Want your Startup to Go Viral? Learn How to “Finesse” the Competition.
Startup tips from past and present social media giants
I’m a young and inexperienced high school student, so if there’s only one thing I’m good at, it’s gaming the system to my advantage. Nowadays, a lot of us Generation Z-ers call this finessing.
The art of finessing takes a page straight out of Machiavelli’s book (apparently figuratively, as Machiavelli never actually said this):
“The ends justify the means.”
~Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian diplomat (1469–1527)
For me and my buddies, that forces us to straddle the line between productive and immoral.
But that doesn’t mean your product has to.
In the startup world, innovating and marketing a superior product is essential to survival. For many, the aim of the game is lasting long enough so that a tech giant buys them out for a fat paycheck or until they reach an IPO. But that’s much easier said than done.
Luckily, if there’s one thing a high school student is better at than finessing, it’s got to be social media. To make sure that you aren’t eaten alive in the startup world of today so you can live to be acquired tomorrow, take a look at how present-day social media giants managed to squirm by the titans of yesterday and strike gold:
On Product Innovation:
Give away satisfaction with your product.
With every click, tap, or swipe, give the user a sense of accomplishment — especially if it wasn’t deserved. If you take this advice one step further, you’re on the cusp of exploiting human nature with your product. This article is filled with notes on social media, but this has got to be the most significant:
Social media exploits the human desire to be valued and appreciated, and it doesn’t require the real-life effort of building relationships.
It’s saddening, but social media makes for a great product. Do what you need to do to make a great product, but please, for everyone’s sake, try creating a product that doesn’t prey on human nature.
De-clutter: make your product fast and functional.
Spare no expense with this one. Evan Spiegel, CEO and co-founder of SNAP, was notoriously difficult to deal with in regards to features:
“…while it’s frustrating for employees to have their features rejected because they don’t load fast enough on Evan’s phone or he doesn’t like the look of something, most believe he’s looking out for the best interests of Snapchat’s users” (Gallagher 142).
That last bit is a keeper: always look out for your customers and they will stay.
Make your product a platform.
Why did Facebook pivot from a massive social network to a hub for game developers? Why did Snapchat introduce Discover and its plethora of custom-tailored content? Because the most effective innovation is making new things in new ways:
The list of examples goes on:
YouTube innovated video content.
Netflix innovated television.
Twitter innovated “tidbit ideas.”
Twitch.tv innovated livestreamed content.
Medium is innovating journalism.
Believe it or not, all of this change is a result of the shift to social platforms — platforms for sharing, consuming, and broadcasting information and content. Embrace the trend, and definitely do not be like Myspace:
“We tried to create every feature in the world and said, ‘O.K., we can do it, why should we let a third party do it?’ We should have picked five to ten key features that we totally focused on and let other people innovate on everything else.”
~Chris DeWolfe, former CEO, co-founder of Myspace
Now that you have an air-tight product that you know users love, larger companies will be on your tail like hyenas. It’s time for the chase to begin.
On Business Strategy:
Create a dedicated cult of fans.
Getting people to use a product is hard. Getting people to love it is almost impossible. Think about how many things in life that are truly loved, but not taken for granted. How about Netflix?
Ah yes, everybody loves Netflix. The people who use it absolutely love it! Ever heard, “my hobbies include food, bubble tea, and Netflix and chill?” Gen Z sure has.
On the contrary, everyone loves the Internet, but we take it for granted. Nobody appreciates ISPs or mobile carriers. They rip us off, yes, but they still give us access to the Internet.
The network effect and FOMO are your best friends.
According to investopedia.com, “the network effect is a phenomenon wherein increased numbers of people or participants improve the value of a good or service.” Take a look at this graph if you’re confused:
FOMO, or the “Fear of Missing Out,” is especially strong among social media users. The dictionary definition of FOMO is as follows: “anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website.”
Essentially, you want to push consumption of your product with a negative force, rather than a positive force. Meaning, you want your product to be something “one can not live without,” rather than a product that “would be nice to have.”
You can see how Facebook used these two strategies to get off the runway in David Kirkpatrick’s book “The Facebook Effect”:
“…they embarked on what they called a ‘surround strategy.’ If another social network had begun to take root at a certain school, Thefacebook would open not only there but at as many other campuses as possible in the immediate vicinity. The idea was that students at nearby schools would create a cross-network pressure, leading students at the original school to prefer Thefacebook” (Kirkpatrick 101).
Don’t scale too fast.
Back in the early 2000s, the social media landscape was dominated by Friendster. But, it collapsed due to poor technology and scaling practices. Servers would slow down immensely because of database issues or even poorly optimized code. Users were often frustrated by site meltdowns and poor performance.
Success is great, but startups will always be startups. Resources are not infinite and manpower is limited. So, be wary of your technological capabilities. If you have to, act like Facebook and grow from a small niche.
Epilogue
Outmaneuvering the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos is tough, but not impossible. Let’s return to the recurring David and Goliath of social media: Snapchat versus Facebook.
While in a private meeting with Snapchat co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, “Zuckerberg asked probing questions about Snapchat and their vision for the product and company. He then wondered aloud what Snapchat might look like as a Facebook-owned company, with Evan and Bobby still at the helm, able to take advantage of the social giant’s resources and funding to grow more quickly, as Instagram had. And indeed, Zuckerberg had an impressive story to tell there: following its acquisition, Instagram’s daily active users grew almost 1,200 percent in just six months. Perhaps Facebook would be interested in acquiring Snapchat for $60 million, instantly making Spiegel and Murphy millionaires in their early twenties.
Evan explained that they weren’t interested in selling the company. In response, Zuckerberg showed them something new that his team had been working on. Poke, a new Facebook app, would be released in a few days. What was it? A messaging app for disappearing photos and videos.
The message was clear: join us, or we will crush you” (Gallagher 81, 82).
The message was clear, but the crushing wasn’t quite so. Facebook’s Poke flopped, and Zuckerberg later offered $3 billion to acquire Snap. Spiegel again declined, while paving his company’s way to IPO on March 2, 2017.
Hey! Thanks for reading. I’m not going to ask for much down here, just that you give me a follow! It’d really push me to write more stuff!
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