
Faking it. - sahillavingia
http://sahillavingia.com/blog/2010/11/19/faking-it/
======
winternett
It think "fake buzz" is killing the Internet's credibility. I actually think
that spending tons of time tweeting and posting testimonials on sites [rather
than working on making better products and services] is exactly what's killing
the quality of goods and services in society these days. Fake testimonials are
for "As Seen On TV" ads, but for a reliable and trustworthy company that plans
on longevity, I think its a 100% bad move. Let the real and unbiased
testimonials from people about your business be REAL and UNBIASED if you plan
on thriving in the long run of business life.

Think about it this way, if testimonials are rigged, what metrics are
companies then using to improve their products? Testimonials influence and
taint the opinions of others.

This is the reason why some people have 100,000 followers on Twitter, because
they work for an AD agency that creates phony accounts and then adds those
users in order to "Fake" the idea that the account is truly popular. This
reduces the credibility of your Twitter account and your entire presence on
the Internet.

Do you get jealous because a friend or competitor has more "followers" than
you? You shouldn't. you should congratulate them instead. You never know how
or why they got there, and they may be behind you the next day.

"Faking it until you make" it is not a good way to go. You should generate
real metrics, a real reputation, and a solid product or service, thats the
only way to sustained and long-term success, and its always been that way.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_...is exactly what's killing the quality of goods and services in society
these days._

I'm not sure what society you live in, but I live in a society that's _jam-
packed_ with amazing stuff. I take most of it for granted most of the time,
but I have thousands of amazing products, services, and experiences available
with just a few clicks, at prices that are absolutely unbelievable compared
with what was available 50 years ago.

Besides, this kind of "fake buzz" bullshit has been around for a long time;
it's called advertising.

~~~
winternett
And that's the same reason why we had to create "Truth In Advertising"
legislation, and why the word Free no longer has to mean anything. And why
Wal-Mart foists cheap plastic crap on us, rather than products that truly work
and last a long time. If you create a fake world, you can't complain when
you'll have to live in it. :) No Disrespect, but honesty, and authenticity is
not for sale, and you can't build a house on a fake foundation, it always
crumbles eventually.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
You're cherry-picking, and we both know I could do the same thing, listing
brands and companies that do create great products and services, but perhaps
we can just agree to disagree. I think the world today is generally better
than it used to be. Yes, even some of that "cheap plastic crap" from Walmart.
If I want a cheap trash can to go next to the workbench in my garage, it's
nice that I can buy one for $3.88 at Wal-Mart, instead of having to purchase a
$17 metal can hand-crafted by someone in a local factory. They both do the
same job, they'll last the same amount of time, but one is 1/5th the price.
And I'm fine with that.

~~~
winternett
Like I said, No Disrespect, we all have different examples of how this post
relates to us in business. I'm mainly stating that ethics weigh heavily in
terms of how I do business, and if you take shortcuts or fake moves in terms
of building business, your ethics become questionable...

~~~
ryanwaggoner
* I'm mainly stating that ethics weigh heavily in terms of how I do business, and if you take shortcuts or fake moves in terms of building business, your ethics become questionable...*

Oh, I couldn't agree more. I was just taking issue with the assertion that
products and services are getting worse. We definitely agree on the importance
of being honest.

~~~
winternett
The part about hating WalMart is a recurring "joke signature" that I have just
begun to add to all of my posts. They just announced that they're moving into
my neighborhood in DC right now, and I'm not too happy about it. Don't worry
too much about that. LOL :P

~~~
anamax
> The part about hating WalMart is a recurring "joke signature" that I have
> just begun to add to all of my posts.

Tribal signaling

------
acabal
This is more or less what I did with my site, Scribophile. The site is based
on writers critiquing the writing of others, with a point system to make sure
everyone gets critiques. When I just started, it was kind of a chicken-and-egg
problem: without existing work to critique, nobody could earn points to post
their own writing; but without points, nobody could post their own work for
critique. And worst of all, without an existing user base, there would be
nobody around to critique writing that was posted.

I solved this problem by basically faking it. When the site just started, I
let people post writing without spending points. I would then personally
critique that writing myself through several fake accounts. These critiques
not only made new members feel as if there was already a community in place
(thus encouraging them to stay), but they also made sure that people felt as
if the site was useful, and made them want to contribute with critiques of
their own. I don't write for pleasure, but I posted some works I had written
just for the occasion. I didn't care about the critiques they received; the
important part was making people think there was a community already there. I
also recruited some friends who weren't really writers to participate on the
site at the beginning to solidify the illusion of an existing community.

I also had a general "company" user account that I used to interact with
everyone on a site-support level. This gave the illusion that there was more
than one person behind the scenes. At the time I felt that having a web site
that seemed to be run by a proper company instead of a guy in his basement
went a long way for credibility. I never gave away the fact that it was just
me. I would sign all support requests with "Scribophile Support" instead of
"Alex."

As time went on and the site grew, I stopped critiquing by hand, thanked my
non-writer friends for helping me and told them they didn't have to
participate in the site any more, and eventually stopped using the "company"
account in favor of my personal one. Everyone now knows that I'm the owner of
the site and the guy behind the scenes. I sign support requests with my name
instead of "Support."

I have no doubt that if I hadn't "faked it" in the beginning, the site would
never have gotten the traction that it now has. It was essential for getting a
community site bootstrapped with a $0 marketing budget and the chicken-and-egg
problem that all community sites face.

~~~
keeptrying
Nice site which really helps a community! I'm a little curious - How are you
planning to make money with this? Or do you have a different goal ?

~~~
acabal
Scribophile is my full-time job. Members sign up for a limited free account.
They can upgrade to a monthly paid premium subscription that includes many
features that the free plan doesn't.

It's not making me a millionare, but I've spent the past few years traveling
the world off of what Scribophile has made. Right now if I live frugally,
which I generally do, it can support me indefinitely.

------
johnnyg
I disagree with your post. When you represent one thing and do another, it is
call lying and it is a slippery slope.

What happens if you prime the pump with using questionable means and it works?

* You now have a lead a growing company. You are the moral compass of the company. Are you the guy to say they should be acting ethically even when it is harder to do so? Do you expect people to believe you? If they don't, do you expect them to respect you? Can you lead without that?

* How much trust can there be between people that know you will shave the edges if there's immediate gain? How long until this behavior results in a bunch of corporate sharks instead of a team working on a goal together?

I lead. I have been right here. CPAPAuction.com isn't a huge business and we
need to project activity to grow, but damn it, the metrics are real. I run
other businesses that have done better. The people working in those businesses
know that those metrics are real too, as are their pay checks and managements
communications relating to future prospects.

I've been in plenty of other situations where I could see no white or black to
choose from even if I wanted to, only gray. In those dark times, you need
people around you who know in their gut that you are moral.

I feel like I get it.

But the thing I get is that you never, ever pull this crap. You never give an
inch when you aren't absolutely force fed an impossibly difficult situation.
You let your people see you doing the work and what you get back in exchange
is the ability to build strong teams, be wealthy and sleep at night.

Buy cheaper desks and put the money into integrity. Then earn it.

PS. If you answer posts/list items/take the action your website exists to
facilitate and identify yourself as with the company, I see no moral issue. If
you don't identify yourself, I do see that as being dishonest with your user
base and by extension, everyone associated with your company.

~~~
srgseg
<http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html>

4\. Naughtiness

Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have
a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good.
Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about
observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil.
They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter.

~~~
bluesnowmonkey
It's kind of creepy when people quote Paul Graham like it's gospel.

~~~
PedroCandeias
But in this case I think it's appropriate. Naughtiness does seem more
prevalent in successful people than in average joes.

~~~
Psyonic
I disagree. Not with PG, but with a quote from him being a worthwhile comment.
The OP was sincere; I think he deserved an actual response, not a robotic one
listing the relevant entry in the works of PG.

------
tommi
The article kind of contradicts itself:

Earlier: "Of course, this doesn’t mean put up false testimonials... create
fake real-time activity"

Later on advocating: "[REDACTED] takes their real-time user numbers and
multiplies them by a randomly generated number. Whereas before, it would say
“6 users online,” it would say “68 users online.”

That it is pure lying and it is bad.

~~~
sahillavingia
It doesn't mean you should, but many startups do anyways. Yeah, it is lying,
and it is bad. But if that's going to increase your conversions by a
significant amount, that benefit may outweigh the moral cost.

Note: I've never done anything like this (lying to users about numbers or
what-have-you).

~~~
lukeqsee
> But if that's going to increase your conversions by a significant amount,
> that benefit may outweigh the moral cost.

It's never right to do wrong to get the opportunity to do right. Morals do not
budge.

~~~
derefr
You mean, _your system of virtue-based ethics_ do not budge. My system of
consequentialist ethics do.

~~~
lukeqsee
You may disagree, but I mean what I say.

My morals do not budge; this is due to the Originator thereof never changing.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immutability_(theology)>

~~~
derefr
And what I meant is that the word "morals" an empty node
(<http://lesswrong.com/lw/nm/disguised_queries/>) in objective-definition-
space, and needs to be broken down into its constituent definitions—which, in
your case, means virtue-based ethics. There is no property of "morality" that
you have that cannot be explained by your being a virtue ethicist; thus, you
must dissolve the idea altogether.

~~~
lukeqsee
I believe you are missing my point: I am not a virtue-based ethics. Edit:
Forgive me if I'm missing your point.

I am a Bible-based ethicist, the Bible originated with God, Who never changes;
ergo, His morals (or ethics, as you wish) are immutable. Those ethics have
been revealed to us via the Bible and our consciences. That's where my ethics
originate. (That doesn't mean or imply my execution of them is perfect.)

Call it deo-ethics, if you will, but it doesn't fall into virtue-based ethics
(as defined by the Wikipedia article, if you want another definition, please
provide it).

~~~
derefr
Virtue ethics and consequentialism form a one-dimensional spectrum; all
ethical beliefs exist at some point along it (not to imply that ethical
beliefs don't have other dimensions—just that this is one of them.)

Pure virtue ethics mean, basically, "I am doing things for reasons." Even if
the the reasons don't help you to get what you want, they're still your
beliefs. Pure consequentialist ethics is the classic "the ends justify the
means"; that it is the results that are important, and any reason you believe
is simply a proxy that increases your likelihood of obtaining the result.

Whether a system of ethics is deontologically derived is orthogonal to this:
you can take your beliefs from God as an a-priori fact about yourself (like in
Descartes' argument for the existence of God), and therefore have them be
virtue-based; or you can act so that god will reward you, or won't punish you,
or so that your peer-group of religious people will identify with you, etc.

 _Morality_ , in the classic definition, refers to an objectively-true
ethics—e.g., one where people who don't believe those ethics are _wrong_ for
doing so. As far as I am aware, there is no modern religion that actually
still supports moral, rather than ethical reasoning, at least when it comes to
prescribing the actions of others, rather than our own internal deisions. This
is what "tolerance" truly means: the sacrifice of a belief in the existence of
objective morality for the consequence of cultural co-operation and empathy.

Of course, there is another, more modern definition of morality, which people
think of as "personal morality"—the way you believe the world should be,
whether or not anyone else believes it. Rather than overloading the word like
that, it's easier to just use a piece of economics jargon to refer to this:
this is your _utility function_ (a combination of what could be called
"conscience" and what could also be called "desire"—it is simply the part of
your mind that tells you whether or not a given thing is "good", for any
definition of the term.)

One of the most useful things to come into a discussion with is a set of
clearly-defined terms; they're like sharp chisels for chipping off useless
argument and getting to the point where you can say something that's provably
true. :)

~~~
mkramlich
> One of the most useful things to come into a discussion with is a set of
> clearly-defined terms

Agreed. And it is why in part I dislike talking about philosophy or religion
with most people, especially in a live face-to-face exchange. Because most of
the problem is going to be from having each person use a different definition
for each important word being tossed around (love, hate, good, evil, "God",
free will, etc.)

------
dabent
"Quora‘s staff started off answering as many questions as they could. This
helped create a site that had activity on it, which encouraged other users to
participate. Suddenly, they didn’t have to spend hours answering questions
themselves."

This reminds me of something one of the speakers (I'm pretty sure it was
Quora's founder) said at Startup School - It's OK to do something that doesn't
scale if it strengthens your position.

~~~
blasdel
Quora also has a pernicious design feature in that the question asker is
publicly anonymous but the answerer(s) are strongly identified and bound to
their real names.

I _strongly_ suspect that nearly all of the startup-related questions are
slow-pitch setups, asked by their answerer.

Even StackOverflow's QA mechanics aren't _that_ degenerate!

~~~
kqr2
Actually, both the question asker and answerer can choose to be anonymous.

As far as I know though, you cannot ask anonymously and then answer the same
question publicly.

Also, note that you _cannot_ comment on questions and answers if you are
anonymous (unless you are the person who originally asked the question or its
your anonymous answer)

------
mortenjorck
Interesting. To me, the solutions you mention run a gamut of grey-hattedness:
I'd call social hacks like the invite-only method perfectly white-hat, while
outright inflation of current user numbers seems a bit shady (I'd either just
automatically omit the display below a certain threshold or use a wider time
range, such as the past 24 hours). Either way, these encourage some useful
thought processes.

~~~
daeken
I received a piece of advice from a businessman once: All businesses start in
the grey. Is that a good thing? Not really. Is that a bad thing? Well... not
necessarily.

~~~
saikat
This seems like a piece of advice that sacrifices truthfulness for wit.

------
lkrubner
On WPQuestions.com, we corralled our friends and gave them the money to ask
some of the first questions. In fact, of the first 10 questions on the site, I
think 6 were from friends of ours. All the same, during the first few hours we
were open, we did get one question from a total stranger, and by the end of
the day we had revenue of something like $5, which allowed us to joke that we
had made more money on our first day than Twitter had made during its first 2
years. And now that we are rolling our software out for others to use, I've
been giving the same advice to the people on our waiting list: be ready to
line up the first few transactions yourself, because the first few are the
toughest. You need to create the momentum yourself. WPQuestions.com has now
had 606 paid questions, and we haven't needed to force our friends to post
questions since the first week, many months ago. But I think it was essential
that we put some friends up to it that first week. Mind you, this wasn't
totally faking it, since most of the questions were real questions that our
friends were struggling with.

One thing I still do (I did it just this morning in fact) is increase the
prize for a customer, when that customer has had a problem with the site, and
we pay for the increase out of our own pocket. For instance, just today, I
added to the prize for this question:
<http://www.wpquestions.com/question/show/id/1160> . But I do not regard that
as faking it, I simply regard that as good customer support and good customer
relations.

------
ryanwaggoner
Is this fundamentally different from lying to investors and telling them that
you have more traction than you do, or even altering your financials? Yes,
that would be illegal and telling users you have more users than you do
probably isn't, I'm not sure they're that different ethically.

------
janj
I'm always amused finding new iPhone apps with four 5-star reviews submitted
the day the app was released, always sounding like an infomercial. Gotta say
I've been tempted to seed some reviews and five stars (especially to try and
bury others that are mistaken or just lying) but it's never happened.

I have created a mobile product with hundreds, maybe thousands of happy users.
When I finally get to adding the social aspect of it there will be no need for
faking it. I'm really anxious to get on to that phase, if anyone wants to help
out let me know.

------
hsuresh
If you are at a restaurant that just opened, you would find that they are
extra nice to you. I would expect a startup to do the same, be extra nice to
your early customers. I disagree that faking, or lying is the answer.

------
cookiecaper
It seems that most successful "chicken-and-egg" sites, sites that depend on a
reasonably-sized userbase before anyone would want to use it, only achieved
success through astroturfing (creating fake accounts and pretending like
you're someone else).

Personally I find such activity deceptive and immoral, though I don't think
it's particularly grievous. Does anyone know how to start a site that depends
on a significant userbase without a huge amount of astroturfing? I'd imagine
the only way is to either have a lot of really good friends who will help you,
pay a bunch of people to use the site until the real userbase gets large
enough, or advertise very aggressively so that lots of people are using it
right away.

------
iampims
Yelp started by paying users to leave reviews and got a serious backlash for
doing this.

The nature of the “items” being displayed/created also plays a major role in
this, because unless you own a few dozens cars, starting a _classified ads
site for cars_ with only yours, is not going to get you far.

Several dating sites got in troubles for adding fake accounts with attractive
pictures to lure people to sign up for their paid service. That is a line you
do not want to cross…

------
devmonk
I want to find out whose company name was redacted from the post.

------
bialecki
I liken this to when you try to get a group of friends to do anything. For the
sake of argument, let's say go to the movies or to a bar. If you have go to
friends, you can seed your group there, but what after that? Almost everyone
says, "a bunch of people are doing..." and it's kind of a lie because they
don't know if people will go, they're saying that so other people will want to
go. And this technique works wonders.

I don't have a problem with people applying this technique to their business,
pretty much everyone does. The problem is you need to be careful with it
because at the end of the day, it's still a lie and you still need to make
money.

------
shanes
The best graphic designers listen to the nerds, the sales team, the CEOs, the
VPs, and every stake-holder in between. They design a "look" that pleases the
CEO, who sells it to the board, who tells the VPs to implement it, who tell
the sales team to accept it, who tell the nerds to build it.

The best designers are not prima donnas who force their ideas on the company.
They build the design the big guy wants, takes the check, and waits for the
VPs to call him back to make changes.

------
jhrobert
Another option: pre-fill some content with some FB or Twitter content.

Then you have "users".

Whenever a user's "front' page is visited, increase that user's counter, and
then display popular users on the main page.

Sure, you don't have true "true active" users, but at least it's users that
generate some activity, indirectly.

If some users become popular, chances are they'll want to have a look at your
service.

This might be a very bad idea, your call.

------
joshklein
And when will you stop taking short cuts? If you do stop, will you find out
that your business wasn't truly viable? So will you continue taking the short
cut, even then?

------
lukeqsee
Another brilliant post, keep up the good work.

I think many startups fail _because_ they don't fake it until they can make
it. (I've been on that end a couple times myself.)

------
vaksel
you gotta fake it till you make it, otherwise you are just shooting yourself
in the foot.

Being big is validation for most people, they figure if you got big, then you
must have something to offer, and at the very least you won't scam them.

This is especially true for communities, since noone wants to be the first one
there.

------
ssing
I would say using faking is little harsh. All you are doing is providing seed
data.

~~~
adambyrtek
> [REDACTED] takes their real-time user numbers and multiplies them by a
> randomly generated number. Whereas before, it would say “6 users online,” it
> would say “68 users online.”

This sounds pretty much like faking, maybe even cheating.

------
partition
I would personally caution against the championing, if not the individual
embracing of such an idea. This looks like a 'race to the bottom' to me.

Consider what happens in the long run. Sooner or later people will either
catch on or get used to a website always having users or content, no matter
how new or actually fake it is.

Some or all of these things may happen:

1\. Online communications between 'people,' real or fake, becomes devalued.
They are already devalued with the flood of people with bad taste. Of course,
one can argue that communication is value in itself; the feeling of
connecting. In that case I have a great startup idea; one that makes you talk
with chat bots but feels like actually conversing. If you use sophisticated
enough text generation techniques and market it to stupid/desperate enough
people I seriously think this could work to some extent.

2\. You will have to work extra, putting in fake content, just to launch a
socially-oriented website. Otherwise it will not get off the ground. I await
the day until a website has to send me flowers through the mail in order to
grab my attention. Perhaps this is a good thing, because there are already
more than enough socially-oriented websites.

But what can we do about it now?

One can take the view that this was a great blog post. Not only because it has
named startups that use this approach, so the more principled of us have extra
data on which kind of people are honest enough to do business with, but people
of varying degrees of honesty have come out in the comments section, some
virtually boasting of their 'faking it' techniques. We now have more data; you
may now do as you wish with it.

Reflect on the business culture and environment that requires this sort of
behavior and make a decision; is this the kind of thing I want to associate
myself with?

