napkintech by andrew meyer

Topsy was founded by Vipul Prakash (CEO), Gary Iwatani (CFO/COO), and Rishab Ghosh (VP, Research) in 2006. Previously, the three founders all worked together at Cloudmark, an anti-spam company which Prakash co-founded, and Prakash and Ghosh also worked together on several Open Source research initiatives. All of the founders had separately worked on several startups before Cloudmark.

I remember asking Prakash about the transition from a security / anti-spam company to a company focused on search, and he told me that these two fields face the same “signal to noise” challenge. With anti-spam, the technology focuses on detection in a similar way that search technology focuses on detection. To Prakash, the transition from anti-spam to search was very natural.

The technology behind Topsy started as a side project for Prakash. At Cloudmark, Prakash began to realize the growing amount of conversation streams that were occurring on the web. Today, these streams occur on twitter, yelp, identica, blogs, digg, and other social media sites. Prakash wanted to be able to filter these conversation streams which represented new forms of information on the web. Initially, the project took the form of a Firefox / IE add on which would display what people had written about a particular URL (the source of comments were from blogs). Prakash began to involve Ghosh in his side project, and the two of them realized that there was a need to navigate and filter all of the conversations that were happening on the web and that a browser add on was not the most effective way to do it.

In 2006, Prakash and Ghosh left Cloudmark and brought Iwatani with them. The three of them worked on Topsy (then called “Slaant”) and started hiring developers from companies they had previously worked for. For the next three years, the team worked on developing a search engine which would index conversation streams on the internet.

It seems that one of the biggest challenges for Topsy in the transition from idea to company was the hiring process. Topsy currently has only 11 employees, and it took a long time to reach that number. Talent was scarce, and the founders wanted to be very careful about culture fit and bringing people on board who shared their passion. Hiring was slow at first, but after a year, the core developers were hired and the team was rounded out.

Another Mayfield Fellows Program “Summer Journal” Entry…

Topsy is located in the SOMA district of San Francisco in a complex shared by three other startups and a chiropractor (random, I know). Our unit itself is divided into two “bunkers” (as described by our CEO) which are physically separated. Both of these “bunkers” are fairly open with employees shifting around freely within them. It’s interesting to note, however, that while there technically are no “assigned” desks or offices, the CEO and COO (the two founders who also have board seats) both spend about 80% of their time in Bunker 2. The CEO and COO will often have strategy meetings in Bunker 2 with the other founder (and myself). Generally, other employees do not attend these strategy meetings, and they rarely spend time in Bunker 2.

Bunker 2 is one large room with a few desks and lots of whiteboards. Our accountant / secretary works out of Bunker 2 a few days a week at her own desk, and the founders work on Ikea couches. There are a number of desks, but no one in this room sits at them.

Bunker 1 has our main presentation room where we have our full team standup meetings. It’s littered with bean bags, shag carpets, Ikea couches and chairs, and some random pieces of furniture. Bunker 1 also has a few “offices” which really are two other large rooms. These “offices” are shared by two to four people (again, people usually shift around, depending on the projects they are working on). Our CEO will come and spend time in Bunker 2 and hang out with other employees (our COO by contrast pretty much keeps to himself in bunker 2).

While I have come to like our space, when I first came to interview, I was underwhelmed. By the time I interviewed with Topsy, I had already interviewed with 15 or so startups, and many of them had really cool furniture, art, or lighting. There is very little in our space and virtually no personalization of the space. Our VP of Operations has some pictures of his daughter on a wall where he usually works, but that’s about it. I would like to see more personality, because it’s just very barren and sparse for now.

In terms of answering the “key questions,” I think there should be more personalization of the space. Topsy is definitely a welcoming place by virtue of the employees being friendly, but the physical layout doesn’t reflect this. As I mentioned earlier, the space is very barren, and I think there should be more color and personalization to make it a more welcoming place. Additionally, I think Topsy could benefit from having one large “bunker” which has some attached rooms (e.g. conference rooms). Having two separate bunnkers seems to create some sort of divide between the founders and the other employees. The CEO mentioned that he wants to get a new space for this very reason, so we may be moving soon!

I wrote this as part of my “journal” for the Mayfield Fellows Program a while back, and I thought I would include it here:

I am coming up on my fourth week at Topsy, and at this point I am very comfortable with the company’s processes / organizational structure. For the most part, my orientation has been fairly informal but effective. When I came initially, I was instructed to simply explore the Topsy product in great detail for two days while also documenting the metrics I wanted to measure (bounce rate for certain pages, visitor duration, referrals, etc…). For me, this time was very productive, and it really helped me to fully understand the product’s strengths and weaknesses. I was also instructed on the company’s internal wiki system, email, and I was given access to modify our beta product.

The rest of my orientaiton has been in the form of conversations with fellow employees. These conversations have allowed me to understand the culture, company mission, and facilities. I would say that all of my orientation has been spontaneous.

My company is in its nascent stages (they’ve never had an intern or a nondeveloper), so training has been very informal. I actually liked it because I got to spend my own time trying to understand the product, and I was able to meet all the employees through asking them questions about the company. While I enjoyed this form of orientation, some formal guidance or documentation could have been helpful just for some direction. As it was, the amount and quality of orientation was pretty much left up to me.

Man, I’m having a hard time doing this blogging thing! My updates are very sporadic, but that’s probably fine since I don’t really advertise this blog anyway. I really just want this to be a repository for some lessons that I learn, so I can always come back to them

So again, I’m working for Topsy Labs, Inc and I’m learning a lot. As I mentioned in my previous post, I am working in a PM role, and I’m largely trying to understand how users are interacting with our search engine via usability studies and data analysis.

I was sitting down with my mentor, Gary Iwatani (COO), going over some work I had done when he started talking to me about his experience in startups (he has been involved with a number of them) and why he is currently still involved with a number of projects. His message was this: venture capital firms have the distinct advantage of diversifying their ventures–that is to say that they invest in a numerous startups and only need/expect one of them to “make it.” By contrast, entrepreneurs don’t have that luxury. For them it’s all or nothing based on a single startup. For that reason, Gary told me how he still has his hands in a few startups/projects. His main focus is definitely Topsy, but he’s still advising other startups and working on some small side projects.

Gary also imparted another lesson on me:it’s never too early to start something. In the world of startups, it seems that you really learn by doing. Why not try a small entrepreneurial project you can sink your teeth into and get started? For this reason, I’m trying to get something going this summer / during my master’s degree next year. I’ll keep you posted…