#215 – Why You Don't Have To Be "A Business Person" To Succeed - with Dan Cederholm of Dribbble
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What's up, everybody? This is courtland from india hakka com. And you're listening to the indie hackers podcast. More people than ever are building cool stuff online and making a lot of money in the process. And on this show, I sit down with these andy hackers to discuss the idea, that s the opportunities and the strategies they are taking adventures of, so the rest of can do the same. Then welcome to the andy hacker's podcast hey cortland.

thanks for having me pressure to be here been .

meaning to have you on for a while. We were just talking about how I was emAiling your code to rich like two years ago, like you should I have done on instead of me? He, much nicer, relaxed guy than I am. And here you are two years later on the story of driver.

Yeah, now i'm happy to be here to talk about that and and all search of stuff, whatever whatever we can get into.

I'm like the best place to start is to tell people what driver is. How would .

you describe driver? yes. So driver is a community for designers, you know, creative people. So graphic designers, icon designers, fought makers, you know, that kind of thing actually going way back in to the idea IT IT was more like, it's just a selfish way of try to see what my colleagues and friends were working on, like, be a little over their shoulder and be like, what do you do right now, you know? And that's of how IT started.

IT IT was like, what are you working on? Was the tag line at the time. And that over the years, that has evolved into a home base for creative people on designers sharing their work and like getting hired. And that is core though it's always been a community for designers.

And you're being humble to some degree because it's not just any community for designers. It's like the community for designers. IT is he? MAngus, I think there's millions of people going to double every month.

I've been using IT for ten years, just like people and to go like basic, whatever I want to design anything, I go on dribble. I kind of type the name of that thing, you know, like home page, really sign a form. And I just like a hundreds of like professional, amazing designs and concepts.

And I shed to absorb, like all of IT. And then I like come away from that process, like knowing a lot more about what I want, what the options are at a and it's been like super inviable for me as a resource you said thousand times I was designing and hackers. And so as not as me doing this, it's designers all over the world.

There isn't ten. The other design community that even comes close to what dribble has done for designers is also solid business. I mean, I think you and rich boots drop the site.

I don't recall of hearing about you guys raising any money from investors. A grew extremely quickly and IT wasn't something you've just ran for free. I mean, expensive to keep your site up like this with all these people like you actually had revenue models you're generating. Um I don't have you ever shared your revenue numbers of or a ball customers of where you got.

Yeah no, we never we never really did. And then at this point, I probably can't since i'm not really involved the name that they probably disagree me at at this point. But but yeah, you're right.

We IT was bootstrap from from day one. And honestly, like because of the history in the way IT started, IT was IT was really like a side project initially. And between retina, I and I was just just a two of us actually for the first year to IT was just rich. I but like you said to IT, IT grew quickly, and so we had traction and traffic like very fast red off off the bat.

So let's go back to the beginning of the story. And my pain started before you even started driver because you started another sort of social network, I think two dozen five called corked, and was like social network for wine official, that is, that eventually got acquired by gary intertek, of all people.

And I can't imagine that you started the social network and like mid two thousands, and I did learn any cool, unique, interesting lessons that you took away with you to start another community in the future. So what's the story behind court? This.

i'm actually really good idea, you asked, because not many people do well, that was a such a crazy time to start, lucky said to start a social network at that point. Flickr was was like a model for us, I think, with social networking in U. I, around social networks.

And dan Benjamin and I teamed up to build, to build that one. And I just, I really gotten to wine at that point in not in that like an academic way. You know, he was more like A, I just like to drink wine.

I spend a lot of money on you or anything. But I wanted to know about other wines that my friends were drinking, sort of a lazy, lazy person's way of of learning about new things and seeing what know. What am I missing out on the the idea is was like, well, why couldn't you follow somebody to see what there, what kind of why they liked and read their reviews and and then, you know, try them yourself. And so at the time, there wasn't yeah there wasn't a time of social networking going on at all. I mean, there was people .

are barely even using the term social work .

ork at that point. Yeah, right. exactly. IT wasn't new year. There wasn't an industry around or either there was just like IT was just web designer people and developers making websites and then you know these concepts of like following.

And since IT was so new, we did we did gain some traction with the but at the same time, it's a sight about wine. And when you start running a site about wine and you start realizing that, oh, you know, if this is if we go full in on this, this is like our life is wine and the wine business. And that's not really a place that the either one of us wanted to be in.

So the idea to sell IT was natural at that point. The other aspects of IT are great. The building of a the creative aspect of IT and figuring out those U I problems, solving those U.

I problems and making IT fun, trying to make like something that's historically kind of snowy in weird, make IT fun and approached, that was great. And that was a blast. You know, gary at the time, gary vena truck at the time, heat was building his own wine empire with one library.

And we had worked a little bit together with some advertising and some collaboration on some stuff. And then he really wanted his like, i'll take IT over and you not much happened with that after that, to be honest. So it's a little bit of obama but right.

I stumbled upon like some post. I think it's on gary entrance blog or something about shutting down to cork. Now we had some new wine experience coming after that.

And there are so many people in the comments who were sad there hadn't been much change or had been much development. How did you feel about that? You know, selling your bed watching twice and die .

when you yeah that was really tough. Honestly know we had an interest from a large i'll just call a large media company will actually a couple, but one of them that actually got no pretty far along the process of an acquisition. And that look, that went on for months.

And this is a big learning experience about how this stuff works. At the time I did, I didn't know how how acquisitions worked at all. And so that really killed the momentum because we are at the end of this process, the site will be acquired and were no no longer going to be working on IT and month, months drag down and they pull out the last very honestly, like the last minute.

They just like, note, we're not going to buy that was really, really sucked because not only because I just didn't happen, but also because IT IT did kill the momentum of site. And i'm sure this happens all the time, right? I'm sure this happens a lot with companies where there is an interest and IT seems legitimate and maybe you get far along in the process and then and all falls apart in the end.

And and how do you baLance that with actually keeping the company growing? And I think emotionally, it's weird to jugged that right. Like oh, in a couple of months, i'm not going to be doing this anymore, but then maybe you will if IT falls through and we just weren't expecting that to happen at all. So I think gary coming along when he did, I think he was like kind of saved us a bit terms of, okay, this is another except we we can handle. And gary, he was at the time, you know, building this wine and IT seemed like a good fit so fast .

for the two thousand nine. You start ribble and you're starting this, what they think, modest ambitions. That was a sight project.

But you have all of this experience having already built a social network online during a time where no one else is really building social networks. So what was your thought process and starting trouble? How how that story go?

The idea of IT was based on a couple of different things. One of them was I would go to design converters, and I would see all these folks that I admired, and I love their work. And I the first thing I would ask them is like, what are you working on now? What are you doing now? Because back then, no, there wasn't.

There was twitter. There wasn't really there wasn't into the ground at that point, didn't people aren't sharing a lot in general. They were sharing very little.

And so there was a long stretch between someone's announcing something that they did and there was a lot, lot less work in progress here are going on. So I definitely wanted that, and I wanted to answer that. What are you working on thing at the time too? Cameron mall on his blog ran a thing called the screen grab kon fab.

And he asked, like, he kind of asked the same question, what are you working on and show like a little screen shot of what what you're doing so that was an inspiration too um and I love the idea twitter was also an inspiration and that the trunks of you know you can only show a certain amount so you have to you yet to put your best put forward and entice people who want to see more. So the idea of like a smaller version of what you're doing was kind of born from from the start there though the name driver was like I thought of IT like as league your work and bounce ideas. So I had a double meaning .

of how did you come out the triple b, because it's not triple with two bees, a tribal with three bees.

Yeah, that was all because of the domain name.

Figured.

yeah, travel with two bees I haven't looked at in a while but like IT was just like a parked domain but nobody could access IT or we couldn't get all of the person. And I didn't even think to at that point. Actually, I did even.

Want to bother because, you know IT wasn't a again, IT wasn't like we had a business plan where we're like, okay, we're going to spend fifty grand on this domain so we can IT was like audi to be and will go on this tomorrow, you know so yeah, that was that was the reason. And I I also loved how I was like at A B, but it's cool because the logo like I was kind of inspired by the clean x box, like the clean logo where you in. So like there's these moves to keep going and the bees, like you could add as many bees as you wanted and still as legible as travel.

So this is the designer and the front fsi auto. And you come in out, yeah, look, I look at everything you're doing your twitter profile. Look at like all the things you have done sensible and it's like you don't have the same profiles like the typical founder and the hacker that I talked like most of them were like you proud founder CEO you leader and you know much we're like designer you know I like A A crash san.

You really like the craft of being a designer. And the thing about driver is a sort of tucky from being a quote on, quote, just the designer, to being kind of like the leader of the biggest community of designer. This is which is a huge trip, a huge difference.

I I realized, and IT took, you know, working on dribble for that long to help me realize this, is that I I like to make stuff, and I like, I love the process of building things. I don't love the process of maintaining them, I guess, which is a tough realization to have when you've coffee a company. And I think that, that, yes, that can lead to some, some chAllenging dynamics with the team. And so there are some regrets on my end in terms of that like not not realizing at the time that I should the craft should be a driblets case, should have been had to manage the company and I just not a manager. I think I have to realize that maybe a little too late.

So let's talk about like the progression of dribble because it's not everyday that somebody builds a behemoth of a community that comes to basically to find an entire industry. I how did you go from being a cypros CT to being the sort of rocket ship growth community where more people were joining than you could even let IT? yeah.

So I think there was a couple of things we had in our favor, and we were super fortunate to have these problems or them the scale problems. But you know, one of them is the pool of people that we invited to the site. Initially, I think, made a huge, huge difference.

And we send out like these handwritten postcards when we announced the beta of the site, I think that was like fifty to one hundred friends and colleagues. You fortunately, a lot of them obliged, and they create an account, and we sent A T shirt with IT. So we had A T shirt. Don't already read .

A A black post a couple years ago. Twenty lessons you learn from dribble. And the second lesson you learn, start with A T shirt.

Yes, exactly. Start with A T shirt. I think I explained IT as, like you know, we had the logo in the concept done first, then we use that t shirt to send to people that we want to to check out the beta.

And I kind of feel guilt them to shrink IT out because you have you send an email the so and check out the site. Now they, if you my t shirt and a card, they're probably more likely to be hard. I like you.

So that was the concept there. But these people, you know, they were, they were wonderful. That first crop of people immediately uploaded some some really compelling stuff, really interesting things to to look at on the site.

And that was huge because I think even even in the beta mode, I think we the data was actually longer than a true of band IT was probably like eight months or something private, and people got used to that. And I think that would seem like a safe space upload things that you might not upload public. And but I got really cozy, and I think people know the community really blown blossoms under that format.

So was that the case that you could only IT was a private limitation system? You can sign up for tribal unless you were rich, invited somebody. Was that the case that you could only see the designs that people were posting? If you were also remember, we will designs public for everybody to see.

yes. So initially, for the first eight months to the public couldn't see IT either. So is only the people that were invited in. But we pretty quickly issued invitations to the existing members and let them choose, you know, the next members like a family treat style thing. And that continued on for forever, I mean, until very recently, I think I remember this being .

controversial because a lot of people felt like he was very elites and like the thought of this community. And like, how could you create a community for designers? But I am a great designers yet. I don't have an invite and I remember like me visiting the site and not really Carry because I was just browser you at some point you made all the designs public as long as I look at people's designs and inspired like I don't need to invite and I don't think I actually made a tribble account for years. No, where do I care about anybody for an invitation?

It's a bomber. And actually I really, I really bugged me that that was the perception. I understand why I do. I would probably think the same thing.

How a leads is that, you know like why can't but you know, IT IT really was like initially, IT was necessary for us to the amount of traffic we had in scaling. We really wanted to we really focus on like the quality of the community and the and the content rate from the start. And that was one way to ensure that didn't get a control.

So the main benefit of having the sort of invade system is that, number one, you've mentioned that you and rich had full time jobs at the time, like you were going on triple on the side. You will have time to support tons and tones and tones people come into your website. And number two, like these quality controls, you invited designers who you actually looked up to, you wanted to see what they're working on.

Like these are actually good designers. And if you start with these great designers and then only allow them to invite people, they're going to invite great designers, too. And so after having a website where anyone can come and just post the stuff that, quite Frankly, no one wants to look at, you kind of guaranteed to get stuff that people really want to look at, starting at a high point.

So what do you think accounted for the fact that I was growing hand over fist? Because yeah, I mean, if you are putting up limit s to help people, how can get in? Maybe that does create some bus and does create some desire to get in. But like, why were so many designers join in your community? And I asked this because lots of other people today are trying to start websites and social networks in community sio, and having a lot of trouble getting people to care at all.

I think part of IT was timing. Part of IT was, for whatever reason, double became a great place to find people, to hire people even very early on, like designers sharing their work. IT became IT wasn't efficient a portfolio at the time.

But IT IT really became that IT became almost Better than a portfolio because I was more up today and the know the visibility of IT was was high. I think the quality of IT was high. IT becoming a great resource to find designers to hire was a big factor and still is.

I think we had a lot of accounts that would get a tony work from just from ribble alone and became known, right? So for a designer that's looking to get work, you know, that's the place you want to be and you want to get on there. And that created more demand for getting on the side and the sort of the cycle continues.

There's also I said I mention timing. I think timing is is a part of IT because when IT started, there was twitter and flickr and instagram wasn't really around at that point. In fact, of, it's funny, the founders use double early on. I remember Kevin and mike being on trouble and think they actually mention this in an interview that they use tribal early on to find people to bathe, testing to grain things. So there's like a connection there.

Somehow i've found a quote for either you or rich set is from both of you actually in the website, and that says it's an article on making a successful community. And this has focus on the problem first and then worry about the solution and then worry about the value that you bring, and then worry about profit and try to make capacity, the sequence sooner rather than later.

So I know a lot about, you know, the problems that dribble solving for people and the solutions you've chosen, and how that know people valuable. How did you actually profit from tribal know? How did you guys keep the light sign and get to the point you can to quit your jobs?

I mean, early on IT was um advertising. IT started with advertising and at the time ads were could be lucrative. I mean so we we joined we first, so we started selling them ourselves. But then we joined the deck, which was jim cools, yeah.

was everywhere. Thirty seven seconds was on IT. I think a list apart was on IT.

Yes, yes. And I was like a community of a collective of like minded websites and run by jim. Could all and we have a lot to to gem for those early years because that kept lights on honestly initially, because we had a lot of traffic and we were pumping a lot of traffic through that.

So that, that worked for a long time. But pretty quickly, we realized people like I mentioned before, people were getting work on the side, and people were wanted to hire people, and people work in. So we realized jobs was something that was a natural thing to add.

It's funny. People were using the screen shot to make a job bad. Even then they would upload IT so that the job that would be in there and will like only, yes, of course, we have to create a place for this, is an official place for this.

And so that was another example of, like the community. Just that was something they did, and we wanted to create a bucket for IT that became a primary revenue source was jab ads job as an advertising initially. And then later, we added pro accounts, which was big too.

I mean, I think people probably have had mixed. Mixed results with that sometimes, but we had a good result with that. I think we had a lot we built up a lot of good will before we launched pro accounts.

We had a lot of good well with the community. People love the site they were getting work from. They were fighting inspiration.

They and IT was free and they were perfectly happy. Giving us twenty dollars a year. That's what I was to use the website. And in some, a lot of people, we would hear like I don't even need the features that you're offering.

I just want to give you the the twenty books because I I made one hundred grand last year from referrals or whatever IT was. So that helps you. So that was a combination of that like pro accounts and and later team accounts, but for companies, but pro counts and advertising and job job listings.

Was there any one revenue street just out shown all the others of IT you guys have like sort of holy grail of a everything seems to be working, you know, more or less equally kind like lincoln has. We're like they have a lot of redundancy and it's not like goole all their eggs in one advertising basket.

IT was definitely jobs was the top one for sure. I think jobs and then adverse advertising slowly kind of disappeared. You know the debt closed down. Every is just kind of tanked, like just in general attacked. And so that was replaced by, you know, some partnerships and you have started to do events and things and that didn't pull in a ton.

Really is more about outreach, but people that are hiring those, those are the people with with money to put up play, like the the people that need to hire A A designer, creative person. Those are the people with the money. And and IT actually IT felt right to charge those people rather than the designers, you know, who are actually creating the the community and they're creating the work that makes IT all work now. So pretty consistent that I thought .

to founders and the companies that are doing the best financial are the ones who are charging the people who have the most money. And they're charging for the things were the most money changes hands. And so it's not at all surprising that you'd be making the decent check and change and driver charging companies to post job ads because anties have a lot of money and they spend a lot of money on hiring.

absolutely.

How do you feel I gone a personal level to be and to look up, you know, five, six years later and what i'm running, like the largest community of designers online because of times people started business and you think, okay, maybe the business make me maybe it'll help me quit my job and I can do what I love. But like often, depending on the type of business you run, there's all sorts of ancillary, like unexpected benefits or worries and stresses. So what's IT like to go to set top this huge worldwide community?

terrifying. honest. I like not going to be honest, really scary, i'll be honest and say like I was an interesting place to be because I felt like an equal in terms of I was a designer can live that world before dribble.

I just wanted to do everything to protect the community and anything that felt weird or that we know felt like we're taking advantage of the designer was sort of repelled by. And sometimes that doesn't make the best business sense. You know, like if if I was like an actual business person, maybe that we could have monotoned IT differently, you know, made some kind of deal or whatever that would have been financially Better.

What is kind of a terrifying thing that I think anyone who build something successful to deal with because of yesterday, you don't have this thing and you dream having IT, but you don't have IT. And then today you have this amazing thing, and it's like, on one hand, you want to celebrate, but another hundred, like or not, mess this up. suddenly.

I have a lot that I can lose. I have a lot that can do downhill. And like, that's stressful. So is IT a relief at some point to to sell gil and to be able to mobile and eventually to newer different things?

Yeah, bitter sweet. But yes, because of those things that I realized that I I couldn't. I wasn't just I was in the right person to. I was in a good manager, terrible manager, not good a delegating.

I like to work by myself and all the things that are just just the opposite of what you want for leading a growing company. You over just wasn't equipped for IT wasn't worried for that at the same time. It's weird because you've spent so long building this thing and then you can have to let go of IT. And that's really difficult to the other side.

What are you up to you now? You know, when you build something this world changing in this big, in this public, and you have got that under your belt and now you're a free man, so the speak and do whatever you want under the sign, what would you spend your time doing? How do you figure out how to spend your .

time doing things? Yeah good question because IT, that's been a journey itself. I realized that having yeah having that opportunity, okay, now do whatever you want.

You know what is that? You know it's been kind of a it's been an evolution in a way I started like, you know, told the end of job. I started just wanted to make stuff again, like just make physical things like I always love making.

You know we talk about t shirts earlier, but t shirts just designing, I just want to design things to people goodyer. So I started doing that and um and then I finally got back to writing with a bit more and self published a book about thoughts about all the stuff we're talking about actually about the journey of dribble on what I learned from that. And then you know the pandemic came and I I spent that time learning how to make funds.

So like total kind of one eighty there, but i've always finished in france and and wanting to learn how to make them properly. And so I did and then took that journey and put that into a book about things I learned about making thought. And that's actually just adjust a well for for free order now.

So that's what have been working on this year, and that comes out soon. And I I think the thought things interesting because it's contained, like the problems you need to solve is so contained, they're just these lines in front of you, right? And and that's kind of my my speed these days in terms for creating. And I think doing that as opposed to worrying about much deeper, larger problems is IT feels good to be focused on something so so specific.

That's like it's a telling thing that you know often like a founder will look at a mistake that another founded, say, you know like facebook 的 code basis was a mess early on like i've want to avoid that mistake and make sure Michael basis in a mess you and it's like， well, that might be the wrong way to think about IT, right?

Maybe you think about IT in the opposite way, which is like this company became very huge and successful despite having this problem. So perhaps, like sorting this problem is not the most important thing. Tribal became like a world leading community, despite the fact that you are super focused on like the details in the logo in your t shirt and like this like crash manship of like getting the design just right and like maybe that's not a problem.

You know, maybe that was actually a boon for you and maybe there's something about that attention to care and detail that they resonated with other designers. And so you know maybe you're not the world's most other typical manager or CEO, but like something about what you did clearly worked at the very least n wasn't a HDR ins into your your overall sort of growth, but out of a tradition on the show that I have closed out the episode asking, what are your takeaway? A lot of people listening are like brand new founders.

They are people who are considering becoming founder for the first time. We've no idea what they're doing that they never been to the process. Here you are.

You have this like amazing story. You've been through so much. What's something that you think they could take away from your journey and is not to be the most important thing? You could be any random thing .

that you think they might not be considering surrounding yourself with with with people that you like to be with, I think is a big one. Because if everything goes well, you're going to spend a lot of time with those people. And I love that advice .

because I think there is like this sort of constant bat between like the external validation, like I want to build something that successful, that people recognize me, that makes me a lot of money. I just want to be seen like a success.

And the intern of validation, which is like i'm surrounded of my people who like and I love my data day life and a lot of people find that interm validation and I feel like something thing is missing because they don't have like the external validation and they don't really appreciate like you can get rich or builds on these successful, famous, but really just hate your day to day life because you haven't done these things like surround yourself with people that you like and like at the end of the day like that's what counts you know, the other side of reading, and it's appreciate this point. Everyone has heard this a million times, and to some degree maybe they have to experienced for themselves, but I would I would second your advice and say, OK, you're out there making this choice. Air on the side of making sure your data day life is great.

Air on the side of making sure that you're healthy. You have good relationships. They are rounded by people that you love. And hopefully, you know, you can take tense advice and and do just that. So then thanks the time for comment on the show and sharing your story. Can you let people know where they can go to arn more about what you're up to online now is with simple beds and your fonts and in your books as well?

Yeah, you can find me simple bit. Stock com is a you know, my shop. So everything that the books and fans and everything is on there and and then i'm simple bits on twitter and instagram and those are two channels and i'm probably publishing the most on. And um yeah love to hear from you. So thanks alright .

thanks that.