Ben Silbermann at Startup School 2012

TL;DR

Pinterest took 3.5–4 months post-launch to reach only ~3,000 accounts, illustrating that building a worthwhile consumer startup can take a very long time. Founder Ben Silbermann emphasizes that commitment (leaving his job) was critical, that investors are fallible people subject to the same biases as everyone, and that the key early insight was finding a small group of users who genuinely loved th

Key insights

• The dependent variable in many stalled side projects is the founder’s own lack of full commitment; for some people, the act of quitting a job and putting yourself in a situation where you have to make
• Investors are “just people too” – they can be influenced by “free cookies” (trivial incentives) and are subject to the same biases, trends, and media narratives as anyone else.
• The future is unwritten: venture capitalists have many successful investments but also regret the ones they passed on, so founders can convince them to beat the odds.