{"id":34867,"date":"2016-12-21T04:45:20","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T10:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelhyatt.com\/?p=34867"},"modified":"2016-12-21T04:45:20","modified_gmt":"2016-12-21T10:45:20","slug":"instagram-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/instagram-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Innovation Lessons from the Crazy Success of Instagram"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m already seeing a lot of Christmas images on Instagram, and I expect to see a flood in the next few days. The company just announced<\/a> it surpassed 600 million users.<\/p>\n\n

Instagram launched in 2010. I joined a year later, but I only became a heavy user<\/a> a couple of years ago. The company\u2019s growth curve is phenomenal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instagram is now one of the most popular social networks<\/a> in the world. I\u2019m a big fan, and I think their success is instructive for any leader or entrepreneur.<\/p>\n\n

Cofounders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were recently interviewed by Guy Raz on NPR\u2019s How I Built This<\/a><\/em> podcast. The exchange is full of helpful insights. Four especially stood out for me, and I think we can learn several key lessons from their journey.<\/p>\n

They Followed Their Hunches<\/h3>\n

Entrepreneurs win by filling gaps\u2013gaps in information, resources, and solutions. The bigger the gap, the bigger the win. The problem (and the opportunity) is that no one knows where all the gaps are.<\/p>\n

Entrepreneurs serve society by risking time and resources others won\u2019t to identify the gaps, and create ways of filling them for us. And that usually means following your hunches.<\/p>\n

For Systrom and Krieger that started with one device that millions have: a mobile phone. \u201cThere\u2019s something here about the devices in everyone\u2019s pockets being available to share new types of information,\u201d said Systrom.<\/p>\n

He assumed that the gap to fill was sharing a person\u2019s location. So he started building a check-in app. Soon he had a few investors and Krieger joined the project. The only problem was that information wasn\u2019t<\/em> the gap to fill.<\/p>\n

Lesson 1: Don\u2019t wait to have it all figured out.<\/em><\/strong> A hunch is never enough, but it\u2019s enough to get started. There are effective ways to test your intuitions<\/a>, as my friend Pat Flynn teaches. But you\u2019ve got to begin someplace. If leaders wait to map everything out, they\u2019ll never get off the starting line.<\/p>\n

They Made Failure Work for<\/em> Them<\/h3>\n

Systrom and Krieger had money in the bank and a working prototype, but they couldn\u2019t get enough traction. And that was a good thing. Why? Because they hadn\u2019t spotted the right gap yet, and failure was the blinking red indicator light they weren\u2019t there yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the best thing for any entrepreneur\u00a0is failure<\/a>,\u201d said Systrom, \u201cand for us it was the lack of momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that point the app only had a hundred users, and they couldn\u2019t figure out how to break out. Instead of throwing in the towel, they discovered the one thing their users most enjoyed\u2014sharing photos with their status updates. As a result, they pushed their development in a new direction.<\/p>\n

Lesson 2: Failure serves a vital function in developing your business.<\/em><\/strong> Yes, it\u2019s frustrating. And the more you invest, the more debilitating a setback might feel. But failure also provides critical information. It tells us when we still have work to\u00a0do.<\/p>\n

They Solved a Real-Life Problem<\/h3>\n

Now Systrom and Krieger had money, a prototype, and clear direction. But they still weren\u2019t there yet. There were already image-sharing services out there. What would set theirs apart?<\/p>\n

Systrom was worn out and needed a break<\/a>. He and his girlfriend went on a vacation to Mexico. While there he told her about the plan to focus on photo sharing. She liked the idea, but admitted she probably wouldn\u2019t share many photos of her own.<\/p>\n

When he asked why, she said her photos weren\u2019t very good.<\/p>\n

She was self-conscious about the images she shared compared to those of better photographers. I get that. I\u2019ve spent a lot of time learning photography over the years. The more a person is aware of high quality, the less likely they are to share work that doesn\u2019t measure up.<\/p>\n

Systrom realized that he could overcome that by adding filters to the app.<\/p>\n

\"filtered-images-instagram-post\"<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, thats it!\u201d he said. \u201cIt all came through consumer insight. What problem are we solving? \u2026 Share something that people love, and make sure that they feel great sharing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

They launched eight weeks later.<\/p>\n

Lesson 3: Listen to people\u2019s complaints.<\/em><\/strong> Very often people will point out the true gap without realizing it. Tune into their worries, anxieties, and discontent. It\u2019s like an arrow pointing the way to the right product.<\/p>\n

They Prepared Themselves for the Opportunity<\/h3>\n

Systrom and Krieger launched Instagram when the ability to share photos converged with widespread high-quality mobile technology. Some people might chalk that up to luck. Systrom agrees, but he adds something critical to that assessment:<\/p>\n

\n I have this thesis that the world runs on luck. The question is what you do with it.\u2026 Are you alert enough to know you\u2019re becoming lucky, are you talented enough to take that advantage and run with it, and do you have enough grit, do you have enough resilience to stay with it when it gets hard?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Instead of luck, I like thinking of opportunity and preparation. There are opportunities all around us. But if we\u2019re not prepared and determined to take advantage of them, they\u2019ll pass us by every time.<\/p>\n

Lesson 4: Leverage your existing resources to take advantage of new opportunities.<\/em><\/strong> What you know right now is enough to get started on something big.\u00a0By itself that knowledge is probably not enough to strike it big.\u00a0But if you\u2019re pointed the right direction when the opportunity becomes apparent, you\u2019ll be positioned to take advantage.<\/p>\n\t\t