Interview
How Alltop Is Growing By Following Its Founder’s Advice – with Guy Kawasaki
on Dec 4, 2008 - 2:00 PM PSTThe full program
This is an audio program. Listen and/or download it here:
A few lessons from this program
I think Guy Kawasaki felt I was being a jerk when I pressed him about whether he was following the advice in his own book, Reality Check, at his new company Alltop. But Guy is amazingly open and he really does live the ideas in his book.
To help you use the ideas in Reality Check to build your startups, I’ll show you how Alltop uses them.
Page 27: “Don’t confuse fundability with viability.”
Even though Guy has a much better shot than most entrepreneurs to raise money for his startup, he hasn’t taken the first step. As he says in his book, not all startups are meant to go through the funding process.
Page 176: “Do one thing well.”
We had a laugh when I interviewed him about all the different features people ask Guy to add to Alltop. From profiles to social netwoking tools, people seem to ask for everything. But Guy turns it all down to focus Alltop on doing one thing well: aggregating links to articles from around the internet.
Page 24: “Create a mantra for your organization”
Alltop is the “digital magazine rack” of the internet. I knew that before I even got on the phone with Guy. He says it all the time when he describes the site. It’s such a simple and clear mantra that I hear others repeat it when they talk about Alltop.
Page 120: “Don’t worry. Be Crappy”
Did you listen to my interview with Roger Ehrenberg? He told me how his startup had to close down even though it raise $20 million from investors. He said his biggest mistake was waiting till his product was perfect before he launched it.
Guy took a different path with Alltop. Even though some people might laugh that a startup “guru” like Guy would launch something so simple, he decided to roll out Alltop as a pretty basic site with fewer than a dozen pages. In time, he kept building it up.
Page 251: “Identify and recruit your thunder lizards immediately.”
After he launched Alltop, people started emailing Guy web sites that he should include on the site. He says most companies might have have thought, “we know better,” and turned those passionate users away. Guy recognized the value in these “thunder lizards” and incorporated their feedback. He even hired one as a full-time employee of the site.
What do you think we can learn from Guy Kawasaki about building a successful startup? Tell me by email or in the comments.
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December 4th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
“Don’t worry be crappy” was (and still is sometimes) a hard one for me to follow. I want some near-perfect and shy from the scrutiny that comes from beta projects. I’m coming around to it though. Things move fast, and flexibility should be built in to the product. And the best way to gauge the direction of the winds, of course, is to launch the product.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:28 am
I think Chapter 24 sums it up nicely: “How I Built a Web 2.0, User-Generated-Content, Citizen-Journalism, Long-Tail, Social-Media Site for $12,107.99″
The book is filled with helpful nuggets advising on realistic ways to get your start-up going. After reading it, I can see why Alltop is doing as well as it is!
December 5th, 2008 at 7:45 am
I still haven’t gotten my hands on the book yet. Its on it way somewhere.
Thanks for the preview of the book.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:54 am
[...] Let’s kick it off with an interview with Guy Kawasaki from Andrew Warner’s excellent Mixergy.com [...]
December 5th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Another great interview Andrew. You are kicking butt. Guy Kawasaki is one of my favorites, so bonus points for that. Have you made a list of others to interview? Looking forward to greatness here in 2009!
December 5th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
typo:
better shot that
December 6th, 2008 at 4:04 am
hahaha, Guy sounded irritated at one point in the interview, but I agree, I think he realized the value of the interview later on which made him open up. what I didn’t catch was how does alltop make money? Do the blogs / sources on alltop have to pay alltop to be on “the magazine rack”?
December 8th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I just found this blog. Great interviews and content. I´m going to listen to all of them. Congratulatins from a spanish entrepreneur trying to build a Tech company from Spain.
http://twitter.com/josemariagil
December 8th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Deep: he really did sound irritated with me. I think he thought I was trying to do a “gotcha” interview and embarrass him. To his credit he kept going with the interview with confidence that he had nothing to hide. I think by the end, he knew I was coming from a good place. I never want to embarrass anyone I interview. It’s 100% about learning from them.
Oh, and he says he makes $0 from Alltop.com and isn’t sure how he’ll make any money from the site.
December 11th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
[...] December 10, 2008 by Patric Carlsson Here is an excellent article from Andrew at Mixergy.com [...]
December 12th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Fantastic interview Andrew. You really know his work well and it was great hearing you ask the questions that most journalists wouldn’t. Thank you.
December 26th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
[...] (Guy Kawasaki told me the same thing in this interview.) [...]
April 9th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
[...] about Kiva & Mixergy to make this program happen. The focus on “just launching” was inspired by this Mixergy interview with Guy [...]
April 16th, 2009 at 7:01 am
[...] Use RSS to share links – If you want to be known as a leader on a topic, find the top publications in that topic and, using their RSS feed, automatically share their posts with your users. (Make sure to limit the number of tweets that are sent out this way so you don’t flood people.) Guy Kawasaki raved about this feature in his Mixergy interview. [...]
May 18th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I loved the interview. Wow! Especially when he said that Alltop is not about building profiles and trying to be like Facebook. I think that there is an overload of persuading businesses to always look like a social network where you build your profile, create forums/walls/and other gathering posts. We have an abundance of them already It is nice to be able to go to a site that offers great content, whether created or brought in from other sources to one place. The best thing about innovative entrepreneurs aren't exactly that they invent the newest social network, or if they created the newest piece of technology that piggyback on an existing one….it is the entrepreneur who decides not to always follow the wind…a good balance of knowing when to catch on to a trend, but decide not to be a “wannabe”, or look like one. Alltop is a great idea, and it is what it is….we need more of that kind of thinking.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:23 am
The more startup projects I work in, the more I have learned from Guy. This dude has tons of timeless advice. I think “Don't worry. Be crappy.” is probably my favorite! Get your product out there and see if it will catch fire. Especially on the web, it's *okay* to grow with your customers.
May 25th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
“Don't worry. Be crappy” comes up in many of my interviews. The best people
keep repeating that to me.
Thanks for pointing it out Jeremy.
May 25th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
The best entrepreneurs keep telling me with pride what they don't stand for.
There seems to be a focus behind the best companies.
Thanks for this input Christi!
May 26th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Hey Andrew,
Love the site – just came here from my other favourite (canadian sp.) website fourhourworkweek.
The interview gives a few very smart tips about a lean startup and it was very entertaining.
Daniel penner,
Director of Drift Yoga
May 31st, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Thanks.
I'm going to keep doing more of these programs. If there's a subject you
think I'm missing, just let me know!
January 18th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
THANKS! This has been very useful
January 18th, 2010 at 11:39 pm
Awesome. 8oD
January 20th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Andrew. U`re great man. Your interviews it`s being very helpful. Thanks…
January 21st, 2010 at 12:34 am
Andrew. U`re great man. Your interviews it`s being very helpful. Thanks…
April 20th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
[...] those top quality interviews. He already interviewed awesome people like Seth Godin, Jason Fried, Guy Kawasaki just to name a [...]