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All Quotes by author - Alan Schaaf
" As long as we continue to bring in more traffic, I'm much more concerned with building a good user experience and developing tools that will help grow the Imgur community of users. "
Community
Help
Good
" Being bootstrapped is great. You own 100 percent of it. But the downside is that you aren't able to move as fast as you want. "
Want
Own
Move
" Entrepreneurship, to me, means that you're a psychopath. The world doesn't work in the way you want it to, and you have a vision for how it should work. Unlike everyone else, this isn't OK with you. You have to go out, against every possible odd, and do something about it. That's what makes you crazy. "
Work
Vision
Me
" GIFs work because the punch line is instantaneous. It's entirely different from almost any other form of content on the Internet, which takes time to consume. "
Time
Work
Content
" Honestly, I could care less about business development. "
Less
Care
Business
" I don't have much time to read. I'm more of a problem solver. I'll have an idea or a problem, and I'll learn what's necessary in order to do the idea or solve the problem. If I need to read a book, then I will, but it usually comes down to researching on the Internet and reading blog posts. "
Time
Reading
Problem
" If a whole bunch of users want a specific feature, and we think that feature is pretty cool, too, that that's just what we'll do. "
Too
Cool
Just
" Imgur has always been profitable right from the very beginning, and the only time I ever had to spend money on it was for the initial domain name because as soon as I released it, people liked it so much that they were donating, and so Imgur survived for the first six months just purely on donations. "
Time
Beginning
Money
" Imgur is a data-driven company, and our community is our most important signal. But you can't perfectly plot humans neatly into a chart. It takes someone with instincts and empathy to truly understand the community and represent them in all of the company decisions. "
Community
You
Plot
" Imgur is all about images, some of which may be photos but don't have to be. "
About
Photos
Which
" Imgur offers a rare place for people to express themselves in a real way without the fear of social judgment. Everyone has an equal chance of sharing their story to millions of people because it's not about who you are but about the quality of your content. "
Story
Fear
Quality
" I'm probably most proud of the fact that we are bootstrapped and that we are able to do not just the typical Silicon Valley startup thing. We are basically throwing away all the typical conventions of other startups. "
Fact
Away
Just
" I'm proud that I've been able to attract an incredible team to work with me. "
Attract
Work
Team
" I'm the type of manager who doesn't really like the word 'manage.' Nor do I really like the word 'boss.' I like to look at myself as more as a leader. "
Boss
Who
Myself
" In the early days, it was enough for Imgur to have a team that was focused on building product and engineering. But I realized early on if we were going to be successful, we needed someone who would be a bridge between the company and community. "
Early
Community
Bridge
" My favorite interview question is, 'If you could have a superpower, what would it be?' "
Favorite
You
Question
" Not only do Imgurians get the opportunity to find the content that they love but also serve up their favorite content to others who visit their profiles. "
Opportunity
Content
Love
" One of my favorite sci-fi books is 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card. I would recommend it to anyone who loves sci-fi. It's a perfect intro to sci-fi. "
Favorite
Books
Game
" People come home from work, and they just want to unwind. "
Work
Want
People
" The successful entrepreneurs that I see have two characteristics: self-awareness and persistence. They're able to see problems in their companies through their self-awareness and be persistent enough to solve them. "
Problems
See
Successful
" We're not going the photography route. I think there is a real distinction between photos and images, and Flickr is for photos, and Instagram is for photos. You wouldn't put a filter on a meme; you'd put a filter on top of a photo that came from your camera. "
You
Meme
Photography
" We've talked with over a dozen VCs and angel investors over the years. But we've never clicked with any of them until Andreessen. During our initial meeting, we were bouncing ideas around about where Imgur could go. "
Meeting
Ideas
Go
" We want people on the Internet to go to Imgur for their viral image fix. And what's so awesome about images vs. videos is that instant gratification. "
Awesome
Go
Fix
" When I come into the office, the first thing I do is I plan out what I want to accomplish that day. I write it down in my notebook and make sure I accomplish it before I leave that day. "
Down
Office
Plan
" When I was a student, I was working at the technology call center, where students call in if they can't get their email to work or something. A minimum-wage kind of job. "
Kind
Work
Technology
" When I was in high school and college, I'd always been into websites, and when you'd read about sites and the companies and people behind them, they were always in Silicon Valley. This one's in Mountain View, this one's in Palo Alto. They're all right here. I knew I wanted to move out here, whether it was to work at Google or some other company. "
People
Mountain
College
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