How Discord Became a Developer Platform - The a16z Show Recap

Podcast: The a16z Show

Published: 2024-05-10

Duration: 2544

Guests: Jason Citron, Anjney Midha

What Happened

Discord co-founder and CEO Jason Citron began his journey in 2009 by building tools and infrastructure for games, leading to the creation of Discord in 2015. Originally a voice and text chat app for small gaming guilds, Discord has evolved into a platform with over 200 million monthly active users. The platform's growth is attributed to its community-driven development, allowing users to directly influence features like server size and moderation bots.

Anjney Midha, a16z General Partner, merged his company Ubiquity6 with Discord in 2021, highlighting Discord's commitment to expand its platform capabilities. The recent release of embeddable apps has made it easier for developers to build on Discord, resulting in over 20,000 new activities and 4 billion minutes of user interaction per day since the launch. This shift marks Discord's transition from a gaming-focused platform to a broader developer ecosystem.

Discord's infrastructure supports cross-platform gaming experiences, offering developers tools like the Activities SDK and Embedded Apps SDK. These enable the creation of rich visual interactive experiences using HTML5, reducing the need for developers to build their own social graphs and authentication systems. This open API approach has facilitated the emergence of unexpected extensions, including moderation bots and generative AI tools.

Jason Citron's early interest in games was sparked by playing 'Where in the World is Carmen San Diego' with his dad, and he learned to code at age 13. His early ventures included launching one of the first 50 titles on the App Store, Aurora Faint, and creating OpenFeint, a social network for mobile gaming. These experiences laid the groundwork for Discord's development as a platform that supports creativity and innovation.

The platform's open infrastructure and vast user base offer massive distribution potential for developers, making Discord an attractive option for game and AI app developers. MidJourney is a significant example of a company built on Discord's platform, showcasing the potential for consumer AI businesses. Discord's app development process involves ideation, launch, and monetization, with the platform now working on making it easier for developers to monetize their apps.

Discord aggregates users with specific interests, aiding startups and companies in finding product-market fit through direct feedback loops. Luma, a generative AI model, attracted a substantial community on Discord, demonstrating the platform's ability to engage users for product development and feedback. Discord's journey has been about solving communication and collaboration pain points, evolving from a simple chat app to a robust developer platform.

Key Insights