How did instagram get 25K users in a single day?

From a whiskey discovery app to the most addictive tech app

Quick rundown 📕
Kevin, an ex-intern at Twitter started an app 'Burbn' to help people discover whiskey places. He raised $500K and later on pivoted the app to Instagram.

Something weird! 🎯
Instead of using Burbn for whiskey place discovery, which was its primary purpose, early users were primarily using it for posting random pictures!

Right focus ☀️ 
Kevin empathised with customers instead of force-fitting the solution. He made photo sharing frictionless instead of onboarding more whiskey places.

Umm...then how did instagram come up with filters? 🤔
The funny thing here is that it didn't come from any user research.

Instead, Kevin was taking some time off with his girlfriend, and after seeing the new IG prototype, she said she wouldn't post any pictures because her pictures never look pretty on phone!

Kevin, upon returning to work, added "filters" to the Instagram prototype!

The launch 💣
1️⃣ Kevin got his previous boss and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to tweet about Instagram to his 1M followers
2️⃣ Because of this, Instagram got featured in TechCrunch and other renowned journals

However, Kevin restricted the access to the app to a select few and made it exclusively available for designers.

Because of this exclusivity, designers invited a lot of their friends, making the app viral!

Exclusivity == Value

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