This is Ben Silbermann – CEO and co-founder of Pinterest. Ben was born and raised in the beautiful city of Des Moines in Iowa – a Midwestern state of the United States.
Both Ben’s mother and father are doctors. So are his two sisters. “I always thought I would become a doctor. I never even thought about it.”
So he continued to pursue the path of medicine. By the third year of college, the consulting job took Ben in a different direction. After graduating in 2003, Ben worked at an IT consulting firm in Washington, D.C. Ben shared: I have a feeling that technology is the “guideline” of my life, just that I am in the wrong place. only place.” Unsatisfied with his current job, Ben quit his job and moved to Silicon Valley, California.
This is where he was inspired through the movie “Pirates Of Silicon Valley”, the movie about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
Here are my favorite quotes
Ben loves Silicon Valley, because he thinks: “Being around people who inspire you is a good start.”
Ben got a job at Google in customer support, “because I was judged as a more enthusiastic candidate than the other candidates.”
His job is not very different from his previous job as a consultant. Work on data analysis and product design recommendations with lots of spreadsheets.
However, Ben is frustrated that Google doesn’t allow him to build his own product. Ben complains this a lot to his girlfriend. Finally, his girlfriend advised him: “stop complaining and just do it”. Only then did Ben really wake up.
After leaving Google, he felt great, but “A week later, the whole economy collapsed.” Although Ben tried to get money to invest, it was extremely difficult because investors are focused on gold.
Ben ended up teaming up with a college friend living in New York, Paul Sciarra.
Together, they came up with a product called Tote, “a catalog for phones.”
“Things are harder than ever. We can’t make money. New apps take months to complete the pre-release approval process. However, 2 things helped Ben get through a difficult time:
- Ben feels he can’t go back to Google.
- He didn’t want to disappoint Paul.
Appointments with investors all failed
Finally, after receiving a check from an investor, Ben called the investors who had rejected earlier and told them, “You’ll regret it if you miss out.” That statement worked.
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After a while, Ben and Paul changed Tote’s name to Pinterest. “I’ve always thought that what you collect says a lot about who you are.” Ben says Pinterest 1.0 is like a childhood bug collection.
Visiting friends in New York, Ben met someone – Evan Sharp, they talked about Pinterest. “It seems that Evan is the only one who understands what I am saying.”… The two decided to work together and now Evan Sharp is considered the co-founder of Pinterest.
Evan is the one who brought grid layouts into Pinterest.
When Pinterest launched, Ben sent all his friends in California to try it out, but “really, no one understood how to use the app.” Ben felt it was too late to start over. This is the first “pin” to be included on the site, in January 2010.
In May 2010, a woman named Victoria hosted a program called “Pin It Forward” as a “hand-to-hand letter”. The program is where bloggers will talk to each other about what the house means to them. It was the “kick” that helped Pinterest to revive.
After that show, people started using Pinterest in unexpected ways. Like the map gallery below
Or tourist places
This image is the first meeting of the Pinterest staff, hosted by Victoria, now the company’s community manager. “That was the moment where I think we made it,” said Ben.
So what is the meaning of Pinterest?
Ben says the app can help connect the important things in your life.
The jeweler on the left puts all his pictures of building his dream future on Pinterest. As for the woman on the right, every day she will find a job to do on Pinterest and then blog about it.
Pinterest’s mission is to inspire through photos to get you out and about doing the things you love.
Pinterest also aspires to be a place where people discover beautiful things that even Pinterest itself doesn’t know what you’re looking for. It sounds pretty fancy, but it’s like going to this grocery store…No one knows what you’re looking for here.
Or like a bookstore.
Conclude
The Pinterest startup story teaches us about the power of ideas and persistence. Hopefully this Pinterest startup story will help inspire you to take the next step in your career.
