Tony Wright (dot com) - Latest Comments

Re: Comments Change - Using Disqus!

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Re: Half-assed Startup – How to Start your Company and Keep Your Day Job

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Re: On Auto-Tweets, Facebook Games, and Other Bits of Pollution

royleban — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:58:30 -0000

When I created the Twitter puzzles on Puzzazz, I made the deliberate decision to never tweet on behalf of a user. And, I went further and made it so that people tweet answers beginning with @Puzzazz, which means most of the time, other people don't see them. The result is that my viral uptake is a pretty solid 0%. That sucks.

If you're a good guy, you don't succeed, but if you're bad, everybody complains even though you're winning. Nice guys finish last?

Re: On Auto-Tweets, Facebook Games, and Other Bits of Pollution

mattmaroon — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:21:26 -0000

Response rates are surprisingly hard to quantify, at least on Facebook, because they don't tell you specifically which requests (some of which were invites, some of which were gifts, etc) were accepted and which were not. They do tell you when someone installs, and you can build some tracking into them, so you can determine acceptance rates accurately. But you have no idea on ignores vs. blocks, and blocks in particular are extremely important to your platform allocations, seemingly more so than even acceptances.

The median request acceptance rate on Facebook has been hovering between 55-60% lately. That's largely due to gifting. I'd be surprised if anyone gets over 20-30% on normal invites, but with some good multivariate testing and an app that has broad appeal (such as Mafia Wars) that range is achievable.

If I had to wager it wouldn't be that you'd fail, it's that your perspective would shift a bit. The best thing about Facebook, rather than console or mobile platforms, is that you have the ability to continuously improve over time. It's not hit driven, it's more like web development. It took us a year and a handful of apps (some of which made decent money along the way) to get to where we feel we really got it right. We couldn't do that on the iPhone or Xbox platforms.

So you'd figure it out over time I'm sure, and your perspective would change. Mine certainly has. Stuff seems a lot less spammy when you realize that people are clicking accept 60% of the time.

Auto-tweeting is probably wrong, and was a mistake when we did it. We stopped that really fast once we realized that on Twitter, people don't expect it nearly so much as they do on FB. It's probably the right thing to do if you only care about growth, but we are more focused on engagement and keeping the customer happy over a long time, so in the end we felt that even ignoring the moral aspect it was the wrong thing to do.

I can't really give you much data on Twitter yet. We only started that game as an experiment and we haven't really put as much time into it as we should. Our game on Facebook was growing like gangbusters and we had to scramble to keep up. We're probably going to put some more work into it soon, so I might be able to give you some more insights, though unlike Facebook I'll never get to see how we stack up against the median.

Re: On Auto-Tweets, Facebook Games, and Other Bits of Pollution

webwright — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:10:22 -0000

Hey Matt-- glad you replied-- I know you are in the thick of it and I
figured you'd have more informed points than I do. I know it's not totally
black and white, but I threw out my back this weekend so I'm grumpy.

I'd love to see response-rate data... i.e. if they send out a million in a
day, how many clicks happen? The harder data to get at is "how many people
are annoyed and how annoyed are they?". Obviously they work. I wouldn't
classify them quite as low as viagra spam... A better email analogy might
be the "newsletters" I get signed up for without my permission. Most of
them are intelligent and informative-- and I Imagine they are useful for
some of the recipients. I'm sure those perform well, too. I imagine they
are well-received for other active players-- I assume your wife plays Farm
Town.

But that's the problem. Spam started that way-- well written and
informative (if unsolicited) email that was trying to be targeted. If it
keeps working, people are going to keep doing it. It's going to get worse,
because it's a really effective medium. Response rates will go down and
aggregate annoyance levels will go up. I don't see this getting better for
folks like me!

The system is clearly rigged for this-- I totally agree. Obviously, there
are degrees of high road and I probably wouldn't take the HIGHEST! Some
people who take the highest roads still kick ass. There are plenty of games
that have had great success with zero built-in virality. Good ol' fashioned
word of mouth and marketing (from MUDs to World of Warcraft to World of
Goo). I think this is a more hit-driven path and if I ever set foot on it,
I'm sure I'd bomb heroically like most starry-eyed game makers do! I'd do
it for the love of the game and not necessarily to chase the best path the
wealth and prosperity.

Anyhoo, thanks for the great points and congrats on your success with Blue
Frog!

Re: On Auto-Tweets, Facebook Games, and Other Bits of Pollution

tomfakes — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:56:46 -0000

For some of these games, the problem goes a bit deeper. Facebook provides some tools to filter out posts from apps I don't like. This doesn't work for user status updates. Any update that comes from Twitter comes in as a Facebook status update, so Twitter games come through to Facebook more directly.

I currently have 1 friend playing Foursquare, and its almost annoying enough with 1 to think about blocking. If I'd done that already, I'd have missed reading about his recent trip to Machu Pichu - and that would have been sad.

Re: On Auto-Tweets, Facebook Games, and Other Bits of Pollution

mattmaroon — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:14:48 -0000

If only the world were so black and white. There are a few problems.

1. One man's spam is another man's ham. The line isn't as clearly-drawn as you indicate. I hate the Farm Town gift requests as much as anyone, but my wife loves them, and they've driven the median request acceptance rate up from ~20% to ~60% on the platform. The fact that these tactics work (and it's way higher than 1% response rate) indicates that a sizable number of people like them.

2. The platforms (especially Facebook) are designed in such a way that if you don't spam, you get choked off and die. Seriously. You cannot make a popular game on FB without gifts anymore. The platform is fundamentally broken in that respect. I'm not sure if you can make a popular social game on Twitter at all, but if you can, you probably have to cross that line.

3. Most of the popular web services we know and love were built through such spamminess. Facebook got big by asking you for your email login and password and then inviting everyone. Is that not spam? Sure you agreed to send those (just as you agreed to send the pigs on farm town) but the receiver never asked to get that stuff.

"I think I’d just focus on making really fun games, making it MORE fun if people invited friends, and giving them the tools to tell the world should they want to."

You'll still be accused of spamming. The person annoyed at receiving 20 Farm Town gift requests per day doesn't really care how much the sender liked the game.

The problem is not that game developers want to spam, it's that the system is designed in such a way that we have to do it (in which case we can make a fortune) or we fail (in which case we lose one). If you want to fix the problem, fix the platform, which would be easier if any of the platforms had any real developer outreach. Unless you're Zynga it's nearly impossible to just get anyone with any clout to respond to an email.

If you insist on "taking the high road" then I'm glad you're in time management.

Re: Software and Making Money (Presentation Slides Included)

fijiaaron — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:30:12 -0000

I agree, usability and design/copy aren't the be-all end all. There are two things more important:

Do people have the problem you claim to solve?
Can you deliver the promised solution?

Words, pictures, SEO, buzz, usability, etc. mean nothing here. A little honestly and simplicity can get 90% of people past whatever usability/presentation hump you have.

Retention (not acquisition) depends on delivery.

The good news is that if you have correctly identified the problem, and people know it, then solving it is just a matter of work. Solving it in a profitable way though, that's the trick of business.

I'm not dismissing the importance of marketing, but that just gets you to step 2 of the funnel.

Re: Software and Making Money (Presentation Slides Included)

twitter-14717541 — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:30:22 -0000

Great info, Tony!

Re: Software and Making Money (Presentation Slides Included)

bryanstarbuck — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:08 -0000

Absolutely wonderful!

Re: Software and Making Money (Presentation Slides Included)

Matthew_Trifiro — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:27:03 -0000

So, I went and posted again and my original post showed up. Sorry for the redundancy...

Re: Software and Making Money (Presentation Slides Included)

webwright — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:18:54 -0000

Thanks Matt! Two of are definitely on my list of favorites. Hadn't seen
the Sean Ellis one-- am digging into it now. I love startup porn. :-)

Re: Software and Making Money (Presentation Slides Included)

Matthew_Trifiro — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:18:16 -0000

Disqus ate my comment. :-(

Re: Software and Making Money (Presentation Slides Included)

Matthew_Trifiro — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:13:01 -0000

Great post Tony. Well presented.

Here are a couple of other resources your readers might enjoy:

Dave McClure's Startup Metrics for Pirates
http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-me...

Sean Ellis' 12-in-6 Startup Launch Plan
http://www.slideshare.net/seanellis/startup-lau...

Eric Ries on Agile Startups
http://www.slideshare.net/startuplessonslearned...

Re: Software and Making Money (Presentation Slides Included)

webwright — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:36:54 -0000

Comments are a little wonky right now, but I think they are working again!

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

clinicaltrials — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:54:44 -0000

If you move to CA for your 50% increase in chance you have to factor in how the expense of moving will limit you cash flow

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

Michael Dunham — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:45:45 -0000

There's always the PWC Money Tree https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/nav.js... - it's more about the funding end - but interesting

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

Array — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:40:26 -0000

Actually, I remember Bellevue :) was called number one of 100 best places to live and launch new business.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fsb/0803/ga...

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

webwright — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:37:09 -0000

I don't recall ever defining success in that post, or any other. But one
measure of success is certainly having a line of previously-spurned buyers
waiting in line when you're ready to move on.

Regardless, whether you or I define an exit as the target isn't really the
question. Every single early stage investor defines it that way and a large
percentage of entrepreneurs want to eventually sell their company and move
onto other things. When you're ready to move onto other things, liquidity
is very common measure of success. Which is not to say that building to
flip is a smart path. That data doesn't talk about the truth of exits--
which is that the vast majority of exits aren't 1-2 year flips. The
idea-to-exit-in-18-months bullshit isn't the norm. Most companies that are
bought in this world are real (and oftentimes profitable) businesses that
have been built and run for many years.

The truth is that success is complicated and subjective, which is why you
won't see me trying to define it any time soon.

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

MarinaMartin — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:38:50 -0000

Okay, I won't quibble with your dataset, but I will quibble with your definition of success. I'd die before I sold a company of mine to Yahoo or Google; it's like volunteering your seven-year-old child for ritual Mayan sacrifice. (Yea, I realize that walking away from many millions would be difficult, but if I'm not seeking a buyer, I'd never be in the theoretical position of being able to refuse.) If profit is your sole incentive, then sure, acquisition is the ideal, but I'm not putting in 90-hour weeks to watch my hard work be killed (Dodgeball, Jaiku) or irreparably maimed (Flickr). A better success metric would be "still operating and in the black after five years" regardless of acquisition.

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

bobv — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:37:34 -0000

NY and NJ are really the same place. You're basically separating a city from its suburbs.

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

Ben Kuo — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:19:22 -0000

Our numbers say Silicon Valley = 6.2% acquisition rate, Southern California (LA/San Diego) = 9.0% acquisition rate. We already track the two areas separately (www.silicontap.com = Silicon Valley, www.socaltech.com = Southern California).

Due to our tracking/historical I believe Southern California is probably very accurate (we've got 10+ years of data), Silicon Valley not as much.

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

blah — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:18:37 -0000

In this page, theres a Tony trivia "Currently bouncing around between Silicon Valley and Seattle, WA."
If valley isnt a big deal, why bother bouncing?

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

webwright — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:13:12 -0000

That'd be interesting, but it'd require some map research or some geocoding
work. I believe Crunchbase has city info, but I don't know the location of
all of the suburbs of the big two (who the heck knows where Santa Milano or
Los Fractos or San Barbarino are? I sure as heck don't off the top of my
head).

Re: Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

Gene — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:07:31 -0000

For CA, can you break out by SF-Bay Area versus LA & San Diego?