
Thank HN: for helping me get traction with DuckDuckGo and Traction book – AMA - epi0Bauqu
(This is my old username, which I thought fit well with this post. You may know me now as yegg.)<p>I launched DuckDuckGo on HN (then Startup News) seven years ago: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=315142 and the idea of Traction book five years ago: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=2098068. If I hadn&#x27;t gotten encouragement and excitement in these threads (which I did!) then I might have quit each shortly after. So thank you for that!<p>In 2009-2010, when I was struggling to get traction for DuckDuckGo, I started doing a series of interviews on my blog with successful founders about how they got traction in an effort to uncover a structured process for doing so. Naturally, I interviewed a lot of HN greats like patio11 (Patrick McKenzie), justin (Justin Kan), garry (Garry Tan), kn0thing (Alexis Ohanian) and other startup icons like Eric Ries, Jimmy Wales, etc. Last year I put a bunch of these early interviews on YouTube if you want to check them out: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;user&#x2F;tractionbook<p>If I hadn&#x27;t been part of the HN community I probably wouldn&#x27;t have done these interviews or the series of blog posts that led to writing Traction, which in turn led to getting traction for DuckDuckGo.<p>A lot of people on HN have used DuckDuckGo and read the book and gave excellent feedback on both, a lot of which we have acted on to make these things what they are today today. The proximate cause for thinking about this was the second edition of the book came out yesterday, and I&#x27;m in a reflective mood.<p>I&#x27;m extremely grateful for being part of this community. Ask me anything, and I&#x27;ll try to help where I can.
======
Torgo
How much traffic does the Tor hidden service for your search engine get? Would
you characterize the usage as significant, or is it mainly kept up as a public
service for a small number of people who use it?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
It is not significant, though we'd love it to be.

~~~
ParanoidAct
In my case, the only reason I don't use it is because I cannot add it to my
browser; `opensearch.xml` statically points to
[https://duckduckgo.com/](https://duckduckgo.com/)

------
rahiel
I love DDG's bangs and instant answers. Do you have any statistics on their
usage? Like counts of how many times a bang or an instant answer was used?

And will Dax play a bigger role in the future, in branding to give more
personality? It wasn't easy finding the name of the duck I see daily.
([https://duckduckgo.com/?q=name+of+the+duckduckgo+duck](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=name+of+the+duckduckgo+duck))

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Thanks! We are working on something that could tell the platform (duck.co) how
much each instant answer is being used. Now each answer has a page (at
[http://duck.co/ia](http://duck.co/ia)). Bangs are a bit different but we're
working on open sourcing that too.

Dax, yes! We're going through internal branding strategy right now and your
comment is very welcome in that context.

~~~
Raphael
Instant answers are brilliant, and the community contributions really flesh it
out. The text even changes color with the theme. I'm wondering if something
like this could be ported to JavaScript and made available in NPM or Bower.

------
atmosx
Hello,

Congrats for your search engine. I admire the work you did. The only reason I
don't use DDG is that I'm Greek and the results for Greek keywords are many
orders of magnitude off-mark compared to Google. Why is that? Any hope to
improve results in the future?

ty

~~~
epi0Bauqu
I'm not sure if we improved for Greek in particular yet but this generally
(non English) has been a focus recently so it should really be improving. I'd
be curious if you notice any improvement and if the region toggle does
anything for you.

~~~
atmosx
I'm using it all morning (UTC +2 here) and I must say that it has improved
drastically from the last time I've used the service! Cool :-)

------
kawera
Gabriel, do you plan to implement time-bound search filters on DDG? I'm
probably not alone in finding it very usefull and would gladly avoid jumping
back and forth between DDG and Google. Anyway, kudos for all you've done.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Yes! People have been asking for this for literally years (and I want it too).
For various reasons it has been difficult to do, but now we are very close. So
look for it soon.

~~~
kawera
Great! I think it's the last thing missing for me to use DDG exclusively.
Cheers.

------
sspiff
Are there any plans for a Google trends like analysis tool or any plans on
opening up anonymous search statistics?

On a personal note, DDG has been my daily driver for about 2 years now. I love
the bang shortcuts (!man and !cpp mostly).

The first few months or so, I ended up following almost every search query
with a "!g query", but search results have really, really improved. Now I only
have to use Google for local topics and/or very recent events.

------
yyz_rush
What are your future plans for DuckDuckGo? Knowing what you know now, what
would you have done differently with DuckDuckGo over the last seven years?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Two good questions!

There is a recent PEW study showing that 40% of people would prefer a no-
tracking search experience. And yet a very small percentage of people have
ever heard of DuckDuckGo. As a result, we think we have a lot of room to focus
on making the product better and growing, and that is really our future plans
in a nutshell.

In hindsight, there are always activities you realize now were a waste of
time, and it is easy to say you wouldn't do them now, but in the moment it is
much harder. So in general, what I've been trying to work on is making sure
we're always working on the right projects, and scoping them right, given the
information we have in front of us. I would have liked to be better at that
earlier, but in general I wouldn't have done that much differently.

~~~
Raphael
So you should ramp up marketing. Or it sounds like you want to improve the
quality and rely on word-of-mouth.

------
mackwic
As a user, I am always a bit afraid that DuckDuckGo might be gone one day.

How do you keep the DuckDuckGo afloat ?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
DuckDuckGo is actually profitable! It is a myth you need to track people to
make money in Web search. Most of the money is still made without tracking
people by showing you ads based on your keyword, i.e. type in car and get a
car ad. These ads are lucrative because people have buying intent. All that
tracking is for the rest of the Internet without this search intent, and
that's why you're tracked across the Internet with those same ads.

~~~
eevilspock
I think it's great what you're doing (DDG is my default search engine). And
I'm glad you're profitable so you can stay alive.

But I'd like to think that if you could find a way other than ads, you'd take
it in a heartbeat, even if you made less profit, but as long as you could be
self-sustaining. Is that true?

I have a very strong opinion about advertising and its effects on the web. I
would love to hear your feedback on them:

    
    
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773
    
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10047706
    
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9961025
    

I'm trying to spin up a movement to shift the web away from its reliance on
ads. Let me know if you can be an advisor or resource for that. One day I
might thank you in the way you thank all those other founders you listed
above. :)

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Yup, that's very true but the numbers just don't add up well on search in
terms of subscription or donation. We have tried to do much less advertising,
making it up on affiliate revenue, but we can't do that much because of our
privacy policy. We can only use programs that can be anonymous, which means
the companies run them themselves through URL parameters, and that's really
just Amazon and eBay.

~~~
JoshTriplett
If you don't mind sharing, how much do you get through those affiliate
programs compared to advertising?

Also, would you consider providing some kind of paid model in addition to ads?
I use DDG dozens of times per day as my primary search engine; I would
_happily_ pay for it. I realize that model doesn't scale to the entire world,
as only a fraction of people will pay, but do you have some way for people who
like what you're doing to pay you a modest amount, with as little friction as
Patreon and similar?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
We haven't disclosed it, but advertising is the bulk.

The problem with paid is three-fold. We're a for-profit company so don't want
to come off as taking donations like a non-profit. Second, we don't want to
collect personal information. So we could do something like bitcoin but that
isn't exactly low-friction :). Third, it is promoting that it exists. We have
a hard problem getting the word out about anything not on the SERP and we
wouldn't want to put it there.

Open to other ideas though.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Regarding personal information, I have no problem providing payment
information, as long as that isn't tied to accounts/searches/etc. (A separate
service, similar to Patreon, seems ideal.) But I do realize that the number of
people willing to pay you may not justify the work needed to set something up.

I do understand your concern about not wanting to appear to take donations,
though. I just wish I had some way to pay you for your service that doesn't
involve viewing or clicking on ads.

------
fecak
We don't see too many Philly area firms getting attention on HN. I try to
promote the area when I can (here or on Reddit). What would be your top
reasons software engineers should consider the Philly tech scene as a place to
work and live?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Lifestyle -- we moved here 9 years ago not knowing anyone -- after a rather
complicated search for a great place to live and raise a family. There's a lot
to it, but it is climate, affordability, architecture, culture, etc. Granted,
some of that (maybe a lot) is personal preference but I think a lot of people
share similar preferences.

Cheaper -- you can bootstrap really easily here compared to other places even
nearby (DC, NYC, BOS).

Community -- it is really a nice community where you can really reach anyone
really quickly and they're willing to help.

Would you add anything?

~~~
fecak
With lifestyle, I'd add that the Philly tech market is a bit different than
many other cities in that the companies and startups are mixed between the
city and the suburbs. If you prefer more suburban or rural areas for your
home, you can find affordable places to live and choose to work in or outside
the city and still access the culture the city provides (not to mention being
~1 hour from NYC and Baltimore). Or if you like to live in the city, you can
still find commutable places to work outside the city. I think that's a bit
unique.

I'll second community as well. Really helpful and approachable people in the
startup community of Philly. I've never spoken to you, but have read that you
are among the most approachable in the area.

I might add the available feeder system of colleges in the region - Penn being
obvious, but some less obvious schools like Lehigh and Villanova that Philly
firms can tap for talent. Unfortunately those students often leave Philly, but
as they get more options to say they will do so.

I think the area is still in need of one or two big name companies to keep
talent in the area. A larger dev satellite office of a Google/FB or even
Netflix type would help keep those grads in the area after graduation, and at
some point they may have grown deeper roots (families, kids in school) that
might keep them in the area. I'm starting to see more and more local engineers
moving west, as they feel they are "outgrowing" the area. I think a company
with a good employer brand (as it relates to software) would come in and be
able to hire a ton of great talent.

Thanks for answering, and best to your continued success.

------
lmedinas
Gabriel, thank you for DDG I have been using and promoting for years.

In terms of mobile any plans for the future you can reveal? How do you feel
about Siri, Google Now and Cortana is it something you think DDG can do or can
be used as a backend/source ?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Thank you! We're of course very focused on making the best mobile experience
we can. We think our instant answers can be a big part of that since answers
are even better on mobile where space is limited and browsing sites is slower.
How to exactly showcase them is a bit unclear, however. So nothing major to
reveal yet, sorry :)

~~~
lmedinas
Thanks for the answer I'm crossing my fingers for a major player to use DDG
for their personal assistants. The first step was already done when they set
DDG has a search option :)

------
calpaterson
Thanks for publishing your book it has been really useful for me.

When you were first working on DDG who did you show it to before you
"launched" on here? What kind of early feedback did you get?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
These interviews (I referenced above) were really the first things I did:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/tractionbook](https://www.youtube.com/user/tractionbook)

I blogged all of them on Hacker News (you can search the archives to see), and
then started blogging ideas that would become the book and got feedback from
those on my blog and on HN.

This was all before really writing. Once we actually started writing we
recruited "early readers" periodically to read and give feedback up until we
had a full draft more ready to go, in which case we hit up our whole list and
got another round of fresh-eyes feedback.

~~~
calpaterson
Sorry, I meant when you were working on your search engine

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Oh man, double face palm :)

I would go around to local meetup groups here in Philly and continually show
it to people, as well as friends and family.

------
huangc10
Great job w/ DDG and thanks for sharing this encouraging thread.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
You're very welcome!

------
alexis
Congrats and all the best with the book! Happy to participate and hope it can
help get my experiences with Reddit, Hipmunk and beyond into as many people's
heads as possible.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Thanks! I would too love to spread those stories to new audiences. We are
really trying to branch out beyond the startup world but are honestly new to
it and unsure so far what will work. So any ideas from you or anyone would be
appreciated! Open to try almost anything :). Also, unjust sent you a DM on
Twitter about a related matter.

------
Nononce
I'd just like to say thank you for making the search box the first thing that
gets focus when pressing Tab.

Google got this one wrong (though I suspect that google does it on purpose).

------
JupiterMoon
Is there any chance that you guys could implement a feature like your major
competitor's "scholar" search for searching academic articles?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
We've had a lot of requests for that, but it is not on our immediate roadmap
yet. If there is a good source out there (vertical search engine), it could be
incorporated via DuckDuckHack
([http://duckduckhack.com](http://duckduckhack.com)) -- that would be the best
bet.

------
acconrad
Was this book updated for the Oct 2015 release? Or is this more or less the
same as the book you asked when you originally solicited feedback?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Major update, though the overall messaging is the same. It is a much more
high-quality book. The first one was self-published and this one is published
by Penguin Random House. So the first thing is it re-edited all the way
through. We ended up cutting out about 50 pages, even though we added a couple
of sections.

Second, the sections we added were a preface about my struggles with getting
traction and a testing addendum giving 1-3 suggestions of how to test each of
the nineteen channels (something people continually requested).

Third and finally, I really focused on rewriting the five introductory
chapters to focus on things I saw readers of the first edition struggle with.
We simplified the framework from 5 to 3 steps, and tried to shed light on the
more non-intuitive aspects (like don't prematurely optimize marketing tests,
etc.).

------
tixocloud
Congratulations, Gabriel on all the success you've had so far with DDG and
Traction. I was an early user of DDG and although I didn't stick around, I
truly do admire you for what you stand for and your courage and perseverance
to push through it.

I do believe that it is critical that we do have choices. Choices that can
free us from a single establishment. So, thank you!

------
dontscale
You're an inspiration. Keep up the great work!

------
djd3141
Hey Gabriel,

Just wanted to say thanks for DDG, it's been my default search engine for
going on a year now and absolutely love it. I'm also a developer(DDG is also
the reason I started to dabble with Perl) from PA (about 10 minutes from DDG)
and have to say it's very exciting to see something like DuckDuckGo created in
my hometown area. Thanks again for the great work!

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Oh that's awesome! You might want to check out our DuckDuckHack meetups (there
is of course a local one)
[http://duckduckgo.meetup.com](http://duckduckgo.meetup.com)

------
jihip
Are you working on any new business dev for DuckDuckGo? I feel that no-
tracking is a soft value add and I imagine keyword-based targeted ads is
limiting when competing with large search engines that tracks more information
about the users. Which direction are you taking DuckDuckGo that further
differentiates your product?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Our long-term product vision is community-driven instant answers for most
searches: DuckDuckHack - [http://duckduckhack.com/](http://duckduckhack.com/)

We think partnering with thousands of the best sites on the Web with great
answers in all niche categories (lego parts, municipal bonds, anything) is a
win-win-win for everyone (us, partners, users). Right now anyone can suggest
an instant answer source, and anyone can develop it. The answers themselves
and the entire platform is open source.

------
zbruhnke
I think there is real value in consumers being able to glean value they want
from their own data, would you or have you ever considered a program that
allowed users to share data with you in exchange for services, ads or other
products they continually found relevant?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
We have anonymous cloud save now for DuckDuckGo settings, which is sort of
like this already:
[https://duckduckgo.com/settings](https://duckduckgo.com/settings) \-- for
example, you can set a language or region setting.

I think more generally you're right privacy is about control and choice, as I
tried to explain in [https://medium.com/life-learning/privacy-is-at-a-
crossroads-...](https://medium.com/life-learning/privacy-is-at-a-crossroads-
choose-wisely-96bac0644ec1)

~~~
zbruhnke
totally agreed on that post (its one I've read before) - i think a consumer
truly having control (I'd even envision a dashboard where you could give or
retract access to your data instantly) is what would be most helpful for the
consumer to truly take more care into what is happening in their lives as the
physical digital worlds quickly merge into one.

That said, I'd also love to see a google apps like product from DDG that could
really compete but promise not to sell my company's info or use it for useless
ads and general spam

~~~
epi0Bauqu
We would also like to see similar services across the spectrum and really
believe people want private alternatives that they can switch to with little
sacrifice. That said, search is difficult enough for us!

------
ersii
How would you self describe the general search quality of DuckDuckGo,
excluding the (brilliant) Instant Answers?

How do you evaluate the general search quality?

Do you have any focus on expanding crawling in general? And localized content
in particular?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Our long-term focus is really on the instant answers, and we hope to really
build up the DuckDuckHack platform to a point where the majority of searches
have instant answers on par or better than the links.

Of course, basic link quality is still par for the course. We have worked a
lot this year on better language support so if you type say in Finnish we
recognize that and adjust the results appropriately. For truly localized stuff
(like restaurants, transit, for example), we really want to attack that via
the instant answers.

------
malnourish
Perhaps it's completely out of reach (fiscally or ethically) but have you
considered partnering with Mozilla to become Firefox's default search engine?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
We'd love to become the default search wherever we can!

------
AdmiralAsshat
Are there any features that you wanted or thought about implementing into
DuckDuckGo but could not for technical reasons or otherwise?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Tons. There are so many constraints like getting access to data in a cost-
sustainable manner. We try not to pay to data, for example, but some data is
expensive. That's why we still don't have movie showtimes, for example.

~~~
amk_
Interesting. Sounds like there could be space for a client-side extension that
lets users enter API keys for rate-limited APIs, etc.

------
avinassh
Oops I missed it. In case if you check this sometime, I wanted to know how
much of Python is being used at DDG

------
donrhummy
when will you add instant search results in the browser's search box? For
example, if i use Firefox and have Google ad the default, and i type "32 * (13
- 9)" it will instantly show a dropdown with the answer 128. I would really
like DDG to do this too.

------
S4M
Hey Gabriel,

Do you have some plans to open source the search engine of DuckDuckGo one day
and let people contribute?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Yes! Check out [http://duckduckhack.com/](http://duckduckhack.com/) \-- it is
our open source instant answer platform, which is becoming more and more of
DuckDuckGo. The whole platform is open source itself (in addition to the
answers).

~~~
S4M
Thank you for the reply, but I already knew about duckduckhack - I made a
small contribution to it in 2013. What I meant however is the core search
engine, that is currently closed source.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Thank you for the contribution! Would love to get you back :).

We've been actually open sourcing more and more because what I meant is that
as DuckDuckHack grows it is becoming more and more of the search engine. Check
out [https://github.com/duckduckgo](https://github.com/duckduckgo) \-- bunch
of new repos since 2013.

------
siquick
Just switched to DDG 3 weeks ago and can't see me going back. :-)

Where did the name for DuckDuckGo come from?

------
aunty_helen
Do you think DDG would have still been a success without the Snowden
revelations?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Depends what you think of as success :)

Snowden accelerated our growth by years and we are really grateful for that.
However, I believe we were already a success and I was happy with where we had
gotten before then.

There are still no good limits on online tracking and as a result it continues
to get crazier and crazier and more people are reacting. It was already
heading in that direction pre-Snowden. For example, in 2012, a year and half
before, we saw a huge uptick when Google changed their privacy policy to allow
tracking across all their properties. And a year before that, we saw another
huge uptick when we did a privacy-focused billboard and microsite
([http://donttrack.us/](http://donttrack.us/)).

------
ryanjmo
Where is the current best place to buy the book in an electronic format?

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discreditable
How does DuckDuckGo index content? Does it use its own spider?

------
bradnickel
Great book Gabriel! Excited to help you promote it.

