Slides to share at GSP West in March 2008. We know these slides are not pretty. We did them in Google Docs as an experiment and didn't really polish the visuals.

1. 10 Million in 10 Weeks
What Stanford Learned Building Facebook Apps
A Stanford Course during Fall 2007
BJ Fogg, Ph.D.
Dan Ackerman-Greenberg
Rob Fan
Graphing Social Patterns: March 2008
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

2. 10 Million in 10 Weeks
Total Installed Users: 20M+
5 apps @ 1M+ users
10 apps @ 100k users
20 apps @ 5k users
Total Daily Active Users (DAU): 925k
6 apps with ~ 100k DAU
10 apps with > 10k DAU
19 apps with > 500 DAU
6 Apps in Facebook Top 100
Top Apps (according to Adonomics): ~ $10M
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu B

3. Captology and Persuasion B
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

4. The Idea Comes Together
BJ - Dave - Dan
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu B

5. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu D

6. Curriculum (Alpha Version)
3 Apps (!) Hoping to leverage . . .
1. Virality Huge reading list
2. Engagement Metrics-based grading
3. Education-focused Psychology of technology
Expecting 20-40 students...
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu D

7. ...120 showed up
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu R

8. ...So we scared some students off.
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu
B

9. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

10. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

11. Rob Fan
Yee Lee
Jia Shen Greg Schwartz
...and brought in more help!
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu D

12. 7 person teaching team
73 students
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu B

13. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu B

14. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu D

15. Every class was exciting and surprising D
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

16. Students drove us forward B
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

17. Initial Success!!! R
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

18. Success Stories
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu R

19. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu B

20. Students come together outside of class... D
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

21. 10 Million in 10 Weeks
Total Installed Users: 20M+
5 apps @ 1M+ users
10 apps @ 100k users
20 apps @ 5k users
Total Daily Active Users (DAU): 925k
6 apps with ~ 100k DAU
10 apps with > 10k DAU
19 apps with > 500 DAU
5 Apps in Facebook Top 100
Top Apps (according to Adonomics): ~ $10M
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu B

22. Final Expo in December 2007
500+ people show up
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu R

23. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

24. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

25. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

26. BayCHI Student Presentation B
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

27. Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

28. Aftermath
$500,000 - $1,000,000+ revenue generated since September
At least 3 companies formed
At least 2 companies acquired
More job offers than students can handle
Dan drops out of school to work with Rob and 3 other students
from the class
Teach the class again soon
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu D

29. More Successes
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu R

30. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#1. It's never too late to create a winning app
When we launched course, over 6000 Facebook apps existed.
10 weeks later, our students had 6 apps in the top 100
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

31. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#2. Simplicity & clarity are key to app success
Apps need to be easily understood (value prop)
Apps need to be easy to use
The wrong direction:
Clever names
Lots of features
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

32. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#3. Speed & flexibility in launch & iterations
Many crummy trials beat deep thinking
Flexibility beats quality
Deadly: Getting too attached to one app idea.
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

33. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#4. Community cooperation leads to success
Students helped others a lot
Sharing code, tips, insights . . . all were present in course.
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

34. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#5. Individual opinions about app are worthless
Don't be swayed by one person's opinion.
Just get the app out there and see what happens . . .
Despite everyone's supposed quot;brilliancequot; . . .
Often what seemed like a killer idea didn't work.
Sometimes what seemed stupid worked very well.
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

35. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#6. Copying success is a cheap/fast way to succeed
Novelty isn't the best approach to apps
If you're desperate for a win, just copy something that's working
Flipside: If your app is doing well, expect imitators.
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

36. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#7. Metrics do matter, but today's tools are too weak
Of course, instrument your apps to track viral aspects
No one offers a winning metrics package (yet) -- not even GA
Our experience: Students often had to tweak GA and also create their
own metrics tools.
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

37. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#8. You CAN learn to create a winning app
Success with FB apps isn't luck or magic
Many Stanford teams succeeded
Teams who failed at first later created excellent apps (like Oregon
Trail)
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

38. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#9. Success comes from the Chaos / Control Cycle
(This point incorporates many of the previous points)
Successful innovation is a process.
BJ Fogg's
Chaos/Control Cycle
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

39. BJ Fogg's
Chaos/Control Cycle
Our process for innovation
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

40. Learnings from Stanford's FB Course
#10. Mass Interpersonal Persuasion is finally here
A new form of persuasion emerged in 2007
This is a big deal (nothing as important since radio over 100 years
ago)
Implications:
We can now do things never before possible, like 16 million installs in
10 weeks. But even more significant applications are ahead of use
(like world peace).
Or . . . You can make lots of money quickly, if that's your goal.
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu

41. BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu see peace.stanford.edu for more
A revolutionary new form of persuasion

42. 10 Million in 10 Weeks
What Stanford Learned Building Facebook Apps
A Stanford Course during Fall 2007
BJ Fogg, Ph.D.
Dan Ackerman-Greenberg
Rob Fan
Contact: BJ Fogg - bjfogg@stanford.edu