Recently, I did a brief writeup of GoSquared’s flagship service, LiveStats. It was received well by readers and I decided to delve further in my quest to find out more about the company and their ethos.
After dropping them an email to check on the feasability of an interview, I was pleased when they replied saying they would be more than happy to oblige. So without further ado, here’s the wonderful answers James Gill gave on behalf of the team – unless it says Geoff or JT in which case the statement is from them!
If you’re looking to get your hands on one of ten beta invites to LiveStats, scroll to the bottom of the interview where you can find information on how to enter!
Please note: The below is an edited version of the interview, click the link to see the full, unedited copy – GoSquared Interview – TNW UK.
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Firstly, what is GoSquared and what do you do?
GoSquared creates web apps for business and site owners. We have just launched LiveStats, a web app that allows you to monitor your sites’ traffic in real-time. Weʼre soon going to be launching Get Seen + Sell Ads, 2 web apps that enable ‘mere mortals’ to get seen and sell ads online.
We also run Liquidicity, the blog on design and technology where we give away design resources and discuss our industry.
How and when did GoSquared begin?
It all started while we were at school, back in February of 2006. I had run a small design blog as a school project before starting GoSquared which taught me some of the most basic skills I needed to get a presence on the web – like how I needed a web host and a domain name etc.
When I saw the Million Dollar Homepage I thought 2 things: I want to vomit, that site looks so horrendous, and more importantly, if this can make an impact on the web, Iʼm sure some of my friends and I can. So I started work on a site that enabled people to buy a square of ad space for a week at a time at a reasonable price.
How did you promote GoSquared, initially?
To get more traffic to the site we started the Liquidicity blog. As soon as we started giving away some of our design resources, like vector icons and buttons, the traffic began to flood in.
To this day, over half of the traffic to GoSquared comes through the Liquidicity blog.I donʼt think I can state how important it is to grow a community around whatever you build – Liquidicity was essential for us to gain a voice and to reach out to our first users.
Did you ever believe you’d become as popular as you are today?
While we’d always dreamed of gaining a very wide audience and user-base, we never really considered the actual possibility if we actually did do something that really caught people’s imaginations.
We continue to dream of being bigger than we are. I think everyone in the industry aspires to be bigger or more powerful or just better than they already are – it’s what drives things forward.
To what extent has Social Media had an impact on the company?
Social media, especially Twitter has had a major impact on the way we promote GoSquared and how we deal with support requests. It’s gone from being a place where we would promote a few blog posts to being essential to the success of GoSquared.
On the customer support side of things – I can’t say enough about how vital Twitter has been. Anytime anyone so much as mentions GoSquared, we like to keep on top of whatʼs being said. Weʼve been able to help quite a few people out just by keeping an eye on a few select hashtags.
Where do you see GoSquared being in 5 years time?
It’s hard to say. We’re very excited with the products and services we have lined up for 2010 and from there we’ll have to see how people react to them and develop around what our users like.
One thing I’d like to make clear, though – we’re in this for the long run. business. I hate it when you see small companies with teams of talented people being swallowed up by the likes of Google or Microsoft and never hearing from them ever again.
I think it’s setting a bad precedent for the next generation of entrepreneurs – it seems like everyone’s too afraid to even attempt to become “the next Google / YouTube / Facebook”.
If you could give an aspiring entrepreneur any tips, what would they be?
Persistence. We’ve been working at this for a while and for months, even years, the effort we were putting in didn’t seem to pay off. It wasnʼt wasted time though – it was teaching us new lessons. We were learning the hard way, but the best way – by actually doing.
JT: Listen to people’s suggestions. Just because you think your idea’s brilliant doesn’t mean it is. Criticism often helps just as much as compliments.
Geoff: Be passionate. If spending time on your work starts becoming a chore for you, then maybe you’re not cut out for what you’re trying to do. You have to be prepared to work endless hours, days, weeks and even years before your product actually generates some interest, particularly before it starts earning money.
Endnotes
Matt: Wow, that’s great James! Seems like you and the team have got your feet on the ground and you’re off running, look forward to what the future holds for you and GoSquared!
James: Thanks for the interview Matt, and if you would like to know more about GoSquared, check out the site at www.gosquared.com. You can keep up to date with what weʼre up to on Twitter by following @GoSquared and on our blog at www.gosquared.com/liquidicity.
We leave you in the words of Vidal Sassoon: “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” Remember, you can check out the full, unedited interview by heading here.
Beta Invites to LiveStats
We’re thankful to GoSquared for giving us 10 beta codes to give to TheNextWeb readers, so to have a chance of getting your mits on one of them, simply complete the following:
- Follow @TheNextWebUK on Twitter.
- Click the Retweet Button at the top of this article.
You’re done! We’ll randomly generate 10 winners on Friday 26th November @ 12:00pm GMT and announce them on Twitter along with updating this article. Good luck and thanks for reading!
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