Kevin Systrom and
Mike Krieger are two icons and synonyms
of success that have chosen to keep a low-profile. Having inherited gifts like
creativity, innovation and coding in their genes, they both created an apps
called Burbn, which would then be
re-engineered and renamed to Instagram. Jack Dorsey, the founder of
Twitter, who is a friend of Kevin Systrom was the first ‘outsider’ to test the
once ‘beta’ version of Instagram and he promoted Instagram on his Twitter
account, which resulted the download counter to explode in less than 24 hours,
indicating more than 25,000 downloads on their iPhones.
Moreover, Kevin
Systrom benefitted from his personal networking to get his new product marketed
and launched and this is thanks to Jack Dorsey. Investors like Dorsey, amongst
others then queued up to invest in the company which has a lot of potential in
the industry. Jack Dorsey, seeing the success of Instagram, had in mind to
acquire the company and to integrate it to Twitter and he formally made the
first step by expressing his interest thereof. The offer was categorically
declined by Kevin Systrom.
However, some
months later, following the dropping of the initial proposal, Facebook eyed
Instagram as its next acquisition and Mark Zukerberg, the man who needs no more
introduction made an eye-popping offer of $ 1 billion, which was soon accepted
by the founder of Instagram. The founder of Facebook raised the bar to such an
extent that his competitors would not dare to adventure themselves into the
transaction. Kevin Systrom and Co. accepted the offer, hence putting an end to
the sound relationship with Jack Dorsey, who contributed to the success of
Instagram.
Conclusion of this real-life
situation: Friendship has never been a factor of benefit in any business, not
even family relationship. There are no friends, no family and no relatives in
the cruelly competitive business world, but only business partners. The friends
of yesterday can turn to be the enemies to tomorrow!
