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My First MillionThreads Becomes The Fastest Growing App Of All Time... (#473)
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WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Threads vs Twitter debate, plus Sam Ovens on Skool growth
- Shaan Puri and Sam Parr lay out a bull and bear case for Threads, centering the debate on whether Meta’s execution and distribution can turn a Twitter-like product into a mainstream habit.
- They describe Threads’ early growth as unprecedented and argue that even modest conversion from Instagram could make it larger than Twitter without requiring mass switching from existing Twitter power users.
- They argue Twitter has hurt itself by adding friction and that Meta may win by delivering better onboarding, feed quality, and culture-setting moderation—advantages Twitter historically struggled with.
- They also outline reasons Threads could fail, including high churn after novelty, Twitter’s entrenched “news and sports” content ecosystem, creator lock-in, and missing product basics like DMs and desktop use.
- In the second half, Sam Ovens explains how he built Consulting.com into a large ad-driven course business, why he later restructured it around customer value, and how he is now building Skool as a creator community platform with a compounding community-creation loop.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasThreads’ launch velocity (100M users in ~5 days) is presented as a major bullish signal.
They argue this early traction matters because it was driven by Instagram’s existing user base and the claim that the product hasn’t been heavily promoted yet, suggesting more growth could come from cross-promotion inside Meta’s ecosystem.
The debate hinges on “Twitter is unpopular by nature” vs “Twitter was poorly executed.”
Shaan frames the key question as whether people abandoned Twitter because the core text-and-follow model isn’t broadly appealing, or because Twitter’s product execution (onboarding, feed quality, spam/abuse handling, ads) wasn’t good enough; that answer determines whether Threads retains new users.
Twitter’s self-inflicted product friction is positioned as fuel for Threads’ rise.
Both hosts say Twitter has repeatedly added friction (paywalls/limits/login walls), which they believe makes it easier for a competitor to win users without even being dramatically better—just less annoying.
Twitter’s “key content” and creator lock-in are central to the bear case against Threads.
Shaan emphasizes Twitter’s entrenched strengths—news, sports, journalists, athletes, and creators who built audiences over a decade—and notes Threads launched as a clone missing features like DMs and a desktop experience, creating reasons users may not stick.
Culture-setting via algorithms and moderation is treated as a competitive advantage for Threads.
Sam Parr and Shaan describe Threads as feeling more positive than Twitter and credit Meta’s experience with moderation and ranking as an “invisible feature” that can shape behavior and retention by suppressing toxicity and spam.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesIf your biggest crime is cringe, you're doing all right. You know what I mean?
— Shaan Puri
Twitter is basically the most abandoned product, I think, ever. So more than a billion people have signed up for Twitter or tried Twitter and then been like, "Nah."
— Shaan Puri
It's not Threads killing you. This is you killing you.
— Shaan Puri
Like, "You're also here at 3:00 PM on a Tuesday."
— Shaan Puri
Well, a lot of people just wanna make money. Like, that one was annoying. So, like, if you just put a jet in something, or a fancy car, or a, a New York apartment, like, it works so well that it's, it's annoying 'cause you're like, "Oh, do I have to do that shit?"
— Sam Ovens
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SPEAKERS
Shaan Puri
hostEntrepreneur and co-host of the My First Million podcast.
Sam Parr
hostEntrepreneur (founder of The Hustle) and co-host of the My First Million podcast.
Sam Ovens
guestEntrepreneur; founder of Consulting.com and CEO of the community platform Skool.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
