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| David Byttow at the offices of Bold in San Francisco. Previously he was a founder and the chief executive of Secret, a social messaging start-up built on anonymous posting.Jason Henry for The New York Times |
Secret, a social messaging start-up that let people post messages anonymously until it shut down, was the talk of the technology world.
The start-up had raised more than $25 million in venture capital and was valued at $100 million in 2014, at less than a year old. For a while, Secret grew like a weed, as people swapped gossip and other tidbits on the service without revealing their identities.
Yet secrecy, it turned out, was not enough to guarantee that the company would remain a hit. The anonymity that Secret afforded let the service be used as a playground for bullies. So 16 months after Secret opened for business, the founders shut down the company and returned the bulk of the money to investors.
David Byttow, one of the founders and the former chief executive of Secret, discussed some of the lessons he learned in building the anonymous social service, how things went wrong and what he plans to do differently as he builds his next company. This interview has been edited and condensed.
Why were you interested in anonymity in the first place?
I had come out of working at Square and knew I wanted to build something but never really went off on my own. At first, it was anonymous, one-to-one messaging. I showed it to Chrys Bader (another Secret founder), and we built a prototype.
Our first version was turned down by a venture capitalist who was afraid of bullying. We agreed to build the version that was eventually released.
I wasn’t personally superpassionate about anonymity. But it was interesting — as is social in general. We half expected it to flop on the first day, but it took off very quickly, I think because it really just struck a nerve with people.
When that happens — especially if it’s your first time — you don’t walk away from it.
Why do you think it caught on, especially in Silicon Valley?
The app became an echo chamber of Silicon Valley. There are a lot of things that go on in the Valley that people don’t talk about openly. Secret gave people a place to do it.
It was both compelling and probably exceedingly frustrating for people, seeing posts about them or their company. Whether they were true or false, they couldn’t really do anything about it.
Are entrepreneurs really able to harness anonymity? It seems like a problem no one has been able to solve.
I fundamentally believe, both technologically and culturally, that we do not have the tools to manage anonymity online in a way that doesn’t end with people getting hurt.
Identity or not, you’re going to get people who use the product to troll other people. Anonymity allows people to take it one step further, where they believe they have no repercussions.
We wanted to go for it and try to make it work. You can do simple things like moderate words and partner with other security groups, but ultimately, when there is a group of friends, and they have context, you can’t moderate that.
I don’t know how to do it. It’s a really hard problem.
It seemed like it was a viable thing, or still does, even, for some sites.
Investors were interested. It was definitely a thing.
What was the personal toll of the rise and fall of Secret?
It was as if there was a switch from excitement to just pure stress. Things became contentious between me and my co-founder.
I reached the point where I wasn’t taking care of myself, so I took up boxing. That’s the one thing that has stuck, every day, to this day. My first fight is coming up soon.
My point is, it gets tough. Secret was valued so high, so quickly. And certainly I wasn’t perfect by any means. I did some stupid stuff. I bought a Ferrari and I drove it to this thing, and people noticed. I asked myself, “What am I doing?” That was stupid.
I emptied my 401(k) to start Secret. We got extremely lucky in many ways along that journey. But I did a lot of dumb stuff, too.
What are the lessons learned?
As I’m starting this new company — it’s called Bold, and it makes software aimed at corporations — I’m sure I’m still making mistakes, but I’m trying to make only new mistakes, not old ones. And it’s given me a new perspective on how I want to build a company, how I want to act as a founder.
I’m trying to fly a bit more under the radar for this next thing, because I’m so afraid of having hype without having something to show for it.
I also think social consumer products require a sense of community, and they require identity. Without both of those, these products become novelties. That’s why I’m working on enterprise software now.
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