🤔 Greg Isenberg's Thoughts On Everything
Tech Twitter's social media guru has quite a lot to say
Introducing 🤔Thoughts On Everything 🤔
Exclusive interviews and top tweets from the most interesting individuals in the Tech Twitteratti.
🤔 Who is Greg Isenberg?
Greg is an a prolific entrepreneur and investor. We also named him Tweeter of the Month for April. While that is all true, there’s so much more to Greg.
He was the founder of 5by, a video discovery product that was acquired by StumbleUpon way back in 2013. Since then he built and sold another social media startup, Islands, to WeWork, invested in social media startups like TBH via Indicator Ventures, and advised social media startups like Tik Tok.
Seeing a pattern? 🤗
Greg Isenberg is Tech Twitter’s social media guru, plain and simple. He’s also the author of a brand new newsletter on the topic called Late Checkout. Check it out 😜
🤔 Q&A with Greg
I asked Greg to share his thoughts on a number of hot topics in tech in under a few tweets-worth of text.
🤔 What brought you to the consumer tech space originally?
Can you be in a more exciting place? I love the ability to create technologies that can scale to millions of people overnight. It’s thrilling.
🤔 How do you see consumer technology usage changing?
Now is probably the most interesting time to be a consumer tech founder in the last decade. For example, there are tremendous opportunities in consumer social to bring people together and plenty of vertical social networks yet to be built. Discord (gaming) is just one example of one.
🤔 What opportunities in social are you most excited about?
I’m really interested in how we can use create products that bring a community together. Be it older adults or church-goers or day traders, it’s human nature to want to find your people and I think it’s a wonderful time to be building companies around that.
🤔 How do you feel about ad-supported business model for social products?
I think in 2020, there are so many different more interesting ways to monetize (subscriptions, in-app purchases etc) beyond ads. When you have eyeballs, advertising is natural, but nice to see fresh ways of monetizing consumer audiences come about.
🤔 What opportunities in eCommerce are you most excited about?
Amazon and Shopify DTC companies are extremely transactional. I think what’s yet to be built is the more gamified version of these. Commerce can be a whole lot more interesting than point and click. I like what Otis is doing around drops. Costco and TJ Maxx are good examples of treasure hunt gamified brick and mortar companies.
🤔What are your thoughts on social audio?
Many of us have our airpods/earbuds plugged in for hours a day. There is a large social network to be built on top of audio. Clubhouse is one to watch, but expect many other interesting takes on social audio over the next 6 months.
🤔What has been your biggest learning as an acquired founder?
Trust your intuition. There is a reason your gut is telling you something. Let it guide you.
🤔What have you been reading/watching/listening to lately?
Listening to Hotel Costes playlist on Spotify
🤔What are your thoughts on Twitter and who are your favorite follows?
I love Twitter. It gives me an instant pulse on what’s happening like no other social network. It’s a great place to learn and also
Some of my fav follows in tech twitter are:
@BrianNorgard
@NikitaBier
@dtrinh
🏆 Greg’s best thoughts
Greg is a prolific sharer of juicy insights on twitter. I’ve gone ahead and collected some of his most popular tweets below.
Here’s Greg’s top tweet ever (based on likes). He shared this amidst the hight of Clubhouse hype, which at the time had a waitlist to join the app.
I couldn’t have agreed more.
You can find a full list of Greg’s best tweets here, but here are some highlights:
👍 On the future of social (circa 2020)
There has never been a better time to build a social product (minus maybe 2008 or so). Greg’s got a lot of tactical advice and ideas for people thinking about going for it.
🛠 On how to build a great consumer social product
A lot of people think that building in consumer social is akin to capturing lightening in a bottle. Greg sees it much more of a science. Here are some of his best tips:
👍 On eCommerce
ECommerce is actually a close cousin of consumer social. Assuming you’re still in B2C, eCommerce also requires a lot of user empathy and understanding of community and network effects. Here are some of Greg’s tips for eCommerce:
👩✈️On being a founder
Of course founders love sharing advice with other founders, but Greg’s advice is a lot more actionable than most you hear.
💰 On M&A
Having gone through two acquisitions, Greg is a wealth of knowledge on M&A. This is a fantastic thread worth clicking into for any founder thinking about it:
👍 On the future of social (circa 2019)
Greg shares his thoughts on the future of social every year. Here’s his take from the pre-pandemic era:
✌️Thanks
Enjoy this amazing dance from Tik Tok, a company Greg advises! Also, remember to subscribe to Greg’s newsletter, Late Checkout!
🙌 Yo! It’s Brett. If you enjoyed reading this, maybe share it with friends? Or sign up if you haven’t already!