Shutterstock: 7 colorful ideas that turned a failed entrepreneur with $800 into a $2B+ empire

Scan time: 3-4 min / Read time: 5-7 min

Hey rebel solopreneurs 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️

Everyone says you gotta be good at something before you can build a business around it.

But that belief keeps solopreneurs stuck waiting to become "experts" first.

Meanwhile, some guy who'd never touched a professional camera just built a $2+ billion photography empire.

You're about to discover how Jon Oringer learned photography while building Shutterstock instead of the other way around.

Let's investigate his secret formula!

🍹 The humble beginnings...

Jon Oringer grew up in Scarsdale, New York, programming since elementary school.

He'd spend hours making simple games on his Apple II computer.

In high school, he needed cash and decided to teach guitar lessons.

There was just one problem - he didn't know how to play guitar.

So he learned guitar just to teach it to others.

His mom had to drive him to his guitar teaching gigs.

But then he realized he could charge more fixing people's computers.

So he switched to computer repair because the money was better.

During college at Stony Brook University, he created SurfSecret Software.

This was one of the web's first pop-up blockers.

He sold thousands of copies while studying computer science and math.

Remember, browsers didn't have built-in pop-up blockers back then.

After graduating in 1996, he enrolled at Columbia for a master's degree.

But he was way more interested in building software products to sell.

He had this massive mailing list from his pop-up blocker customers.

He kept trying to build more products to sell to these same people.

Then Microsoft crushed his pop-up blocker business overnight...

1. 🎯 Turn your biggest frustration into your next business idea

Jon needed photos for his email marketing campaigns.

But every time he tried to buy stock photos, they cost $500 each.

He had to call companies just to get the rights to use simple images.

This was incredibly frustrating for a bootstrapped entrepreneur.

But here's the thing - Jon realized other small business owners probably had the same problem.

Big companies like Getty Images only cared about news agencies with deep pockets.

He decided to solve his own problem by creating affordable stock photos.

But Jon had zero photography experience - would this stop him?

2. 💪 Learn the skills yourself instead of hiring experts

Jon had never touched a professional camera in his life.

Most entrepreneurs would immediately try to hire a photographer.

But Jon couldn't afford to hire anyone with his limited budget.

So here's what he did instead - he bought an $800 Canon Digital Rebel camera.

He set a goal to shoot 100,000 images over six months.

He photographed everything - breakfast, lunch, dinner, his friends.

His biggest seller was a photo of a dog holding a newspaper.

Soon he was shooting faster than he could upload - time for the next challenge...

3. 🚀 Start before you have all the answers

Jon had no idea how to price his revolutionary concept.

Nobody had ever tried affordable stock photography before.

He was worried this pricing model could destroy his business.

But here's the thing - he knew waiting for certainty would mean never starting.

So he launched with a $249 monthly subscription for 25 daily downloads.

This was selling $500 images for just $1 each.

The industry thought he was crazy, but customers loved it.

The downloads started flying, but Jon faced a supply problem...

4. 🤝 Turn customers into contributors

Jon couldn't shoot enough photos to meet the demand.

Other photographers started reaching out wanting to contribute.

Most business owners would've seen this as competition.

But here's what's brilliant - Jon saw an opportunity to help others make money.

He opened up Shutterstock to photographers worldwide.

Anyone could upload photos and earn money from downloads.

This created a massive content library without Jon doing all the work.

But as the company grew, Jon hit his biggest leadership challenge...

5. 😰 Admit when you're in over your head

Jon had never worked for anyone else in his entire life.

He had zero experience managing people or building company culture.

When he started hiring, he thought management would be obvious.

He'd just tell people what to do and they'd do it perfectly.

But that's not how humans actually work in real companies.

Jon felt frustrated and overwhelmed by the people side of business.

So he hired a chief operating officer to handle what he couldn't.

The next decision would determine if Jon kept control of his empire...

6. 💰 Bootstrap as long as possible to keep control

Venture capitalists kept approaching Jon with big funding offers.

Everyone expected him to follow the Silicon Valley playbook.

But here's the thing - Shutterstock was already profitable from day one.

Jon didn't want to give up control to outside investors.

He kept reinvesting profits back into growing the business.

When he finally took a small investment in 2007, it was for strategy, not survival.

By staying bootstrapped, he owned 57% when the company went public.

Years later, Jon faced the ultimate test of his business...

7. 🎯 Focus on execution instead of worrying about competition

Big players like Getty Images started copying Jon's model.

New competitors emerged trying to steal market share.

Many entrepreneurs would panic and start copying what competitors were doing.

But get this - Jon took the opposite approach completely.

He ignored the competition and focused on serving customers better.

Shutterstock kept innovating with new search features and content types.

They built technology to help customers find exactly what they needed.

The final result shocked everyone in the photography industry...

💰 The epic win

Jon built Shutterstock from $800 to over $100 million in revenue.

In 2012, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange.

The IPO opened at $17 and jumped 27% to close at $21.66 on day one.

At its peak, Shutterstock was valued at $2.5 billion.

Jon became New York's first tech billionaire and still owned 57% of the company.

🥂 Your turn to shine bright!

That's it, my fellow rebels!

Jon went from never touching a professional camera to building a $2+ billion photography empire by learning the skill while building the business.

He proved you don't need to master something before you can turn it into a successful company.

"I'd failed a whole bunch of times before and I was willing to fail again," says Jon.

"In the early days, start-ups make the main mistake of hiring people to do the work that they could do themselves," adds Jon.

Stop waiting to become an expert first - start building your business and learn the skills as you go.

Something tells me you're gonna prove all those naysayers wrong about what you can accomplish.

Keep rocking 🚀 🍩

Yours 'making success painless and fun' vijay peduru 🦸‍♂️