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Instagram founder Kevin Systrom: “Too many startups maximize features”

Name: Instagram founder Kevin Systrom: “Too many startups maximize features”
Uploaded: 2024-08-03T11:50:01+00:00
Duration: 52 s
Channel: Lorenzo
Description: Kevin Systrom (Instagram co-founder) argues that startups should prioritize depth and scalability over maximizing features. He emphasizes focusing on…

3 Aug 2024 · 1 min

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Kevin Systrom (Instagram co-founder) argues that startups should prioritize depth and scalability over maximizing features. He emphasizes focusing on what users love and making those core experiences faster and more reliable rather than adding many unused features. He cites making filters fast and scaling the product to over 15 million users as concrete areas they "went deep on," and notes that having only two to three engineers early on forced product focus.

Questions this video answers

Over 15 million users.

Two to three engineers.

Chapters

I think too many startups, the goal is to maximize features. I had one VC come up to me and was like, you guys haven't really launched any features in the last year. Is that a problem? I was like, dude, do you know how much work we've done on the product to make it scale to where it is today? The things you launch that end up making the difference are not yet another feature that no one's going to use. It's what can you go really deep on. What we went deep on was scaling to over 15 million users. We made our filters fast. We said, what do people love about the product? And how can we make it even better? We didn't say, what do people love about the product? Let's add a bunch of shit, right? It was a very focused effort to make the product better. That's brilliant. And I mean, frankly, only having back in the day, two, three engineers made us focus on those problems. And I think, if anything, that wasn't our Achilles heel. It was the thing that made us shine. I think focus is key.