একটি স্টার্টআপ স্কেল করা এবং একটি ডেডিকেটেড সম্পূর্ণ-রিমোট সফ্টওয়্যার টিম বৃদ্ধি করা সম্পর্কে [সাস আনবাউন্ড পডকাস্ট]

hey there welcome to Salis Unbound

brought to you by status group I'm your

host Anna Dana and this is the show

where we bring inspiring Founders to

talk about their stories and how they uh

got their business to be a success and

today with us is David smook the founder

of hackernoon one of the leading Tech

Publications on the internet welcome

David

hey thanks for having me Anna excited to

be here

so well thank you for for making the

time and uh you know buckle up is going

to be a bit of an improv because the

only preparation we did is talk about

the fact that we don't want to touch

upon the founding story so only the

changes the scaling uh

we can talk about whatever you want

eight nine a month ago I probably

wouldn't know uh what to say what hacker

noon was so what is hacker noon

uh hacker noon is a company uh internet

company so we publish technology stories

and we build publishing software

so we employ editors software developers

and Business Development to grow our

site we're publishing about 42 stories a

day uh really trying to focus on what's

next in Tech you know and get the

leading experts uh publishing here about

how things are actually built you know

we're a lot more of a how and why site

than a what and when and where site if

that makes sense

and I've been at it now six seven years

um it's kind of changed a lot you know

over the years

um bootstrap for the first two years

crowd Equity crowd funding in the third

year uh then Strategic investment and

basically doubled revenue for about five

years in a row and last year we didn't

double Revenue but we did increase it so

you know I'm kind of in the spot where

it's it's stable my team is really good

and I'm kind of figuring out like all

the software we're building how I can

you know bring it out to the web and not

just on hackernoon so that's kind of uh

the state of where where we're at

okay thank you so yeah and uh obviously

like I got to to Hakuna I think if that

fabulous my first story uh last summer

and over the the last six months there

have been so many changes so and we'll

obviously get there uh but uh you you

started talking about

uh focusing on Tech so I know a little

bit about the founding story how you

were building like a dozen of other

websites at the same time so why hacker

knew what was so uh I mean the first app

we built was called map shot and what

you could do is take a picture and put

it on the background of a map and this

was before like that feature existed in

apple because I'm so old and then it

would cover the background and if people

liked it the picture would get bigger

you know and so like that was where it

started but really it was that and

that's it didn't work

so you know

um it's hard to like because in the

beginning if software developers don't

want to work with you because you don't

have enough to compete with the large

companies and people don't want to fund

you because you haven't built something

before and it's way easier to build

something if you have Labor or money so

it's it's kind of like a catch-22 in the

beginning where you're trying to figure

out where you can get some labor how

your labor can actually uh go into

something that's scalable one repeatable

you know I was just really trying to

focus on how to get outside of paved by

the hour you know because even there

like you know lawyers make great money

you know but at the top the lawyers

still own their own firms you know they

still have reached the same conclusion

that it's better to own the business

than it is to be paid by the hour for

anything even if you're you know a

million dollars an hour you know you

could probably if you're worth a million

dollars an hour you could probably use

your own time and make a lot more money

you know building something uh that

builds up so that's where my my head was

at and hacker noon hit the right spot

because uh I was able to gain people

were able to gain value from it without

exchanging money so it was proof that

there is an underlying economy here that

was happening you know you had writers

that needed editing and distribution and

we needed content and it kind of say hey

if we're going to be a home for like a

community in a destination where we can

have get more readers for writers and

improve the content of you you know

bringing it as to hacker noon as opposed

to somewhere else it just hit a nice

sweet spot where I could use my editing

skills in the beginning and I could edit

a bunch of stories and if it's the

secret is if the content is better it's

easier to distribute in the beginning so

like it starts by making the content

better and then make the distribution

better and then you go back to making

the content better then you go back to

making the distribution better

yeah

right so what was hacker noon in the

beginning I know that at first it wasn't

your your own software and you started

focusing on it a lot later

uh yeah I mean it's just way better when

you have your own software like you just

control where things are you like once

someone else is making the decision this

will be made where the button is where

the text is where the call to action is

all those things will happen no matter

what I think we could make a better

business if we choose where and when

they happen so that was like

um the underlying thing I used mediums

content management system to build a

publication and had it on my own custom

domain you know and it was on my site

but it had to come with all their bells

and whistles all their back door

whatevers all the extra things that

circles around content when you use that

site so you know we use equity

crowdfunding to raise money from our

readers and build a small software team

um and we've been at it now three years

with our own content management system

which is pretty sweet you know it allows

me to spend more time building software

which is like what I wanted to do so uh

you know I'm feeling uh

pretty good about my day-to-day and it's

just you know you see people ride and

die with these social media sites like

oh I have a 10 million followers on Tick

Tock how do you make money it's like

okay so I guess I distribute paid tick

tocks to people you know it's like you

end up building all your audience on

someone else's thing and it's just uh

you don't control what's gonna happen

next um so you know it's been traffic is

pretty Diversified now which is like a

really a goal you know to get traffic

from search traffic from direct traffic

from email then traffic from social 2 is

nice but it's like having a healthy

sustainable like I'm a guy who wants to

grow 2x every year 2x every year adds up

a lot so that's you know I I'm not like

kind of VCS have passed on hackernoom

before in the past because it's like

that's not attractive David why do you

want to be 2x you know every year it's

like well that's pretty good you know

it's Healthy Growth it's not uh growth

that you know is going to disappear the

next day it's it's about you know

continuing to build up every day so

um I hope that circled back to what is

hacker noon yeah sure no I mean uh this

is I think super important a lot of

Founders are struggling with the fact

that at some point the solution that

they're working with is not sustainable

anymore so at a point do you start

building something on your own and you

know how much money how much time time

do you do you spend on it how do you

fund it so it's it's a huge problem for

for a lot of Founders and

um well you figured out obviously at the

very right moment and uh well hacker

noon also uh moved on from being the

place where hackers spend their

afternoon right to being one of the

leading

um Tech Publications on the internet so

and when I found it uh I was just amazed

how how focused it was like it it was

very uh good quality articles the

community that you have there is super

engaged and everyone it's not it looks

very big and obviously you drive a ton

of traffic every month but it's still

kind of very very Niche and uh you know

uh the writers that are there so how did

you

how how do you keep it that focused

well I'm sure the people on the inside

wouldn't say we're that focused

you know it's nice to hear that from the

outside

um you know I think Focus uh in terms of

how I structure the team I think it

results in how some of the output of

what we do you know so the key meetings

of our company our weekly meetings

around

um editorial product and sales and

sponsorship so you know those meetings

are happening every week like the right

before the product meeting happens that

12-hour window is one of the most stuff

ships you know and it's just like I

didn't say to do that it just became

like a thing of like this is the Cadence

that we move you know so I think that's

been very helpful for

um you know what I've learned about

software is like the more you can do

small releases and you can get the unit

down you know the more you reduce risk

like everyone's trying to release a big

new version and relaunch or launch the

thing and it doesn't really matter it's

more about like how many small units you

can just keep shipping Time After Time

After Time After Time so that's kind of

it means you have less bugs when you

ship because you're shipping smaller

things it means it's harder to say what

a true new version is but it it's

um you'll end up you know getting much

further to where you want to go if you

can break it into much smaller pieces so

that's uh been really helpful for you

know a lot of I love when people notice

features before we talk about them you

know it's just like hey there's a new

print button on the page and it's like

this well-formatted PDF because

bizarrely a bunch of people still want

to print stories and it's like I was

like okay that's that's interesting you

know I'll put a tiny little button for

you guys and then you and then it prints

the story so

um

yeah I think it's been and then we look

at the top with our numbers that we try

and keep moving you know and it's uh how

much time people are reading you know

how how much money we're making and how

many people use it you know so it's uh

and I don't know from the outside it's

hard to say what hacker noon is because

I'm just so in the middle of it right

now uh that you know I I like that you

know you kind of get this thing of like

you look at your big numbers and then

you see the anecdotes of what surrounds

your business and how this impacts their

life or not you know and seeing uh like

you sometimes we lost someone's draft

once you know it's like an emotional

thing it feels like oh I lost my trap

you know and I just spend a bunch of

hours on this and but now we change the

way autosave works and uh then you move

on you know to the next thing you can't

um help the past but you can say how did

I mess up and you know what am I going

to improve and I'll build a little

moment and maybe that next person won't

run into that problem again so I think

building like from you really individual

user anecdotes and combining with what

the the team consensus is you know it's

so it's um

because we'll kind of make a lot of

product cards and we'll say hey I'm

going to describe this thing in detail

now I'm going to give you a wireframe or

a figma of it and I'm going to put it

there and then it's like okay if 12

things are putting there then the

software developer picks you know which

of those next four so that's kind of

also like and we try to do the same with

editorial of pick here's all the stories

that come in here's the type of stories

they are here's how you filter them

which ones do you like read the ones you

like you know so I think letting

individual contributors pick their their

project means I don't have to manage

them as much you know it's much more

like you've already said this was going

to work you've already chosen to work on

it over other things you can't complain

to me about why am I working on this you

know so I think that that type of stuff

is just kept the thing morphing in a way

that's healthy in a way where I'm not uh

driving too much of what's coming next

and you know hopefully the market

reflects that and they want to put their

logos and they want to publish their

content they want to republish their

Vlogs and they want to you know so so

that's um what I'm trying to do

a very positive approach but you still

a second person that gets every article

and I was super surprised like it adds a

certain friction though and uh I I was

wondering like

were you

um we're aware of that like when did you

introduce this feature and how did the

audience

um receive it

uh so we've always had Denver

you know I'm starting with me you know

so that's uh where where it's always

been and

um I mean I at first I didn't pick it

you know it was like Hey I want to start

a site and you want to start a site

you're going to be an editor and you

know I wasn't on my own blogging

platform you know now it's my own

blogging platform I realize most content

on if you aggregate all the blogging

platforms the majority of posts are

garbage and it's just there's so much

garbage on the internet surrounding the

good stuff and people will use these

blogging platforms as dumping grounds

and putting their garbage you know so

that it drives something back to their

core so I I just didn't want a high

percentage of my posts on my site to be

bad uh so I think that's where you know

rejecting half the stories is the right

call you know sometimes we reject the

wrong ones and people get upset or

they're not good enough and they come

back and they improve and they learn how

to improve and then they come back and

other times they're gone forever and

that's fine you know you I'm fine with

some level of attrition and you know

letting people publish elsewhere because

it means there's a higher quality bar

for the reader the next story will have

a better headline it will have better

grammar it will be more well structured

it will be more well organized if an

editor spends 20 30 minutes on it it's

just it's going to make the experience

better and the trade is I'm hosting your

content I'm paying for the editing I'm

paying for the distribution and then

there's an ad you know at the top and

the bottom of the story and that's the

trade we make in exchange of value and

if I make that trade you know I've made

that trade 50 000 with 50 000 people and

uh that's kind of um

yeah the trade that I found that works

on the internet what you want is the

repeatable little spot you know I don't

need to be everything to everyone

so it's roughly 50 of the Articles being

rejected

yeah yeah because you'll get runs of

people trying to game the system and

spam and we we sort all of our articles

we have a lot of different systems to

measure the quality of an article

um like every article that comes in we

check for plagiarism right away so you

can get flagged right there if you're

plagiarizing content

um now we're starting to check for AI

writing which the tools to call are

still very new and they you know they

have a decent uh not a great hit rate

you know

um and then we're you know it's kind of

like we want to keep rewarding original

content and repeat contributors so you

know looking at faster turnaround for

those type of things we'll republi we're

happy to republish content but long-term

sustainability is about hosting more

original content so you know we want to

put our editorial resources towards our

best content to make that content even

better and you know get it get the best

story we can get uh you know coming out

of hacker noon

okay uh so

um when uh when when uh

when a new contributor comes like where

where do they come from right you don't

hire them you only hire editors right so

is there any kind of acquisition that

you're doing for the contributors

uh we put a write button on the site

that's pretty much it

um yeah I mean yeah it's

whenever we wanted to raise crowdfunding

it's the readers who want to own in the

site they want the site to keep going

and whenever you're reading the site

it's nice that you can contribute to it

you know you can't really get that

across you know the New York Times you

know and so it's a little bit of uh

making the thing you read and you know

sharing your expertise but you know

contributors uh themselves talking about

publishing here you know a lot of Word

of Mouth happens with hacker noon um we

don't run any paid ads

um to acquire writers or customers uh we

test social media distribution in terms

of getting stories more reach and

putting some of our budget towards that

distribution of what we serve the writer

um but

and you know search the best content you

know Rises to the top in the long run so

if we improve the content and we attract

you know experts and experts read here

and then they want to write about the

thing they read you know we're going to

be served building a quality library in

the long run I think we'll be rewarded

um so I think that's where I want to

spend my money on improving the quality

and trust that the internet will uh

reward that

right but you have an integration with

coil right so there is a certain way for

contributors to get uh not just uh

validation their ideas but also a few

sends here and there

um yeah what they're writing so the coil

subscription will just stream in the

browser directly to the writer if they

add their coil meta tag so that kind of

gets low payments coming in because it's

Distributing five dollars a month across

all the coil sites they visit web

monetized sites so

um those payments have started pretty

small the the larger payments we've done

so far is with writing contests so

someone will buy like the blockchain tag

on hacker noon and they'll put a twelve

thousand dollar reward for writers and

based on the quality based on the time

reading those stories have and then vote

by hacker noon editors we send out that

twelve thousand dollars you know across

you know 10 20 30 writers depending on

you know how the sponsor how larger

prizes they want to do so we've done

we've paid out about 250 000 so far in

writing contests so it's off to a nice

start and it creates the right incentive

of all you have to do to enter the

contest is use the sponsor tag you don't

have to write anything about the sponsor

and the sponsor just wants to be

associated with the tag you know you

bend all these marketing meetings where

they're trying to be associated with the

keyboard that's what we offer we do not

offer any angles we do not offer any

validation that they will endorse you or

mention you but at the bottom of it

it'll say they entered your writing

contest because they use the keyword so

that's

um where the highest growth section of

hacker noon is right now from a business

development Point

um and I just like it from the whole

incentives of creating more content

rewarding writers and having satisfied

sponsors

that's pretty cool

Mr collected that uh so you were

bootstrapped for the first two three

years right yeah and then you went to

crowdfunding so what did you realize

like what kind of growth were you

looking for that you went for uh this

kind of investment I really wanted to

build a software team you know it's kind

of I proved using other people's

software that was how far I could grow

it you know I could grow it to 100K your

business and not really further and

that's the cap on that business with

that software and that's just how it

works so

um you know it was about wanting to grow

the business and the way to do it with

software developers and I mean we had

Venture capitalists writing on the site

I reached out to them and I was like hey

you want to invest in this they're like

well you're not that technical you

haven't done it before and you have a

big move coming in front of you that I

don't want to bet on you and have to bet

on the move you know what I mean it's

much easier to say bet on me embed on

the system I have and what I've grown

but it's like you have a big challenge

in front of you is really a dumb time to

in a lot of ways to raise money but it

was the necessity of what we had to do

to not kill this business uh so you know

we looked and it was actually Howard

marks was a hacker noon contributor and

also the CEO of start engine uh so you

know I talked to him about what I should

do so basically I was just talking to

the contributors how do I make the site

survive

uh

all your customers yeah yeah and so I

mean Equity crowdfunding hit what we had

a large community that could make small

amounts and then we would have a budget

to to build the next step of the company

um and 90 of the traffic from our

crowdfunding came campaign put from buy

shares in hackernoon to top

hackernoon.com and so that was the you

know the primary it was a lot of work

you have to go through third-party

reviews with lawyers accountants and

it's just small donations take time to

build up you know and small Investments

take time to build up so it was uh you

know the campaign ends up running like

three months you know where you're you

don't know where it's gonna go yeah and

[Music]

um

but you know Ling is my partner and my

wife and you know she

you know carried us through that and

it's like we didn't want to change jobs

so you know we made sure that the

company survived and uh

gave us the chance to make some more

Revenue

right well three months I guess is still

not that long I mean

I mean so I guess it may have been a

little longer than that but it was yeah

three months of prep and then the

campaign was live for another three to

five I'm now it's like three years ago

I'm kind of uh done a lot since then

all right and and now uh the

contributors

um own approximately 13 if I'm not

mistaken

uh the crowdfunders and 13 ish in that

range coils in the eight percent range

uh me and Ling on about two-thirds of

the company

okay and then uh

yeah then another you know employee uh

Equity is the rest of it

oh we're perfect I could talk about uh

incentives for some time but uh let's

leave it

for now uh how did it change the way you

run a business all those

um well especially different funding

campaign did it add any complexity did

it change anything at all uh impacted

transparency for sure you know so we do

a um we do a quarterly newsletter where

it's you know uh really like three to

eight pages you know really trying to

reflect and say what's worked and hasn't

worked in this business

um we publish uh shortened versions them

on the site uh state of the Newton Union

we call it uh for hacker noon

um so that definitely opened the

transparency I mean it was a marketing

channel for sure we made hires out of

that were shareholders

um we've gotten customers referred to us

from shareholders so I mean uh overall

they had they've understand this as a

private company and this is a long game

and and it's going to take a lot more

people helping than than just us to grow

the thing and get get where we want to

be so I think and just to have the

confidence that this volume of people uh

is willing to put some amount of money

to say I think this thing can grow you

know whenever people are saying this

thing can't grow having a large volume

of people say it can definitely helps

with saying I believe it can they're

telling me it can so um I I think that

stuff um was much healthier than you

know a lot of venture capital sometimes

it's really they need the end game you

know so sometimes the pressure to try

and create the end game is not healthy

um so I think as other Founders look at

their shareholders make sure they

understand that what you both think

about the end game because if you think

the end game is 15 years of dedicating

your life to this and they think it's

I'm gonna 5x or 7x in the next couple

years you're going to have an unhealthy

tension uh you know so I I think yeah

that's my big advice to shareholders and

it doesn't mean don't take Venture

Capital you just need to both understand

what you want in an end game and you'll

have a more likely chance at getting up

the hill and you know getting where you

want to go

right that's true and in retrospect

would you have done anything differently

in retrospect I can't do anything

differently uh

so I'm very happy with where I am I mean

I've made plenty of mistakes and you

know sometimes I just have to keep

circling back to improve the mistakes

um and that's fine you know that's what

you get with a business like if you're

if you were doing one tradable problem

again and again and again one tradable

transaction you know that five percent

worst volume of the transaction is going

to keep happening you know so that's uh

that's what scaling is you know you want

to make it healthier but you also know

that the same problems happen you know

it's still writing on the Internet it's

still people that are angry sometimes

like the internet becomes this keyboard

outlet for them and uh that's also why

I'm really happy not anyone can publish

anything on our site because I just

don't really want to be a part of

Hosting

um the bad part of the internet

right okay and uh yeah another thing

that I I wanted to ask you because you

mentioned uh you made some hires from

the crowdfunding campaign uh so who was

your first hire

uh so Ling was the second full-time

employee

um basically running all different

development because I was running all

editorial and uh then the third

full-time employee was Dane Lyons and he

took over the leading the product

um and then after that uh we extended

software developers editorials sales

um

but for the first after our first

software team was five people for you

know a year and a half you know now the

company's at about 18 people full-time

uh split between software developers

editors and sales

um and uh the best tires are they come

directly from our site they're already

reading hacker noon they want to be a

part of it so I stopped you know any

type of advertising on third-party sites

to hire uh no third-party recruiters

um like it just the best thing is

emailing people that already read hacker

noon and that's because they understand

what it is they understand the trade

that's going on and if they can

understand how people are gaining value

on the site right now it doesn't matter

what job they do here they'll be better

at it uh so it's not a sustainable

strategy if you want to like double your

head count really fast and really ramp

up because you know you only get the

candidates that are coming to your site

uh but it's it's for sustainable growth

and having at least being able to

eliminate all candidates who don't

understand what hacker noon is this

weeds them out you know it's only people

that already uh believe in it so that

that's my hiring strategy now

okay so there is no way somebody's gonna

say I don't I don't really know what you

guys are doing yeah at least at some

level they understand that this is a

website that they clicked a few buttons

on and they didn't go they didn't do it

on some other site you know they did it

on our own

right and are you still fully remote

uh I have like a satellite office uh

here in Colorado

um but yeah there's no headquarters I

use it Ling uses it sometimes our Denver

colleagues will come here and use it but

um you know sometimes we'll meet up

around the world uh we just filmed a

documentary in Hanoi and I met you know

our leaders from Asia and Japan you know

flew to Hanoi and we uh it's you know

very inexpensive to build a film crew

there so we have our first like short

film coming out

um that's pretty fun

uh March March or April

um Talk is still going on and uh so the

whole new world for me I just but we

have kind of uh good interviews about

the history of the internet

um that we're kind of putting together

and hopefully it keeps like our light

tone and our fandom of the shows like

the office with little you know little

tribute jokes

um to just kind of uh yeah keep it fresh

get some new type of content around

hacker noon

um yeah that's pretty cool

pretty cool but uh why do you why do you

still keep

um the team so small and how does it

work for you to be fully remote because

well at some point uh you you started

driving more traffic than Forbes right

so how do you sustain this kind of

growth and attention with such a small

team

I mean I look at Craigslist as kind of a

model of what type of company I want to

be from a structural standpoint where

you know they have 50 full-time

employees it has a lot of traffic and it

makes a lot of money and it could make a

lot more money if it did different

things but it doesn't need to so I think

there's something that like I really

want to create a company that gives a

lot more value than it needs to extract

um so that's kind of like to sustain

um so and to me 17 20 people thinking

about them in my lives and really you

know trying to work together isn't a

small group a small group of me alone on

my computer editing stories

so that's that's what a small group is

um we're way past that yeah and I mean I

think the Studies have shown you can

kind of have on the high end like 130

people in your Social Circle but really

some of the other studies is more like

40 you know so when you look around like

that range like part-time plus full-time

we're already hitting that 40 range it's

like how many people can I you know

really keep in my mind and like help

them you know so uh as you start to look

at these companies that get bigger than

that like the the CEO becomes very can

become very removed from the work itself

um and I want to be an individual

contributor first in spending my time

making and then you know around that

spend time making a business so

um that's just as far as I've been able

to with that mindset I've only gotten to

this point and I'm I'm very happy to

stay in this point you know I think we

can get better at our jobs and make a

lot more money with a small Elite group

um so that's uh yeah part of it you know

as a Founder you have to match the

business to your personality you have to

match how the team functions to your

personality you have to understand the

limitations of it of your own

personality because if you set up a

situation where you're an introvert and

you have to you've created a business

where you have to do eight meetings a

day you're probably gonna fail you

you've unsuccessfully uh matched you

know what your mind wants to do with

what it can do that makes money and what

it can do to help others so I I think

I've you know grown a little bit over

the years where I'm not uh not

understanding I'm an introvert

understanding I have to spend more time

on the keyboard than I do in meetings

like this in order to make hacker noon

grow so um yeah I think it is the if I

could pass anything on the founders to

just be more aware of like their

personality will shape the business

whether they like it or not so if they

get in front of it a little bit they can

probably have a better outcome

that's true okay well um I I really want

to go a bit deeper into into the whole

software and all the changes that you've

been up to for at least the past year

because I I can at least relate to that

a little bit

so uh you've got a ton of different

things that that you were uh shipping

right there is noonies uh there is

um slogging what else is there

I mean our primary product is this

content management system that

powershacker noon you know we build a

lot we build for five users there the

reader the writer the editor

um and the admin and the sponsor so

there's a sponsor being a business

account and you know things like tech

company news page defining you know what

is your business in a sentence and

starting to republish your content or

bring new content to hacker noon um so

uh with slogging and Nunes you know they

kind of came out of necessity we wanted

to have

um we wanted to reward our writers with

uh basically a poll of who's the best in

all these different categories and who

get to name cool names about like being

whatever on the internet and give people

prizes we make the prizes nfts sponsors

will sponsor some of these contests so

sometimes if you know you wrote three

blogs in February about something and

you win you know 300 at the end of the

year because someone votes for you it's

like kind of a nice like you know a

random gift of money but when we first

looked to do the vote for our community

it's just the voting softwares were very

expensive and very cumbersome it wasn't

like hey can I just put a widget here

with a text and a link and like link to

the writer and it was like no not really

can anyone vote no they have to log in

can they log in with Google no they have

to do it this way is it my account no

it's my account you know and it says

like all these voting softwares like we

just couldn't find a good one uh so we

just built one um that's kind of how

Nunes came about as a way to reward

writers and then we reused the voting

software and kind of built a new version

of it to rank all the startups in the

world by location

um and that was that was a really good

experiment too to just learn more about

what people are building so we'll be

launching a new version of that with

um kind of stories curated next to it

because before the voting software just

had votes and you know a good system for

measuring votes control over weighted

votes so like published authors would be

rewarded more and their votes would

count more than just an average reader

which we thought made sense because

they're the ones uh contributing content

to the site and building up the library

so I think they earn you know more

Authority about who gets rewarded

um so we're trying to it's like this

thing where it's its own app but it also

integrates with hacker noon

um and so we'll keep we'll keep growing

on it and you know it kind of got us

down the path of getting Badges and

Awards as nfts and kind of having a

badge you can bring with you you know if

all these other sites were to die

tomorrow you can't take the badge with

you like you can take a screenshot of it

but it won't be live on the site you

know I want to have like if you earn it

on hacker noon you can take it elsewhere

in an nft kind of solve that of you

could take the nft to any of these other

places which is kind of cool

um and with slogging it also came out of

uh user you know our internal needs uh

we realized uh Dane our chief product

officer had done like 12 or 15 000 slack

updates and over the same period had

three hacker noon posts and we were like

okay something is off there you know

we're very happy he's writing all these

thoughtful things and we want like

fostering a healthy slack Community is

like or whatever your message messaging

tool is it's really essential for remote

teams so it's like very encouraging

stuff but also why only three posts you

know so slogging came out of turning

threads into hacker noon posts and now

hey I want to export my content from

slack instead of and I've been you know

on the other side of it at my last job

trying to run the smart recruiters blog

and trying to recruit all these

teammates to write it's always a one-off

thing it's like I already have a job

David like you know that I'm doing my

main job and now you're asking me to

write so slogging hit a nice sweet spot

of where are you already writing can we

just pull out the best three percent of

that that's one percent of that and make

it a blog post and then the challenge

became a little more curation and and

not uh writing something new but it's

new to the Internet it's adding value

that wasn't available before that

content left was hidden in your slack

and it just served value for your own

people so that one's done about 500

posts and anyone can download it at

slogging.com and it's a single word you

know so it's slogging and it's just this

it kind of became a little bit of a slog

you know because hacker noon is growing

much faster than slogging so it's kind

of like an app that we have that's kind

of stably growing you know next to it um

and we really want to just have more

systems to you know move content around

hackernoon and improve content uh so

we've been working uh with hacker noon

uh a lot uh we did a an AI headline

generation tool which is really cool and

what's cool about it versus what's some

of the stuff is trending now is much

more

prompt is short content is long I think

a better use case for AI is content is

very long AI is very short and you know

gives you so it's saying hey how could I

summarize these 500 words in you know an

eight where seven to ten word headline

and now you get five options and you

don't have to use any of them but at

least it gives you five different

structures of what a headline could be

based on the content you as a human

already made so I think that um trying

to find the right ways to bring trending

technology into the content management

system and we don't have to wait for

someone else to release a plug-in to put

it on our site you know so that's where

it's uh been really exciting and I think

we're growing faster is just taking a

much more API approach and saying when

this thing starts to Trend Let's uh see

how it could fit in you know and if you

want like feature images have

historically just been a tough uh thing

of blogging you know it's the first

thing someone will come after you for

money you use my photo wrongly you know

like it'll come out if you start a new

blog it's one of the first challenges

you're gonna run into uh and unsplash

and these other open photo libraries

kind of change the game a bit or at

least you can get a quality photo for

free and you should have credit but you

don't have to you know and that kind of

opened up this whole library and now the

Third Kind of row we're seeing is AI

image generation an AI image generation

we're building a large Library you can

enter a prompt or just hit paste on your

headline and say hey what does my

headline generate in the headline

generation ones aren't as good because

they're too abstract and what you want

for imagery is you want to tell them

more about just it's just visual you

know you just want to describe it what

it looks like but you know you can enter

prompts on hacker noon and we will use

either stable diffusion or mid-journey

and we'll call the API and we'll send it

back in a couple seconds and so now you

can have a original image that matches

your headline it's like a fingerprint

you know the feature image is a second

headline but it's also a fingerprint of

proving like you know hey this image

matches to this person you know and so I

think

um it's it's that's the use cases of AI

that I've been uh really excited about

with hacker noon and really I'm hopeful

that AI can be you know assisting

um as opposed to replacing

um when it comes to creating

absolutely yeah uh I think

uh I think it's an amazing technology

another question that I really would

love to ask is because I keep hearing uh

about blockchain about nft uh so why

um why is it such a big part of hacker

noon and what exactly is it uh that it

links blockchain and nft to hacks or

noon and why did you decide that it's

going to be this big part

uh well I didn't decide it

um what links it is the stories that

came in you know one good story I mean

uh WTF is blockchain we published that

in 2017 and it was 300 3500 words just

trying to explain it as simple as you

can of you know making a public Ledger

and that post was like in the New York

Times and other sites and then people

that wanted to talk about this came back

so you know the best thing to attract

the next story is the last big story

excuse me and you uh you read something

you like and you work in that industry

you want to explain your own point of

view on it so

um it wasn't something I set out to do

but I did you know set out to have

people talk about what's next and have

people talk about what they're building

and it's a clean exchange of values if

you talk about what you're building I

help you get readers that are interested

in also building things like that you

know it's a good thing to work together

so that's where it became

um

it just it's it's I would say it's more

just we're a reflection of what the

Consciousness is of the tech industry

and not we're trying to say this is the

editorial line

um and I think there's a lot of

um

there's a lot of stuff that is too

Consolidated and you know the idea of uh

replacing the database replacing hosting

having peer-to-peer hosting the idea of

getting out of who's your largest bill

of a high traffic site you know it's the

hosting provider or ideally providers

and you want to distribute your hosting

and that's you look at aws's uh you know

how how important they are to Amazon

over the last 15 years uh it's just you

see exactly how important you know

hosting is in the long term and how how

how Consolidated you know a lot of the

internet is so I think a lot of people

were feeling that and that's why they

wrote about it and then you know so it

I've tried you know to integrate where I

can and look at like we have you know

log in with the wallet so if you don't

want to give us email and you want to

create an account with just the identity

of your wallet or sign up with a wallet

you can still do that and run enter

writing contests and get paid without us

you know ever knowing your email address

which is you know essential you can't

even

without you can't even view an image on

Facebook or Pinterest without giving

them you know an email address that's as

a viewer you know what I mean not even a

Creator so I think the bar of what what

trades are happening here is uh it's

skewed too far against the individual

for giving up more in order to get very

little

um so I think there's a lot of exciting

things that you know blockchain could

help with there and just more the

reality of what you know the next

internet it may not we don't some of the

technologies that will make it won't be

a part of it but I think the people are

seeing more Technologies to make the

internet more uh more distributed across

more small businesses and medium-sized

businesses powering more of the internet

and less uh consolidation at the top

um I think the technology is allowing

the businesses to hopefully move that

way uh so that's what that's what

excites me you know about about how the

next internet could be and the small

part you know how hacker noon can play a

part of it you know I'm here to help

right well you're obviously doing

everything to like

like on top of the trends and like

with

internet

um

improves and and grows and develops uh

but one more question because you're

you're moving growing so fast and

obviously you started scaling a few

years ago so what uh what changed for

you personally as a Founder like how do

you keep up

um scaling and then you know caring

about the people in your team and caring

about what you're doing and and people

who contribute to hacker noon

uh personally what's changed is I had

kids so that made me more responsible it

made myself less the center of the

universe

um and made me really a better colleague

I would say a better person to work with

so uh personally I think that's really

the only you know notable shift

um I think as the team scales uh

watching my tone and understanding you

know what hey if the more you're a

leader the more people are extrapolating

what you're trying to say you know the

more you're truly an individual

contributor no one's extrapolating

anything you know you're just doing it

and living with the results so that

balance

um I I like it you know it I think it's

made me more thoughtful about just what

to work on what to say the value of

words

um and I mean these colleagues you end

up spending half your time with them

like you know for if you're working 50

hours a week you know you get to know

your colleagues very well and uh having

kind people that uh you know like

building things is just if you're not

surrounded by kind people that like

building things you're not going to

build things and you're not going to be

happy so

um I think we've you know got a good

group and uh we stay remote but you know

we're meeting up a couple times a year

so it's kind of looking at you know

spending that way to uh build together

for a little bit and get on the same

page and get to know each other more in

person and then you know go off and do

our own thing we're all we're pretty

much all introverts here at Hacker News

so we don't really want to like be

meeting with you that often you know

anybody does

20 years quite enough

that's very honest uh all right so just

a couple of uh last questions so what

was so far the biggest win and the the

biggest failure whether for hack or noon

as a business or for use founder

the biggest win

hmm uh I mean in terms of business over

the last year writing contest is the

number one source of Revenue and they've

been really fun to run and they've

brought in a lot of good content so I I

think and it's just cool to find an

arrangement that serves you know three

user types at once and three types of

people three people doing three

different objectives so

um that's been a pretty good win

um but I mean just personally spending

more of my life uh building software I

would say as a as a win of just um being

happy with things I'm putting out in the

world uh so

yeah it's hard to it's nice to ask these

questions about Vegas wins but it's

really like the little wins I guess that

um kind of get to add up like my

schedule's kind of normalized again and

I'm uh we just did a lot of uh whole

year-end review and going through all

trying to just think bigger about what

what worked and didn't work you know

over the last year or so I'm just happy

to take a deep breath and be able to use

the keyboard today

that's perfect all right and well I have

just just one bonus question for you uh

what is uh who is one person that you

would absolutely love to work with in

the future

um maybe Mark Cuban would be cool I mean

he owns the Mavericks maybe if I'm

working with him I could go to some

Mavericks games and I really like what

he's doing uh undercutting all the

pharmaceutical companies and selling uh

drugs at just 15 above cost as opposed

to this whole convoluted thing of a

medicine cost a certain amount of money

because the control is limited and it

feels like it's like some sort of oil

oligarchy getting you know medicine so I

think he's done a good job there of uh

putting

um a stable sustainable business behind

you know a real problem and can make a

lot of money that way so uh but not the

shark tank stuff so maybe not I don't

know maybe I could pick somebody off

all right well I'll make sure you know

to attack him

there is your shot all right well it's

been amazing talking with you I mean

absolutely everybody I know was super

excited that you're coming to the

podcast me included so thank you so much

for making the time

and uh obviously would love to do it

again sometime and uh learn even more

about what you're shipping for hakunoon

cool Anna thanks for having me I had a

lot of fun here

awesome all right same here take care

bye see ya