April 30, 2006May 12, 2012 by Brendon J. Wilson

Caterina Fake: Interactive Q&A

This is part of my set of notes from the Startup School 2006 sessions at Stanford.

Caterina Fake is part of the phenomenal team behind Flickr, the popular photo-sharing web site now owned by Yahoo. In this session, she sat down with Jessica Livingston to answer questions posed by attendees.

If you were doing Flickr again, what would you do differently? What did you get wrong that you would change if you were doing it again?

Everyone says hire slow, fire fast. They thought they knew that, but they did end up with their backs against a wall with one particular person, made the mistake of hiring too fast and firing too slow. The difference is that Flickr was created as a result when the backend team got so far behind the frontend development team, so it was kind of a blessing in disguise.
Other errors – they made a fairly stupid product in the end. The IM client thing was kind of neat. Normally you want to make your mistakes fast. We had this “foo” up fast – learned the hard way by creating many products that they killed very fast. Making mistakes is inevitable however, and crucial to the whole development of Flickr.

What sort of usability testing (if any) did you use in developing Flickr? Did you find it helpful?

Zero. We did none. Get it out early is the best way to do their usability testing. They originally put out this Flash-based IM chat client with photos product. They interacted daily in conversation with their users, watching what they were doing (which is doubly important, because many people can’t tell you what they want). They had open forums where people could report bugs, make suggestions, report bugs. The Flickr employees were answering 50 times a day in the forums – it was a dialog – they developed the product in concert with the users. They wouldn’t have been able to develop it that quickly if they hadn’t done that. People don’t have a problem telling you that something really sucks.
For example, they redesigned the main photo page (when they were about 50K users) – within 10 minutes, they realized it was a really bad design. One user went so far as to comment: “I’ve had a really bad childhood, and this redesign has just pushed me over the edge”

Why did Flickr not make the move into video sharing to take on YouTube?

When they started Flickr, they thought it was going to be all things to all people. Video, MP3, rich text, online collaboration tool. We actually started out with a fairly large morass of features we planned on implementing (and actually did in some cases, and then later removed). At some point we had to boil it down to what it actually did – “this is a photo site” – strip down the product to its essence. At the time the media was images – camera phones and digital cameras were just taking off. A lot of the reason the way Flickr evolved were also heavily involved in blogging – unlike other competitors in the space who viewed photos as a loss leader to funnel people to buy photo prints, photo sharing itself was the product.
Video – I have nothing to announce on that front, but I don’t preclude the possibility of video in Flickr in the future.

How have things changed for Flickr now that you’ve been acquired?

Prior to acquisition, they were growing extremely quickly and facing scalability problems. As a result, they needed to either get an infusion of cash, or get acquired. Had many suitors, but were looking for someone who had the right DNA and believed in the product as it was. They had a really close relationship with their users, and it seemed to be the place to be. They were looking for a place hat would preserve the ‘isness” of what Flickr was. Startups have the advantage that they don’t have the baggage of the brand that large companies have – so preserving feel of the company is a risk of a small company going into a big company. Caterina had a similar experience as a child with a friend who loved his hamster so much that he crushed it to death (“I love you so much”) – hence the phrase we have, “Don’t hamster me”

Did Ludicorp hire a PR group to stir up buzz for Flickr, or what it user generated? How did you start getting users?

We, being small and underfunded, developed the product in such a way that it would be viral. They had no marketing/PR budget whatsoever. We had to come up with features that would get the word out. Having a background in blogging (both she and Stewart), blogging seemed like a good way to spread the word. As a result they created features that were tuned to using blogging to get the word out (badges, “Blog this” button). 80% of people found Flickr through blogs.
At one point we were about to launch our payment service, and users were clamouring to buy more storage. Created a marketing offer of “invite five users and get extra storage for free” – was extraordinarily successful.
We also had a number of influential articles written by alpha geek writers in popular newspapers and other publications. They wrote the first three articles that were about Flickr (without even interviewing Flickr). As things started to pick up that there was enough momentum that they received calls from reporters; we talked to everyone that we could. Eventually hired a PR firm to handle all the incoming requests, not generate PR.
When the Internet came around, there was a culture of generosity that made the Internet interesting. Weinberger: In the real world, strangers are a source of fear; on the Internet, strangers are the source of everything good. When you’re designing a user experience, turning people from facing to the web site to facing each other is a very crucial part of how Flickr was designed. Constantly putting people in contact with each other. We launched the IM photosharing client at O’Reilly Emerging Technology conference – spent 24×7 greeting each person who came in, reviewed their profiles, and introduced them to other people. In online communities, it’s like arriving you at a party where you don’t know anybody; there needs to be a host that invites you in, takes your coat, shows you around. As Paul Graham said earlier, people’s finger is poised over the “back” button when they visit your site. The active hands-on experience was crucial to the success.

#1: Release early

Get a version one out fast, improve based on user feedback. Don’t release something full of bugs, but something minimal. Pays to get version 1 done fast. It’s the right way to write software – seen a lot of software dies because it was released too slow.

If you don’t release early, you won’t know who your users are – as you don’t know your users, you don’t know what they will like.

WuFoo release their form-builder early – they haven’t even release the engine underneath it. Many Linux users complained early about too much Flash, so they removed it

Initial release shakes out the bugs earlier

Makes you work harder – when you’re working on something that’s released, it makes problems be critical to fix

Getting into the English channel gradually is going to take a long time

#2: Keep pumping out features

Don’t make application more complex; one quantum of hacking that makes the user’s life better

Improvements beget improvements – the more ideas you implement, the more ideas you’ll have. Not just a good way to get development done – also a form of marketing: users love sites that constantly get better. Will like it even better if you’re improving in response to their input, because they’ll recognize that you’re listening – thus generating fanatical devotion to the application.

If your product seems finished, there are two possibilities: it is finished, or you lack imagination.

#3: Make users happy

You can’t force anyone to do anything, to do deals with them. A startup sings for its supper, otherwise they die.

If users pick you up, no competitor can keep you down

Vast majority of users will be casual users, and it’s for them that you need to design

Think of all the links you’ve visited on the web; a vast majority of them have led to something lame.

Do things to make people pause (from hitting the back button):

Concisely explain what your site does: You have to be able to explain in one or two sentences what you do. Not just for users, but also reporters, partners, press. You probably shouldn’t start a startup if it can’t be explained in one or two sentences.
Give users something immediately up front: The front page is probably the only page most users will see. Show, don’t tell – just like as in writing fiction.

The job the site is conversion – convert visitors to users; if you have decent growth, you’ll win

#4: Fear the right things

Startups right to be paranoid, but fear the wrong things. Disasters are normal in a startup. They won’t kill you unless you left them.

“What if Google builds the same thing” – most startups worry about large companies. Don’t fear the established players, fear instead the other startups. Like you, they’re cornered animals. Don’t fear what people could be doing, fear what people are actually doing. No matter what you’re doing, there is someone else doing it.

Competitors are not the biggest threat – internal disputes, ignoring users. Almost everyone’s initial plans are broken.

#5: Commitment is a self-fulfilling prophecy

Would like to believe that Viaweb succeeded because they were smart, not their commitment

What students lack in experience, they make up in determination

You can lose quite a lot in the brains department, and it won’t kill you.

There’s always a disaster – if you’re inclined to quit, there’s always a reason at the ready

If you lack commitment, it will seem that you’re unlucky. If you determined to stick around, people will have to pay attention to you. Y Combinator mistakenly has funded groups who have decided to “try this startup thing for three months and see if something great happens”.

You have to be the right kind of determined; determined, but flexible, not stubborn.

#6: There’s always room for new stuff

Example: Suggested to founder to add social networking component – founder responded that the social networking area was pretty much played up.

The reason we don’t see the opportunity is that we adjust to the way things are, not the way they should be

There’s no limit in the number of startups. People don’t argue there’s no limit on the small number of large, slow moving companies, why should it be different for the large number of small, fast moving startups?

#7: Don’t get your hopes up

Founders are naturally optimistic

It’s OK to be optimistic about what you can do, but you should assume the worst about machines and other people.

Things change suddenly, and often for the worst.

If you’re doing a deal, just assume that it won’t happen. Then, when things work out, you can be pleasantly surprised.

Not said to prevent people from being disappointed, but to avoid leaning company towards something that’s going to fail. Example: Don’t stop looking for VC deals just because you’ve got one on the table. Deals are dynamic, there’s not a single point where you shake hands and it’s over.

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