00:36:31 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Mark Pincus
[00:36:31] S1: Yeah. [00:36:31] S0: You know, advice is worthless. Just like do do do and you'll and you'll figure it out. And then and then and then on the other side, you know, people are giving you, you know, advice and and sort of playbooks. And I distinctly remember one meeting that I had where somebody who's now a friend was like, you're super talented. This idea of like, it's okay but it's not great and it's going to hold you back from your potential. And I and I just like didn't fully listen but it's just stuck in my head since that Yeah. [00:37:05] S6: Sad. Right? We see founders who are talented and they are just sticking with an idea that's just not quite right or not that good. And it's because there's something in their gut that they know is amazing. And that was me. I mean, I talk a lot about it in the book that I This is not a humble brag. Okay? I managed to fail. I created one of the first three social networks, tribe.net. And there were probably 10 launched in that two or three year period, including Facebook and MySpace and Tagged and Bebo. Eight of the 10 probably made it, were successful on some level. I was probably amongst the two that weren't. And so it took an act of willpower to fail. And I had that much will. I was so determined to stick with this one losing idea that really by the time I got to Zynga, I was just not going to do that again. I think that's a big message the book, and I think it's I still need to hear that message today because we fall in love with our ideas. [00:38:11] S1: Yeah.
00:38:11 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[00:38:11] S1: Yeah. [00:38:12] S0: How much like, to you, what is the balance between some ideas like, I I find this in consumer, like, quite a quite a bit more than than enterprise because it typically is a lot more defined. But in consumer, like, there's ideas that I've been pitched and I'm like, that's a terrible idea. And then like the founder, you know, just does it and it and it totally works and and sometimes unpredictable. And I think you can like tune your intuition like quite a bit but it can never be like a 100% crystal ball. You just know exactly whether an idea is gonna work or not. Like what is your What has been your framework of Yeah. Like what's the point where you're like, I'm not a 100% sure this idea will work, it's worth putting in the three weeks or three months or whatever time is necessary to actually get the reality check to the idea?
00:39:07 · Mark Pincus, John Coogan
[00:39:07] S6: Well, I think that we have idea veins or instinct veins. And so there's a zone that you have an instinct around. And then I have this framework proven better new, which is a way to kind of de risk that and keep ourselves out of trouble. So it's like, just narrow down where your idea is new or novel, and wherever it's not, look for what's already proven and copy it. And and people like Nikita Behr have really, really been good at that. And, you know, there he's done kind of the same product over and over again, and it's worked each time. So I think that at least means you're not gonna feel for the wrong reason, and you get a lot more shots on goal. And in consumer, even much more than enterprise, it really is if you test more ideas in a week than the industry you're in contests in a year, you probably have a four or 5x advantage, higher odds of success. And I'll also say that the reality in consumer is where you see traction, there's a good idea, and where you don't see traction is not a good idea. That might sound kind of dumb, but I find in consumer, you're better off backing an unproven entrepreneur who's found, for whatever reason, product market fit than a proven entrepreneur like me with no product market fit. And that's just, you know, that's an unfortunate reality. [00:40:45] S1: I have a bunch of questions.
00:40:45 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[00:40:45] S1: I have a bunch of questions. [00:40:46] S0: I have a fun thought exercise. So John and I have had this debate of is it possible to build a competitor to Instagram? That's a business. I think that I would like to see someone someone try because I believe the capital markets are in a are in a state right now that, you know, even though it's insane and there's like, you know, 99% chance it doesn't work, like, there's gonna be people that would take the bet. And you have Instagram which is one of the most popular products in the entire world and the company is like very focused on like other things, right? Like they're focused on AI and now a cloud business and and maybe the company overall doesn't fully appreciate just how amazing the business is. And it and it still continues to grow. And so I wanna believe that it's possible to for for a smart team to actually go and and and create something that would actually compete in that category. John is like, it's just not possible. It's over. It's like network effects and the scale and the social game that it's turned into. But I want to believe. I'm curious what your view is.
00:42:00 · Mark Pincus
[00:42:00] S6: Well, one of these instinct veins that I talk about is the cocktail party. Originally, there was a cocktail party on Napster, and then there was a cocktail party on Friendster, and then Facebook, and now Instagram. And it once the cocktail party is there and working, it is hard to get people to move, but these cocktail parties can wear out and and kind of lose their excitement or appeal. And in the case Instagram today, I think it's lost a lot of its original value to us, which was social networking. It was kind of serendipity that we get at a cocktail party. And they for maybe business reasons, they pursued engagement. They wanna be more like TikTok and get you be more entertainment, reels. And so I do think that that opens up an opportunity. I I don't I know if you guys spend much time thinking about Net Promoter Score. It used to be really popular NPS. And there's a funny thing. You can you could go research this now or maybe AI could simulate it for you even quicker. But I would bet that that today, users of Instagram probably have an NPS of 35. And the day they quit, it's like quitting cigarettes is probably a minus 35. That's usually the sign of some weakness, you know, in your product or brand. Looking at that, you know, on the exit, you know, they're not promoting it. In fact, they're proud that they've given up this bad habit. And what I would say though is there probably has to be a
00:43:41 · Jordi Hays, Mark Pincus, John Coogan
[00:43:41] S0: new The only thing, it's a small sample size, but the friends that I know that quit Instagram, they end up still sending me memes from their business accounts. And so I'm like, all right, I get it. [00:43:54] S6: They can't keep up the addiction. [00:43:56] S0: Yeah, yeah. I think they're actually signaling that they've quit, but they're still having a cheeky drag here and there. [00:44:04] S6: Well, I got to say, I got my drags down to I probably use Instagram once a month. Sure. And then I find myself just drawn into time wasting. I'm on Twitter or X. That's like my Cigarette. Social network, my drug of choice. I I tell myself it's more valuable content, but that's what we do. [00:44:25] S0: Yeah, say I look at it as like it's an opportunity to do whatever the inverse of a meditation is, right? In a meditation, you're sitting there, you're like, I'm to let thoughts flow through but I'm not gonna hang on to them, you know, whatever And your approach it's like, what if you could add 20 new ideas to your head every ten seconds? And that is awesome. [00:44:46] S6: Would you do that? [00:44:47] S0: And it's like, here's drone warfare and here's a protest somewhere else and here's some startup who's rage baiting you. It's addictive, whatever it is. [00:44:58] S1: It is.