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Text To The Future: How Dorsey, Stone, and Williams Achieved Success

Article Overview: “We wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you’re buzzing your friend’s pocket. It’s like buzzing all over the world,” recalls Dorsey of the name-choosing process. “We came across the word ‘Twitter’ and it was just perfect. The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information,’ and ‘chirps from birds.’ And that’s exactly what the product was.”

Text To The Future: How Dorsey, Stone, and Williams Achieved Success

"We wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you're buzzing your friend's pocket. It's like buzzing all over the world," recalls Dorsey of the name-choosing process. "We came across the word ‘Twitter' and it was just perfect. The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information,' and ‘chirps from birds.' And that's exactly what the product was." So just how did this inconsequential information come to make such a consequential difference on the world - both online and off?

Constraint: "Design is a career where you learn creative decision making," Stone once said. "It's a renewable resource. You never run out of it. It's never like, ‘That's it, there is no more.'" As much as the co-founders could have added new features and designed Twitter to death, their success came from exercising constraint and keeping the service as simple as possible.

Fun: They did not have a business plan, or even a revenue model. They even admitted that there is no market. But they did think that their idea was pretty cool. And, with that, they set off to turn their dream into a reality. It might not have been the most useful tool in the world, but then again, neither is ice cream, and people seem to enjoy a lot of that.

Collaboration: Twitter launched in one of the world's most highly competitive industries, which might make one think it would be highly competitive in return, and guarded of its activities. But the three co-founders took a different approach. They wanted to work with and learn from their competitors to make the industry a healthier place for all, and thus promoted the open exchange of information.

Culture: Twitter employees get free catered breakfasts and lunches when they get to work. Does it get any better than that? At Twitter, in fact, it does. From Thursday concerts to Friday tea-times, employees have a myriad of opportunities to enjoy themselves and communicate with each other at work. That is the kind of open culture the co-founders wanted to instill in their company.

Commitment: If Twitter was a comedian, it would have been laughed off the stage before it even got started. But the three co-founders remained determined to finish their act. They turned their cheek to the criticism, and refused to be bought out. Until they prove what they want to prove, they are not backing down.

The future for Twitter is uncertain, and Williams has called the option to go public "a possibility."

"Our goal is to change the world, and we're going to build the best company we can to realize that goal, reach Twitter's potential," he says. "At some point going public may make the most sense. We're nowhere near thinking of that. At one time I might have said ‘that's ridiculous', but I don't say that any more. We can be more creative than IPO or being acquired."

Again, the bottom line for the three Twitter co-founders comes down to creativity. Until their creative juices run out, there is little chance of any of them slowing down.

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Article Tags: birds, burst, business plan, chirps, collaboration, concerts, constraint design, creative decision, dorsey, founders, myriad, new features, open exchange, physical sensation, renewable resource, revenue model, tea times, twitter



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