Startups Stack Exchange Archive

How did instagram reach 1M users in 2 months?

• posted by: demiculus on 2014-12-11
• tagged: marketing, mobile-apps, advertising

• score: 10

• 3.2010 - $500k raised - Burbn, 2 people
• 6.2010 - Start on instagram
• 10.2010 - Launch with 80 users
• 10.2010 - Recruited community manager & engineer
• 12.2010 - 1M user
• 2.2011 - 1.75M users
• 6.2011 - 5M users
• 9.2011 - 10M users

From the interviews of Kevin Systrom(founder of instagram) he always seems to skip the part where he talks about his marketing techniques. It clearly is not word of mouth. Well then what is it? What did he do to market it so well?

Answer 1647

• posted by: Bryan Grace on 2014-12-14
• score: 4

I watched this video from Kevin Rose's Foundation series a while back.

If I can remember correctly from the interview, they had made email lists of a lot of people in the tech industry. The day the app came out (and possibly when earlier beta versions came out?) they sent emails to everyone on the list announcing the release.

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