6 ms·

Achieving overnight success: Kevin Systrom

95 points by rythie 14y ago

mgkimsal 14y ago
Never got to use burbn, but it's mentioned a couple of places that: "Burbn was a mobile check-in app built purely in HTML5." then "When you checked in on Burbn, you could post a video or a picture." how was this done? You can seemingly only do this with some versions of Android - certainly not iOS or Windows. Any more info on how they/he did this?
- itsprofitbaron 14y ago
  IIRC The HTML5 version of burbn was a mobile browser app, which was actually rewrote as a native iPhone app before Kevin and Mike realised that it was too cluttered and over-run with features. This then lead them to removing everything aside from photos, likes and comments and rebranding as Instagram
manojranaweera 14y ago
Good analysis Joel. Good to see you blossom into a successful tech entrepreneur (and a famous one now - the north west love you!). www.edocr.com must be one of the few tech companies to had the privilege to work with both OnePage and Buffer, and hopefully whatever you do after Buffer! I am glad you did not take my advice on Buffer! You saw an opportunity (I didn't see) and went after it. We should review edocr/buffer integration after we launch Hootsuite app! Will let you know as soon as we go live! Keep up the good work mate!
Heliosmaster 14y ago
It was not exactly overnight, but as a result of small steps in his life. A really great job, nevertheless.
- mmahemoff 14y ago
  It wasn't at all overnight, I do believe that's Joel's point with the title. It might be a point that's lost on cargo culters building the next dozen photo apps, but it's what happened with Instagram.
bmj1 14y ago
Many aspiring entrepreneurs seem to think there is such thing as a 'get rich quick' startup - when the reality is far from this (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3908088 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3908088) Additionally, films like the Social Network seem to propagate this myth/stereotype. So great job Joel for hopefully helping to dispel some of these myths.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- omonra 14y ago
  Can you first explain what law this breaks?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
josefonseca 14y ago
> When he got AOL, Kevin made programs in Visual Basic to boot people offline That's just great. The world's most successful entrepeneur used to be a AOL%#$r script kiddie. Kidding aside, nice tl;dr; summary of his success. I still believe U$ 1 billion for a startup was a bit too much to pay, kind of hard to understand for mere mortals like myself who also tinkered with Gorillas.BAS in QBasic but actually never kicked anyone off AOL using Visual Basic!
carguy1983 14y ago
This is a fantastic article - something wannabes definitely need to be seeing - Instagram started when he was TWELVE YEARS OLD. I hope this article goes into a series like uses.this. I personally also got a kick out of this one because I had an extremely similar 'start' - Doom levels and script kiddie maliciousness - amazing. Unfortunately it starts to diverge when he got accepted into Stanford and started kickin' it with internet billionaires and instead I went to UCSD and spent most of my free time drinking microbrews by the beach LOL. Guess that's why I'm not the guy who made Instagram! Now I know. :)
- smalter 14y ago
  Yeah, I was blown away by the opportunities available at Stanford (that he made the most of) to work and hobnob with internet luminaries. It really seemed to add jet fuel to his trajectory.
  - astrofinch 14y ago
    I was surprised that he found the introductory computer science class at Stanford difficult. If this guy can succeed, how can somebody like me who worked through half of SICP independently at age 16 fail? I don't think I'm exceptionally smart for an HN user, but I was surprised how little intelligence is needed before it stops being the main bottleneck (apparently).
    - is74 14y ago
      Intelligence has many aspects, of which the ability to understand complicated "analytic stuff" from books is only a part. There's also intelligence in getting things done and avoiding dumb mistakes in complicated and uncertain situations, which seem to play the greater role in startups.
      - astrofinch 14y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) Of course it's not the only cognitive attribute that's important (I don't know of any evidence that ability to get things done correlates with g). BTW, realized that the article didn't explicitly state that the computer science class was introductory, which changes things somewhat.
dpritchett 14y ago
This sounds like a classic con: Kevin met Steve Anderson from Baseline ventures, and during the meeting Kevin got texts notifying him that people were joining Burbn. Steve knew some of the people signing up, and was intrigued enough to decide there must be something here. In this meeting Kevin secured his first $50,000 of investment for Burbn. I don't believe those texts were purely organic, but I'm impressed all the same.
- DaniFong 14y ago
  Stuff like this happens all the time in a community at this scale.
sakopov 14y ago
I don't really know if there is much to analyze. The guy went to Stanford and had the priviledge to meet other great folks with the same passion. His connections and this environment is what made him successful.
- mikek 14y ago
  That's a nice excuse, but I don't buy it. First of all, most people who went to Stanford don't found an Instagram. Secondly, anyone can now apply to YC and make connections with great people.
  - sakopov 14y ago
    I'm not selling you an excuse. I'm just saying this certainly played a big part of why he became successful. Stanford has a solid track record for successful start-ups. In my opinion, applying to YC and hoping to get in versus having staff members on university campus with connections to students who now operate prestigious tech companies and being able to walk the same path they have are 2 entirely different experiences.
- is74 14y ago
  Few people from Stanford succeed like him. He's an obvious outlier that's worth understanding.
- loboman 14y ago
  Thousands of people attend Stanford, yet not all of those attendees are successful to this level. Also, not all really successful people attend to top universities (eg. this was measured for Nobel prizes). So you need to start looking at other factors too.
- DaniFong 14y ago
  You're missing the whole point. Anyone has an entree into the startup scene if you work and follow up. It was a sequence of success and increasing access, not randomly granted, monolithic privilege. The process begins with opening the level editor in Doom II. Or in my case, Warcraft.
johnnyjustice 14y ago
I loved this.To loosely quote PG: "You shouldn't be focusing on the end goal or final dream, but questioning what opportunities you have at hand and picking from those" or to put simply don't be so future oriented you never know what opportunities will be available then so you should focus on your opportunities now.
sj4nz 14y ago
Thanks to this article I discovered Buffer. Installed the Chrome extension and discovered HN snap-evolved an "add to buffer" organ that creeped me out a little bit. I think I like it.
- joelg87 14y ago
  Haha, glad you like it :-) Let me know if I can help with anything.
ofca 14y ago
The article is basically notes taken from his Foundation interview with Kevin Rose they did a few months ago > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nld8B9l1aRE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nld8B9l1aRE . Very cool guy. Other foundation episodes are also golden.
- james4k 14y ago
  Ah, that's where I remember this stuff from. Yes, this is a great series, and it's amazing how similar everyone's early-age start in technology was. Doom and Basic are common themes.
ojr 14y ago
His github account is nothing really special though just saying
pedalpete 14y ago
We all have dots (events in our lives) that when connected backward from a result lead us to believe that it was these experiences that lead to the result. The human mind is very good at making these connections. How many other people have had similar experiences with the exception of the end result. It makes for good story telling, but aside from that, it doesn't show us the way to creating the next big thing.
- Jayasimhan 14y ago
  The blog doesn't give us a recipe to create the next big thing. It just explains the only way to make it.
  - pedalpete 14y ago
    I assume you meant 'one way to make it', not 'only way to make it'
drudru11 14y ago
great article. i have more respect for the guy after seeing that progression. it is not a trivial thing to switch into google corp dev. he must have a presence that pushes him up.
wallflower 14y ago
> have access to Adam D’Angelo (Facebook’s first CTO) when he had scaling problems with Instagram. It was even more fantastic than that. > “Who’s, like, the smartest person I know who I can call up?” Mr. Systrom remembered thinking. He scrolled through his phone and found his man: Adam D’Angelo, a former chief technology officer at Facebook. They had met at a party seven years earlier, over beers in red plastic cups, at the Sigma Nu fraternity at Stanford University. That night in October 2010, Mr. D’Angelo became Instagram’s lifeline. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/technology/instagram-founders-were-helped-by-bay-area-connections.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/technology/instagram-found...
- rhizome 14y ago
  at the Sigma Nu fraternity Crucial detail, that.
dm8 14y ago
He had opportunities and he made most of every single opportunity. And thats the difference between successful people and wannabes. I remember one quote - "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds". And it is totally applicable to Kevin.

95 points by rythie 14y ago

Never got to use burbn, but it's mentioned a couple of places that: "Burbn was a mobile check-in app built purely in HTML5." then "When you checked in on Burbn, you could post a video or a picture." how was this done? You can seemingly only do this with some versions of Android - certainly not iOS or Windows. Any more info on how they/he did this?

itsprofitbaron 14y ago
IIRC The HTML5 version of burbn was a mobile browser app, which was actually rewrote as a native iPhone app before Kevin and Mike realised that it was too cluttered and over-run with features. This then lead them to removing everything aside from photos, likes and comments and rebranding as Instagram

manojranaweera 14y ago

Good analysis Joel. Good to see you blossom into a successful tech entrepreneur (and a famous one now - the north west love you!). www.edocr.com must be one of the few tech companies to had the privilege to work with both OnePage and Buffer, and hopefully whatever you do after Buffer! I am glad you did not take my advice on Buffer! You saw an opportunity (I didn't see) and went after it. We should review edocr/buffer integration after we launch Hootsuite app! Will let you know as soon as we go live! Keep up the good work mate!

Heliosmaster 14y ago

It was not exactly overnight, but as a result of small steps in his life. A really great job, nevertheless.

mmahemoff 14y ago
It wasn't at all overnight, I do believe that's Joel's point with the title. It might be a point that's lost on cargo culters building the next dozen photo apps, but it's what happened with Instagram.

bmj1 14y ago

Many aspiring entrepreneurs seem to think there is such thing as a 'get rich quick' startup - when the reality is far from this (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3908088 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3908088) Additionally, films like the Social Network seem to propagate this myth/stereotype. So great job Joel for hopefully helping to dispel some of these myths.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

omonra 14y ago
Can you first explain what law this breaks?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

josefonseca 14y ago

> When he got AOL, Kevin made programs in Visual Basic to boot people offline That's just great. The world's most successful entrepeneur used to be a AOL%#$r script kiddie. Kidding aside, nice tl;dr; summary of his success. I still believe U$ 1 billion for a startup was a bit too much to pay, kind of hard to understand for mere mortals like myself who also tinkered with Gorillas.BAS in QBasic but actually never kicked anyone off AOL using Visual Basic!

carguy1983 14y ago

This is a fantastic article - something wannabes definitely need to be seeing - Instagram started when he was TWELVE YEARS OLD. I hope this article goes into a series like uses.this. I personally also got a kick out of this one because I had an extremely similar 'start' - Doom levels and script kiddie maliciousness - amazing. Unfortunately it starts to diverge when he got accepted into Stanford and started kickin' it with internet billionaires and instead I went to UCSD and spent most of my free time drinking microbrews by the beach LOL. Guess that's why I'm not the guy who made Instagram! Now I know. :)

smalter 14y ago
Yeah, I was blown away by the opportunities available at Stanford (that he made the most of) to work and hobnob with internet luminaries. It really seemed to add jet fuel to his trajectory.
- astrofinch 14y ago
  I was surprised that he found the introductory computer science class at Stanford difficult. If this guy can succeed, how can somebody like me who worked through half of SICP independently at age 16 fail? I don't think I'm exceptionally smart for an HN user, but I was surprised how little intelligence is needed before it stops being the main bottleneck (apparently).
  - is74 14y ago
    Intelligence has many aspects, of which the ability to understand complicated "analytic stuff" from books is only a part. There's also intelligence in getting things done and avoiding dumb mistakes in complicated and uncertain situations, which seem to play the greater role in startups.
    - astrofinch 14y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) Of course it's not the only cognitive attribute that's important (I don't know of any evidence that ability to get things done correlates with g). BTW, realized that the article didn't explicitly state that the computer science class was introductory, which changes things somewhat.

dpritchett 14y ago

This sounds like a classic con: Kevin met Steve Anderson from Baseline ventures, and during the meeting Kevin got texts notifying him that people were joining Burbn. Steve knew some of the people signing up, and was intrigued enough to decide there must be something here. In this meeting Kevin secured his first $50,000 of investment for Burbn. I don't believe those texts were purely organic, but I'm impressed all the same.

DaniFong 14y ago
Stuff like this happens all the time in a community at this scale.

sakopov 14y ago

I don't really know if there is much to analyze. The guy went to Stanford and had the priviledge to meet other great folks with the same passion. His connections and this environment is what made him successful.

mikek 14y ago
That's a nice excuse, but I don't buy it. First of all, most people who went to Stanford don't found an Instagram. Secondly, anyone can now apply to YC and make connections with great people.
- sakopov 14y ago
  I'm not selling you an excuse. I'm just saying this certainly played a big part of why he became successful. Stanford has a solid track record for successful start-ups. In my opinion, applying to YC and hoping to get in versus having staff members on university campus with connections to students who now operate prestigious tech companies and being able to walk the same path they have are 2 entirely different experiences.
is74 14y ago
Few people from Stanford succeed like him. He's an obvious outlier that's worth understanding.
loboman 14y ago
Thousands of people attend Stanford, yet not all of those attendees are successful to this level. Also, not all really successful people attend to top universities (eg. this was measured for Nobel prizes). So you need to start looking at other factors too.
DaniFong 14y ago
You're missing the whole point. Anyone has an entree into the startup scene if you work and follow up. It was a sequence of success and increasing access, not randomly granted, monolithic privilege. The process begins with opening the level editor in Doom II. Or in my case, Warcraft.

johnnyjustice 14y ago

I loved this.To loosely quote PG: "You shouldn't be focusing on the end goal or final dream, but questioning what opportunities you have at hand and picking from those" or to put simply don't be so future oriented you never know what opportunities will be available then so you should focus on your opportunities now.

sj4nz 14y ago

Thanks to this article I discovered Buffer. Installed the Chrome extension and discovered HN snap-evolved an "add to buffer" organ that creeped me out a little bit. I think I like it.

joelg87 14y ago
Haha, glad you like it :-) Let me know if I can help with anything.

ofca 14y ago

The article is basically notes taken from his Foundation interview with Kevin Rose they did a few months ago > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nld8B9l1aRE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nld8B9l1aRE . Very cool guy. Other foundation episodes are also golden.

james4k 14y ago
Ah, that's where I remember this stuff from. Yes, this is a great series, and it's amazing how similar everyone's early-age start in technology was. Doom and Basic are common themes.

ojr 14y ago

His github account is nothing really special though just saying

pedalpete 14y ago

We all have dots (events in our lives) that when connected backward from a result lead us to believe that it was these experiences that lead to the result. The human mind is very good at making these connections. How many other people have had similar experiences with the exception of the end result. It makes for good story telling, but aside from that, it doesn't show us the way to creating the next big thing.

Jayasimhan 14y ago
The blog doesn't give us a recipe to create the next big thing. It just explains the only way to make it.
- pedalpete 14y ago
  I assume you meant 'one way to make it', not 'only way to make it'

drudru11 14y ago

great article. i have more respect for the guy after seeing that progression. it is not a trivial thing to switch into google corp dev. he must have a presence that pushes him up.

wallflower 14y ago

> have access to Adam D’Angelo (Facebook’s first CTO) when he had scaling problems with Instagram. It was even more fantastic than that. > “Who’s, like, the smartest person I know who I can call up?” Mr. Systrom remembered thinking. He scrolled through his phone and found his man: Adam D’Angelo, a former chief technology officer at Facebook. They had met at a party seven years earlier, over beers in red plastic cups, at the Sigma Nu fraternity at Stanford University. That night in October 2010, Mr. D’Angelo became Instagram’s lifeline. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/technology/instagram-founders-were-helped-by-bay-area-connections.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/technology/instagram-found...

rhizome 14y ago
at the Sigma Nu fraternity Crucial detail, that.

dm8 14y ago

He had opportunities and he made most of every single opportunity. And thats the difference between successful people and wannabes. I remember one quote - "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds". And it is totally applicable to Kevin.