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Overview of Stanford Facebook Class (Fall 2007) by Dave McClure for Digital Leadership Summit, May 13 2008
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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
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