20VC: Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri on Threads: The Journey from 0-100M Users; What Worked, What Didn't and the Plans Ahead | Instagram: Biggest Mistakes, Successes, Misconceptions, TikTok Competition & The Future of Social Media; Interest Graph or Friend G
Jul 24, 2023
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Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, shares insights from his extensive career at Meta, reflecting on the journey from bartender to CEO. He discusses the explosive growth of Threads, exploring user retention strategies and lessons learned from competitors. Adam reveals his biggest mistakes and the crucial product decisions that shaped Instagram's success. He also dives into navigating competition with TikTok, the importance of influencer dynamics, and balancing leadership with creativity in tech. Personal anecdotes about work-life balance add a relatable touch to his vision for the future of social media.
Building a product for long-term usage is more important than initial signups.
Bartending and early service jobs taught Adam Mosseri valuable skills for his journey to becoming a product leader.
Clear communication and trust within a team are essential for effective leadership and problem-solving.
Deep dives
Importance of Iteration and Long-Term Usage
The speaker emphasizes the significance of building a product that people will continue to use over time, rather than just focusing on initial signups. While the first eight days of the new product have been successful, what truly matters is the ability to iterate and improve the user experience to ensure long-term usage.
Adam Maseri's Background and Transition to Product Leadership
Adam Maseri shares his journey from being a junior designer to becoming a product leader. He discusses his humble beginnings as a bartender and the skills he learned from early service jobs. Maseri also highlights the value of problem-solving skills he acquired during his time as a designer that have influenced his approach to product leadership.
Importance of Clear Communication and Team Dynamics
Adam Maseri emphasizes the significance of clear communication within a team. He reflects on his experience as a boss and the importance of being able to hand off a problem to your team and trust that they will take care of it. Maseri also discusses the challenges of scaling from an individual contributor to a leader and the need to understand internal politics within an organization.
Balancing Talk and Action for Product Success
Adam Maseri discusses the balance between communication and action when it comes to product leadership. He recognizes the importance of talking a lot to move the team forward and align everyone's priorities, but also the need for decisive action and knowing when to make a call as a leader. Maseri acknowledges the value of frequent messaging to ensure important information is internalized, but also emphasizes the importance of clarity and not overwhelming the team.
Supporting Creators with Tools to Make Money
The podcast episode discusses the importance of supporting creators by providing them with tools to make money. While it may not be feasible to directly pay every creator, platforms like Instagram focus on subscriptions, branded content deals, and some payments to incentivize creators to continue producing valuable content. The goal is to find ways to help creators monetize their work while ensuring the platform's business model remains sustainable. This approach differs from other platforms like TikTok, where payments are less predictable, making it harder for creators to plan and run their businesses.
Prioritizing Creator Community Engagement and User Retention
The podcast highlights the importance of two key factors for the success of the platform: creator community engagement and user retention. The host emphasizes that the engagement and support of the creator community, including their willingness to share the app with others, is crucial in determining the long-term growth and impact of the platform. Additionally, the podcast emphasizes that retention of the average user is a key focus, as the platform aims to ensure users continue using and finding value in the app. By prioritizing these two aspects, the platform aims to achieve sustained success.
Adam Mosseri is the Head of Instagram, where he is responsible for overseeing the engineering, product, and business teams and leading Meta’s efforts on creators and Reels. Adam has been at Meta for more than fifteen years. He started at Meta as a designer for Facebook's mobile app before moving to product management, where he led the Facebook News Feed product and engineering teams, and served as the Head of Facebook News Feed. Adam began his career founding a design consultancy focused on graphic, interaction, and exhibition design before joining TokBox as the company’s first designer.
In Today's Discussion with Adam Mosseri We Discuss:
1. From Designer to Product Leader to Instagram CEO:
What did Adam learn from his first job bartending? How did it impact his approach to customer support and research?
What are the top 1-2 pieces of advice Adam would give to someone wanting to make the move from individual contributor to leader?
If Adam was "not amazing at anything", what did he do that enabled him to rise above the rest and become CEO of Instagram?
What have been 1-2 of the biggest lessons from working with Mark Zuckerberg for 15 years?
2. A Deep Dive on the Wild Times as Instagram CEO:
What has been Adam's single biggest mistake as CEO of Instagram?
What does Adam believe is the least known feature within Instagram that has made them successful?
What does Adam believe has been the biggest product decision he has made as CEO?
Why does Adam believe that Instagram is too complicated as a product?
Who does Adam believe is the most formidable competitor to Instagram?
Was Instagram Reels a simple copy of TikTok? What have Instagram learned from TikTok?
How does Adam respond to the statement that Instagram is a "copy-cat machine" and lacks innovaton?
3. Threads: The Journey from 0-100M Users in Three Days:
Did Adam and the team expect the response they got to Threads?
Why did they decide to break Threads out into a separate app?
What went into bootstrapping the Threads friendship and interest graph?
What was the Threads influencer activation strategy? What worked? What did not? Did they pay influencers? How did they choose which verticals to focus on?
What is Adam's core focus with Threads today?
How is the team analysing and measuring retention? What are their goals?
What are the 1-2 core reasons why Threads would not work? How do they aim to prevent them?
In 12 months, where will Threads be?
4. The Future of Consumer Social: What Happens Now?
Does Adam believe we have seen the transition from the social graph to the interest graph? Is it that binary?
Is it possible to have both the interest and the friendship graph all in one app?
How does the monetization potential differ when comparing Threads (text) to Instagram (visual)?
How important is it for the next consumer social platforms to have stars that are native to their platform (Mr Beast on Youtube, D'Amelio on TikTok etc.)
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