Kevin Rose on his product philosophy, Reddit & Digg's inverse journeys & Twitter's recent product innovations | E1185

Top Insights

Products must begin with only 2-3 key features. Once there is traction, you can prioritize what features to build next by asking users for feedback.
Fewer features allow you to launch quicker, at a lower cost, and actually determine if there is product-market fit.
Replacing a founder with "professional management" to commercialize a business often kills the product and company culture. (See Tobi's Rule EP 1184)
Twitter's new product roadmap offers an antidote to the chaos of text-based social media, a natural extension that compliments their core product.
NFT & blockchain technologies will revolutionize the ways we manage rights & ownership, despite most projects in the space likely being worthless.

Kevin Rose is a partner at True Ventures, a consumer-focused venture firm with early bets on Peloton, Fitbit, Blue Bottle, Ring and more. He hosts the "Kevin Rose Show" Previously, he founded the social news site Digg, intermittent fasting app, ZERO, and the meditation app, OAK.
His most notable investment include: Twitter, Facebook, Zynga, Square, Medium, Foursquare, Nextdoor, Blue Bottle Coffee, Clever, Ripple, Oura
Kevin's past This Week in Startups appearances:
- E740 & E741 (June 2017)
- E404 (December 2013)
- E218 (December 2011)

"Nothing beats the rush when you launch a new product. The ultimate peak as a founder is to have people using something that you created."

Some downsides of being a founder include managing people, making hard initial engineering hires, fighting for talent, and having difficulty sleeping.
Kevin prefers building a product in the early stages over trying to scale a growth-stage startup.