. every business and situation is unique indeed.
Steven Diebold • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Steven • +1
@Brian Norgard I have no idea. I was amazed at some of the stuff people postesd on Friendster, and even more so on MySpace which had a pretty sexually charged vibe. So many people have lost their jobs or gone to jail etc for thigns they posted on social networking sites since Friendster was invited, it's pretty crazy
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams As you can see my friend there's an insatiable desire to learn from you on Namesake. Take this as a complement.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams that's awesome, glad you own a piece of FB now!!!
Omid Ashtari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Omid • +1
@Jonathan Abrams how does it work when you're a patent inventor and it's sold multiple times? Do you get compensated each time?
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Changing consumption patterns ...
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@hemang regarding Friendster's early growth, we didn't need to employ any special tricks. The product was one of those rare lucky ones that was inherently viral. Our problems ended up being all the challenges of keeping up with that growth. A probably that most startups dont end up having.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I'd argue less than .01% of startups have this problem. It's a high class issue.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Fischer I'm working on a new startup, and yes it in social media. I have no idea where Google or Facebook or Twitter will be in 5 years, nor does anyone. But I doubt that the story of social networking is over today.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams good to hear, lucky you! I was hoping to learn more about PR strategies etc to accelerate beyond a point
hemang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention hemang • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Congrats on the new startup! That's awesome and you heard it here first folks.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams so what space is the startup in? Can you give us any tidbits?
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
@Scott Hurff I believe it depends on the manner in which the patent was assigned by the inventors to the company
hemang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention hemang • +1
@Jonathan Abrams this is like the equivalent of the Founding Fathers of the United States starting a new country. Or something.
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
@Omid Ashtari no no, I do not own a piece of Facebook. I was mostly washed out in Friendster's 2006 recap, and then the copmany was sold in late 2009 to a Malaysian company, probably for less than the patents alone were worth. That Malaysian company sold the patents to Facebook, and it is that Malaysian company that got stock in Facebook for selling the patents.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@hemang thank you.
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
I second @Scott Hurff 's question: can you share any details about your startup? I am sure everyone would love to be a beta tester.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Scott Hurff when you are a startup founder (or employee) any patent applications you do at the startup are assigned to that copmany. you are the inventor, but you don't own the patents typiically, the startup does. If you lose your equity in that startup, or if the common stock becomes worthless, you're screwed...
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams ah, interesting. Thank you. I suppose it'd be odd if an inventor had a "stake" on a patent underneath a company.
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
@Jonathan Abrams You said, "probably for less than the patents alone were worth." I've talked with people involved in the deal—they know those patents were extremely undervalued (now).
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@hemang PR does NOT drive traffic growth and user adoption on a consumer web service, it's the OTHER way around. Andrew Chen wrote a very good blog post on that topic
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Can someone find this @Andrew Chen link? I'd like it for the record.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams damn, thought because you had some of the company, you got some FB stock too... #suchashame
Omid Ashtari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Omid • +1
@Jonathan Abrams What are the top 3 blogs/podcasts you read/listen to?
belsito • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention belsito • +1
@Scott Hurff my new startup uses mobile game mechanics and location based cloud crowdsourcing to offer discounted social photo sharing on Apple Newtons and Palm Pilots
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
I just invited @Andrew Chen to elaborate on the anti PR angle.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Sweet, a Color.com competitor.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
I think this is the @Andrew Chen article: http://andrewche...uisition
Andrew Skotzko • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Andrew • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I knew you wanted to show up @Peter Pham ... now I have evidence.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams brilliant.

Are you going to port it to the Iridium?
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
@Brian Norgard that's pretty obvious, but I wasn't on the Friendster board anymore and cannot explain why they didn't try to sell the patents for more, or threaten to sue Facebook or anything like that.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
completely agree with @Andrew Chen - over and over again, I've seen companies invest in PR, they get a huge boost, then if the quality is not there, all the new users go away...it's like doing business with GroupOn :)
Omid Ashtari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Omid • +1
@Omid Ashtari zing!
Andrew Skotzko • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Andrew • +1
@belsito I dont listen to any podcasts and I like very few blogs. I read Hacker News every day though
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams What's your thoughts on Twitter? Can they maintain their amazing growth? Do they have a product that can push into a more 'lazy Web surfer' segment?
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard don't tell anyone but we raised $401 m pre launch
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams only $401 million? C'mon man.
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
@Andrew Skotzko yes that's the right andrew chen blog post
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Omid Ashtari It's user acquisition vs. retention.
Deena Varshavskaya • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Deena • +1
@Brian Norgard Peter is an official MC Hammer backup dancer, I could never touch him!
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I will call Mike Arrignton after this conversation with the scoop.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams I saw that live. No joke.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams reflecting on your experience and perhaps a few other cases such as AltaVista-Yahoo-Google-Cuil, or Apple Newton-Go-Blackberry-iPhone; how should entrepreneurs and Boards of entrepreneurial companies think about whether they are too early, just right, or too late? Are there systemic signals or market behaviors that indicate whether or not one's company has hit the sweet spot in terms of timing?
Marc Cenedella • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Marc • +1
@Jonathan Abrams just tweeted out the $401MM news...no big deal, right...
Omid Ashtari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Omid • +1
@Brian Norgard I have no crystal ball and have no idea what the future holds for Twitter. But I do notice that everything I see including my girlfriend's yogurts have TWO LOGOS on them these days. and F and a T. that's big
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Jonathan Abrams @Peter Pham looked like a cross between Richard Simmons and Bruce Lee while on stage with Hammer.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Thanks for the conversation here -- I really appreciated it! Thanks for putting this on @Brian Norgard ! I'm glad to have been a part of the conversation.
belsito • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention belsito • +1
@Jonathan Abrams It does appear that they've crossed the marketing chasm. Happy for them. I love Twitter.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Marc Cenedella wow that's a good question but would require a very long answer, and I'm just a computer programmer not a business school professor. I like the lean startup approach and I think companies where there is too much VC money in too soon or where the investors control the company have some real risks.
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
The last comment is why it's great to have @Jonathan Abrams on Namesake.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Does anyone have any other question for @Jonathan Abrams ? It's already been over an hour. Wow.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Brian Norgard i'm sure there are a ton of questions, let the man go...he has a new $401MM company to start :)
Omid Ashtari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Omid • +1
Thank you @Jonathan Abrams !
Jen Eident • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jen • +1
Had trouble posting on the iPad. Had to track down power and get on laptop.
Antone Johnson • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Antone • +1
@Jonathan Abrams @Brian Norgard Awesome discussion. Thanks!
Steve De Long • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Steve • +1
yeah I have to go in a minute to a secret angelgate dinner with Arrington at the McDonalds across from Founders Den
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Brian Norgard I just got in, and I missed out big time. Im sure Ill learn a lot just reading through though. Thanks @Jonathan Abrams for your time today.
Cameron Kashani Rasouli • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Cameron • +1
yeah, thank you @Jonathan Abrams
Omid Ashtari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Omid • +1
@Jonathan Abrams thanks for the chen article. Wish you luck with your new startup :)
hemang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention hemang • +1
@Jonathan Abrams It's done. Thank you to a true pioneer and original thinker. Pura vida.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams thanks for taking the time with us today!
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
@Jonathan Abrams any tips on hiring/keeping awesome people?
hemang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention hemang • +1
@Jen Eident Thanks for the RT. Much appreciated.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams what's the one thing you'd like to teach your child about entrepreneurship and the world you're helping to build?
Kabir Sagoo • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Kabir • +1
OK thanks for having me here
Jonathan Abrams • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jonathan • +1
@Brian Norgard you worked at intermix too? I don't think I knew that. Which acquisition? Before they threw out Greenspan and brought in Rosenblatt?
Antone Johnson • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Antone • +1
@Antone Johnson Newroo. Right after Rich left. Technically I didn't work for Intermix—I worked for FIM.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Thank you.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
Thanks so much @Jonathan Abrams .

If you guys could RT this, that'd be awesome: https://twitter....67241986
Scott Hurff • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
Great conversation! @Jonathan Abrams thanks for spending the time with us.
Scott Magoon • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Scott • +1
Seriously, the Twitter ubiquity thing is huge. Reminds me of when movie trailers and everything else started showing Website addresses around 1995 or 96. The Internet was suddenly mainstream and commercial, no longer the province of geeks at universities.
Antone Johnson • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Antone • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Thanks for stopping by! this was great.
Michael Viamari • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Michael • +1
Darn it! I missed out. :( I haven't seen @Jonathan Abrams since he crashed a party at my place some years ago... :p It is all good! Best of luck on your new startup!
Steven Roussey • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Steven • +1
Hey everyone, we've started a blog around conversation. Please take a look if you have a moment:

http://blog.name...f-design
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
@Antone Johnson The ubiquity is really interesting. How fast it happened. Why it happened. And what people are doing with these channels... It's only the second inning in my opinion.
Brian Norgard • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Brian • +1
BTW: I still have my Apple Newton!
Steven Roussey • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Steven • +1
@Jonathan Abrams Thanks for sharing your experiences. Cheers!
hemang • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention hemang • +1
Many thanks @Jonathan Abrams for a simulating conversation. Not to mention your role in igniting the entire social media revolution a decade ago... :)
Antone Johnson • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Antone • +1
@Brian Norgard that explains it. I gave notice the week we moved MySpace from SM into the new FIM headquarters in BH. :)
Antone Johnson • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Antone • +1
Great conversation Brian.
Robert Edwin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Robert • +1
Outstanding!
Michael Cyrulnik • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Michael • +1
Will there be a follow-up conversation? =-)
Jeff Potter • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Jeff • +1
this was awesome guys, i learned more today than i could have in a week
Ed Stapleton Jr • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Ed • +1
@Jeff Potter :-D Well, @Brian Norgard forked one of the topics to a new conversation here: http://namesake....an-learn
Clint Ivy • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Clint • +1
i keep missing these- how about a mobile app?
katelyn friedson • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention katelyn • +1
Katelyn - agreed.
Eric Galen • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Eric • +1
Nice to meet you @Jonathan Abrams
Junaid Ahmed • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Junaid • +1
What a fantastic conversation - I only missed it by 4 weeks! I'm commenting here so y'all notify me when the follow up conversation happens
Michael Liskin • Punt • Delete Comment • Mention Michael • +1

What do you think?

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speaking of tech execution, I'...
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i keep missing these- how abou...

Participants

Andrew Skotzko
Michael Liskin
Ben Tseitlin
Pius Uzamere
Andrea Fuentes
Steven Diebold
Scott Hurff
Jeremy Hubert
Xianhang Zhang
Nathan Moore
Scott Magoon
belsito
Brian Fischer
Eric Galen
Jeff Bajayo
Robert Edwin
Jeff Potter
Kyle Ellicott
jonathanjoseph
Brian Norgard
Nova Spivack
Farb Nivi
Clint Ivy
Matt Gray
Kabir Sagoo
Junaid Ahmed
Michael Viamari
Eric Ingram
Jonathan Abrams
Marc Cenedella
Jen Eident
Dan Gould
Chris Van Dusen
Omid Ashtari
Kimberly Kohatsu
Antone Johnson
Steve De Long
Deena Varshavskaya
Chris Dumler
Mike P.malai
Erik Engstrom
chris dixon
Kirin Kalia
Ed Stapleton Jr
katelyn friedson
hemang
Michael Fisher
Michael Cyrulnik
Jay Resio
Ezra HaLevi
Cameron Kashani Rasouli
Dave Churchville
Steven Roussey
Grant Miller

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