August 2018
Summary
⇾ In between Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, redddit and Twitter, we saw an opportunity for a communication service that afforded users reach and privacy
⇾ Of all the features included in early builds, the “CC” message distribution model had the biggest impact on Jot’s trajectory
⇾ With usage, it became clear the instant, conversational nature of Jot was the most compelling part of the experience
⇾ Despite strong retention and a deeply engaged user base, we did not figure out how to grow Jot quickly enough to achieve scale
The beginning
Jot began with a series of questions: Why do we find ourselves dropping the same link or thought into multiple Gchat and iMessage threads? Why is it not clear where the best place is to talk about what we’re thinking, as we’re thinking it?
Yes, existing services offered broad reach, but it came at the expense of privacy. A trade off we found drove our sharing elsewhere, considering our sharing came from wanting to talk rather than wanting to spread a message.
Product
Of all the features included in Jot’s early builds, there was one that defined our course: CC. All persons attached – CC’ed – to a Jot were a part of the ensuing group conversation. Our most active users were drawn to the threaded conversational nature of Jot. It became clear the interaction that followed the original post was the most compelling part of the experience.
Peoples’ preference for chat became abundantly clear when we discovered the majority of our most active users were sharing each of their Jots with their entire friend list. Their goal, as we found out, was to maximize the exposure of their Jots to increase the likelihood that a conversation would ensue in that moment.
This insight around our most active users seeking immediate interaction led to Presence, Discover and Subscribe. In effect, Jot evolved into a service for instantly chatting with like-minded people, whether you knew them already or not.
What changed?
Because the types of topics being discussed on Jot varied so drastically, we found it difficult to isolate potential users and thus scale our acquisition efforts.
We thought making it explicit who Jot was for would make user acquisition more straightforward. To test our assumption, we introduced Networks and Spaces. Networks were private, university-specific “instances” distinct from “main” Jot for students to talk. We launched Networks at Emory University first, and then at UC Berkeley and SFSU. Spaces were sub-communities within Jot intended for conversation around a particular topic or idea.
At Emory, we managed to drive 10% of entire undergraduate population onto Jot within hours of launch. But, this proved to be too many people too soon; the community was not able to sustain a “heartbeat” of its own. Learning from our experience at Emory, we rolled Jot out more gradually at Berkeley and SFSU. While communities at both campuses emerged and retained a core group of active users, they, like the original Jot community, did not grow as we needed them to.
Ultimately, we did not figure out how to grow Jot fast enough. While many users shared threads to Twitter and Facebook, these shares did not drive new signs ups at a high enough rate. In fact, most times, the conversations users would share continued on the service the thread was being shared to. Secondarily, users did not invite their friends directly to Jot. In large part – we think – because users were not incentivized to. Jot gave people instant access to spontaneous conversations, without needing to know anyone beforehand...how would having your friends on the service make the experience any better?
In the end
We built a service that encouraged a small, but highly engaged community of people to flourish atop of it. We proved there was value in a service focused on making starting and participating in conversations effortless. What we did not figure out was the right mix of incentives to achieve the viral growth we needed to support our eventual advertising-based business model. Chalk would become our exploration of this last point: How could we maintain Jot’s real-time conversational core, while remixing the surrounding mechanics to achieve viral growth?