The Internet Demands Greatness

Last week, we embarked on the most terrifying change in our company’s history. We simultaneously announced that Lex, our AI writing app, was spinning out with $2.75M raised, and that one of our co-founders would be leaving to run it. It was a great (but scary) day. These moves showed what we were capable of, but still, it was all so different. My palms were sweaty for the entire month of August. 

In my nightmare scenario, readers would leave en masse. I knew there were benefits in it for them (like free Lex access), but it felt like we were walking a tightrope. Within Every, my title is officially “numbers dude,” so I mostly sweated about the churn rate. I did the Napkin Math™ constantly. It was like I was being visited by a demonic calculator—a haunting done by Texas Instruments. Every time I turned in bed, I heard a numerical whisper in my ear, “If you churn X subscribers, cash reserves will run out in Y time frame, and you will be homeless in Z months.” 

The consequences of failure would be dramatic. Our little operation is just three full-time employees: one of us is the primary breadwinner, and another just had a child. If this change blew up in our faces, there were real consequences.

Perhaps you can relate to the feeling of flirting with terror in your career. What if your deliverable fails, and you get fired? What if your new product is a dud? These thoughts can be emotional guillotines hanging over your day. You’re constantly distracted, glancing up, waiting for the blade to drop. It sucks. And it’s not just you. The whole company feels this way. A founder’s job as a leader often boils down to being a professional proselytizer, convincing the flock of employees that the company isn’t about to be executed.

So, after all the fretting, what happened after the announcement? Well, sorta everything and nothing. Lex crashed from all of the traffic. We got lots of kind notes, and our CEO Dan got some text messages (from his mom).We did not churn an unusual amount, we did not grow an unusual amount. Monthly recurring revenue crept up a smidge, but all in all it was a middle-of-the-bell-curve-type of week. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

If no one cared enough to churn or subscribe, you could argue that our nothing-burger of a financial result means that our months of worry and prep worked. Or maybe (I hope it's at least partially this) that the editorial product is so good that it’s impervious to changes. There is some element of truth to both. 

But, really, I think it means it was a risk worth taking. The internet only rewards outsized bets, and Lex was a good one to make. 

This story is an embodiment of a timeless idea, one moms have been telling teenagers for time immemorial: “No one at school is paying attention to you, sweetie—they’re too busy worrying about themselves.” 

What's different now versus when my mom told me that is how the internet inserts go-go-nitro-juice into this dynamic. 

On the internet, actions of corporations and individuals are mixed together in the same algorithmically determined feed or on the same pixelated screen. It’s a cacophony of stories and screaming and noise noise noise. I’ve been arguing this point recently but I’ll say it again: we still don’t understand what the internet is doing to us. For something to break through, for a story to gain notice online, it requires extremes—those of quality or, more commonly, extreme violations of norms. For a tiny startup announcing a product spinout? No one cares. 

The inverted question this poses is crucial for startups and technologists: if nothing matters and no one cares, then how do I build things that matter? How do I make people care about them? 

To unlock the rest of this article, please subscribe!