Hackers & The Canon of Consumer Facing Products

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Nate Westheimer

I have a hypothesis I’d like you to help me either prove or disprove based on your comments on this blog post. The hypothesis:

“The first version of every consumer-facing software product that’s ever been widely-adopted and consistently used was primarily built (e.g. coded, designed), by the person who most wanted the product in the first place (i.e. the builders did not build from the direction or idea from upon high).”

Said differently, in the canon of consumer-facing products, you will only find products for which the inspiration and the perspiration came from the same person.

When I look at my web browser history and my iPhone screen, and analyze the applications that I used on a daily basis, this is true for me:

  • Google Search – The core innovation of this company was made my the original founders.
  • Gmail – Built as a Google Labs product by the people who wanted it.
  • Google Maps – Also built by developers at Google who wanted the tool, not from management.
  • Facebook – Built by Mark Zuckerberg.
  • Foursquare – Built by Naveen and Dennis.
  • Twitter – Built by Jack Dorsey.
  • WordPress – Built by Matt Mullenweg.
  • Skype – Underlying technology and user-base built by founders.
  • Tumblr – Built by David Karp.
  • Forrst – Built by Kyle Bragger
  • Apple Products – Even the lineage of this great company, along with the other great computer company (Microsoft) was born from the products developed by two hackers, vs the dozens of other corporate computer companies whose products died out.

I should be clear: my hypothesis is not that startups are the only people who can or will make successful, disruptive products, it’s that hackers are the only people who will make successful, disruptive products.

The origins of this thinking date back to my decision to learn to code and conversations I had on the general idea of me learning to code with my friend Sam Lessin.

Since that time, I’ve thought long and hard about the thesis, and finally my father suggested I put it to the ultimate test by sharing it here.

Can you disprove this or add to it? What are the consumer-facing software products you use on a daily basis and were the inspiration and the perspiration done by the same or different people?

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  • http://startupgrognard.tumblr.com Greg Leman

    This should give pause to the legions of startups run by groups of MBAs/suits looking for a “programmer” to implement their vision.

  • http://www.thegetdownguy.com willcole

    I think this generally holds true. Engineers as idea generators, or treated as “product” people and not just coders, is a huge advantage. Domain expertise, skin in the game from inception, and coding ability is much more dangerous than someone hired for a specific task. nnKnow About It is the product of Kevin scratching a specific itch for how he wanted to find content. Especially in the first couple of months leadership was coming all from the engineering side while I played catch up. I’ve done the opposite, and from a product standpoint this has been a much stronger process. I think we’ll help strengthen your thesis.

  • http://blog.botfu.com Kevin Marshall

    I think I mostly agree with your theory (it’s been my personal experience within all my smaller projects and my consulting life)…but the biggest counter example I can think of off the top of my head is digg.com … and I imagine there are (lots of) others.nnI think being the hacker gives you one small advantage…the ability to stick it out longer and actually shape your passion into success…but honestly I think the true path to success is mostly about actually sticking it out and continuously shaping your passion into success (the trouble for non developers is that the process costs them money and time…and neither of those are unlimited resources in todays world).nnJust my two cents.

  • http://twitter.com/yorick5 Todd Stanley

    I would tend to agree that this premise is accurate a high percentage of the time, but I’m not convinced that it is specific to this particular industry. I think if we were to delve into the history of a wide variety products we’d find that this premise held true. It is the most basic nature of a successful invention, is it not? The innovator has the most invested and will be most motivated.

    • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

      Well I guess what I’m asking is if you have specific examples which gornagainst this rule…

  • http://leftovertakeout.com gbattle

    “With all the code being written out there, who gets the credit? People like Bill Gates get it all and he hasn’t written anything in years!”n- Tim Paterson, the actual author of MS-DOS while at Seattle Computer that sold it to Microsoft. One man created it, the other made a business out of it.n

  • http://twitter.com/staplegun Mr DC

    While I agree “the inspiration and the perspiration came from the same person” part, the perspiration doesn’t necessarily mean they MADE it themselves – it may be that they worked tirelessly with collaborators to make it happen (because they didn’t have the skills). And the inspiration may have been to help someone else (though probably an acquaintence).nn3M PostIt Notes were inspired by someone else, and the persperation was more in convincing 3M to run with the idea. http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Self-Adhesive-Note.html

    • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

      So, again, I guess I’d ask for examples of where my thesis doen’t work.rnAgain, I’m talking specifically about consumer-facing software, not physicalrngoods.rnrnThanks for participating.

  • http://twitter.com/gulpthis Gulp Media

    That’s easy. Hulu. Sarah Harden at FOX.

  • http://twitter.com/gulpthis Gulp Media

    Does Charles Simonyi of MSFT count. Word & Excel.

    • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

      I don’t know much about Charles or the history of word-processors, but I dornknow Excel was just a replica of the first “Killer App” (rnhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_application )… VisiCalc, which wasrndreamed of and built by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston.rnrnAnyone know what the first well- and consumer-adopted word-processor was andrnif it was built by a hacker or for a business or business person? Could be arncontender for an exception, but we need more info.

  • Anonymous

    What about when companies pivot? Like Hashable. It’s a different product than Tracked so I don’t think it violates the “first version” stipulation.nnI think your hypothesis is strong and have also considered learning to code for this exact reason.

    • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

      Hashable is great, but is it a massively adopted service yet? Potentialrnexception in the future — and perhaps not a coincidence that LinkedIn isrnthe only real exception here I can come up with, but today I don’t thinkrnit’s an exception.

  • http://launchgrowipo.com/ Trevor Owens

    PayPal wasn’t created like that.nnFrom Wikipedia-nConfinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company.[11] X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. Both Confinity and X.com launched their websites in late 1999.[12] Both companies were located on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Confinity’s website was initially focused on reconciling beamed payments from Palm Pilots[13] with email payments as a feature and X.com’s website initially featured financial services with email payments as a feature.nnAt Confinity, many of the initial recruits were alumni of The Stanford Review, also founded by Peter Thiel, and most early engineers hailed from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recruited by Max Levchin.

    • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

      75% right I think (the hackers involved had a huge stake in the company andrnwere basically co-founders). Feel free to dispute.rnrnThe point though I think just shows how good Reid Hoffman is. PayPal andrnLinkedIn may be the two best examples of bucking this trend and he was veryrninvolved in both.

      • http://launchgrowipo.com/ Trevor Owens

        Peter Thiel was the major inspiration and he was not the developer. Then again it’s Web 1.0.

    • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

      75% right I think (the hackers involved had a huge stake in the company andrnwere basically co-founders). Feel free to dispute.rnrnThe point though I think just shows how good Reid Hoffman is. PayPal andrnLinkedIn may be the two best examples of bucking this trend and he was veryrninvolved in both.

  • http://launchgrowipo.com/ Trevor Owens

    PayPal wasn’t created like that.nnFrom Wikipedia-nConfinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company.[11] X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. Both Confinity and X.com launched their websites in late 1999.[12] Both companies were located on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Confinity’s website was initially focused on reconciling beamed payments from Palm Pilots[13] with email payments as a feature and X.com’s website initially featured financial services with email payments as a feature.nnAt Confinity, many of the initial recruits were alumni of The Stanford Review, also founded by Peter Thiel, and most early engineers hailed from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recruited by Max Levchin.

  • http://www.upnext.com Danny Moon

    I think your hypothesis is generally true (>75% of the time). But some counter examples…nn- Zynga – Mark Pincusn- Gilt Groupe – Alexis and AlexandrannThere are always exceptions to the rule. Kinda the beauty of entrepreneurship.

    • http://giffconstable.com giffc

      Take 3 of getting Disqus to work on iOS: Gilt was founded by Kevin Ryan who spotted the success of vente privee, but the point stands. And while it is early days yet, a more recent success story is Yipit, which pivoted upon spotting a near opportunity.nnOne challenge that we have with all of this is that startups often rewrite the truth of their founding for PR purposes to fit media and investor desired mythology.

      • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

        Good point re: Gilt. I count copy cats out, though still impressive what they’ve done. rnrnRe: investor mythology, whats an example? Any of my examples actually myths?

        • http://giffconstable.com giffc

          I think of your examples Facebook is the one with the murkiest founding story – hard to really know what happened unless you were very close to it. In general, I agree with your hypothesis (would add craigslist, yahoo, and would guess intuit but don’t know founding of that), but I also know that startups are not as clean or as instantaneous as they are sometimes made out to be. I think “pride in the pivot” is a fairly recent thing, and early struggles used to be hidden more.nnGilt is a public example of rewriting the founding story, and I believe eBay had some of that going on as well, and I have heard of others over the last 17 years.

  • Anonymous

    Our company, RunKeeper, can serve as a counter example. I had the idea when I was training for a marathon. I had a personal itch that I became obsessed with scratching. I don’t write a lick of code. I got so excited about this vision that I quit my job to focus full-time on finding others w/ complementary skills who shared this vision. nnOur first release of the iPhone app was built by an outside development shop and a basic website built by some moonlighting engineers, with me playing product manager (which I had no experience doing). But I was an avid runner, was very familiar with existing tools, knew where the gaps were, and had a good, intuitive sense for where things were heading.nnI was lucky enough, very early on to find a rockstar CTO/co-founder, who is an amazing developer and technical lead. We were lucky again when we found a kick-ass product guy to come in as a 3rd co-founder. And lucky a 3rd time when we got an amazing front-end guy who is incredible at design, user experience, and writes code to come in as our head of user experience. But the initial germ of an idea started with a dude who is far from an engineer. nnWe are 11 people now, and we’ve got an amazing, well-rounded team. We’ve raised 2 rounds of equity financing. Our apps have been downloaded more than 5 million times, and we have an amazing, passionate community that has emerged around the RunKeeper system. We have a long way to go, but I hope that by sharing a bit about how far we’ve come it will serve as a counter-example to your hypothesis. You may be right in terms of percentages, but it doesn’t always have to be that way.

    • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

      Great example. Have you seen others fail where you have succeeded? What arernsome tips you think are key, here?

      • Anonymous

        I’ve seen lots of non-technical founders, including me struggle. Here are a few tips if you are not a technologist but want to start a tech company:nnEmbrace that you are out of your element and ask for help. Get advice from software engineers, CTOs, development shops, other non-technical founders, etc. As you do, your story will get tighter, your idea will evolve, your network will get bigger, your ability to assess technical talent will improve, and you will gain a better understanding of the different options to move forward before you pick one.nnChoose your bullets wisely, you don’t have many in the gun. For us, we had a huge vision but intentionally started with a tiny piece of it that had real utility, so we could get real users, real traction, and real revenues quickly that then funded further product enhancements and made it easier to attract additional technical talent.nnIn a similar vein, fail fast. The worst thing to do is to go underground for a year and pop up and hope that you built something people love. We got something out there that was simple and raw in 6 weeks, and iterated from there with feedback from a small, but growing community.nnAlso, accentuate your strengths. I don’t write any code, but I am good at storytelling and teambuilding. Good at engaging users and doing community support. Good at building relationships with media and other key influencers. And good at knowing who are core users are at each phase, and what they would want. I played off of these strengths, and they gave us a big competitive differentiator, because we not only had great technical talent, but also had these skills that most early stage startups don’t have.nnAnd finally, this goes without saying, but if you don’t write code, partner with people that do! And not just coders, but people who share your vision, timing, risk profile, etc. I’m not a hacker, so I recruited a kick ass CTO. I don’t have deep product chops, so I recruited a kick ass product guy. If I was deep in one of those areas, I would recruit for the things we didn’t have. The point is to be self-aware and build a team that accentuates your strengths and compensates for your weaknesses. If you do that, your odds of success will be as big (or as small) as any hacker that is starting a company.

      • http://twitter.com/gulpthis Gulp Media

        Happy to offer you mine. 3+ years ago saw an opportunity to create a platform that would be privacy friendly and devoid of controversial and surreptitious data collection. At the same time it would give publishers a way to fairly monetize their content. I recognized that privacy would become a hot topic soon enough. I’m a great storyteller (been doing it on Wall Street for 20 years), have a passion for creativity (songwriter) and a Rolodex that entrepreneurs would kill for. I thought, this should be easy. I met with top industry executives in both entertainment and advertising. I got great feedback.nnProblem was, and still is, I can’t code or architect for my life. I tried. I actually learned JS, PHP, mySQL and HTML, but no matter how hard I worked at it, I was just an amateur. Pair that with being encumbered (read, old, married, kids) I just didn’t have a way into the tech scene to tell my story.nnFast forward 3+ years and it seems like half the talented hackers in this world are looking to create something akin to what I dreamed of years ago.nnPretty expensive lesson.

  • http://twitter.com/noabatya Noa A

    There will be exceptions, obviously. (Sometimes luck and resources converge just so.) As a developer who has worked on my own projects, though, some of the reasons for this effect are very clear. Many of the practices in software development are simply attempts at replicating the results of a single developer driven by personal necessity to solve a problem.nnThis includes principles under the ‘lean’ or ‘agile’ umbrellas. User-centered design, customer development, personas/scenarios, “eating your own dog food” are all strategies for helping focus the product on the most critical user needs. They’re processes that serve as a proxy for actually *being* the user. Think of the practice of writing specs for software; it’s just an imperfect communication of user needs from those with the understanding to those with the capacity to implement it. All of this falls away if there is a single developer-user.nnAs the developer-user, I’m more likely to address the issues that hampered my product’s usefulness to me that same day, no matter what they were. I’d learn a completely new technology or set of skills if necessary. As a non-user, to some degree I’d be drawn to the work that was most interesting, glamorous, or familiar.nnAnd finally, I think part of the effect is simply due to there being a single implementer. Fred Brooks long ago talked about the “surgeon” and how an individual can organize and prioritize the information that goes into a software product better than any team.

  • http://ronfeldman.wordpress.com/ Ron Feldman

    Definitely an interesting point and theory. I was going to ask about Amazon, but apparently you can add Bezos to your list (see here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.03/bezos_pr.html). Other thoughts:nn- What about Yelp? Probably not big enough yet?nnSeparately, the Twitter story kind of ignores Evan Williams and Biz Stone who were in the picture as co-founders? And not sure how much Dennis actually coded for Foursquare? nnAnd from more recently – Groupon? Zynga?

    • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

      Dennis coded a lot of early Foursquare and nearly all of Dodgeball’srnprototype, as far as I know.rnrnAndrew Mason was a developer and I think he wrote The Point, which is therncode-base Groupon emerged from.rnrnZynga counts.

  • http://www.charliecrystle.com Charlie Crystle

    I’m coding a bunch of Jawaya, but I’m slow and sloppy and do much better when I have a team, and frankly am looking for to having that core team of engineers so I can get back to doing what I do best. Which is code poorly around ideas that need smarter more talented people than I.nnBut I code because innovation often happens at the point of the problem, which can be very granular. the juice, the real cool stuff, often comes in the doing, not conceiving.

  • http://www.facebook.com/asantic Alex Santic

    I think that’s a strong hypothesis. It challenges one to think of counter-examples and, while it’s possible to come up with some, many of the biggest software-centric success stories do seem to adhere to your theory. Microsoft is a good example too, as it grew out of a project to create a BASIC interpreter for the Altair in the 1970s. Allen and Gates worked day and night cranking out that code.nnHowever, it occurs to me that you might be a little off base with Apple Computer. Isn’t that possibly the perfect counter-example? From the earliest days, Steve Jobs was the inspiration while Steve Wozniak was the perspiration. Jobs had no interest in and little aptitude for hardware design or programming. While Wozniak did a good job with implementation, the whole thing was Jobs’ idea, and we can probably agree that Apple was built on Jobs’ vision and evangelism.

    • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

      Are you sure about Steve Jobs? From what I know (mostly reading Steve Woz’srnautobiography) Jobs was engineering games at Atari and Apple was as muchrnWoz’ idea (in fact, he had to get invention waivers from HP for his earlyrndesigns) as it was Jobs’

      • http://www.facebook.com/asantic Alex Santic

        Jobs did have an early interest in electronics that I may have understated, but narratives such as Freiberger & Swaine’s classic “Fire In the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer” don’t suggest that his engineering abilities ran deep or that he maintained a hands-on interest over time. Even while he was at Atari, he enlisted Woz to solve engineering challenges like the low chip count Breakout game.nnAs regards Apple Computer, it doesn’t seem to be disputed that it was Jobs’ idea to start the company, while Wozniak gets sole credit for Apple BASIC and the engineering design of the Apple I and II computers. There are stories of Woz’s ambivalence about starting a company and turning his hobby into a business, and of his initial insistence on keeping his job at HP. Jobs, on the other hand, was a consummate entrepreneur. He’s legendary for his vision of selling computers to the general public, but he didn’t engineer or code anything for Apple that I know of.

        • http://innonate.com/ Nate Westheimer

          Hmm. Interesting stuff. Either way, I’m fine making Apple and Steve Jobs anrnexception to the rule!

  • Anonymous

    I also know that startups are not as tidy or as instantaneous as they are sometimes made out to be. I think “pride in the pivot” is a recent thing, and early struggles was hidden more.

  • Shimongilder

    Zynga: Pincus wasn’t a gamernLinkedIn: Reid Hoffman isn’t a developern

  • Anonymous

    I wanted this company to generate content. I have a friend, Aaron Ryder, who I have known for years, and we kind of grew up together with the business.nnu00a0Office Furniture

  • Anonymous

    Consider the practice of writing the specifications for the software, is just poor communication needs of users who have the understanding to those who have the ability to apply.nnu00a0Office Furniture

  • BuyGiftsItems

    I was just an amateur. Pair that with being encumbered (read, old, married, kids)u00a0 nna deal a day

  • Anonymous

    We have something that was simple and crude 6 weeks, and then iterated with feedback from a small, but growing.nnu00a0Plumber Service

  • http://www.autocarloansearch.com/ Auto Loan Companies

    I can get rear again to doing what I do best. Which is value badly around thoughts that need better more skilled individuals than I.