What if Google pitched Google+ to Dave McClure?

by Dylan on July 4, 2011

I was in a roundtable discussion with Eric Schmidt a few hours before Google+ launched. I can’t actually say what we discussed as it was one of those ‘in camera’ affairs. A brilliant Latin term which means the exact opposite of what you think it does. It’s up there with ‘our trusted partners’, ‘free-to-play’ and ‘unlimited bandwidth’. What I can say is that we didn’t discuss Google+ at all. Which is a pity because I had really been working on my Dave McClure impression…

McClure: “Okay, pitch me!”
Google: “We call it Google+. It’s a social network.”
McClure: “What problem does it solve?”
Google: “Online sharing is broken. And we aim to fix it”
McClure: “Erm, no, that isn’t actually a problem for people. Twitter and Facebook work just fine.”
Google: “Yeah, but we could make it a bit better.”
McClure: “Dude, it seems to be working pretty okay for about 800M people.”
Google: “…”
McClure: “Jeez. You guys used to do this! Remember when people had a serious problem with email storage? You launched Gmail with a massive storage differentiator. It was a success. Remember when people had a problem with search? You launched the damn company! It was head and shoulders above everything else and became a success. Clear problem plus big solution equals win.  So find a problem.”
Google: “Social networks?”
McClure: “Dude, I guarantee you that there are not millions of people complaining that they don’t have enough social networks. Try again.”
Google: “Hmm. I see to have forgotten how to do this”
McClure: “Here’s a few freebies: 1) data roaming is crap, 2) I get way too many emails, 3) online payment is still sucky. Get the idea?”
Google: “Awesome. So we’ll build a social network which people can use by email, with roaming and that they can pay for”
McClure: “Dude, I’m coming over there and I’m going to kick the crap out of you right now”

Google clearly have issues with their new product development process. They need to start thinking like a startup with every new product. What problem does it solve?

(No Dave McClures or Googlers were harmed in the writing of this post).

  • stephen

    Zuckerberg: We want to allow users to contact each other better and stay with us
    McClure: So whats your solution?
    Zuckerberg: We have a new internal email system for users
    McClure: But you just said that your users are not using email as much!
    Zuckerberg: We’re just worried Google is out to get us and they have even more cash
    McClure: You have 800m happy users – they have just gmail
    ZuckerBerg: We want fmail to be bigger
    McClure: Mark- your users don’t need/want email to use facebook…are you taking pills?

  • dylan

    @Stephen Fmail is huge amongst the under-25 crowd. Particularly girls. I actually think it could become quite huge. Thanks for staying with the theme though :)

  • http://myblog.rsynnott.com Robert Synnott

    I don’t think Google+ is that bad a product. It’s arguably better than Facebook, and may lead to the end of Facebook’s de facto monopoly on social networks in certain countries.

  • dylan

    @Rob ‘Not that bad’ just isn’t going to be good enough to crack the mainstream market though.

  • http://500startups.com Dave McClure

    this is perfect… feel like I can even hear myself talking ;)

    that said, there is a problem to be solved here: how do I find the (close, small) group of people that i’d like to share purchase info / do social commerce with? who has similar interests in my network that together we can get 10-20% discounts on stuff we care about?

    (see my posts on “Check-ins are Coupons” & “How to take down Facebook” from last year on http://500hats.typepad.com)

    however, at this point the window is closing… Facebook, Living Social, & maybe FourSquare are getting there pretty quick.

  • dylan

    @Dave Still amazed that FS haven’t nailed this yet and suspect they might have missed their window on it with the momentum FB + Groupon/LivingSocial have.

  • Eoin

    I think a lot of people are forgetting the amount of numbers already with Gmail accounts. A lot easier to get people to join when they don’t have as many “enter your details” fields to chomp through.

    Once you have a Gmail account it will be very easy to make the next step to Google+ even if it’s just to look-see.

    I think YouTube and the ease of use of video chat will be two of the parts that really help push Google+ but the big driver will be how easy it is to join if you already have a Gmail account.

  • http:citygist.com Citygist

    I cant agree less. The myriad of services og google thzt users already subscribe to are killing. With good strategy…google will get a sizable market too

  • Pingback: Dear Google, this is what a new product should look like

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