The Ledger
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Systrom admits social media is not a force for kindness
“Is social media in general a force for kindness? No.”
Systrom: Choosing an open network model drove Instagram's sustained growth
“I believe the thing that kept it growing was we created an open network.”
Systrom: Instagram grew because prior photo apps were closed, friends-only networks
“If you look at every photo service before then, it was basically a closed-only, friends-only network, and we were the first ones to really open that up.”
Systrom: We copied our first Terms of Service from another site
“We had these terms of service that we had I think effectively copied from some other site way back in the day and just find and replace their name with Instagram because we were a startup and we didn't know what we were doing.”
Systrom: Instagram never actually intended to use user photos in ads
“One of the sections Reading it again today, if I look at it, can be interpreted that we were going to take user photos and somehow use them in advertising. That was definitely not our intention, and like, no one in the company had even thought of that idea.”
Systrom left Facebook due to exhaustion and desire for new projects
“That's why I think we ended up leaving, because you want a little break and recovery time, and then my personality is such that I'm excited about doing something new. Like, I, I'm just like, I'm always on to some new idea, And I don't know, it probably won't b…”
Systrom: Investor interest in Silicon Valley instantly attracts other investors
“The second someone shows any interest in you in Silicon Valley, all of a sudden you have a bunch of other people that really want to invest.”
Systrom: Instagram's first filter and photo were created in Mexico
“I literally just, like, researched how to make the first filter, which ended up being called X-Pro II, and if you scroll all the way back on my account to the very first photo, there's Nicole's foot and a little stray dog in Mexico, and that's because that day…”
Systrom: Instagram's original Terms of Service were copied from another site
“We had these terms of service that we had I think effectively copied from some other site way back in the day and just find and replace their name with Instagram because we were a startup and we didn't know what we were doing.”
Systrom: Instagram account deletions dropped to zero after apology blog post
“And Mike and I sat down and we were like, what do we do? And we felt helpless. I mean, it was like all over, it was that first day all over again. It's like, we've screwed this up. How do we make sure people know? And I went back in my head. I was like, why do…”
Systrom: Silicon Valley investors suffer from immediate herd FOMO
“But the second someone shows any interest in you in Silicon Valley, all of a sudden you have a bunch of other people that really want to invest.”
Systrom: Account deletions dropped to zero after our Terms of Service apology
“I posted this blog post on our blog. You can probably still find it online. And I was like, we're sorry. Like, we didn't mean this. That's absolutely not what we're trying to do. And we tweeted about it. And actually the graph of deletions at that moment drops…”
Instagram grew from 40M users at acquisition to over 1B
“You know, we sold it and it was how many million users? Maybe 30 or forty million users. And we got it to over a billion.”
Instagram grew from 13 employees at acquisition to over 1,000
“When you're inside of a large company that has grown from, you know, 13 people at the acquisition to, you know, we were probably over a thousand towards the end, you get wired in a certain way to think a certain way and talk a certain way and that unwiring tak…”
Systrom: Smartphone cameras would spark a visual communication revolution
“The fact that like these devices had a camera that would lead to a visual communication revolution where like all of a sudden people weren't just communicating with text and voice, but they had the chance to communicate with an image.”
Systrom: Andreessen Horowitz invested $250,000 in Instagram's seed round
“And that initial check went from 50,000 to 250,000 dollars. And then there was another investor, Andreessen Horwitz, who came in and put 250,000 dollars in.”
Systrom: Instagram took eight weeks from initial sketch to App Store launch
“It was only eight weeks from the time we had basically sketched it out to when we put it into the Apple store.”
Systrom: Instagram gained 25,000 users within its first 24 hours
“The first 24 hours we had 20 5000 people sign up around the world, which sounded big to us at the time.”
Systrom: Instagram launched hosted on a single computer in Los Angeles
“It was a single computer in a co-location space somewhere in LA.”
Systrom: Instagram raised $8M Series A at roughly $30M valuation
“It was, I think our first round was like, I don't remember. It was like, we took eight million dollars of financing on like a 20 pre, so like roughly a thirty million dollar valuation or something.”
Systrom: Justin Bieber signing up drove viral adoption among teens
“And I remember Justin Bieber signing up, and the world going kind of bonkers for that as well, and by world, I mean teenage girls, and they basically started using the app incessantly, and it kind of took off with, like, a bunch of really young people as well.”
Systrom: Investor Steve Anderson required a co-founder before investing in Burbn
“But he actually said one thing to me, he goes, before I do this, you have to find a co-founder that's willing to do this with you.”
Systrom: Instagram raised a $500K seed on just a prototype
“And that initial check went from 50,000 to 250,000 dollars. And then there was another investor, Andreessen Horwitz, who came in and put 250,000 dollars in. So here are two guys with, like, basically a prototype and a couple of computers, no office who raised …”
Systrom: Burbn had only 100 users before pivoting to Instagram
“We, I mentioned we got to about a hundred users using this app.”
Systrom: We pivoted to Instagram with $495,000 left in the bank
“We had, you know, 495,000 dollars left in the bank because 5000 dollars to buy a couple of computers, right?”
Systrom: The first Instagram photo was a stray dog in Mexico
“I literally just, like, researched how to make the first filter, which ended up being called X-Pro II, and if you scroll all the way back on my account to the very first photo, there's Nicole's foot and a little stray dog in Mexico, and that's because that day…”
Systrom: Instagram went from sketch to the App Store in eight weeks
“It was only eight weeks from the time we had basically sketched it out to when we put it into the Apple store.”
Systrom: Instagram reached 25,000 signups in its first 24 hours
“The first 24 hours, we had 20 5000 people sign up around the world, which sounded big to us at the time.”
Systrom: Instagram's Series A was $8 million at a $30 million valuation
“It was, I think our first round was like, I don't remember. It was like, we took eight million dollars of financing on like a 20 pre, so like roughly a thirty million dollar valuation or something.”
Systrom: Justin Bieber joining Instagram drove massive adoption among teenage girls
“And I remember Justin Bieber signing up, and the world going kind of bonkers for that as well, and by world, I mean teenage girls, and they basically started using the app incessantly, and it kind of took off with, like, a bunch of really young people as well.”