In a candid conversation with Harry Stebbings on "20 VC: The Memo," Sujit Dash, co-founder of Dubsmash and VP of Core Product Experience at Reddit, shares the tumultuous journey of Dubsmash, from its viral success and battle with TikTok to its acquisition by Reddit. Dash discusses the importance of product-market fit, user retention, and the company's bold pivot to a dance challenge platform, which significantly improved user engagement. He also touches upon the challenges of competing with TikTok's aggressive market-buying strategy and the decision to sell to Reddit. Dash emphasizes the need for intellectual honesty, focus, and stamina in entrepreneurship, as well as the role of collaboration and communication in his executive role at Reddit. The conversation also explores broader themes in consumer social, such as the evolution of video content, monetization strategies, and the potential over-reliance on social graphs in platform design.
"Good products make it to your home screen. Great products make it into your mind. When you're not using the products, you're thinking about them. That is so hard to do."
The quote emphasizes the distinction between products that are merely handy versus those that deeply resonate with users and become a part of their thought process.
"This is the story of Dub Smash. To tell the story, I'm so excited to welcome dub Smash cofounder Sujit Dash."
The quote introduces the subject of the conversation, which is the story of Dubsmash, its rapid growth, and its eventual acquisition by Reddit.
"Sauna is an aipowered learning and knowledge sharing platform. Think of it like Chat GPT for all your company's knowledge."
This quote describes Sauna as a comprehensive AI tool designed to facilitate knowledge sharing within a company, akin to ChatGPT but for internal use.
"Ironclad is a platform that helps companies harness the power of contracts to drive better business outcomes."
The quote explains Ironclad's role in leveraging contracts as strategic assets for businesses to enhance their operations and make informed decisions.
"HMC has managed Harvard University's endowment for nearly 50 years and was one of the first institutional investors in venture capital."
The quote highlights HMC's long history of managing Harvard's endowment and its pioneering role in venture capital investment.
"I love the decision making. I love validating whether you're right or wrong, and I think product puts you at the epicenter of that."
This quote reflects Sujit Dash's passion for the decision-making process inherent in product management and the satisfaction derived from validating product decisions.
"For young talent, I would always encourage both sides, make sure to go into a large company, but also make sure to dive into startups and really get the reps in."
The quote advises young professionals to seek experiences in both large corporations and startups to gain diverse skills and perspectives.
"You start to synthesize those motivations into patterns and behavior. With that, you actually create sort of the why a product should be built."
This quote explains the process of translating human motivations and behaviors into the foundational reasons for building a product.
"More than anything else, I think about being in consumer social as almost like being an anthropologist."
The quote likens the role of a product manager in consumer social to that of an anthropologist, emphasizing the importance of understanding human behavior and culture to inform product decisions.
"That early overnight successes are never really actually overnight successes."
This quote challenges the common perception of overnight success by revealing the iterative process and prior failures that often precede a successful product launch.## Viral Growth and User Retention
"We had every video with a watermark on the bottom right that said dubsmash.com." The watermark was an early innovation to drive organic growth by promoting the app through user-generated content.
"The hard part was that we saw the retention really early and it was awful. After about 30 days, out of 100 people, maybe five stuck around." This quote highlights the initial challenge Dubsmash faced with retaining users, which was a major concern for the team.
"We sort of though it was growing and we started seeing celebrities using this across the world." Celebrity usage and media exposure led to spikes in downloads, showing the product's viral potential despite retention issues.
"We were constantly looking at sort of D 30, D 90, really." The team's focus on D30 and D90 retention rates indicates a long-term perspective on user engagement.
"For dub Smash, it was genuinely just like a weekend hack project and it went out there." The app's humble beginnings as a hack project set the stage for its initial growth and subsequent challenges.
"We were obsessed with retention. We wanted to get that number to be really, really high." This quote underscores the team's commitment to improving user retention as a key metric for success.
"We tried to pivot into messaging also really didn't work as well." The attempt to pivot towards messaging is highlighted as a strategy that ultimately did not succeed in improving retention.
"We didn't nail the user motivation." Identifying user motivation as a key factor that Dubsmash failed to capture, which is crucial for any consumer product.
"Good products make it to your home screen, great products make it into your mind." This quote emphasizes the goal of making a product not just frequently used but also top-of-mind for users.
"We never stopped trying." Persistence in the face of challenges is highlighted as a key attitude for the team at Dubsmash.
"We didn't get too excited. We tried to temper expectations with our team." Managing expectations within the team is emphasized as an important leadership strategy.
"We realized we didn't have the team to do it." Acknowledging the need for a team restructuring to effectively tackle product challenges.
"We believe in you. We know you're going to need time." Investor support is recognized as crucial during the company's pivot and downsizing period.
"We saw about 20% of the users still sticking around, which is crazy to see." Improved retention rates are cited as evidence of the product's newfound success.
"We saw this incredible marketplace of audio producers actually uploading audio beats, dancers starting to take those and create dance challenges." The emergence of a new user ecosystem around the dance challenge use case is described as a positive outcome of the pivot.
"It's validation at the end of the day that all of this hard work, sweat and tears, that would be the thing that would motivate me." The smile curve in retention data is celebrated as a validation of the team's hard work and the product's resonance with users.## Community Savviness and Motivation
"So what we saw was a user with 10,000 followers would say, hey, I'll promote your account. Just hit me up on cash app for $50 and I'll promote your account."
This quote illustrates the entrepreneurial activities of users within the community, seeking to monetize their social media presence by promoting others for a fee.
"It's really important for platforms to actually create more of a democratic system in actually growing their user base."
This quote emphasizes the need for social media platforms to foster an environment where new creators feel they have a fair chance to succeed and grow their audience.
"That's where it's challenging, fundamentally, in the setup of these networks, is how you actually design those."
This quote draws attention to the inherent challenges in designing social networks that equitably reward users and encourage diverse connections beyond traditional social graphs.
"It's valuable because when you actually look at a place, what you're really looking for is you don't necessarily care about what your friends think about what this place was and what their taste preferences are."
This quote explains the value of community-driven content in location-based services, where the collective insights are often more valuable than individual opinions.
"Getting users to download an app in 2023 is really tough."
This quote acknowledges the current difficulties in user acquisition for new apps compared to the earlier days of the App Store.
"No competitor had ever bought users at that scale."
The quote highlights the unprecedented scale of user acquisition strategies employed by TikTok, which significantly impacted the competitive landscape.
"It requires a tremendous amount of focus to actually really get it over the line."
This quote emphasizes the intense focus and commitment required from founders to successfully navigate an M&A process.
"We went through sort of almost two to three failed processes until we found a successful process with Reddit."
This quote reflects the trial and error nature of M&A processes and the perseverance required to ultimately succeed.## Due Diligence Process
"e diligence starts, you have many people around the table who are trying to say, this is why it's a bad idea."
This quote highlights the adversarial nature of due diligence, where convincing stakeholders is a key aspect of the process.
"Saying this to your investor base, respectfully, it's not what they signed up for."
Harry Stebbings is emphasizing the difficulty of aligning investor expectations with a pivot or change in company strategy.
"This is a game where either we go and raise 100 million dollar and eat $100 million, and even with that, we're unsure if we can compete at this scale."
Sujit Dash explains the financial challenges and competitive environment that influenced strategic decisions at Dubsmash.
"I don't think really the US needs a TikTok."
Sujit Dash argues that what consumers need is not another TikTok clone, but platforms that enable connections based on interests and communities.
"Ultimately, we were successful. The entire team moved over to Reddit."
This quote reflects on the successful acquisition of Dubsmash by Reddit, indicating satisfaction with the outcome.
"Mindset as an entrepreneur, number one, a lot of people talk about focus."
Sujit Dash discusses the importance of focus and other key traits in the entrepreneurial mindset.
"Now, on the other side, with cash in the bank, at least at a large company like a Reddit, it's a little bit of a different Mindset."
This quote points out the different mindset required when transitioning from an entrepreneur to an executive at a larger company.
"So, interestingly enough, a journalist was able to snuff out that two acquirers were actually coming in and thinking about acquiring the company."
Sujit Dash explains how a journalist's interest led to the acquisition of Dubsmash by Reddit.
"Look, our magic at Reddit is with our conversations."
Sujit Dash emphasizes the value of conversations on Reddit and how this influences their approach to video and monetization.
"The single best, probably product decision was pivoting the whole company of Dove smash towards this dance challenge platform."
Sujit Dash reflects on the pivotal decision that contributed significantly to Dubsmash's success.
"I have a framework, sort of listen to what they love, monitor what they do, acknowledge what they hate, and own it."
Sujit Dash shares his approach to incorporating user feedback into product development.
"No, I think they're an execution machine."
This quote suggests that Facebook's strength lies in its ability to execute on ideas, whether original or inspired by others.
"Probably a disregard for privacy and conventional rules."
Sujit Dash gives a candid assessment of what he believes is one of TikTok's strengths in the competitive social media landscape.
"But probably actually Nihal meta from Eniac stuck with us through and through, thick and thin."
Sujit Dash appreciates the steadfast support from investor Nihal Meta during Dubsmash's challenging times.
"United Airlines most people's expectations when they fly is their expectations are sky high and their tolerance for mistakes are incredibly low."
Sujit Dash praises United Airlines for their innovative approach to customer service and product strategy.