Interview
What Does It Take To Build A Successful Online Company? – With Michael Jones
on Apr 27, 2009 - 9:36 PM PSTI’m re-posting this interview with Michael Jones because he was recently tapped to be the Chief Operating Officer of MySpace and thought you’d want to see how the man News Corp. is entrusting with its most valuable online asset thinks about building success online.
About Michael Jones:
Michael bootstrapped userplane and sold it to AOL, then went on to found Tsavo. Along the way he’s invested in and advised startups like GumGum and Dogster. Most recently, he was named COO of MySpace.
Edited excerpt:
I think web businesses are metric businesses.
They may not be metric businesses when you initially start and you’re just building your software, but at some point it becomes about new users per day, new signups per day, etc.
I think, when you find companies that are thinking on a very detailed metric-basis, or have talent internally to be able to look at it that way, they do find success. It’s a very, very common trend that I’ve seen. I’ve seen very few companies that have had a lot of success without being that focused.
And the greater focus on detail they have, the better they optimize and tune their business.
The other thing that I really want to push a lot of people on, that I think gets lost in the fray sometimes, is making sure that you’re really driving towards the core single value of your product. Versus dealing with a massive feature creep, where you have 50 features, none of which feel like a core value.
I think part of that comes from a discovery process of launching products and iterating and changing. And there’s a fluidity to that iteration process, which is really important. But unless you can get down to that core, you’ll be half-okay for a lot of people and not great for anyone.
Getting products down to that core is very important for any business.
The full program includes:
- How to get angel investors for your startup.
- How to bootsrap a company.
- How to think of content businesses online.
Give your feedback:
What do you think of the ideas in this program. Tell me in the comments.
the FULL program:
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April 28th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Great interview Andrew!
Are you going to do another interview with Michael now that he is the COO of Myspace? I'd be curious to know how Myspace is run.
April 28th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Yeah. Let's give him some time to whip that company into shape. Then I'll
ask him for another interview so we can find out how he did it.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Great interview, thanks Andrew and Michael.
I love interviews like this, Michael comes across as a very smart, genuine guy who just knows his stuff. There are so many ego's and bull**itters out there it's refreshing.
And with interviews like this we all get a little mentoring for free!
Feedback on the interview (as you asked) Andrew-are you guys buddies? You seemed more relaxed and the interview really flowed which was great.
In my notes I wrote down a few things. I noticed Michael mentioned Discipline on several occasions. I'd love to hear his (or anyone's) practical ideas on that. How do you deconstruct Discipline. What's most important, is it what you Do or what you Don't Do etc.
I'm sure that would be a useful discussion to have.
And then his last few points in the final five minutes where the gold nuggets.
- Always be driving towards the core value of your product.
- Web businesses are metrics driven. It's all in the fine tuning and optimizing.
(Andrew – I'm sure this fits in with what I've been saying about the importance of making testing a part of our DNA, not an after thought or an expense? ;)
And I just realized you already summarized the last part above.
On another topic, I'm wondering if it's worth having a discussion (somewhere) about Comments themselves. How do we make the best use of blog comments. What is the core value of comments? In my experience, we get more people sending us private emails after an article than posting public comments. A lot more people send comments on facebook or myspace than to our blog. I would love to get more value from the comments section of great sites like mixergy, connecting with people, discussing the themes further. But Iooking at other sites, I don't know if I'm being realistic?
April 28th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Is there a silent T in tsavo? I thought you guys were saying salvo.com or savo.com in the interview. I only just made the connection. Is a silent letter in a domain name a good idea?
Or maybe it's just my low quality macbook speakers.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I hadn't thought of it till you brought it up Paul, but he really did talk
about discipline often.
He said it's what got him to stop being a consultant and start owning his
own product.
As for the question about comments, I'm not sure. I've been told by readers
that I'm not encouraging comments properly, but I'm not sure what the right
way is.
It's not a main goal for me, so I'm not sweating it.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I think I asked him before we spoke and he said my pronunciation–Tsvavo, as
in tsetse fly–was right. But when I edited the interview, I noticed Mike
said, Savo.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Seth talks about having a way for your users to connect, but I don't see that happening much in comments on most blogs, so maybe you're right not to have it as a main goal.
I always used to get value from comments on Kathy Sierras site. When done right, smart discussions can double the value of the main content. Which has to benefit everyone, right?
http://headrush.typepad.com/
April 28th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Blogs are too top-down. And bulletin boards are too web 1.0.
I could use something different.
Maybe Buddy Press is the answer.
April 28th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I guess my only question about Buddy Press is does it actually encourage more people to speak? People are shy. We're all afraid someone will think our comment is stupid, right. But that's the key to learning, asking stupid questions.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
buddy press with alcohol
May 4th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
SteveWa, if you can find a way to inject alcohol into Buddy Press, let me
know. I'd invest.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Do you do a lot of these interviews? Could you create a pod-cast style feed for interviews? Something I could hook up in itunes and take with my in my ipod?
May 6th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
It's the number 1 requested feature. I'm going to add it soon.
June 5th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Just listened to this one (somewhat belatedely), really liked the dynamics of this interview. And I can definately relate to the running-towards-edge-of-a-cliff analogy of a client-led agency that I too experience.. Am itching for one of my side projects to take off and become a real business.. Would love to see an interview with some smaller people too, perhaps like one of the content site owners that Micheal Jones bought a site off (yongfook ??)
July 5th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Loved this interview .. just heard it from start to finish. I agree with his thoughts on subscription based business being very stable.
Things I would like to hear more about:
1.
It would be great if he had shared more information about the grid that he mentioned he made about “things people pay for”.
2.
Also would be wonderful to get this thoughts on “market place” businesses like 99designs etc.
3.
He mentioned metrics as being critical to success for an internet company. While some of these are well known like new visitors/page view, some more details on what kind of metrics he records and how he makes them actionable. One of the issues we struggle with is projecting growth. I feel that if we can not project our traffic levels accurately say 3 or 5 months down the line, how do we make the metrics truly actionable? For a lot of us, its just very hard to say how much traffic a new PR campaign or a new product will bring in ..
4.
Share some of what hes been upto recently at MySpace.
Great interview – I enjoyed it a lot ! Good learning there!
July 5th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I need to do some interviews with people who have subscription-based
online businesses. Seems like a dependable model.
Andrew Warner
(sent from my mobile)
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