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Ev Williams Lost His Inner Compass. It Almost Killed Medium.

By Ev Williams · Product & Building · 1 min read

There's such pressure for growth. When things aren't going right, it's easy to lose your inner compass and start being guided by other people's compass instead of your own.

Key Points

It's easy to lose your inner compass under growth pressure and start being guided by investors or boards
Medium put sign-up pop-ups in users' faces — signups went through the roof, but Williams hated it as a user
He strayed from his gut instinct. Months later, users on Twitter were furious.

I was kicking myself because I strayed from that gut instinct. We did something that as a user I didn't want.

Losing Your Compass

Williams: There's such pressure for growth and for success. When things aren't going right, it's very easy to lose that inner compass. You start saying — our investors are telling us this, our board is telling us this. It's so easy to start being guided by other people's compass instead of your own.

It's so easy to start being guided by other people's compass instead of your own.

The Pop-Up That Worked Too Well

Williams: We wanted to grow. We had a product team whose job was to get more people to sign up. What they found is — if you visit a Medium page and put a pop-up in people's faces before they could read the article, signups went through the roof.

When I first saw that, I was like — that's too aggressive. I don't like that as a user. That doesn't feel right to me. So they made it more subtle. We made a compromise. Signups still went up a lot.

I was like — that's too aggressive. I don't like that as a user. That doesn't feel right.

Kicking Myself

Williams: Several months later, a new marketing person came in. One of the first things she did was read what people on Twitter were saying about Medium. There were all these complaints — oh, it's spamming, doing these pop-ups. Well that's terrible. It's not worth it.

I was kicking myself because I strayed from that gut instinct. We did something that as a user I didn't want. That is now always the guiding compass — whether at the company level or the specific product. Just do the thing you want to exist.

I strayed from my gut instinct. We did something that as a user I didn't want. Just do the thing you want to exist.