Founders at Work.pdf

C H A P T E R
8
Evan Williams
Cofounder, Pyra Labs
(Blogger.com)
Evan Williams cofounded Pyra Labs in 1999. Originally,
Pyra intended to build a web-based project
management tool. Williams developed Blogger to
manage his personal weblog, and it quickly became
an important mechanism for sharing ideas internally
at Pyra.
Once launched publicly, Blogger grew rapidly,
and Pyra Labs decided to focus on it full-time. But
Blogger.com did not generate a lot of revenue at first,
and as the Bubble deflated in 2001, Pyra seemed near
death. Williams remained as the only employee and
managed to bring the company back from the brink. By 2003, Blogger had one
million registered users. That attracted the attention of Google, who made Pyra
their first acquisition. Williams left Google in 2004 to cofound a podcasting
company called Odeo.
Livingston: Tell me about how you started Pyra Labs.
Williams: I have always been pretty entrepreneurial, and I had started a couple
of other companies. In late ’98 when I decided to start Pyra, I had been doing
Internet stuff for about 5 years. I actually started a company in Nebraska.
I had never even really worked anywhere. I was just totally self-taught technically,
but I started a company and kind of ran it into the ground over 3 years
or so, and it was a very educational, painful experience. But I knew I was going
to do that again. I just always knew I was going to start my own thing.
I went to college, and I dropped out because I didn’t need to have a
degree—because I wasn’t going to try to get a job with anyone. I came to
California after playing with the Internet for a few years because Nebraska
wasn’t the place to be, very clearly.
I moved to California to take a job with O’Reilly, which ended up being very
fortunate as you’ll find out later. I worked there for a few months, though I
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