goes down. We believe in personal sharing with one another, and we think the best type of viral growth is one to one, not one and then tweet to a thousand and then tweet it to 10,000 and then no on ever uses it again. We are interested in pockets of 50, to be honest, of people sharing with their friends and seeing enough value in the product that they want to share with the people who are close in their lives, and have them persuade their friends that ‘You should get on there, and I want to share my Path with you.’ That’s the type of slow growth we want—high quality, and people who are actually excited about the product just versus insane viral tactics.
X: You’ve got an amazing group of investors behind you. Have they all bought into that idea that there isn’t going to be a hockey-stick pattern?
MVH: We’ve said from the start that we are interested in this slow growth philosophy and they support that.
[At this point, Dave Morin joined the conversation.]
X: Dave, I wanted to bounce one question off you that I already asked Matt. It’s about this whole photo-sharing marketplace. There are plenty of other apps for the iPhone and other platforms that allow you to share photos within a group. What’s your basic explanation for why you would want to build yet another social photo sharing app, and how you guys see Path as different from all the others?
Dave Morin: You know, when we set out to create Path we were focused deeply on making the world a happier place, and we thought that today the best possible proxy for a human experience is the photo. Ninety-five percent of all mobile phones in the world today have a camera on them, and that’s enabling people to share experiences with each other and really to share moments, to share these everyday moments which matter to them most.
For example, this morning my best friend from college was taking a photo of his commute to work on Bus 141 in Chicago, and he called me and said, “You know, I’ve never had a way to share this moment before, but it’s my every day, it’s my every morning.” I think enabling people to share those kinds of moments with the people who matter most is what is deeply meaningful to us here at Path.
X: Are you finding any incomprehension or lack of understanding about that mission from the bloggers and other early adopters who are writing the first pieces about Path?
DM: No, I think that we’re seeing a lot of amazing customer feedback, from people who seem to really enjoy the idea and are excited for things to come. I think the most important thing is that this is just our first version, and we’re just getting started, and we’re really going to build out a lot more cool stuff for people in the future.
