Today, 10 years after the creation of VKontakte, Pavel Durov shared on his page life lessons learned while working on one of the most famous social networks. We publish them without changes.
10 years have passed. I am publishing 10 lessons that I learned in the process of creating VKontakte:
— 1 —
Everything can be done quickly. I put together the first version of VKontakte in 2006 in a month. She began to grow immediately. Contrary to popular belief, work is either done quickly and efficiently, or takes a long time and poorly.
— 2 —
Everything *needs* to be done quickly. Along with VKontakte, several more sites with the same concept emerged in 2006. Now they are forgotten only because VKontakte developed faster.
— 3 —
You need to grow in the direction that is organic. VKontakte grew out of the success of the St. Petersburg State University forum, and the St. Petersburg State University forum grew out of the success of the site for philologists. Each subsequent step should be based on the foundation of existing successful experience.
— 4 —
People are not idiots. They feel – often subconsciously – the quality of what you offer.
Every nice little detail and thoughtful detail, no matter how insignificant it may seem, brings new loyal users.
— 5 —
Combining several roles is effective. During the first months of VKontakte’s existence, I created all the code, graphics, wording, interfaces, and marketing. The combination made it possible to eliminate the waste of time on communication.
— 6 —
You should only listen to your intuition. Every time I listened to the opinion of the “older and wiser”, I wasted time.
If you feel what needs to be done, ignore the opinion of authorities.
— 7 —
Quantity does not translate into quality. The VKontakte team was small, but consisted of talented and motivated people. Such a team is more effective than an army of mercenaries working for a salary.
— 8 —
You shouldn’t trust anyone 100%. It doesn’t matter how trustworthy you think someone is or how many years you’ve known them, it’s best to control key issues personally.
— 9 —
Fear has no meaning. During the management of VKontakte there was a lot – DDoS attacks, criminal cases, shareholder wars, melting servers, media wars, lawsuits, intrigues.
Emotions are not productive – do what needs to be done.
< h2 style="text-align:center;">— 10 —
Principles are more important than benefits. VKontakte defended the interests of users while its competitors betrayed them to please advertisers, shareholders, and officials. Bringing benefit to others is the only possible reason for true success.
