9781422270431

chapter 1

STORY OF A STARTUP

Today, the launch of a new app is precisely marketed and timed to the second. At the dawn of the tech boom, however, entrepreneurs entered the burgeoning digital frontier haphazardly and often with no schedule. Thus, it was shortly after midnight on a Wednesday in early October 2010 when Instagram went live, forever altering the social media landscape. This was the moment Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger had worked so hard to reach but could not possibly have realized would evolve into one of the most wildly successful ventures of the 21st century. Exhausted but happy, they headed for bed. “We figured we’d have at least six hours before anyone discovered the app so we could grab some shut-eye,” Systrom wrote on the company’s blog. They, of course, were wrong. Within minutes, downloads were happening in all corners of the globe. Systrom and Krieger were amazed—and overjoyed. After only a few hours, they had 10,000 users—and that number hasn’t stopped growing. Now, more than 100 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram every day, making it one of the most used and beloved apps in the world.

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