GIGAMΞSH on Warpcast

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GIGAMΞSH pfp

Does anyone have a theory on what enabled Instagram to get to 27m users with only 13 employees in 2012, and why that still seems very difficult today despite all the SASS products helping startups? Some game companies also used to release a new game monthly in the 90s, without code completion, Copilot, Git, Github!

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GIGAMΞSH pfp

A lot of answers are about product & market conditions. I’m more fascinated by how such a small eng team could manage that scale 12 years ago.

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erica pfp

My 2 gwei: It was a completely different time than today (far less competition for our attention) and they revolutionized the way people kept up to date with their friends - they simplified facebook and hyper focused it on images.

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Ironically it was simplicity. The app may be a bloated "everything app" now but back then it was just photos, no comments. It was like a great mobile Flickr with filters. They then added just the right features. Once Facebook bought them, it was hard for anyone to ever do that again. Snap tried. TikTok went more...

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Nico.cast🐱 pfp

Same with WeChat and Minecraft (sold for 2B? With 3 people) On the technical side good engineering and infra

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Nick T pfp

Timing - limited competition in the app store + first iPhone with decent camera. Value prop: upload bad photos and make them look vintage and edgy. Adopted by rising hipster movement that started peaking just as they launched. Default auto-upload to FB bolstered growth.

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@gabrielayuso.eth

The problem is not the stack but the distribution and capturing people's attention. They piggybacked on Facebook and Twitter social graphs. They made it easy to share Instagram photos on many social platforms and blogs. They had a distinct look and feel. They made shitty phone photos look good.

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Alex Loukissas 🍉

From a technical POV, takeaways: 1. KISS 2. Use proven, boring technologies 3. Don't reinvent the wheel https://read.engineerscodex.com/p/how-instagram-scaled-to-14-million

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ted (not lasso)

yes, i’ve studied this maniacally. but i’m sure @dwr.eth has too :) don’t have time to share thoughts now but will later!

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Antonio García Martínez pfp

Antonio García Martínez

IIRC improved iPhone camera launched right there. I suspect it was a good measure of luck. There were lots and lots of filter photo apps at the time. There were also lots of taxi/ride-sharing apps when Uber launched. The retconning usually features the app as providential in its success. :)

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Juli 🎩↑ pfp

Thanks for the great question. Checking answers & background story now. 1000 $degen

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