Over the past week, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what makes an app worth $1 Billion. I’m not sure I have the final answer, but I’ve got some thoughts on how Instagram got there.
The Polaroid Land Camera logo evokes emotion, nostalgia even in the majority of users who've never even seen one!
The heart of most of the questions I get is whether there’s a firm, quantifiable link between popularity, users and, ultimately, valuation. I don’t think it’s that simple. I do think that, for the same reason iOS cultivated a more fervently devoted following than Android when it’s
losing the feature-for-feature battle. Talking about Instagram vs others in adjunct spaces I think the equation is more complex and involves less tangible strengths like emotion and overall “feel.”My main thoughts on how this maps to Instagram and its wildly successful exit come down to three things:
