When you’re ready to release your shiny new app, depending on which countries you’re available in and what kind of (if any) user generated content you allow, there are several things to consider. Here’s what I know. 1. Localizing your app # Translating your product into other languages is the first and most impactful step to supporting an international user-base. App Annie reports that translation…
While designing the Secret homepage, I decided I wanted to add live footage of the app in action. What I didn’t know is how much of an endeavor it could be if you don’t know all of the tools and their quirks. I achieved this demo with a few pieces of software on OS X Mavericks: Touchpose to visualize the touches in your iPhone app Reflector to capture live output from your iPhone iMovie to stitch…
If you’re like me, you might feel spread thin by the number of interests you have and feel like you don’t have enough time to accomplish everything you want. It can also be hard to keep track of everything you want to achieve which can leave you feeling like you’re treading water rather than swimming forward. I wanted to share my personal strategy for figuring out what’s important in life and how…
With each passing year, Facebook struggles to keep the attention of the future generation. Studies show that the number of teens active on Facebook has declined as much as 16% in Q3 of 2013 . This foreshadows the inevitable exodus to the next generation of social networks. I want to talk about why this is happening, and why this is important in the history of social technology. All social…
My good friend Dustin Curtis recently proclaimed that “Ambition is a learned trait.” I couldn’t disagree more. Ambition is not something you learn from a book. Ambition is an emotional longing for change and a healthy disregard for the status quo. It’s aspiring to be more than you are now. It’s a desire to achieve something greater than you with the preparedness and the will to follow through.…
The real Silicon Valley will never be televised. What really happens here is far too personal, secret, alienating, and extreme. It runs the entire gamut of human emotions, from billion dollar acquisitions on the one hand, to co-founders committing suicide on the other. I’m not being dramatic. I have witnessed both of these extremes happen to friends. More than once. Trying to make it in the Valley…
Life is a lot like snowboarding. It’s about leaning forward and keeping your eye on where you’re going. Relax, go with the flow and enjoy yourself. Every so often you might catch an edge, but you get up and keep going. Once you get to the bottom, your bones may ache and your legs may be sore, but it’s the kind of pain that means something. Because, in the end, you have conquered the mountain.
I’ve noticed three key principles that several successful products possess. 1. Provide a novel form of self expression # People love to express themselves. This is why we buy the clothes we like, enjoy customizing our World of Warcraft characters, decorate our apartments, change our profile and cover photos, put bumper stickers on our cars, among many other things. Every decision you make is a…
Dear Chrys, I write to you from 5 years in the future. You’re 23 and about to quit your job to start a company, and I want to give you some advice. You want to quit because of an insatiable fire within – a desire to achieve something greater. The fire burns because you want to lead your own life and be your own man. Never doubt this fire, for this is the fire that will fuel everything you do for…
Cultivation of community is an integral component of successfully developing a social product. It is so integral that I would even say that a social product that doesn’t grow and nurture a community is a product with no legs. Your community chooses you. You can guide this choice implicitly through product decisions and/or explicitly through your messaging. The combination of both product decisions…