Y Combinator - What David Lieb and his team built eventually became the foundation for Google Photos.
The speaker recounts a challenging period where their app, Bump, despite having 150 million users, was on the verge of failure. Their second attempt, Flock, also didn't succeed, and they were running out of money. Feeling immense pressure, they sought advice from Paul Graham, who encouraged them to think bigger. Initially, they had a photo-sharing app that wasn't gaining traction. Graham suggested they replace the entire photos app on the phone, a daunting idea at first. However, upon reflection, they realized the existing iPhone photos app wasn't very good, and they could create a superior product. With limited time and resources, they decided to pursue this ambitious project.
Key Points:
- Bump had 150 million users but was failing.
- Flock, their second app, also failed to gain traction.
- Paul Graham advised them to think bigger and replace the iPhone photos app.
- They realized the existing photos app was lacking and decided to create a better one.
- They embarked on this project with only a few months of financial runway left.