My Age of Investment

   Chapter 1526 Instagram

   San Francisco.

   In a remote office building, Xia Jingxing walked in the narrow corridor, stopping from time to time to look at the company nameplates and LOGO posted on the left and right doors.

Liu Xiaoduo, who was following behind him, seemed tired of walking, and couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Xia, this company is too hard to find. We have been looking for a group of people for so long and we haven't found it yet, will we move to another place? what?"

   Hearing this, Xia Jingxing also began to have some doubts, obviously the company address is here, how could he not be able to find it?

Ricky Milner, the US managing partner of Vision Capital on the side, said: "Daren, I'm also a little confused. Is this kind of small company worth your in-person interview?"

  Xia Jingxing glanced at Ricky and said with a smile, "Although this company is small, its founder is a friend of mine for many years."

   "Friends for many years?"

  Ricky was stunned and looked at the surrounding environment. He really couldn't connect the founder of a company that should be not much bigger than Ant with a technology leader who has been recognized in the world.

   Moreover, since they are friends, why didn’t they notify the other party to come pick them up? Why is it time-consuming and labor-intensive to find them one by one like now? The key is to never find them!

  Xia Jingxing seemed to have the ability to read minds. He saw what Ricky was thinking at a glance, and explained with a smile, "I haven't contacted him for a long time. I heard Christina mentioned him yesterday, so I wanted to come and see him."

   A few people were walking and chatting when a small door in front suddenly opened, and a sleepy young Caucasian man walked out from inside, with a full beard and messy hair, looking a little sloppy.

  Other people looked at this unremarkable young man in a plaid shirt and then looked away, but Xia Jingxing kept staring at this man.

  "Kevin~"

  The white man also saw Xia Jingxing, and then he rubbed his eyes, and after confirming that he was not mistaken, his expression suddenly became very exaggerated.

   "Daren, why are you here?"

Xia Jingxing walked up with a big laugh, first hugged Kevin Strom, who stared at the boss and didn't regain his senses for a long time, and then said, "I heard that you have started a business, I came here specially to see if there are any Nothing can help."

   Hearing these words, Kevin Strom was a little moved. After so many years, Daeron Xia, who has become the fourth richest man in the world, has not forgotten his friend who knew him in Wei Mo.

   Immediately, his face felt embarrassed again, Xia Jingxing had invited him to join Facebook many times, but without exception, he rejected them all.

   In the words of his girlfriend, he turned down a chance to become a billionaire.

Although he and Kevin Strom had not seen each other for many years, Xia Jingxing did not feel the slightest difference, and briefly introduced Strom to the entourage behind him, and then jokingly said, "Why are you still standing there? What about this? Don't invite me in for a cup of coffee, I haven't had freshly ground coffee for a long time, I miss your craftsmanship."

   Kevin Strom was amused by Xia Jingxing's words, and also brought back the good memories of being on campus.

  When Facebook was still working at the Stanford startup incubator, Kevin Strom often came over to help out voluntarily, such as helping to make coffee or something.

   But making coffee is just a side business. His real main business is photography. The first video uploaded on YouTube was shot and uploaded by Strom. In the early days of Facebook’s business, this Stanford alumnus helped Xia Jingxing a lot.

Kevin Strom greeted Xia Jingxing and his party very warmly and walked into his little nameless company. The decoration inside and out was very simple. There was no company logo hanging at the door, which made Xia Jingxing look for it after a meal. The internal office environment is also very simple.

   In addition to Kevin Strom, this company has only three employees, less than Xia Jingxing's entourage.

After entering the room, Kevin Strom first introduced his partner to Xia Jingxing, "Darren, this is Mike Krieger, the co-founder and CTO of Instagram, and a graduate of Stanford University. We are two terms lower."

   When Mike Krieger entered Stanford University, Xia Jingxing had already dropped out of school and started a business with the fame he made, so when he shook hands with this idol of countless Stanford students, Krieger seemed extremely excited.

   "Kevin, I didn't expect you to really know Darren, I always thought you were bragging."

Hearing this, Kevin Strom was a little embarrassed, but Xia Jingxing said to him: "Kevin and I have always been best friends, but after I returned to China to start a business, the relationship between each other became less. already."

   Speaking of this, Xia Jingxing gave Kevin Strom another look and asked, "I haven't had time to ask you, how have you been in recent years?"

   "Sit down and talk, I'll make you some coffee."

  Kevin Strom greeted Xia Jingxing and a group of people sat down on a broken sofa, and then went to make coffee by himself.

  Mike Krieger turned into a little fanboy and kept asking Xia Jingxing questions.

   After a while, Kevin Strom came back with a few cups of freshly ground coffee. After distributing the coffee to everyone, he also brought a cup of himself and chatted with Xia Jingxing.

   "After you left school, I was bored to death during that time. Later, I simply joined the research project set up by Mayfield Ventures at Stanford, and then met Mike in the project team..."

  Xia Jingxing held coffee and listened quietly to Kevin Strom's story about his experiences over the years.

   He found that the old friend had not been happy all these years.

   After the other party missed the opportunity to join Facebook as an early core employee, he went to study in Florence, Italy. What did he learn? Learn to photograph! The rich second generation is so dashing.

  After studying in the United States and returning to the United States, Kevin Strom went to Anfield, an old Silicon Valley venture capital firm, for an internship, but unfortunately, he failed to become a regular.

After   , Kevin Strom completely let himself go, and successively worked in well-known companies such as Google and NextStop, but each period of work was not long, and he did not achieve any decent results.

   Later, unwilling to be lonely, Kevin Strom chose to start his own business.

   Hearing this, Xia Jingxing interrupted and asked, "So you developed the mobile application of Instagram photo wall?"

  Kevin Strom shook his head, "No, our last product was called Burbn, a site that combined photos with check-ins and social games, similar to Foursquare and Zynga.

   But the development of this product is very rough. It was developed by myself in the HTML5 language. There is only a web version, no app, because I don’t know how to develop an app.

   At that time, it was miserable. The website has been operating for several months, but only a few dozen users are using it, and all of them are my friends. "

   Ricky and Liu Xiaoduo on the side didn't say anything, but they all had a question in their hearts, are the boss's friends at this level?

"At a later meeting, I met Steve Anderson, the founder of BaselineVentures, and after listening to my project introduction, he was willing to invest $500,000 in me, but only if I found a technical partner to make up for my technical shortcomings, and I found Mike."

   Hearing this, Ricky and Liu Xiaoduo's views on Kevin Strom have changed. It turns out that it is not useless, at least they can get angel investment.

Xia Jingxing listened with a smile, thinking that the vision of these old VCs is really poisonous. Even an unreliable entrepreneur who has only a few dozen users on his website dares to invest, it should be Kevin Strom. There was something about this man that struck Steve Anderson.

"After analyzing with Mike, I found that Foursquare has a first-mover advantage and has already seized the track of providing services based on LBS geographic location information. Therefore, we can only find another way to focus on the service of photos and mobile devices. above.

   The two of us then spent a few weeks re-prototyping the product, with me working on the back-end code and Mike focusing on the iOS front-end, and together we built Instagram. "

   When it comes to his own Instagram, Kevin Strom's tone has obviously become a lot more excited.

   "You know what? Darren, when Instagram was developed, I instantly felt that this was the product I wanted, and it fit me perfectly.

  We first developed various filters for it, and then carefully selected a group of excellent photographers as seed users of our products…”

  Xia Jingxing smiled and nodded, "Yes, I also feel that this product fits you well. Isn't photography your hobby? Now you can turn your hobby into a career."

   Kevin Strom said modestly: "Instagram has just launched, and it's too early to talk about a career."

"you are too humble."

   After that, Xia Jingxing asked Liu Xiaoduo to hand him an iPhone 4, then he opened the phone and found an app with a logo very similar to a camera, click to enter…

   Pointing to the exquisite photos in the app, Xia Jingxing said: "Look at these photos, how exquisite, each one has an artistic texture.

   and the various designs of your app are also full of literary atmosphere.

   As expected of someone who has been educated in Italy, his artistic aesthetics are naturally much higher than those of us ordinary people. "

   Being able to get Xia Jingxing's compliments, Kevin Strom was also very happy and said with a faint smile, "I didn't design it deliberately, I just wanted to make it what I wanted it to be."

  Xia Jingxing smiled without saying a word, Kevin Strom's words sounded a bit pretentious at first, but as someone who knew him, he knew that what he said was the truth.

  As the CEO and product manager of Instagram, Kevin Strom is undoubtedly the soul of this Internet product. It is no exaggeration to say that in the early days of the company's founding, his aesthetics determined the style of Instagram's products.

It just so happens that this kid is not a turtle, but a young bourgeois literary and artistic youth who has many hobbies such as photography, coffee, travel, whisky, etc., and cares about lifestyle, so the product style of Instagram has become what it is today. Pretending to be coercive, but urban young people eat this set, especially women, who doesn't like to take a few beautiful photos to show themselves on the Internet platform.

In addition, Kevin Strom also did one thing right. The early seed users were all invited professional photographers, which led to the high artistic level of the early photos of the platform, and also gave a sample to the latecomers. , the users of the platform are proud of competing to take beautiful photos.

  The current smartphone pixels are still not good enough, but because Instagram has developed a filter function, it has lowered the threshold for taking pictures, which is also a major selling point to attract users.

  For a variety of reasons, Instagram exploded as soon as it was launched!

"I heard that Instagram released the first version of its mobile app on the AppStore last month. In just 24 hours, the number of users easily exceeded 25,000, then it exceeded 100,000 users in a week, and exceeded 1 million users in January. In the end, the server was overwhelmed.

   This user growth rate is still far higher than that of Facebook back then. "

   Hearing Xia Jingxing's words, both Ricky and Liu Xiaoduo were a little surprised. This unremarkable young man in front of him and the app he developed were so powerful?

   Kevin Strom laughed, "Daren, how do you know that?"

   "Christina told me."

Xia Jingxing said with a big smile: "She said that many internet celebrities on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are recommending Instagram, a popular app, and your company has earned millions or even tens of millions without paying a single cent. dollar advertising effectiveness.

   At present, the power of advertising has not been fully demonstrated. In the next few months, the number of Instagram users may exceed 10 million.

   Seeing that your business has been so successful, I am also sincerely happy for you. "

  Kevin Strom smiled, "It's too early to talk about success, there are still many problems with the Instagram product itself."

  Xia Jingxing asked again: "I can't figure it out, are you looking down on Android or something, why are you only developing iOS apps?"

   Kevin Strom and Mike Krieger looked at each other and smiled, the former said, "We both only develop iOS apps, not Android apps."

  Xia Jingxing was speechless and said, "You can recruit Android engineers at all?"

  Kevin Strom said: "We are recruiting. The two employees sitting in the corner are the ones we recruited a few days ago."

Xia Jingxing looked like he hated iron, "It's too few to hire two employees, isn't it? And aren't your servers all overcrowded? Don't be reluctant to spend money, and seize the precious opportunity for expansion! "

   Mike Krieger said: "Daren, we have our own development plan and don't want to reduce the good community atmosphere by blind expansion."

   "Why don't you expand? If you don't expand, your opponents will soon catch up. Don't underestimate the intensity of market competition."

   Xia Jingxing's words made the two of them instantly alert. Maybe Facebook also took a fancy to the track of photo socialization?

  Xia Jingxing glanced at the two of them lightly, and smiled: "First of all, let me state that your potential opponents may include Facebook or Microsoft.

  Microsoft inherited a Flickr from Yahoo, which is the image social overlord from the PC era! More threatening than Facebook.

   I'm now completely out of Facebook, whether it will compete with Instagram in the future, I honestly don't care.

   I only have one question at the moment, Kevin, do you and your Instagram need my help? "

   Looking at Xia Jingxing's sincere eyes, Kevin Strom hesitated.

   He rejected Xia Jingxing's solicitation several times in the past, which proved to be extremely stupid.

   Now Xia Jingxing throws out the olive branch again, and it may be the last time to help himself.

   If you refuse, will you regret it for the rest of your life?

  Kevin Strom glanced at his partner Mike Krieger and found that he was a little moved, so he said, "Daren, tell me, how do you want to help us?"

   (end of this chapter)