22 bot rules

22 BOT RULESAlex Godin, Founder & CEO, slash-hyphen

June 2016

👋

Let’s get something out of the way

👋

I love bots but…

most bots are dumb

some bots are powerful

@alex_godin | slash-hyphen subscribe: letters.slash-hyphen.com

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Let’s look at some strategies for building powerful bots instead of dumb ones





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RULE 1bots are about the platform





If I asked everyone here what a “bot” was

you would all have different answers


A bot is any software application that lives in a messaging tool.





It doesn’t need to be a text based interface.





It just needs to live in a messaging platform.





Whether it’s Telegram, WeChat, Facebook, Slack or another platform, the power of bots is that they

LIVE IN A TOOL WE ALREADY USE




RULE 2look to the future






THIS IS HOW YOU BOOK A DOCTOR IN WECHATIt doesn’t look like most of the “bots” we see today.





THIS IS HOW YOU BOOK A DOCTOR IN WECHATWeChat has a BILLION users. Their platform is used like crazy.





This interface has 27 buttons




This interface has 2 buttons

All of the platforms are building towards a WeChat future.


THE BOTS OF THE FUTURE LOOK A LOT LIKE APPS




RULE 3@alex_godin | slash-hyphen

subscribe: letters.slash-hyphen.com

context is powerful




Name Hillary Clinton Age 68 years old Gender Female

From Chappaqua, NY

Building on a platform means that you know a huge amount about your users on day one.


Name Hillary Clinton Age 68 years old Gender Female

From Chappaqua, NY

Slack tells you about how they work Facebook tells you about who they are

Twillio now lets you learn about who they are





“Meekan schedule a team meeting tomorrow at noon”

Meekan is a bot that helps schedule meetings.






If it were an iPhone app, everyone on the team would need to install it.






Instead, it lives in Slack, where it has access to your team by default. The Slack platform enables new kinds of apps.




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RULE 4it’s about to get noisy





TAKE A STEP BACK@alex_godin | slash-hyphen


Why are we talking about bots? Two words.





Mobile! Social! Local!VENTURE

CAPITALISTSA bunch of VCs decided to give money to bot companies

and now everyone needs a darn bot strategy.





WE ARE HERE

This is the Gartner hype cycle at work. Tech comes in waves…




Social Networks@alex_godin | slash-hyphen


Before bots we had




Mobile Apps@alex_godin | slash-hyphen


Before bots we had




Mobile Social Apps@alex_godin | slash-hyphen


Before bots we had




Mobile Social Video Apps


Then we got




Mobile Social Video Apps


Then we got

There was one week in 2011 when 11 “Instagram for

video” apps launched




These apps all launched in 2011 Only one is Snapchat

The rest are dead Sorry google+

250,000+In 2011

Apps launched on the app store


That is to say, get ready for a deluge of bots




you are not special





RULE 5it doesn’t have to be mass market






In a crowded market one winning strategy is to build niche apps





You only need a small percentage of FB Messenger’s 1 billion users to build a great

business




RULE 6@alex_godin | slash-hyphen


time adds up





Now a quick story about a hero named Larry.





Larry works at Meetup. He built a bot that lets employees save 10 seconds by bringing data from an admin dashboard into Slack.

It gets used hundreds of times a day.




1 minute/day x 100 people =

300 hours a year@alex_godin | slash-hyphen


That time adds up:




1 minute/day =

300 hours a year@alex_godin | slash-hyphen


That time adds up:

How many ways are there to save 1 minute a day.




RULE 7context switches take time





As developers we’ve built command line tools and added monitors to avoid

context switching

Bots like Larry’s let us do that for non-devs.

RULE 7.5structure things people are already are doing





THERE ARE SO MANY PROCESSES THAT CAN BE TURNED INTO BOTS

why try to create a new behavior?

1.Find existing behavior 2.Bot it 3.Profit


DON’T INVENT NEW BEHAVIOR




RULE 8redefine conversations





H0WDY.AI IS A GREAT BOTit takes synchronous meetings and parallelizes them.


Someone on the team triggers Howdy.1.


Someone on the team triggers Howdy.

Howdy goes out and asks everyone a question.

1.2.


Someone on the team triggers Howdy.

Howdy goes out and asks everyone a question.

Howdy turns the answers into a simple report.

1.2.3.


Just because a conversation or process used to happen one way, doesn’t mean

computers can’t restructure it.




RULE 9avoid disaster, use humans to filter





Blossom bot is the #1 best bot of all time





It was built in house at the New York Times






It was built in house at the New York TimesIt uses ML to identify stories that are prime to go viral






It was built in house at the New York TimesIt uses ML to identify stories that are prime to go viralStories it finds get 3.4x more views






Blossom could connect to Twitter.






Instead, it connects to Slack where the social media editors can have a conversation about what makes sense for each of their 100+ social media accounts.





RULE 10eliminate decisions





Imagine two ways to order a pizza


🍕





PIZZA APP ONE Super custom

Customize volume of each topping Pick your cheese type





PIZZA APP TWO Push a button

Get a pizza




WHICH MAKES IS A BETTER BOT?

currate to avoid decisions

RULE 11build guard rails





Even simple bots can go awry.

If your bot feels like it can answer anything, people will ask it anything.

DON’T MAKE IT FEEL LIKE IT CAN ANSWER ANYTHING






RULE 12understand your platform





RULE understand your platform

Build experiences that make sense for the platform you’re on. Target their audience and speak their language.





A TALE OF TWO BOTS

helps teens deal with anxiety and depression

helps journalists find breaking news





A TALE OF TWO BOTS

Lives on Kik. Lives on Slack.




RULE 13other people need bots too





THE SLACK APP STORE IS 5 MONTHS OLD

THERE ARE MORE THAN 6 STANDUP BOTS

DEVELOPERS. DEVELOPERS. DEVELOPERS. DEVELOPERS.people other than

need bots

We love helping everyone in a company (not just developers) use custom bots to

get more done in Slack. Interested? Send us an email [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

RULE 14be sustainable






many of the “ai” bots are actually

PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE COMPUTERS PRETENDING TO BE PEOPLE





That’s cool but…

MAKE SURE YOU CAN PAY THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE BOTS.





💰 pay your people 💰




💰 pay your people 💰 X.ai, Clara and Fin all charge subscriptions for this reason





RULE 15 no one cares





No one (outside of SF) is sitting at home frantically searching for

BOTS! Just like in 2011 no one was googling for

“social network with disappearing photos”

RULE 16this is new. no one knows what to expect.





The last bot most people used was an unsophisticated toy

RULE 17make starting easy






/operator

Onboarding is key with a new paradigm.

Growbot has a command that lets you talk to a human right inside the bot.




https://twitter.com/trygrowbot

RULE 18don’t build a commodity






THIS GUY IS BUMMED OUTbecause all toilet paper is the same.

toilet paper is a commodity.





THE SWITCHING COST IS LOWif you’re not careful, your bot will become

an easily replaced commodity.





THE SWITCHING COST IS LOWcan you add network effects?




RULE 19don’t expect promotion






IF YOU LAUNCHED A FART APP OR A FLASHLIGHT APP ON IOS IN 2008you could get a million downloads





THESE DAYS THE APP STORE IS MUCH MORE CROWDED





EVEN IF YOU LAUNCHED A COMBO FART/FLASHLIGHT APP…

you would get about 12 downloads





PLATFORM APP STORES ARE A GREAT WAY TO GET YOUR FIRST BUNCH OF USERS




but they’re not a sustainable growth strategy

no one says it won’t be nativeRULE 20

2 YEARS AGO: SCREENHERO LAUNCHES SCREENSHARING FOR SLACK

1 YEAR AGO: SCREENHERO BECOMES NATIVE SCREENSHARING IN SLACK

HOW DOES SKYPE FEEL?

RULE 21don’t get hacked






WHEN YOU HAVE ACCESS TO SOMEONE’S MESSAGES YOU HAVE ACCESS TO SOMEONE’S LIFE




WHEN YOU HAVE ACCESS TO SOMEONE’S MESSAGES YOU HAVE ACCESS TO SOMEONE’S LIFE

don’t get hacked





RULE 22always bring a towel





RULE 22always bring a towel


SORRY! I’M A NERD…




JUST DON’T BLOW IT@alex_godin | slash-hyphen


ok. bots are great.




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22 bot rules

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