Techno-fille

The mystery of the older crowd

As a start up, you have endless hurdles to cross, but I feel there is one hurdle that eSnips were spared:  An initial user base consisting of the valley's techies and early adopters which is often very problematic as discussed extensively these days for example  here, here and here. 

Being located as far as possible from the valley has advantages for a change, because early adopters and techies have not heard of esnips when we launched in back in September, so eSnips enjoys being among the few services who are mostly used by everyday people and even more interestingly by an older, user base. Actually 85% of eSnips users are above 20.  (I listed further down examples of how they use eSnips).

When I say “older” I mean out of their teenage years and out of college.  People with families, careers, jobs, and friends, eople who have less free time and more tasks to fit into it.  People who have passions, but just can’t muster the commitment to write daily updates about them in blogs, people who are not obsessed with being 'cool'.

When I tried to understand what is it about eSnips that attracts this mainstream audience, I came up with a few possible theories:

• Writing is not for everyone:  Just like in real life - while most of us have interests and passions, only a relatively small percent of us have the talent and will to write it. Most of us just collect or have stuff to share about our interests. It's easier to share stuff related to your interests than write about your interests – especially if you have to keep writing about it and updating on an ongoing basis. 
• Writing is not for everything:  many users simply want to showcase their work, their collections, writing is only a way to put their work in context. 
• Files is a familiar concept:  People work with files on their computers. They are more familiar and comfortable with files than with html or html editors.
• Mainstreamers are graduate publishers  -  eSnips doesn't require you to publish immediately. You can start using eSnips just to share with a small group or even just to store your stuff. When you're more comfortable you start sharing.
• Grown ups are not obsessed with 'fitting in':  When you are in your teens, still obsessed with your persona and 'fitting in' if you are single or have time meeting people may be your primary goal. Mainstream, older people are often more centered around their interest, and meeting people who share their interest is great, but not the primary goal.
• They prefer convenience of functionality:   The older audience doesn’t want the technical hassle surrounding web publishing.  It needs to be easy and fast.  If it’s too time-consuming, they won’t do it.  eSnips’ ease-of-use makes ideal for their publishing needs.

So what do our users do on eSnips?  Here are some examples: 

Peter, 47 from Finland draws amazing oil paintings - http://esnips.com/web/peterabbottArt   and sings:  http://esnips.com/web/finnpeters-songs . Keli, 23 from CA is a fasion designer she shares her sketches on eSnips:  http://esnips.com/web/kelicatalano, Taz from Canada shares Duets with friends  http://esnips.com/web/tazhomepageduets .  John likes to sing karaoke http://www.esnips.com/web/tazhomepage, he invited his friend, Rocknoy, 59 from KT and now Rodknoy shares his karaoke songs  http://www.esnips.com/web/mesingin .  Stu, 27, UK has the best collections of funny stuff:  http://www.esnips.com/web/stu2you2003sPhotos.  Scott, 25, Los Angeles is an amazing photographer:  http://www.esnips.com/web/stu2you2003sPhotos .
Caroline from the Netherlands shares videos of the little beautiful things we often overlook http://www.esnips.com/web/CarolinesVideos  .OrlandoFlyBoy from Canada shares clips of Eagles nesting in Canada:  http://esnips.com/web/EaglesLiveCam . And on cruelty to animals http://www.esnips.com/web/HEYALLTHATDIDNTFINDTHEANIMALCRUELTYVIDEO
Tuhil designs beautiful saris: http://esnips.com/web/TuhilMarch2006 

And I could go on and on because I find it simply fascinating. What I specifically like about it is looking into the profiles and finding other eSnips sites by them. It's really neat to see other facets of the same person. Some people have many folders related to the same topic, while others are totally diverse. 

That's what interests me, and I have no doubt it represents a larger portion of the population who have grown out of the need to be 'in', 'cool' and constantly obsessed with who they are.

So, what do you think?  Any other ideas of why eSnips attracts the older audience?  We love this crowd, and I think that giving by providing them with the right platform, we can get some truly amazing content online.

The coolness factor – is it for everyone?

Yesterday, Rafe Needleman at CNET took a look at eSnips and wrote a great review (thank you, Rafe.)  His headline was “eSnips: where the cool kids aren’t,” and his article backed up the headline by saying that “eSnips … appears to cater to the more restrained among us.” 

While his review was generally very positive, it got me thinking about his point about the “cool kids” going somewhere else to join the social web.  It is true that eSnips caters to a different audience.  We don’t only cater to them, but we actually have seen that our audience is truly different than the stereotypical kid on MySpace.  First, they are older.  They’re not only out of their teens, but many of them are in their 30s and 40s.  Second, they’re not interested in content-sharing in the MySpace vein.  Rafe hit this one spot on when he said that “eSnips … is not about laying bare your tortured soul, as much as it is a utility for collecting content and other online resources you find interesting.” 

So, it leaves me with the question of coolness.  Does a new Web 2.0 company need to be cool?  Will “being cool” help us reach our target audience?  And more importantly, as we’ve seen when the cool kids moved from Friendster to MySpace in the blink of an eye: will being cool help me keep my audience? 

In fact, I am pretty comfortable saying “no” to these questions.   I believe that we can’t all be cool, and while being cool is fun while it lasts, you’re never really sure what got you there in the first place and what will happen when it ends.  Also, the users who like and use eSnips really take advantage of the fact that they really don’t need to be as committed and as competitive as the MySpace crowd.  They’re fine in the comfortable community that we’ve created.

So many of our brainstorming sessions here at eSnips tend to focus on our positioning vis-à-vis the other social networks out there.  We tend to chase our tails for a while, and then ending up with the statement that eSnips is really MySpace for the rest of us. 

Thank you Rafe Needleman for spelling out something we have felt internally for a while.

Taking Kathy Sierra's advice a step further

An obsession for 'keeping up' with information is a 'feature' that I really dislike in people. I admit. Probably because it often comes with (or is there to make up for)  a lack of original thinking. Regardless of whether you meet these people in a business setting or  a personal, social setting, you get the feeling you are talking with someone else who isn't even in the room (that is the author of the article they read or the company they are impressed with, or a friend that sounded very smart to them). I personally lose  interest.  It is probably the  least appealing personality trait I can think of, and definitely not something to have in a start up environment.   

So when I came across Kathy Sierra 'The myth of "keeping up' post (I found it on Stowe's blog), I couldn't agree more with the 'Just let go' part; but for a different reason than Kathy.  My reason is not the mere realization that you will never be able to keep up with everything, but rather that the obsession is often counterproductive for you, and an indication that you are probably not focused on what's relevant to you at a given point in time and rely too much on what others think or do.  Bottom line: read less, think more, rely on your own thoughts and instincts.

eSnips - CEO Demo at OnHollywood

We had a very good presentation yesterday at OnHollywood. Lots of positive feedback attendees, bloggers, journalists and VCs.
There was lots of fun too. We met some of the brightest and most interesting people in the industry.

Here's me and Efrat demoing:

 

The dry run in our hotel room:

Chatting with Mike Arrington: