Gadgetory

I'm Alexis Ohanian I started startups invested in them and met amazing people using the internet to change the world our generation has an opportunity unlike any other we can create small empires without anyone's permission Tribeca this neighborhood is better known for celebrity sightings than startups but right here in the shadow of one World Trade Center four guys fled a large tech company on the west coast to move into a tiny studio apartment to build the iOS application that would make people rethink the iPad forever people think they're not artistic or that they can't create and one of the most fascinating things for me and creating paper was that you know we'd show two peoples beautiful application which truly you can use it anyone I mean we made it as easy as we could people look at and their reaction is you know their shoulders drop and then they say it's like oh I can't I can't create some people see the blank page and are intimidated by it they had their handwriting criticized for years we're never able to master things like painting and so we've actually put a lot of time both on the design side but a lot of time on the engineering side trying to figure out how we can create some very smart algorithms almost Guitar Hero style that make your drawing and your sketching and your note-taking just look great so this isn't like paint-by-number no I mean you're still very much in control yeah but the watercolor itself you know it doesn't you don't wind up with the brown puddle that most people do when they're playing with watercolor it's a sore subject for me yes no it doesn't matter you know what your background what you're you know degree of art skills are and you know a few if you put some time into it and you work with a right tool you can create some amazing things so the one thing that was very clear I mean they've worked on productivity tools of one nature one former nature for over 12 13 years so it's certainly a longer it's not that I woke up one morning said is how I want to work on tools I've been working on tools and that's that's kind of that is my passion and but then sort of the mechanics of starting a company that was that was more of a question around timing and a couple things just started moving the right way I'd had then you look at okay so it did have a space in New York City Andrew was here Julian was freelancing at that time so it was just the right moment and then we have to go so you guys you became we were you friends first or had you started working together at Microsoft was it and then developed a friendship or how'd that go down that's right I mean it's it's one of those things how do you make friends how do you find friends it's it's it's we all at one point in our lives had worked with Microsoft and we we had an intersection there when I think of great design there are a lot of companies that I think of before not the first not the first helped me understand how you all were existing within Microsoft so there was a small team called Pioneer students at Microsoft that was sort of a kind of skunkworks team they're looking at future products one of the products there was career which was sort of a two screen tablet device and George John and myself all worked on that project and Julian was someone that we knew through other friends and so when we kind of went our separate ways and came back together for 53 we just kind of tapped on you know the best people that we knew by the time we started 50 ever back at last count I think we've built over 67 products okay and you know from connect to to game controllers to office a broad range we usually built we talking about like build ship like finish lines on concept yeah that's not amazing what was the moment when you were like alright you know what forget it I got a comfortable job here but you know what I want to go live in a crammed apartment in Tribeca I had actually already left Microsoft I was doing some consulting sort of feeling around trying to find the right opportunity I love Microsoft because I just wanted to really really put something out there I felt like I connected with my users I didn't know what that was gonna be I had no idea how I was going to get there but I just you know finally threw myself into the unknown and I waited to see what would happen we met late at night I got burning the midnight oil right it's the boss in the office and while we're in Seattle downtown Seattle working a number of projects and you know that's kind of when you start looking up and you look around and just see people that you so deeply respect these are the folks that I was learning from and at some point you're just you realize that I could I could have such a more interesting life and I can spend more time with those folks and that's when you want to start that for us that's that's when we want to start a company now you guys have obviously taken over a number of cores in this building but but the fact that it started here is is special because you leave Microsoft behind you had moved to New York here in Tribeca and then you Coast all of your former co-workers and friends come like camp out in your apartment is there where's the bedrooms over there right yeah so yeah it goes a little ways it got a little did you at 2:00 a.m. sometimes I have to kick out of everyone yeah yeah so how did you how'd you convince them like to do this yeah you know it was more we have to do it yeah it was more narrow when you look at Julian John Andrew and us I mean we just wanted to get this started yeah and you do whatever it takes and it's work it's a New York City how bad can it get you know when you look at what we're doing which is trying to revolutionize creativity certainly New York City is probably the most creative city we are the most creative people in the world right that's true we should some can say that I think it's a creative capital in the United States and so it just made sense for us to be around that and it's nice I think to get kind of a diverse mix of you know not only tech people but design folks and art folks and business folks so feel like we have a much sort of more balanced environment here our market is New York and we create tools for people to get paid to think you have a need to create that's New York City they're 3.2 million people who day in day out get paid to work in media advertising do consulting some of the best attorneys are here engineers I mean it's such a broad diverse population that have a needs to create and then we were thinking we're building a journal we should build a journal but but we kept describing it I like paper and at some point we call it like paper why don't we just call it paper so that's what that was actually two weeks before relaunch I love Divi I can't tell you Hipmunk was gonna be bounce pounce for a week or two and then a week before launch becomes hit luck we've gotten still weird but better bounce just bounce bounce bounce I think you know you definitely you don't want to Google that no no you don't well so I couldn't have a notice little something on your bookshelf and I'd hope you would tell me a little more about how would your friends at Microsoft react to this this Apple design order this is heavy this is I could curl this yes a paper one this actually one of and it's for a technical achievement and design so the combination of that and so you know first grap of the week the NAP of the month and then we want an Apple Design Award mainly because paper showed the way how you can use tablets or an iPad for for creation okay so this is where it all began but it's since grown much bigger can you uh just take me up to the next floor let's go let's go and have the rest of the tenants feel about this you know we've taken over the building so they have no say in this you know there's no one else right this is this is this is our Empire this is very cool so what you're seeing here is actually work for one of our designers Alan's piece and it explores the development of one of his pieces it starts out and start strong a dragon then he places girl on to the dragon at first so it looks like the dragon is taking the girl for it yeah she's just so chilling I was chilling right but then the dragon becomes more fearful as adds in the color yeah in order to make sure that the dragon knows where it's going to girl stands up I like it and then it starts commanding the dragon so it's this is really how the creative process works you sometimes don't really know what element is going to take you forward or really shift the entire dialogue and it's between between all of the elements as you evolve it right you really discover what the true meaning the true story is by the end of it you're riding the dragon that if you're lucky it's actually been a little bit of a progression in this building we started the floor below us in George's apartment then we filled that space up moved to this floor which is essentially just a larger apartment where we're all the employees by the way well now we're also on the sixth floor which is an even larger apartment we've sort of worked our way back down here and had a small team here this is where a lot of our app development happens and so we've got development going on down here yes--if iOS development team here hey guys guys now you all have a very interesting balance you almost have a designer for every developer which is a pretty rare thing is there like a jet sharks sort of dynamic to the office how do you determine that balance we try to hire engineers who are designed minded I mean if you tried to work at this company and you didn't value design I think it could be very challenging we receive them yeah because you'll get a lot of challenges dropped on your plate like this is how we'd like the design to be but the engineering is extremely difficult and if you're not you know up to that challenge or you don't see the value and why it should be that way then if I won't be happy paying your head banging your head on it right now bears are falling for creation all over right to get started you need the SDK and muv building iOS apps in a few months there are a lot of people out there myself included who are like go build stuff go launch stuff go create yet you know you look at the majority of apps on the App Store for instance are absolutely people probably they'll never get more than a few thousand downloads for someone watching this who wants to have paper who wants to have that kind of success is the lesson keep launching stuff until it sticks or you know what don't don't launch that yet make sure it's really something great and and and then how the hell do you know it's written something right you know we're sort of in an environment now there's so much so much mediocrity hmm then you really have to produce something amazing something great to really is above it and so I do think it's worth kind of hanging on to your idea and spending a little bit more time polishing it to really get it to a point that you know you feel like it's it's going to say something it's going to tell a new story and it's just extremely well executed it's useful Benna canal so when you told the landlord that you needed that top floor in addition to the other two we see pretty amenable yeah I think it is happy I mean six floor walk-up usually doesn't rent that quickly good point well this is yes this is the top floor hey 53 hey everybody sorry to distract you while you're busy working why do you guys why do you guys work at a start-up right why why is this something that you ended up in I really like the idea of a maker driven company and a company where you know people are really using the software they're making I thought there was something really special about that it was really evident like what the customers were making so I actually picked up paper and started using a big one and was just obsessed I fell in love and I was like these guys get it they get creation on a tablet so like perusing tumblr and other social media outlets and just seeing what people were making was amazing wanted to be a part of that it was energy coming out of that space would you say you're the best artist here no prior to coming here I work for a lot of bigger like marketing companies and so I had an opportunity where I was doing some consulting and I had an opportunity to really look where I wanted to go next and I wanted to do something that made a difference as cliche as that might sound I didn't want to be in a company where it's like let's chase the next dollar not really care about the consequences and this was an absolute perfect fit see I know you're serious because you have to wake up every morning and walk up seven flights of stairs to get to your work right so that's that I'm excited to do it you're excited to it every time yeah that's great when you think about what paper as it stands right now is doing for people the idea at first blush of like oh here is here's an easy beautiful wonderful way to create art seems nice but it seems like something only a bunch of art students might use or only a bunch of like people who already are in a creative mindset would use how do you think of this application when you're looking at a world of people many of whom don't even consider themselves remotely artistic who don't even think about themselves as creators or why why why would you want to try to build a product that is automatically going to kind of alienate a majority of people well I mean the interesting thing is we built paper as sort of that bridge and so we actually get a lot of people you know we get emails almost every week about people that tell us that like I never thought I could sketch before yeah you know until I tried paper people have never gotten the right and positive and reinforcement you know because of SAT scores because of GPA is because of reading writing people think they know how to read and how they write and how to do math I don't know many people who write well hmm I don't I know a lot of people who can put together great chicken scotch cuts to communicate their idea much more efficiently an emoticon people know how to use the smiley face people know how to draw describing in words your emotional state complicated but people think they know how to do it why because they grab grades they got reinforcement certifications and this is even on a much bigger level when you think about how people communicate is vision we first we're visual learners right we fail to educate our population right our netic we we should all be fluent communicating in images so when people say I'm not creative what they're saying is I can't draw or I don't know how to communicate visually and I say our challenge to make sure that everyone can because it's going to transform the level in the quality of our ideas how we work together and how we get things done now it doesn't matter how beautiful your app is if no one uses it doesn't really matter the thing about paper that's so interesting is it's not just for artists in fact we're going to meet a high school teacher named Brad who's using it to change education well this is the first thing I did with paper when it first came out I was just noodling around and I wanted a quick way to make a little diary of my day so this is actually goes on a tumblr blog I have called a hundred percent of my time so what I do is just ten lines different colors representing the percentage of my day that's taken up with these things it's not necessarily time sort of like Chinese miles they're called Li Chinese miles are longer going up than they are going down because it's a measure of distance and effort right so this was actually this was a travel day you know you to get somewhere you just sit down for a long time and then all of a sudden you're in a new place how early of an adopter were you of paper did you download it second like this app might have been a couple of days old and I grabbed it as soon as a as soon as it came out I love the tool I'm not an artist but I like doodling around and drawing and I played around with some different apps so it's sort of at the low end or something like Adobe Ideas very simple tool set which I like I like the simplicity but it was too simple and then at the other end where things like what does it SketchBook Pro or something you know incredibly powerful tool sets for professional you know designers and artists and that kind of thing but when I was playing with it you know the learning curve was really big and the tool set was so big that by the time you drilled down and got the tool you wanted and came back I've lost my train of thought or whatever I don't know how you know but you look at an app and you go this is just going to work there's something in the way it's presented that you just go okay it's going to be a simple enough but not too simple tool set that would allow me to just duel around if there's one thing that Microsoft taught me it was a certain irreverence to technology and ten years there saw speech interfaces gesture interfaces multiple operating system mobile phone operating zazz multiple programming models and they keep trying I mean they see technology is completely malleable and what you gain from that is really this understanding of appreciation that yeah technology is manual the most important thing is understanding what do you want to do with it how should it look like and for us there was technology is there to help people create that's what it's for and that became the success of focusing point anything that's doesn't help you create get rid of it it shouldn't be there clock not don't need a clock while you're creating the battery meter don't need it excites what do you really need to get going and you need beautiful tools that work because beauty gives you meaning while you're creating I think that beauty is very important ideas you have to you have to be able to elevate your idea the first thing you see is you know when you try and capture an idea if it looks bad it just sets it off on the wrong tone and it kind of kills the idea and they're very fragile things ideas your students you know are they you know because they're coming out of it without a lot of the biases and sort of I don't know the the inertia that comes with the way things ought to be how do you think this is going to make them when it comes to storytelling as well as just you know sort of how they process ideas well it's interesting you know I think the kids want to by the time they get to high school where I teach all of that's gone if you want to see we don't like all of that that expressing themselves only I teach a philosophy course and I often give the kids - apparently separate ideas and get them to try and find the connection and if you think linearly it's almost impossible to do you really have to bust out of your usual thinking so it was in the middle of class and these are bright kids we know we're a university prep school and kids go to Harvard and Stanford and all this kind of stuff and they just weren't thinking I remember just literally banging my head on the desk I said opera goodness sakes you guys would you just think for a second and one of the students top girl in the school kind of kid said Mr OC we don't have time to think we just need you to give us the answer so we can get them down and we can get our six and seven so we can get into a university we don't have time to think yeah and and you know they're they're gaming the system that we need the marks to get to the universities we want to get to that's how they think you had a case so when you give them a tool that allows them to just think give people a blank page and they often just bring us it go make something and they go well tell us what you want us to make so they're not used you know you give any kid a piece of paper in a crayon and they'll scribble on it and we've got to teach them how to you know draw and make notes all the rest of it and I'm finding with these technologies that I think are kind of liberating technologies students at first are not used to using them they want to go where does the necessary information so you give them something like this and say sketchnote it don't worry about the trivial data we can look that up later let's capture the things we don't know or the things we find really exciting and use that to drive something that's really pull into the kids and its really big structures that force kids into that kind of envelope where you know the big structure is I need to get to University which means I need my GPA to be four point something right so if I'm going to play around with this I'm taking a risk with my grades so you need to create the space that allows them to do that too once it gets going though every time I give them kids that have been blown away by what they can do you know they surprise me every time isn't what I would describe the applications stay to to an investor and then they would hear you're putting water color in it and they would go bonkers they pee because they Lear water color no because they wanted PowerPoint export right there's like export to powerpoint in there this is just aa ha ha I mean it's it's one of those things it's there is no one if you ask them do you need watercolor and they're going to say like no we're but you do like it's a beautiful thing all of a sudden you're getting in you skill you can think in color you can express it we can color the colors meaningful it's the choice between your red and a blue tie that stuff matters yeah it's just because you know you had a bad experience in art school in year six or seven no but that needs to be expressive this pervasive so I mean these are certain things where you just can't you can't listen to people you need to hear a little bit further you needed when they say no don't do want or go into a PowerPoint but they're really say you're seeing a deeper need you're emerge which is like ah which is I can't access this and that is that an opportunity it's like okay that's good you call my idea crazy I'm going to do it I mean you need that if people don't call your ideas crazy or silly then you're not working on the right thing building a product is hard that's why I'm always telling founders as soon as it's good enough ship it now these four guys basically got an education while they were Microsoft in taking an idea and launching a product they did it time and time again but they couldn't build the product that they wanted until they left and started their own company it's fitting that they would go on and create an app that allows anyone with an iPad to just get started creating beautiful things and I want to live in a world where when someone sees a blank canvas they're not intimidated they're inspired