Instagram: 7 insta-worthy lessons from turning a weekend project into a billion dollar biz

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Hey rebel solopreneurs 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️

Think your simple idea isn't worth millions of dollars?

Wrong!

Kevin Systrom thought the same thing when he stripped down his complex app to just photo sharing.

He worried that something so basic - just adding filters to photos - couldn't possibly be valuable.

But here's the crazy part: that "too simple" idea became Instagram and sold for $1 billion.

You're about to discover why simple ideas can create massive value.

Let's investigate his secret formula!

🍹 The humble beginnings...

Kevin Systrom was born in Massachusetts to parents who embraced learning and entrepreneurship.

His mom worked at Monster.com during the first tech boom and later Zipcar, always eager to try new things.

As a fourth-grader, Kevin tried selling candy from his locker but admits he was "pretty bad at that."

Kids thought he was creepy for pushing candy on strangers.

Get this - his coding pranks in high school got so intense they blocked the family's entire AOL account.

But here's where it gets interesting - in high school, his passion completely shifted from computers to music and DJing.

He pestered a vinyl record store on Newbury Street until they gave him a job.

Soon he was sneaking into Boston clubs with older friends to DJ real shows.

At Stanford, he planned to study computer science but found the classes too academic.

He switched to management science and engineering for more practical subjects.

In his spare time, he built websites including a Stanford Craigslist and Photobox for his fraternity's party photos.

During study abroad in Florence, a professor took away his expensive camera and gave him a cheap Holga.

Surprisingly, Kevin loved the low-fi, retro photos it produced.

He interned at Odeo where he met Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, future Twitter co-founders.

After graduation, he took a $60,000 marketing job at Google working on Gmail and Calendar.

Three years later, he grew restless in the corporate environment despite learning about big tech deals.

He left for NextStop, a social travel site where he could finally write code and create apps.

But Kevin's real breakthrough was still brewing in the background...

1. 🎯 Stop trying to be everything to everyone

Kevin spent months building Burbn, a complex app that combined location check-ins, social gaming, and photo sharing.

Picture this - it was basically a mashup of Foursquare and Zynga with multiple features competing for attention.

Users found it "cluttered" and "overrun with features" despite generating tech blog buzz.

The app wasn't gaining real traction because it lacked focus.

But wait - when Mike Krieger joined as co-founder, they took a hard look at user behavior.

Here's what they discovered: one feature stood out - photo sharing was the most popular part of Burbn.

So they made the incredibly risky decision to scrap almost everything and start over.

This brutal pivot was just the beginning of their transformation...

2. 💪 Embrace the fear of starting over

Kevin had already raised $500,000 from top VCs like Marc Andreessen for Burbn.

Can you imagine the pressure?

Starting from scratch meant potentially disappointing investors and admitting the original vision was wrong.

But here's the thing - Kevin and Mike recognized that building something people truly wanted was more important than protecting their egos.

They spent eight weeks methodically stripping down Burbn and rebuilding it as a photo-only app.

Here's how they divided the work: Mike handled the iOS design while Kevin worked on back-end code.

But wait - even after finishing, they weren't excited about what they'd built and felt something was still missing.

The missing piece would come from an unexpected conversation...

3. 🎨 Listen to your users' real problems

Kevin was discussing the photo app with his girlfriend Nicole at the beach.

She said she wouldn't want to post photos because they wouldn't look good enough.

Her iPhone 4 camera wasn't great and her photos weren't as good as their friend Greg's.

Kevin realized Greg was using filter apps to enhance his photos and make them beautiful.

Nicole simply said, "Well, you should probably have filters then."

That moment changed everything - Kevin understood users wanted to make ordinary photos look magical.

He went back to his hotel room and figured out how to create filters.

By the end of the day, he'd created the first Instagram filter called X-Pro II.

The first photo ever posted was of Nicole's foot, a stray dog, and a taco stand in Mexico.

This simple addition would transform everything...

4. 🚀 Perfect is the enemy of shipped

Kevin and Mike had been tweaking and testing for weeks but still felt unsure about the product.

They could have spent months adding more features or perfecting the interface.

Instead, they decided to launch with just 11 filters (down from over 30 they'd tested).

They shipped Instagram on October 6, 2010, at 12:15 AM thinking they'd have six hours before anyone noticed.

Within minutes, downloads poured in from around the globe.

They crossed 10,000 users within hours and their servers crashed from traffic.

Instead of failure, the crash proved they'd built something people desperately wanted.

25,000 people signed up in the first 24 hours, 100,000 in the first week.

But success brought its own unexpected challenges...

5. 🛠️ Be obsessed with keeping your users happy

Both founders kept laptops with them at all times to fix any app issues immediately.

They pulled out computers during birthday parties, date nights, and wedding receptions.

Once Mike was dining at a farm-to-table restaurant when the system crashed and wireless signals were weak.

He frantically searched the grounds until he found one bar of service inside a chicken coop.

He sat in the smelly surroundings and brought the server back up.

Kevin says people don't work at startups because they have to - they want to make world-changing differences.

This obsessive focus on user experience helped Instagram maintain its rapid growth.

Their dedication was about to face a major test...

6. 🎯 Create an open network, not a walled garden

Other photo apps before Instagram were basically friends-only networks.

You needed permission to follow people and see their photos.

Kevin and Mike made the smart decision to make Instagram an open network.

You could follow anyone you wanted - friends, strangers, celebrities - without their permission.

This hadn't been done before in photo sharing and it changed everything.

It allowed accounts like @symmetrybreakfast (a London couple's daily breakfast photos) to gain hundreds of thousands of followers.

The open network enabled discovery and viral growth in ways closed networks couldn't.

This openness would attract some very big players...

7. 💰 Know when to say yes to life-changing opportunities

By early 2012, Instagram had 27 million users and was growing rapidly.

Both Twitter and Facebook wanted to acquire the company.

Jack Dorsey offered around $500 million in stock with no cash.

Kevin initially planned to take a $50 million investment from Sequoia and stay independent.

But Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't take no for an answer and invited Kevin for detailed talks.

Zuckerberg presented a complete plan and offered $1 billion including $300 million in cash.

Kevin discussed it with co-founder Mike on a Caltrain platform and they decided to sell.

The deal was finalized at Zuckerberg's house during a Game of Thrones viewing party.

The aftermath proved this decision changed everything...

💰 The epic win

Instagram went from 0 to 1 billion users over the next decade.

The company that started with 2 people in a one-bedroom apartment grew to over 500 million users by 2016.

Facebook paid $1 billion for a company with just 16 employees.

Four years later, Instagram was generating $1.5 billion in revenue and valued at over $100 billion.

🥂 Your turn to shine bright!

That's it, my fellow rebels!

Think your simple idea isn't worth millions of dollars?

Kevin went from worrying that photo filters were "too basic" to building a billion-dollar company.

He went from thinking simple meant worthless to proving that simple actually means powerful.

"Every startup should address a real and demonstrated need in the world," says Kevin.

"If you build something beautiful and useful, they will come back," adds Kevin.

Stop overthinking it - pick the ONE simple thing people actually need and make it incredibly easy to use.

Can't wait to see what incredible thing you're gonna create.

Let the good times roll for you! 🍨

Your 'partner in rebellion with the status quo' vijay peduru