How Instagram started and what Entrepreneurs can learn from it | How Started
Instagram is huge, no doubt. Has over 1 billion monthly and 500 million daily active users.
Acording to Wikipedia Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social networking service founded in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and later acquired by American company Facebook Inc. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users’ content by tag and location, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed.
The main character of this story is ‘Kevin Systrom’. After Kevin graduated from college he started working in the field of product development and marketing at Google for 3 years. After Google, he started working at NextStep, which will be acquired by Facebook.
While working at NextStep he started thinking about an app where you share and socialize. At this point, there is no idea about sharing photos “which is the main goal of Instagram”.
Kevin goes to work in the morning and tries to learn to code in the evenings to bring his idea to life.
Then he build the prototype of his idea which is called “Burbn”. He shares this prototype among his friends (Around 80–90 people).
Lesson 1 - Pay attention to the prototype
Unfortunately, ideas and drawings of a design can sometimes be a far cry from the real world in which the product will be used. By creating a prototype it is possible to sit down with a real version of the product and determine which aspects are worthwhile and which parts need to be revised, changed, or discarded. In the process, it may be possible to find glaring omissions that, on paper, weren’t noticeable.
Additionally, creating a prototype will allow the design team to not only evaluate but also test the product before going into full production. Imagine ordering tens of thousands of units, only to discover one part isn’t as strong as it needs to be. If corporate giants can make mistakes, it is all the more important for smaller companies to not forget the importance of prototyping before beginning production.
(Source: schmitprototypes.com)
While developing his prototype “Burbn” Kevin meets an investor named Steve Anderson (He talks about it in the future as his greatest achievement in his life). At this point, Kevin made the prototype phase of the application, and it has been set to receive notifications for each record. Seeing so many sign-up notifications while showing the prototype to investor Steve Anderson, he asks Kevin if it’s fiction. But at the end of the meeting, Steve agreed to invest 250.000$ in Kevin’s idea. But Steve suggests Kevin find a new partner, which will be Mike Krieger.
That investment takes the attention of other investors in Silicon Valley. In this way, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger raise half a million dollar investment without even offices.
Lesson 2 - Know when to Quit
There are several cases where people quit their job to start their own business and end up with a bad career and a failed startup. But there have been cases where they’ve succeeded too. The point here is to be careful and know when to quit your job. Kevin didn’t quit his job until the first meeting and he raised half a million dollars just 2 weeks later.
(Source: financialexpress.com)
While all this is happening Mike suggested that Kevin ask why users are using the App instead of investigating why they are not using the App. In this way, he could focus on the wishes of the users. At this point, Instagram focuses on things like location sharing, places you want to go next, Hanging out with friends and earning points, etc.
After listening to Mike’s advice, they quickly realized that most users use Instagram to share their photos more than any other feature. Also, when Kevin is on vacation with his wife, his wife tells him that she likes their apps but she can’t take good pictures and says his friend Greg takes much better pictures. After talking to Greg, Kevin realizes that Greg has added loads of effects to beautify his photos. After these researches, Kevin and Mike decided to change their app direction from location sharing to photo sharing.
Lesson 3 - Don’t be afraid to change direction
It’s easy for an entrepreneur to be really attached to their idea. Many successful projects start with an idea, but over time it evolves into different ideas, and the idea that finally succeeds is actually very different from the first idea.
Through the startup process, you go meet investors, pitch your model, raise investments, etc. Your company has been doing good, but what happens when the progress comes to a halt? How does the startup react when the initial plan fails or expectations aren’t met? Unfortunately, many startups give up at this time. Systrom didn’t. He didn’t even raise a concern about changing the company model because he was rational, he knew there are many apps already in the market like that and it’s eventually going to fail.
Instagram was published on the app store 8 weeks after this idea and reached 25 thousand users in the first 24 hours and 10 million users in a year
Bonus Lesson - Killing features
Killing a feature/s, that you designed day and night and fought hard for to be launched, can be hard. But, now, your product needs to focus to maintain its value. Kevin without a doubt just went for it. He killed all features in the app making UI much cleaner, interactive, and also easy to operate. With just a few features, users were able to adopt it, use it, and share through it.
Conclusion
From a handful of users, Instagram soon went on to become the number one photography app making over 100,000 users in just one week and then increasing it to a million in 2 months. According to Systrom, the app only took 8 weeks to build and was soon acquired by Facebook at a billion in 2012.
Lastly
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