10 Million in 10 Weeks (Stanford Facebook Class, Fall 2007)
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10 Million in 10 Weeks What Stanford Learned Building Facebook Apps (Stanford CS377W, Fall 2007) Dave McClure Digital Leadership Summit 5/13/08
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Overview of Stanford Facebook Class (Fall 2007) by Dave McClure for Digital Leadership Summit, May 13 2008
Transcript of 10 Million in 10 Weeks (Stanford Facebook Class, Fall 2007)
10 Million in 10 WeeksWhat Stanford Learned Building Facebook Apps
(Stanford CS377W, Fall 2007)
Dave McClureDigital Leadership Summit
5/13/08
Master of 500 Hats?• Developer• Entrepreneur• Ultimate Frisbee Player• PayPal Mafia• Fan of Microfinance• Startup Advisor / Angel• Internet Marketing• Tech Blogger• Conference Organizer• Social Network Addict• Stanford Lecturer• Startup Metrics
A Stanford Class on Facebook?!?
(who let you guys escape from the funny farm?)
D
In The Beginning… (Summer 2007)
• BJ & Dave had lunch at O’Reilly Foo Camp• Brainstormed teaching a new Stanford course about
applying metrics to app design, product mgmt & mktg• Facebook Platform had conveniently just launched
“Hey: why don’t we use Facebook as a ‘petri dish’ for the lab work, and see what students come up with?
...
D
Curriculum (Alpha Version)
3 Apps (!)
1. Virality
2. Engagement
3. Education-focused
Hoping to leverage . . .
• Huge reading list
• Metrics-based grading
• Psychology of technology
Expecting 20-40 students...D
...120 showed up R
...So we scared some students off.
B
7 person teaching team(2 instructors, 3 TAs, 2 coaches)
75 students (25 teams of 3)
Over 50 apps created
B
Team Effort
• Stanford University • 2 Instructors: BJ Fogg & Dave McClure• 3 Student TAs: Dan, Rob, Greg• 2 Team Coaches: Yee (Slide), Jia (RockYou)• Industry Support: Facebook, Google, MySpace,
Joyent, Amazon, SocialMedia, etc• Outside Speakers: platforms, app developers, startups,
angels, VCs, Stanford alumni• Press: WSJ, NYT, Fortune, SF Chronicle, San Jose
Mercury, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GigaOm, etc• Community Support & Cheerleading
B
D
Every class was exciting and surprising D
Students drove us forward B
Students come together outside of class... D
So, What Happened?
Initial Success!!! R
Success StoriesR
B
10 Million in 10 Weeks Total Installed Users: 20M+• 5 apps @ 1M+ users• 10 apps @ 100k users• 20 apps @ 5k users
Total Daily Active Users (DAU): 925k6 apps with ~ 100k DAU10 apps with > 10k DAU19 apps with > 500 DAU
5 Apps in Facebook Top 100
Top Apps (according to Adonomics): ~ $10MB
BayCHI Student Presentation B
Final Expo in December 2007
500+ people show up
R
More SuccessesR
Aftermath• $500K - $1M+ revenue generated in ~6 months
• 5 Commercial projects
• 4 Stanford dropouts
• 3 companies formed
• 2 companies acquired
• 1 startup funded
• More job offers than students can handle
• Teach the class again? D
What Did We Learn?
Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#1. It's never too late to create a winning app
• When we launched course, over 6000 Facebook apps existed.
• 10 weeks later, our students had 6 apps in the top 100
Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#2. Simplicity & clarity are key to app success
• Apps need to be easily understood (value prop)
• Apps need to be easy to use
The wrong direction:• Clever names• Lots of features
Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#3. Speed & flexibility in launch & iterations
• Many crummy trials beat deep thinking
• Flexibility beats quality
Deadly: Getting too attached to one app idea.
Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#4. Community cooperation leads to success
• Students helped others a lot
• Sharing code, tips, insights . . . all were present in course.
Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#5. Individual opinions about app are worthless
• Don't be swayed by one person's opinion.
• Just get the app out there and see what happens . . .
Despite everyone's supposed "brilliance" . . . • Often what seemed like a killer idea didn't work.
• Sometimes what seemed stupid worked very well.
Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#6. Copying success is a cheap/fast way to succeed
• Novelty isn't the best approach to apps
• If you're desperate for a win, just copy something that's working
Flipside: If your app is doing well, expect imitators.
Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#7. Metrics do matter, but today's tools are too weak
• Of course, instrument your apps to track viral aspects
• No one offers a winning metrics package (yet) -- not even GA
Our experience: Students often had to tweak GA and also create their own metrics tools.
Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#8. You CAN learn to create a winning app
• Success with FB apps isn't luck or magic
• Many Stanford teams succeeded
• Teams who failed at first later created great apps (like Oregon Trail)
The Future of Social Networks?
Where We’re Headed Next…
• Multiple Platforms• More Social Apps• Niche Platforms• Better Analytics• Social Media Advertising• Monetization?• Data Portability• The Rest of the Web Gets Social• Social Commerce?
End
