4. Taking over the worldTaking over the world
(one PowerPoint at a(one PowerPoint at a
time!)time!)
Start: May 06 > Beta > Launch Oct
06 > Grow > Grow more > Angel
funding Dec 07 > Series A Apr 08
6. How to run aHow to run a
scrappy startupscrappy startup
•OR how to make the most of the
money you have
•OR How to build the best product
with little money
7. 1. Keep your day1. Keep your day
job till your ideajob till your idea
has legshas legs
•MindCanvas to SlideShare
8. Start from top inStart from top in
being scrappybeing scrappy
9. The lower the CEO salary, theThe lower the CEO salary, the
more likely it is to succeedmore likely it is to succeed …it goes…it goes
to whether the mission of the company is to buildto whether the mission of the company is to build
something new or just collect paychecks.something new or just collect paychecks.
Peter Thiel, FoundersFund
10. Cash is importantCash is important
•Know your burn rate & fume date
(when you will run out of money)
at any moment
11. 2. Have a remote2. Have a remote
teamteam
•Offshore not outsource
•Everyone should feel ownership
(& have stock options)
•Hire smart people, give them
ownership
15. 3. Bring expertise3. Bring expertise
into company without hiringinto company without hiring
•Advisory roles – SEO, Sales,
Metrics, Marketing
16. How to structure advisoryHow to structure advisory
relationshipsrelationships
•How much stock?
•Setup monthly meetings
•Create action items at each meeting,
complete them, report back
20. 5.5. OutsourceOutsource what youwhat you
cancan
Amazon S3, EC2
Dedicated servers instead of colocation
Google Ads, custom search
Different widgets (Gigya, AddThis)
21. 6. Don’t let biz-6. Don’t let biz-
dev get ahead ofdev get ahead of
productproduct
What type of hosting
Developers love it
Its good for fast, agile teams
We hit scalability issues, but Twitter hitting them first!
So far, its been solvable
Not enough CPU. Doubled spend on machines.
Split Web servers from App servers
As system gets load, some parts of system get used more, code needs to be optimized
Database scaling issues currently
Solving problems as they arise, but architecting for scaling
Dedicated hosting provider is compromise
Having tech resources outside organization you can call on
Reduces initial expense
Good sys admins harder to find than good devs
Customer requests?
At any given time
List of 15 to-do features
Many bugs to fix
Customer requests