

Dennis Crowley On The Origins Of Foursquare [video] - thankuz
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/02/founder-stories-crowley-foursquare-origins/

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jmtame
i talked to him yesterday to ask him where the badges came from since that's
one of the most popular features of foursquare. he left google on a friday and
joined areacode on a monday which is a company that builds games (now part of
zynga). he said he worked on an application called shark runners
([http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/sharkweek/shark-
runners...](http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/sharkweek/shark-
runners/shark-runners.html)) which was a fun way to encourage people to act
like marine biologists (study sharks). that specific app used achievements and
is what inspired the badges in foursquare.

i also found it interesting that despite foursquare being 2 years old as of
next week and having >7 million users (by comparison, facebook had 6 million
users at 2 years) he still doesn't consider foursquare a success at all and
worries about the company failing every day. he said his girlfriend told him
his face was breaking out because he tends to put his hands on his face when
he's stressed out.

~~~
rexf
> i also found it interesting that despite foursquare being 2 years old as of
> next week and having >7 million users (by comparison, facebook had 6 million
> users at 2 years) he still doesn't consider foursquare a success at all and
> worries about the company failing every day.

I find that interesting as well. Most people would consider Foursquare at
least 'successful enough' with widespread adoption and some revenue stream.
Foursquare also gets nonstop press and a rival incorporated their API
([http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/02/gowalla-3-foursquare-
facebo...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/02/gowalla-3-foursquare-facebook-
twitter/)).

That said, worrying about survival everyday is a good startup mentality to
have. There are big players (Fb places, Google Lattitude? / Google-whatever-
they-have-coming-down-the-pipeline) and possible upsets (such as
[http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/14/mytown-booyah-location-
ipho...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/14/mytown-booyah-location-iphone/))
ever looming.

------
narrator
Of note is that Foursquare is also the most high profile Scala/Lift site.

