Alan Schaaf
Founder and CEO of imgur
Discussion
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
Hey Product Hunt, I'm Alan Schaaf, Founder and CEO of Imgur. I'm a huge fan of Product Hunt, and delighted to be here -- please ask me anything!
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Ryan Hoover
@rrhoover · Founder, Product Hunt
Welcome, Alan! Super impressed with what you and the team have built at Imgur. At what point did you realize Imgur was a big deal?
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
@rrhoover I thought it was pretty awesome when I could quit my part time job in a tech call center to work on Imgur full time. That was a big milestone for me and blew my mind.
Corley
@corleyh · COO @ Product Hunt
@mrgrim151 @rrhoover ok this might be my favorite question + reply EVER! 👍👍👍
Andrew Ettinger
@andrewett · Product Marketing, Twitter (ex-PH)
Asking the important questions: GIF is pronounced: "jif", like the peanut butter or "gif", like gift?
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
@andrewmettinger I feel like I relate to the creator of the gif format, seeing how people mispronounce Imgur (Image-er) all the time. So I go with what he says, which is jif. He made the thing after all, it should be his decision.
jeff h white
@jefhwite · Content Lead, Big Monocle
@andrewmettinger Wait, so is it im-age-er or im-gur?
Andy Tuba
@andytuba · Full-Stack Engineer
Tyson Ferguson
@whattheferguson · Co-Founder, Chief Product Officer @ Clyp
@jefhwite @andrewmettinger It's pronounced IMAGE-ER. But we're also fond of this pronunciation: https://clyp.it/gwf1iyf4
Jordan Patapoff
@jpatapoff · Co-Founder, Clyp
Hey Alan! What's the biggest technical challenge Imgur has faced as it scaled into one of the most trafficked websites on the Internet?
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
@jpatapoff Hey Jordan! MySQL has been a real pain to scale, so we've been on a mission the last few years to slowly break things apart and move them to HBase and other tech. We need help there honestly, so if you know any DevOps people, let me know?
Tyson Ferguson
@whattheferguson · Co-Founder, Chief Product Officer @ Clyp
Hey Alan, thanks for dropping by! If you weren't working on Imgur, what would you be doing?
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
@whattheferguson I have a strange passion for DevOps and scaling, so I think I'd be doing that. There's something about troubleshooting, fixing, and optimizing things that I really like.
Martyn O'Neill
@martynmage · Specialised Machining Post Developer
Mobile apps are fantastic. But when it comes to the main desktop site what do you feel is the greatest achievement/ upgrade made to imgur in the last 12 months?
What do you think will be the greatest change coming in 2016?
What would you like to see the site doing in the year 2020?
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
@martynmage In the past year we streamlined the Imgur desktop experience so everything is more consistent - from the pages to the uploading process and lots of things in between. The summation of all of those small changes has resulted in a major improvement in overall user experience. We also built out the notification platform a lot so that you can stay up to date with what's happening in the community.
2016 is all about building the team, and so I think the biggest change is going to be more people working at Imgur! We’re 65 today and that’s such a change from the small team of <20 in 2014. I couldn’t be more excited at what everyone is working on too. We have billions of images to play with and when you ship code at Imgur, it instantly impacts our massive user base of 150 million users around the world.
By 2020, I'd just like us to continue to fulfill our mission of surfacing the worlds most entertaining content, and continuing to allow you to share and express yourself through images.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
What apps do you use all the time? (Apart from Imgur 😜)
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
@ems_hodge I do use Imgur a lot :) But I also like Snapchat, Feedly (I like old school RSS), and a bunch of note taking apps like Evernote and Keep. Also whatever I find on Product Hunt usually.
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
After years of bootstrapping Imgur, you raised $40MM from A16Z in 2014. Besides the money, what did A16Z bring to the table in terms of operational improvements, growth, network/relationships, long-term vision for Imgur, etc?
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
@tomstocklein A16Z has been really awesome. When I raised I didn't just need dumb money, I needed mentors, partnerships, help with hiring, marketing, etc. They were able to bring all of that. They have a whole staff of over 100 people who's job it is to help you with whatever you need and get you to move faster. A random example is when we were hiring our first HR person. They were able to connect me with HR leaders to help me calibrate on the position and exactly what we needed, and then when it came down to it, they helped me put together the compensation package. That's a small example that just makes things so much easier.
Martin
@martinveramiami · Navy Veteran discovering your cool site.
@mrgrim151 @tomstocklein Was it Toby talking about his passion for HR. https://www.youtube.com/watch?fe...
Vinay Mimani
@wiredmau5 · Founder : trbble
Hi Alan! Long time imgurian here! I have two questions for you:
1. What are some of the tips you can share to build a stronger community? How did you go about doing that initially?
2. Were you ever bothered about the slew of other sites with the same concept? And if yes, can you list some early strives you made to stay differentiated?
Thank you for your time!
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
@wiredmau5
1) Always listen and empathize with your users. You're building the product for them after all -- not for yourself. More than that though, it takes communication with your community and they should feel that you really are building the product with their best interests in mind.
2) Not really. I focused on what I was doing more than what they were doing. As soon as you focus on what other people are doing then you start following them. When you're following them, you're always behind them.
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
What are some of your favorite pictures on Imgur right now?
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Alan Schaaf
@mrgrim151 · Founder & CEO @ Imgur
@tomstocklein Right now I really love this guy's story: http://imgur.com/gallery/7Lsjz