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Lesson #5: “We’re holding on to the ship with our fingernails”

Article Overview: “I remember Ev going home one weekend and coming back with this genius plan for Odeo, and he asked me to read it,” recalls Stone. “It was this whole plan for how we could make it a successful business. I thought wow this is genius, but then again so is podcasting. Then slept on it. Do we want to be kings of podcasting? We were constantly gut checking.”

Lesson #5: “We’re holding on to the ship with our fingernails”

"I remember Ev going home one weekend and coming back with this genius plan for Odeo, and he asked me to read it," recalls Stone. "It was this whole plan for how we could make it a successful business. I thought wow this is genius, but then again so is podcasting. Then slept on it. Do we want to be kings of podcasting? We were constantly gut checking." Once the trio committed themselves to Twitter, there was no turning back. From being at the receiving end of harsh criticism to turning down lucrative buyout offers, Dorsey, Williams, and Stone refused to step back from their baby.

"Fun, trivial, someone called it the ‘Seinfeld' of the Internet," recalls Stone of how Twitter was described in its early days.

"People were asking why are you filling the web with all of this crap?" adds Williams. "I went for years defending blogging."

Stone could not understand much of the criticism coming their way. "That's like people saying, ‘Why would I ever carry a phone around when I have one in my kitchen?'"

But all three of the co-founders admittedly find their own success unreal. "Sometimes we think this is an elaborate edition of Punked, where someone is going to pop out of the closet and say, ‘Ha ha, we nailed you guys,'" says Stone. "It's like we're on a rocket ship that we were just painting and suddenly it took off and we're holding onto the ship with our fingernails."

"Every day, one of us says something like, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you,'" says Williams. "'The moon called and they want us to own them.'"

That is why even throughout all of the criticism, the co-founders refused to accept any buyout offers, even from the likes of Facebook. In 2008, Facebook offered $500 million for the company, but was turned down.

"We admire and respect Facebook. We're big fans, actually," says Stone. "They approached us, and we took it seriously. But we feel like we want to continue this path we're on - sustaining this innovation - and the time is not right."

Why not take the money and run? "I guess we have a lot of things we think we can prove," says Stone. "We're thinking really hard about sustainability and revenue and about developing the technology and seeing it take off."

So what makes the trio so sure they are on the right track? Why do they refuse to succumb to the critics and give up control of Twitter?

"One of our users is a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt. He had time to grab his phone and text just one word - ‘arrested' - on Twitter, and the 100 people in the States following his feed knew he was in trouble, got to his embassy, and had him out in a matter of hours," recounts Stone. "I've heard a few anecdotes about folks who previously scoffed at Twitter turning hungrily toward our special election coverage. It's the pulse of what people are thinking about."

It's the pulse of what people are thinking about, and the pulse of its three co-founders, who are not about to let the beat stop anytime soon.

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Article Tags: crap, dorsey, facebook, fingernails, founders, genius, going home, harsh criticism, moon, odeo, podcasting, punked, rocket ship, seinfeld, successful business



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