Jack Dorsey: The 3 Keys to Twitter's Success

About this presentation

Jack Dorsey outlines three core takeaways from his experiences building and launching Twitter -- and more recently -- Square, a simple payment utility. 1) Draw: get your idea out of your head and share it, 2) Luck: assess when the time (and the market) is right to execute your idea, 3) Iterate: take in the feedback, be a rigorous editor, and refine your idea.

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0:25 - The concept behind Twitter has been in Jack's head since he was 15 and was inspired by maps, ambulances, and taxis
2:11 - "I had this rich sense of how the metropolis was living and breathing... but there was one missing part: my friends."
3:00 - The first lesson: Draw. The most important thing you can do with an idea: get it out of your head
3:16 - The early sketches and prototypes of Twitter
3:38 - The first "tweet"
4:13 - "The original sketches of Square
4:27 - Second lesson: Luck. Be able to recognize when luck is happening around you.
4:50 - The two (lucky) things that made Twitter possible: SMS became possible & Jack was in a creative environment with creative people.
6:47 - Bringing up the idea for Twitter to Ev and Biz
7:22 - The first human written tweet was inviting other Odeo coworkers to the service
7:41 - Squares lucky situation: the financial crises
8:48 - People were willing to thing of new business models and financial tools. It allowed Square to move quickly.
9:39 - Third lesson: iteration. Originally Twitter asked "What's your status?"
10:49 - Twitter became an "editor" of the user base. Almost all features - like the "@" - were invented by users.
12:05 - Get into a position where you can draw something up, see the situation around you and immediately around you is very important. Take the position of an editor, take in the feedback.
12:52 - The first screenshot of Square
13:30 - Explanation of Square. 90 percent of country pays with cards, but only 2 percent can accept
13:53 - Designing for Square's interfaces trust
14:37 - Bonus fourth lesson: know when to stop. Sometimes put the idea away, that idea will often emerge later.



About Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey is the Creator, Co-founder, and Chairman of Twitter, Inc. Originally from St. Louis, Jack's early fascination with mass-transit and how cities function led him to Manhattan and programming real-time messaging systems for couriers, taxis, and emergency vehicles.

Throughout this work Jack witnessed thousands of workers in the field constantly updating where they were and what they were doing; Twitter is a constrained simplification designed for general usage and extended by the millions of people who make it their own every day.

Jack is dedicated to creating public goods that foster approachability, immediacy, and transparency, and is starting a second company -- Square -- focused on bringing these concepts to commerce.


About 99U

The 99U delivers the action-oriented education that you didn't get in school, highlighting real-world best practices for making ideas happen.