What I Learned From Developing Branding for Airbnb, Dropbox and Thumbtack

"There are plenty of theories for why YouTube became one of the fastest growing startups in Silicon Valley history. Julie Supan says the reason is simple: “We sold the emotion.”

When she became the company’s first head of marketing and communications in December 2005, she immediately hunkered down with its cofounders to decide what—and who—they were about. Unlike other video-sharing sites at the time (and it’s easy to forget now that there were hundreds), YouTube was built in Flash (every other product required people to download software), it didn’t curate long-form professional content, or take the celebrity-driven approach that many advisors were suggesting. They weren’t even particularly concerned about video quality." Read more

First Round Review