Disqus offers community management and social integration tools to web publishers. Disqus tools help community managers manage the multiple conversations taking place within their social networks. They also provide comment tracking and comment management tools for those people joining the conversations. We were curious about Disqus, its origins, and where the company feels it’s heading. Ro Gupta is the VP of Business development and was kind enough to join us in a conversation about Disqus.
How did Disqus turn from an idea into a well oiled machine?
Disqus is in some ways a classic Y-Combinator story. Daniel and Jason, the founders, had a few ideas during their time at UC Davis studying computer science. One idea had to do with the fact that they didn't like how comments worked on the web. They applied for YC, got into one of the 2007 classes and dropped out of college to work on the project full-time, eventually landing VC investment from Union Square Ventures and growing the company from there.
Y Combinator is an American based funding firm for startup companies. Y Combinator provides seed money, advice, and connections. In exchange, Y Combinator assumes an average of about 6% of the startup company's equity.
How did you first get involved with Disqus?
I got introduced through Union Square Ventures when I was looking into interesting startup opportunities in late 2008. I liked Disqus a lot, although at the time I wasn't sure if it would be a fit due to geography (I'm NY-based, Disqus is SF-based), but it turned out to work quite well, especially since so many of the folks we talk to, i.e. large media companies, are in New York.
Who were some of the first websites that adopted Disqus?
Early on I believe it was a lot of tech/business blogs like AVC.com and VentureBeat, and political blogs like Americablog and Powerline that sort of led the charge toward next-gen. commenting.
When did you first realize that Disqus was a viable product?
Probably sometime in 2008, especially after launching the first version of the Wordpress plugin that summer, I would think that is when it became pretty clear that there was real traction and a product-market fit.
How can you afford to offer a free model?
We provide a premium service, Disqus VIP, that has been very successful for us in meeting the needs of larger publishers, not to mention we manage to operate at large scale with a lean team.
What type of websites typically use your service?
It used to be early adopter niches like tech / politics blogs and mostly long tail, but in the past 18 months or so, the network has scaled to almost all verticals, sizes and geographies. At a network reach of 200 MM+ monthly UVs, you start to get to a pretty representative picture of the web as a whole.
Are there any websites that are actually "too large" to use your products?
We haven't come across one yet :) Our VIP service was launched so that not just long-tail blogs but also very large sites, e.g. CNN, Engadget, The Telegraph, etc. can use Disqus effectively, and we've been able to continually scale our infrastructure to stay ahead of the growth.
What are the pros to using your service rather than an in house custom-made option?
#1 has to be the power of the network. Individual features can always be added or enhanced or removed, but tapping into the network effects of Disqus from federation and cross-pollination across the hundreds of thousands of communities we manage is something that's pretty hard to accomplish with a homemade system. That said, there's of course the typical build vs. buy decision (although we of course have and always will have a free version). For most it is an attractive proposition to not have to roll your own discussion UI, user profile and admin interfaces, especially when you start to factor in aspects that compound complexity in maintaining those features, such as threaded discussions, social platform integrations and automated moderation capability for high volume.
Are you locked into the Disqus system when you use it?
No - all data can be exported out at any time, and can also be synced locally via the API or some of our plugins. Allowing publishers to maintain control and access of their content and users is a really big deal for us; fear of lock-in or data loss are natural inhibitors when deciding whether to use a third party application so we are especially sensitive to those concerns.
How easy is it to use your service, do you find a learning curve for new website operators?
We work really hard to make it as quick and intuitive as possible to utilize Disqus, and fortunately I think we've seen the fruits of this in the past year as the network has grown exponentially, especially among segments that are not necessarily as sophisticated as the early adopters. But don't take my word for it - head to disqus.com and see for yourself how simple it is to get up and running (and if not, let us know about it!).
Special thanks again to
Ro Gupta for taking the time to speak to us! You should check out
Disqus at
disqus.com, on
Facebook, and Twitter
@disqus.
