There is something about waking up day after day to write about people who take risks; You end up rooting for some of them. This is the case with photo-sharing underdog Path. Almost every investor I’ve talked to loves founder Dave Morin and wants him and his talented team to succeed. Morin has managed to hold on to top talent like Nathan Folkman and Danny Trinh despite stiff competition and poaching attempts from some of the hottest startups in the Valley.
Morin famously didn’t sell Path to Google for $100 million, and at the time we broke that story, the murmurs around the tech world were that that wasn’t necessarily the smartest decision. Which is why it’s cool to stick around as a tech writer, sometimes the people you end up rooting for, win.
Path relaunched 18 days ago, changing course from photo-sharing to everything sharing, in a beautifully wrapped package with emphasis on simplicity. Many have likened the product to a better designed Facebook for your phone, which is fair and probably a compliment. But everything isn’t coming up roses, and the product still has kinks it needs to iron out.
But still, the relaunch is a success; Morin tells me that users are sharing more things on the new Path in a day then they had on the old Path in a year — at a rate of 12 moments per second. The company is seeing 30x the number of daily active users, going from 10K to 300K in two and a half weeks. Rumor has it that it’s seeing 100k downloads a day (Morin wouldn’t confirm).
Morin is most happy about the fact that over a million people have shared when they wake up and go to sleep via the app. And over a million and half people have now downloaded the new Path since its launch — it took the company a year to get to its first million.
These numbers are encouraging, miraculous even — and now the story of Path will follow its efforts in sustaining usership after this second post-launch spike. Morin says he’s dealing with scale problems now (many users are reporting too many friend requests, a “good problem to have”) and building out the next features. “It’s been delightful to see the response,” he says.
Of course.
Path brings people closer together. Guided by the belief that mobile technology will fundamentally change the cultural, social, and economic landscape, Path focuses on simplicity, quality, and privacy to provide the best mobile personal networking service in the world. Path was designed with the people you love, your closest friends and family, in mind. It’s a trusted, intimate environment like your dinner table at home. 5 star rated, top 10 ranked, Path is loved by tens of millions of...
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