Neomeme

Question: What do Kevin Rose, Jason Calacanis, Guy Kawasaki, and Steve Jobs have in common? “Easy”, you answer. “They are all well-known tech personalities who have developed a cult of personality around themselves.” True. And, more importantly, they have used the sheer force of their personality to build a following for their product, or at the very least, an incredible surge of initial interest. But is personality all it takes to launch a successful startup?

I decided to look at three recent launches that were heavily personality-driven. In this context, personality-driven defines a product that generates buzz primarily due to the ethos and pedigree of the founder rather than its features, a product that would otherwise be dismissed as uncreative and uninspired. I think there will not be too much debate that Guy Kawasaki’s Truemors, Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo and even Kevin Rose’s Pownce fall into that category. None of these sites present any drastically new technology, and none come close to the paradigm-shifting changes of sites like Digg(even people who praise Pownce note its lack of originality ). At best, all three new startups present a repackaging and rebranding of existing technologies. In other words, it is the personality of the founder, not a unique technology that generates most of the interest. Two personality-driven startups, Truemors and Mahalo have been around long enough for us to begin to draw some assumptions about personality-driven technologies. By analyzing the growth of these two, it might be possible to make similar predictions about Pownce.

A final note before we look at the data- I do not mean to disparage the creators of these startups as untalented or undeserving of success (except Guy Kawasaki). The ability to attract a cult following and build hype through sheer personality is at least as important, if not more so, than the ability to invent crazy new technologies.

Blog mention data below is from Technorati. I assume that blogs mentioning the founder’s name covered the site at least in part due to the founder’s pedigree. Blogs not mentioning the founder’s name presumably cover the site based on its merits alone. These numbers are, of course, highly unscientific, and based on pretty big assumptions, but I believe they have some value in the big picture nonetheless.

Personality-Driven Coverage=Percentage of blog coverage mentioning founder’s name

Truemors:

Blogs Mentioning Truemors: 1197
Blogs Mentioning Truemors but not Guy Kawasaki: 296
Personality-Driven Coverage: 75.2%

Alexa Rank Yesterday: 50,082

Mahalo:

Blogs Mentioning Mahalo:2,070
Blogs Mentioning Mahalo but not Jason Calacanis: 957
Personality-Driven Coverage: 53.8%

Alexa Rank Yesterday: 9,011

Pownce:
Blogs Mentioning Pownce: 1742
Blogs Mentioning Pownce but not Kevin Rose: 1,066
Personality-Driven Coverage: 38.8%

Alexa Rank Yesterday: 3,507

Note: I know Alexa rankings don’t mean much and are ridiculously easy to cheat. But, for whatever reason, they remain the preferred way to measure a site’s traffic levels and success. The biggest problem with Alexa traffic rank is that the default rank it reports is a 3-month average- making it woefully inaccurate for new sites. If anything, your startup’s Alexa rankings are a good way to filter for good investors- any VC who seriously considers Alexa rankings as a factor in judging success is not worth talking to.

Fascinatingly, we can see here three personality-driven startups in various stages of evolution. Truemors, the oldest, has already seen its golden days, declined sharply in popularity after the initial boost, and has settled on a pretty steady level of traffic. Mahalo has already reaped the benefits of celebrity, and is currently in the midst of the inevitable decline in traffic that follows. And Pownce? It is too early to tell- Pownce is still in the heyday of its growth.

My extremely unscientific research shows a pretty high correlation between percentage of personality-driven coverage and long-term success. As the least personality-driven startup(despite Kevin Rose’s enormous clout amongst key demographics), I fully expect Pownce to be the most succesful of the three. For Pownce, it looks like the underlying technology is just as important as the man behind it. We will see if my prediction of Pownce’s success is correct. For now, this study has clearly illuminated a key distinction- Personality and celebrity might give a startup an initial boost- but, ultimately, it is the popularity of theunderlying technology that carries a startup to success.