10 Million in 10 Weeks - What Stanford Learned Building Facebook Apps

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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Stanford Lecturer
Startup Metrics

A Stanford Class on Facebook?!? (who let you guys escape from the funny farm?)

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

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 Stories R

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): 925k 6 apps with ~ 100k DAU 10 apps with > 10k DAU 19 apps with > 500 DAU 5 Apps in Facebook Top 100 Top Apps (according to Adonomics): ~ $10M
B

BayCHI Student Presentation B

Final Expo in December 2007 500+ people show up R

More Successes R

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

#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

#3. Speed & flexibility in launch & iterations
Many crummy trials beat deep thinking
Flexibility beats quality
Deadly: Getting too attached to one app idea.

#4. Community cooperation leads to success
Students helped others a lot
Sharing code, tips, insights . . . all were present in 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.

#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.

#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.

#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?

10 Million in 10 Weeks - What Stanford Learned Building Facebook Apps

by Real Branding on May 23, 2008

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