Tag: IMVU

After more than 11 years at IMVU (the equivalent of three Silicon Valley lifetimes), I’m a free agent.

My experiences at IMVU were hugely rewarding – I had the privilege of working with truly exceptional people, evolving through different roles (from VP to CEO), solving some really challenging problems, learning, growing, and helping create a successful business.

IMVU is Much Deeper Than Most People Realize

I worked on products that made a meaningful difference in the lives of many customers.  In my customer interviews, I talked to people that met their best friends, people that found their life partner, people that could only find acceptance for who they really are because their community was intolerant, people that found families and support groups, and people that just found a little delight in what IMVU provided.

IMVU also has Creators that make and sell content, and for some of these people IMVU provided everything from a little extra spending money to a full time job.  I met a woman that covered her medical bills with the money she made as a Creator.

There are a lot of people in the world that are better off because of their experiences on IMVU.

IMVU Has a Great Future

I am excited and optimistic about the future of the company.  2016 was a record year and the company is transitioning from a PC only product to mobile – in December IMVU for iPhone was 7th best grossing in the Social category and 125th top grossing in all of the app store.

The new products have a great design focus with content and features that are relevant to how people communicate today.  And the team is amazing – I have 100% confidence in their ability to deliver great product experiences.  If anybody is looking for a great company with a lot of opportunities, I highly recommend considering joining the team at IMVU.

Next Steps for Brett

As for what’s next for me, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to catch-up with friends and do some much-needed backpacking.  I need to be sure about what I’m really passionate about before I jump into anything, so I’ll be looking at the cool things people are working on and what interesting problems need to be solved.  If you hear about either, please let me know!

 

IMVU presented at the Startup Lessons Learned Conference in San Francisco on April 23rd, 2010. The event highlighted several companies that are being built using the “Lean Startup” framework created by Eric Ries, IMVU’s former CTO, largely based on his experiences at IMVU.

The conference was great and I had the opportunity to meet many smart entrepreneurs trying to build businesses out of great ideas. I heard many stories about the challenges early startups encounter and could remember when IMVU was in that stage. I also talked to some people from companies that are now considered “big and successful” and heard a few comments along the lines of “been there, barely survived that”.

At the conference I had the realization that IMVU as a business is not exactly a “startup” anymore. The goal of an early startup is discovering the right product and achieving a sustainable business model. IMVU has been successful at this and is now all about building a growing, enduring business that is a high value for our customers and employees. Though we still feel like a startup in many ways and hold onto the lean principles that proved to be so valuable, we now have new challenges to address that are typically not considered startup challenges.

A successful startup grows into a bigger business. At IMVU, we heavily invest in our company so we can get more people working on features that delight our customers and build up the business. With more people many of the ways you used to work don’t work anymore. For example, frequent meetings to get feedback from everybody in the company can work when you have fewer than 15 people… when you get to 50+ people this becomes a very expensive meeting. The overhead of making sure everyone in the meeting has background data and context to make an informed decision simply does not scale. Joel Spolsky explained this well and provides good examples in his article, “A Little Less Conversation”.

There are a whole range of challenges in these transitions, from process to culture and all have to be accommodated as a company grows. At the conference I was approached by several people that had gone through the same experience, some successfully, some not. I hope that some of what IMVU shared will help others to learn from our experience and allow more people to fall into the successful category.

Check out IMVU’s video presentation available at http://bit.ly/bBpUcm