Trip Adler of Scribd #273

Click here to stream the audio version of this episode.

Join our mailing list and be the first to learn about upcoming guests!

Today on TWiST, Trip Adler of social reading and publishing site Scribd sat down with Jason to discuss his Ycombinator beginnings, many pivots and ultimate traction with over 90 million users worldwide.

1:00 Jason introduces Trip Adler, co-founder of Scribd. Trip, welcome to the program.
1:30 How many people were in the 2006 Ycombinator class in Boston?
2:15 Thank you to Squarespace for supporting the show! If you need to build high quality sites, use the promo code TWiST7 to sign up for Squarespace.
5:00 What idea did you get into Ycombinator with?
6:30 What were first couple of ideas that led to Ycombinator and Scribd?
10:00 When everyone thought that incubators were for weak entrepreneurs, how did Paul get winners into Ycombinator?
11:15 Paul doesn’t like the idea so you come up with another idea, which is?
13:00 When did you pull the plug on that idea?
14:00 Are you a competitive guy?
17:45 So then what led you to Scribd?
20:30 How many documents and users did you get in that first year and what was it like to scale it?
21:30 Had many issues with the DMCA for a long time, when get back from commercial want to hear how you guys got over it.
21:15 Thank you GoToMeeting, a service that I use for all my meetings. Everyone thank @GoToMeeting!
23:30 How’d you guys clear yourselves of copyright/piracy issues of uploaded documents legally and operationally?
29:00 Scribd has about 90 million people outside the US using their service, was that by design that you’d have such a high international user base?
30:15 Are you building organizations in those countries, do you have international operations?
32:30 How is the new model of selling direct going?
33:15 With this sort of platform agnostic publishing, who do you see as your main competitor?
34:30 Is it decision making time for you guys to sell it or can it keep growing?
35:45 Are DocStoc your closest competitor at this time?
37:15 How has the publishing world changed and where is the publishing industry at the moment?
38:00 Do you see yourself of a Posterous of the publishing world? Helping manage to multiple platforms.
39:30 What’s the secret of recovering from the Panda Google update? Also, what was the company thinking, were you guys in a panic?
41:30 Is Google a content company these days?
42:45 Are you worried about Google coming out with their own version of Scribd and push you guys down the page results?
45:00 Why have you turned down multiple offers to sell and are still running independently?
46:15 What is the most challenging thing today? What’s hard now?
47:30 What are your tips to get your team to excellent and not just good?
51:15 What’s next?
52:00 How’s David Sacks been as an investor?
52:15 Did you think that Yammer when you first saw in 4 years would have a billion dollar exit?
53:00 Is he a very direct guy?
54:30 What do you look for in the VCs? What do you want from them as individuals?
55:15 When you took on investors, were you very discerning and concerned with how supportive they would be down the road?
56:15 What do you think of Ycombinator and the higher quality and growing number of companies involved?
57:30 Thanks Trip! Everyone check out @Scribd and if you want to work with them, just email trip@scribd.com.

Support This Week in Startups and independent media by joining the TWiST Producer Program at TwistList.co!

Want to support TWiST another way? Use bit.ly/twistamazonwhen you shop and a portion of your purchase will go toward helping keep independent media like TWiST on air!

Keep up with the latest from our sister company, LAUNCH:

• LAUNCH Looking for an Awesome Full Stack Engineer/Developer
• Live Blogging LAUNCH Education & Kids - Day Two
• Live Blogging LAUNCH Education & Kids - Day One
• LAUNCH Education & Kids: 30 Companies (6 Stealth) Plus Scoble, Alan Louie and Nolan Bushnell
• Yahoo to Launch “Chrome Killer” Tonight

FOLLOW ON TWITTER
Jason: @jason
Trip: @tripadler
GoToMeeting: @gotomeeting
Squarespace: @squarespace

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PREFERRED PARTNER eMINUTES
Lawyers who focus on forming and maintaining corporations and LLCs. Check them out at eMinutes.com and @eminutes.

Special thanks to the members of the TWiST Backchannel Program!

Executive Producers

• Louis-Eric Simard
• Benjamin Gifford
• Jacek Artymiak
• Octavian Mihai
• Will Paoletto
• Geoffrey Clapp
• Jeff Hoffer
• Austin Miller
• Rashaun Sourles
• Robb Kunz
• Greg Berry
• Sean Lynch
• Mary Ann Halford
• Jim Joyce
• Morgan Howard
• Margaret Johns
• Kyle M. Brown
• Paul Cole
• Nick Duncan
• Magnus Ingvarsson
• Amir Ayalon
• Carlos Zaidenweber
• Avery Keitt
• Joshua Shipsey

Producers

• Eli Coler
• Ted Inoue
• Radek Rybicki
• Hunter Owens
• Ildar Khakimov
• Matti Hallanoro
• Rodrigo Dauster
• Rodrigo Fuentes
• Anthony Ortenzi
• Daniel de la Cruz
• Michael Hofmann
• John Meneses
• Mike Sunyich
• Sami Rageb
• Michael Lustig
• Alex Deli
• John Davies
• Mark Burcher
• Morgan Howard

Associate Producers

• Brad Pineau
• Kat Ganesan
• Nicholas Christian
• Mau Frontier
• Kyle Braatz
• Serena Ehrlich
• JD
• Alex Lotoczko
• James Kennedy
• Benoit Curdy
• Asher Nevins
• Mike Kaltschnee
• William Doom
• David Lee
• Jake Kerber
• Sarp Coskun
• Giuseppe Taibi
• Tyrone Rubin
• Keno Vigil
• Paul Peters
• Jamal Waring
• Nick Ostroff
• Alex Binkley
• John MP Knox
• Bryan McCormick
• Marcos Trinidad
• Allen Cordrey
• Daniel Mich
• Joshua Rosen
• Grant Carlile
• James Smith
• Christopher Rill
• Elliot Myhre
• Nihon Giga
• Nathan Gielis
• Greg Meadows
• Rick Cartwright
• Jacques Struwig
• Robert Ward
• Adam Gering
• Shelley Gaskin
• Jim Shute

Supporters

• Ryan Hoover
• Michael Cranston
• Josiah Thomas
• João Fernandes
• Petrus Theron
• Michael Wild
• Dale Emmons
• Tim de Jardine
• Alejandro Vasquez
• Milan Babuskov
• Chris Rowe
• Nelson Melo
• James Dawson
• Toddy Mladenov
• Daniel Torres
• Chris Macke
• Piotr Zuralski
• Armand Konan
• Brian Vogel
• Paul D
• Jennifer Sun
• David Kolb
• Sue Marrone
• Eugene Granovksy
• Will Blackton
• Ryan Dodds
• Brett Arp
• Jason Cresswell
• Edwin Orange
• Daniel Bradley
• Shawn Daniel
• Priidu Kull
• Patrick Desroches
• Alex Lam
• Paul Secor
• Ryan Urabe
• Madhu R.
• Paul Ardeleanu
• Ian Thomas
• Manny Alarcon
• Charlie Osmond
• Christopher Smitley
• Roshan H.
• Barcy Cordrey
• Matt Beaubien
• Matthew Smith
• Oscar Bueno
• Tim Hoyt
  
• Ian Gerstel
• Taphon Maddison
• John Bradley
• Luigi Armogida
• Dave Ferrara
• Janus Lindau
• Chris Mancil
• TR Ludwig
• Giles Thomas
• Jason Cartwright
• Michael Del Borrello
• Joshua Rosen
• David Karlberg
• Marcus Schappi
• Justin Furniss
• Mike Hauck
• Jess Bachman
• Isaac Hill
• Robert Haydock
• Dan Sfera
• Flaviu Simihaian
• Kiko Cherman
• Chandra Siva
• Kasper Andkjaer
• Zach Woodward
• Chris Galasso
• Chad Olsen
• Michael Grabham
• John Shiple
• Gregory Hoffman
• Chris Rickard
• Eskil Steenberg
• Jay Moran
• Karim Sarkis
• Michael Davidovich
• Petru Marchidan
• Sam Drzymala