[Fireside Chat] skinnyCorp-Threadless and Connected Ventures-Vimeo (part 1 of 2)
Written by on February 27th, 2007 in Ajax News.
[Fireside Chats are round table discussions conducted using Campfire.]
The Chatters
Jacob DeHart (skinnyCorp/Threadless)
Jeffrey Kalmikoff (skinnyCorp/Threadless)
Zach Klein (Connected Ventures/Vimeo)
Jakob Lodwick (Connected Ventures/Vimeo)
(Moderated by Matt from 37signals)
Topics
Our chatters — old friends btw — discuss Threadless, Vimeo, retail stores, video, community, Silicon Valley, YouTube, Yahoo, and a lot more.
| Jacob |
so lets get down to business
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| Jacob |
A/S/L ?
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| Zach |
24/M/Brooklyn
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| Jakob |
25/m/NYC
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| Jeffrey |
13/f
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| Jacob |
18/F/Chicago got pics?
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| Matt |
So, what are y’all working on these days?
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| Zach | |
| Zach |
(FYI, I’m listening to Die Romantik while chatting—they’re a great local band I saw for the first time last night)
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| Jeffrey |
All of our work is secret
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| Jakob |
Im trying to get on To Catch A Predator but every time I show up it’s an actual 14 year old girl
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| Zach |
A site for sharing videos you make with friends and fam.
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| Matt |
For our readers, how is Vimeo different than YouTube and other video sharing sites?
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| Jakob |
YouTube is for watching TV shows
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| Jakob |
Vimeo is for sharing videos you shoot with friends and family
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| Jacob |
I’m currently redoing iparklikeanidiot.com, we have some special secrets coming up and is requiring a complete overhaul
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| Jacob |
Vimeo is really awesome, to me YouTube vs Vimeo is like CafePress vs Threadless
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| Jakob |
Thanks Jacob D!
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| Zach |
Jacob, how much Threadless work do you do on a day to day basis?
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| Zach |
I envy all the time you have to do personal projects
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| Jeffrey |
so do i
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| Jacob |
Actually I’m weaning myself off of Threadless, Jake is going to do most of the major programming. I still pop my head in and suggest/implement features. Most recently I made it so adding an item to your cart is done with "AJAX", that way it keeps you on the product page so you can keep shopping.
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| Matt |
what do you find most interesting about each other’s companies?
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| Zach |
I love their space!
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| Jakob |
I like that SkinnyCorp is totally uncompromising
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| Jakob |
and they don’t give a fuck about money
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| Jakob |
yet somehow they make lots of it!!!! how counterintuitive!
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| Zach |
I think they do a good job making lots of money without compromising.
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| Jakob |
that’s what I meant to say
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| Jeffrey |
i like how you can get a good feel for who CV is by looking at their projects
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| Jeffrey |
like, college humor isn’t just a site which fills a niche and makes money. you can tell that the site would probably exist as a means to have a good time whether they had 10 users or 10 million
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| Jakob |
Zach and I are only working on Vimeo now, not CollegeHumor
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| Jakob |
we have 9 full time employees
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| Zach |
Yeah, did you guys hear? We spun off!
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| Jeffrey |
i did hear that!
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| Zach |
(not entirely, but physically!)
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| Jeffrey |
what’s better about your jobs now?
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| Jakob |
I can come up with ideas and other people program them
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| Jakob |
that’s better because I’m like 1/3 as good at programming as they are
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| Zach |
I work on my dream project.
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| Jacob |
What are the plans for vimeo, the site is 100% free right now, will it always be?
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| Zach |
Yeah, totally.
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| Zach |
We intend to stay ad-based. At some point, we might offer additional pay-services.
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| Jakob |
we want Vimeo to be like this:
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| Jakob |
 |
| Jakob |
wrong image
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| Jakob |
whoops
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| Jakob |
 |
| Jakob |
we want Vimeo to be like this:
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| Jeffrey |
haha
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| Matt |
i think you want to ride the tricycle on the mohawk.
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| Jacob |
Are you worried about vimeo growing too fast and not having a strong enough revenue stream to support it?
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| Jakob |
Jacob, are you talking about bandwidth costs?
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| Jacob |
yea
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| Jacob |
i am
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| Jakob |
 |
| Jakob |
 |
| Zach |
Nah, we’re confident our growth is scalable.
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| Matt |
Have you guys intentionally tried to keep Vimeo on the down low so that it can grow slowly? Or do you want max traffic there asap?
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| Zach |
At first we did, because were mooching CH servers to host it.
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| Zach |
But Uncle Barry Diller gave us the green light to spend some family money to upgrade our setup.
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| Jakob |
if we wanted max traffic, you would see viral vids and TV shows on the home page
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| Jakob |
we want lots of people using the site, but using it for what we consider good reasons
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| Jakob |
as long as people are uploading their own videos, we’re happy.
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“If we wanted max traffic, you would see viral vids and TV shows on the home page. We want lots of people using the site, but using it for what we consider good reasons.”
| Jeffrey |
you always hear people say "our site will be the (fill in the name) killer". i don’t expect you guys have plans like that. how do you see yourself fitting in the same realm as youtube?
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| Zach |
I wish we could be more forthcoming about some of monetization ideas—but video-sharing is even more cut-throat than t-shirt sales! We have to keep mum about some stuff.
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| Jacob |
You should have commercials every 5 seconds in the vimeos
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| Matt |
Threadless: Tell us about your retail store plans.
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| Jeffrey |
our plan is like this
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| Jeffrey |
 |
| Jeffrey |
ok honestly the plan is sorta a secret
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| Jeffrey |
but
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| Jeffrey |
the idea is that we don’t want to do a traditional retail store at all
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| Jeffrey |
most people think our idea is backwards, but really the store exists to drive traffic to the site
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| Jeffrey |
we want people in the store to have a similar experience to being on the site: hang out, learn something, buy something
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| Jeffrey |
the store will have very limited product
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“The store exists to drive traffic to the site. We want people in the store to have a similar experience to being on the site: hang out, learn something, buy something.”
| Jacob |
1. Build online business
2. Open Retail Store 3. ??? 4. Profit |
| Jakob |
maybe they think the idea is backwards because it’s interesting
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| Jakob |
and they are boring
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| Jakob |
and their old, boring brains can’t think in new terms
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| Jakob |
and they only like ideas that are proven moneymakers
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| Jakob |
will it be like a library?
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| Jeffrey |
more like a community center
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| Jakob |
that’s SO COOL
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| Zach |
I don’t know—this sounds alot like what Starbucks tried to do! Build a million stores to get a million new users to their website.
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| Jakob |
can we just take a second and agree how cool that is?
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| Jakob |
this is a MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS and their next move is to build A COMMUNITY CENTER?!
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| Zach |
(totally cool)
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| Jakob |
HELLLOOOO???? is anyone else thinking anywhere CLOSE to those terms?
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| Matt |
agreed.
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| Jacob |
[smacks jakob]
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| Jeffrey |
haha
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| Matt |
and gallery-ish too, right?
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| Jeffrey |
it’s gallery-ish in that we’ll have gallery openings for certain shirts
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| Jeffrey |
imagine a cool museum, where under the art, you could buy a print right there
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| Jeffrey |
and that print will keep your nipples warm
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| Matt |
So both CV and Threadless recently hooked up with outside companies – InterActiveCorp and Insight Venture Partners. How are things different now that there’s someone else involved?
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| Jeffrey |
jacob now has a LV messenger bag
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| Jeffrey |
exactly the same for us
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| Jacob |
Life after Insight is great. They pretty much stay out of our business unless we ask for help. We usually have a call with them every week or two and they shoot us emails a couple times a week with ideas on open issues.
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| Jeffrey |
i actually like how proactive they are with ideas
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| Jacob |
They’re really helping us focus on our goals for the next year which is exactly what we wanted
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| Jeffrey |
and i think it’s crazy how they know everything. like if i comment on a blog about threadless, i’ll get an email from one of them being like "great comment…"
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| Jeffrey |
sometimes it’s a little scary!
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| Zach |
It’s great. They stay out of our hair, until we need their help with accounting and legal stuff.
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| Matt |
Any sort of backlash to the deals from your respective communities?
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| Jakob |
no
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| Jakob |
they don’t think in those terms.
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| Jeffrey |
people are mostly just curious and worried it would change things
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| Jeffrey |
but no backlash
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| Zach |
Honestly, things have only been better for our users and fans.
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| Zach |
We’ve been able to start scaling quickly.
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| Jakob |
we don’t really talk about them, so they’re basically invisible to our users.
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| Jakob |
our users didn’t care about the business stuff before the deal, either.
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| Jacob |
the only backlash was our community found the profile pics of Jeff and Kobi and made fun of them, otherwise they’re really excited for us
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| Jeffrey |
some people accussed kobi and i of being related
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| Zach |
On the CollegeHumor side, we hired an ‘original content’ staff to start making our own CH videos
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| Zach |
and on Vimeo, they helped us spin off and stand on our own feet.
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| Matt |
You guys both have thriving fanbases…What’s the secret to building a successful community? Where do other sites fuck it up?
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| Jakob |
ok, here’s the secret:
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| Jakob |
don’t make the pursuit of money your top priority. work hard and listen to people.
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| Jeffrey |
how are we defining "successful community"?
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| Matt |
having a large group of people who feel passionately about your site/product(s).
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| Jeffrey |
because i tend to define a successful (web) community by it’s similarities to a real community, offline
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| Zach |
Giving our communities a personality has been important for us.
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| Jakob |
I think you have to be part of the community!
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| Jakob |
The people who create it have to be part of it!
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| Jeffrey |
yes
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| Jakob |
You can’t just build a community and expect people to use it, as if you’re buying a fishbowl
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| Jeffrey |
going further than that, you have to have more than presence
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| Jeffrey |
you have to understand that the more successful your community is, the more you’re outnumbered
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| Jakob |
go on
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| Jacob |
You definitely need to be part of the community, you also need to take into consideration the fact that you as the owner are still only 1 member out of the thousands and thousands in a community, and the opinions of all the others are just as valid as yours
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| Jacob |
and if you listen to your community they’re going to respect you, and if they see the site evolve because of their suggestions they’re going to have that feeling of ownership
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“The more successful your community is, the more you’re outnumbered.”
| Jeffrey |
i think also understanding the components of community helps in nurturing growth
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| Jakob |
yeah!!!
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| Jakob |
I think of these websites as places. Like, Threadless is sort of an online city
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| Zach |
With a variety of public and private spaces.
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| Jakob |
in a good city, the mayor walks around the sidewalks and eats at local cafes, talks to people on the street, works in a local office building
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| Jeffrey |
only in threadless city, we have a ban on outdoor ads
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| Jakob |
yeah, a little fascism is ok
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| Jacob |
I like this "you have to understand that the more successful your community is, the more you’re outnumbered"
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Coming soon: Part 2.
Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/294-fireside-chat-skinnycorp-threadless-and-connected-ventures-vimeo-part-1-of-2