39 Unforgettable Moments in Tech Startup History. SAS might be number 40!
BY LAUREN DRELL
Ask any startup founder for advice, and he or she will probably tell you that it's important to celebrate the milestones large and small. Startup life is a rollercoaster, and if you get caught up in the madness, you might quickly burn out. The little things matter, and they keep you going — when your app launches, when you have a successful investor meeting, when you finally have a customer who isn't a relative, when you get acquired. These are little steps on the road to success, and it's important to take a deep breath, look back on how far you've come (even if it's not that far) and embrace a special moment with your team, perhaps over a cocktail or a team dinner.
Below, we've compiled some epic startup moments (in no particular order) that called for some serious celebration in recent years. How does your company celebrate milestones? Tell us in the comments.
1. Facebook Acquires Instagram for $1 Billion
The nine-person team behind photo-sharing app Instagram had a lot to celebrate on April 9, 2012, when Facebook bought the company for $1 billion in a combination of cash and stock. By the time the acquisition was completed in September 2012, the deal was worth $730 million, thanks to Facebook's dropping stock price. Despite that and a privacy snafu, this moment was definitely reason for Instagram's team to celebrate.
2. Angry Birds Becomes the #1 Paid App of All Time
Finnish game-maker Rovio struck gold with Angry Birds — the game has been downloaded more than 1.7 billion times, has 263 million monthly active users, and doubled its annual revenue from 2011 to 2012, reaching $200 million. While Rovio was busy evolving from a simple smartphone game to an entertainment powerhouse, Angry Birds became the most successful paid app of all time in April 2013.
3. Draw Something Becomes a Thing, Zynga Buys It
Last spring, the Pictionary-inspired game Draw Something was all over everyone's smartphones and tablets. So Zynga, maker of addicting game apps, snatched up its maker, OMGPOP, for $180 million to add it to its own arsenal of addictive games. The app hit 50 million downloads in 50 days.
4. Jack Dorsey Sets Up His "Twttr"
On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey brought his love of dispatch service to life. He sent his first tweet and in the process, made brevity a standard in communication. Seven years later, the service has "well over" 200 million active users, who send 400 million tweets each day.
5. Google Acquires YouTube for $1.65 Billion
In October 2006, Google bought then-3-year-old YouTube for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction, at the time becoming Google's biggest buy to date. Then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt explained the YouTube acquisition was part of Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. With more than 4 billion video views per day and 4 billion hours of video watched each month, we'd say that's mission accomplished.
6. Dwolla Nabs Investment From Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher is a valued asset for a startup — sure he's a smart guy with a solid understanding of product and the mobile ecosystem, but he also comes with a built-in fan base (read: potential customer base) of 14 million Twitter followers. His VC firm, A-Grade Investments, has invested in nearly 50 tech startups, including Foursquare, Zaarly and Skype. But perhaps none hit closer to home for Kutcher — and farther from stereotypical tech hubs — than mobile payments startup Dwolla, headquartered in his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. Dwolla received a $5 million investment in 2012, though A-Grade’s investment amount was not disclosed.
7. Salesforce Acquires Buddy Media
Consumers might not have known the name "Buddy Media," but if you like HP, Mattel, L'Oreal, Carnival, Virgin Mobile or many other major brands on Facebook, you're familiar with their work. The social media management software company was acquired by CRM and cloud computing giant Salesforce for $689 Million last June. Buddy Media founder posted the emotional video above in the wake of the announcement.
8. Andreessen Horowitz Invests $27 Million in Pinterest
Pinterest became the fastest site to reach 10 million monthly uniques in February 2012, and that growth continued, making Pinterest the hottest startup of 2012. But before it became a household name, the then-invite-only startup courted investors to help fuel its growth; Andreessen Horowitz led a $27 million round of funding in October 2011. Since then, Pinterest has changed the face of the web, inspiring sites to convert to a heavily visual grid layout. Pinterest co-founder and designer Evan Sharp says he spent the most time working on the grid, creating 50 iterations — it was worth it, as "the grid is the visual hallmark of our site."
9. Fabulis Pivots, Becomes Fab.com
Jason Goldberg and Bradford Shellhammer founded Fabulis as a gay social network in 2010. But in April 2011, the site pivoted and started to focus on what really mattered to them — good design. It was a move that seems to have paid off. By the end of 2012, Fab had amassed 10 million members, who buy 5.4 products every minute. The ecommerce darling tested a $1 million TV ad last year and now has its sights set on brick-and-mortar shops and is growing its own private label.
10. Foursquare Hits a Billion Check-Ins
In September 2011, the location-based service reached a pretty impressive milestone, thanks to its then-10-million-strong user base that averaged about 3 million check-ins per day. After four years and six versions (the most recent one this week), Foursquare has amassed 3.5 billion check-ins.
11. Pebble Watch Becomes Best-Selling Kickstarter of All Time
Pebble Watch
Who knew so many people wanted a watch? The Pebble smartwatch — which wirelessly syncs to your smartphone and displays calls and messages on a sleek epaper screen — raised more than $10 million from nearly 70,000 backers on Kickstarter. Pebble blew past the previous Kickstarter record of $3.3 million just five days after the campaign started.
12. Square Partners With Starbucks
Jack Dorsey's mobile payments startup Square is looking to revolutionize commerce, but it's starting with the the atomic unit of commerce, the transaction. To boost mainstream awareness and scale Square's usage, the company partnered with Starbucks so baristas can swipe your card in the Square reader at 7,000 Starbucks locations.
13. Airbnb Lists 300,000 Rooms, Including Castles and Treehouses
The sharing economy is in full swing, my friends. Airbnb helped 3 million people book rooms in 2012, bringing in an estimated $180 million and valuing the company at $2.5 billion. A January 2012 infographic displays the company's astounding growth (the heat map of Airbnb rooms from 2008 to 2012 is amazing).
14. Sheryl Sandberg Becomes First Woman to Join Facebook's Board of Directors
After a career of leaning in (but before Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg broke yet another gender-related barrier, becoming the first woman on Facebook's board of directors in June 2012. As COO of Facebook since 2008, "Sheryl has been my partner in running Facebook and has been central to our growth and success over the years," wrote Mark Zuckerberg in a written statement. "Her understanding of our mission and long-term opportunity, and her experience both at Facebook and on public company boards makes her a natural fit for our board."
15. Evernote Hits 10 million Registered Users
If you're wondering how people keep their lives, thoughts and notes organized, 45 million of them will tell you, "Evernote." Since founding the company in 2004, Phil Libin and team bet on mobile in a big way, and it paid off. By 2009, the site had 1 million users, and just two years later, it spiked to 10 million.
16. Tumblr Surpasses 100 Million Blogs
Tumblr is a blogging platform for the world's creators, and the company recently reached an exciting milestone — 100 million blogs. Just last year, Tumblr became one of the 10 most-visited sites on the web, with an audience of roughly 170 million people per month. The site is known for a simple, easy-to-use interface that lets creatives produce and share compelling content.
17. Reddit Logs 37 Billion Page Views and 4 Billion Votes in 2012
To non-Redditors, Reddit can be quite a beast to understand and navigate (here's help). But for those in the community, Reddit is a treasure trove of amazing stories, GIFS and facts that are upvoted, helping the gems rise to the top. In 2012, Redditors combed through 37 billion pages and cast 4 billion votes on the site. In the video above, founder Alexis Ohanian discusses the early days of the site.
18. Groupon Has Largest Tech IPO Since Google
The honeymoon didn't last long, but on November 4, 2011, Groupon enjoyed a smashing IPO, with shares soaring more than 30% in the company's market debut (the stock quickly free-fell). It was the largest tech IPO of its kind since Google went public in 2004.
19. Spotify Arrives in the U.S.
The Swedish music service Spotify launched in Europe in 2008, rolling out music streaming to Europeans. By March 2011, the service had 10 million subscribers, 1 million of whom actually pay for the service (there are three pricing tiers, one of which is free and ad-supported). Meanwhile, Americans were clamoring for the service, which they finally had access to in July 2011. Since then, Spotify's user base and streams have grown steadily; Spotify now has 24 million users, more than 6 million of whom pay for the service (despite this growth, the company has posted losses).
20. HotelTonight Kicks Off 2013 With 4 Million Downloads, European Expansion
HotelTonight launched in December 2010 and expanded to London just in time for the 2012 Olympics. Apparently, that's gone well, because in January, HotelTonight said it had been downloaded 4 million times and announced expansion into Berlin, Munich, Zurich and Geneva.
21. Cheezburger Scores $30 Million in Funding
Journalist-turned-entrepreneur Ben Huh and his company mostly bootstrapped Cheezburger, relying on a $2 million angel round and advertising and merchandise to survive. So the company made a surprising move when it announced $30 million in funding in January 2011, money that was put toward hiring, marketing and growth initiatives. The network now gets 375 million page views a month across its 50 sites.
22. Cindy Gallop Takes MakeLoveNotPorn.tv Into Open Beta, Proves People Do Pay for Porn
After 4.5 months of closed beta, Cindy Gallop took Make Love Not Porn into open beta, garnering 130,000 sign-ups. Gallop and her team are reinventing an industry ruled by the sentiment that "Nobody pays for porn," bringing to it a new business model, a very open mind and Gallop's trademark British sass.
23. Birchbox Expands to Europe via Acquisition
Usually startups are the ones getting acquired, but after just two years in business (during which they ignited the subscription box trend) beauty discovery platform Birchbox acquired Joliebox. The Paris-based Joliebox was admittedly a Birchbox copycat, so the buy helped Birchbox seamlessly expand its footprint across the pond.
24. Digg Makes a Comeback
Since its 2004 founding, Digg experienced some ups and downs, and founder Kevin Rose resigned in March 2011. Last summer, New York startup Betaworks bought Digg for a reported $500,000 and took six weeks to entirely rebuild the site, with an emphasis on compelling visuals. The new look debuted in July 2012, and though Digg didn't share specific numbers, it did say its user base had doubled since the relaunch. And in the wake of news that Google Reader is shutting down in July, Digg announced that it would be creating an RSS feed product to replace the hole left by Reader — the Internet rejoiced.
25. Skillshare Founders Build the Website in One Day
Back in the summer of 2010, Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm Ong had an idea for a community-driven education platform. Having worked in startups before, they didn't want to spend too much time and money developing an idea that might not work. They put $5,000 toward Skillshare and built the site in a day, using their friend as the first Skillshare teacher. Today, Skillshare sees 47% growth in enrollment each month.
26. Kindle Books Outsell Real Books on Amazon
In May 2011, less than four years after their introduction, Kindle e-books started outselling physical books on Amazon. Amazon was selling 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books, and kindle sales were triple what they were in 2010. In a statement, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said, "We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly."
27. Pinterest Reaches 10 Million Monthly Users Faster Than Anyone Else, Ignites Visual Web Design Trend
The pinboarding site hit the 10 million U.S. user milestone in February 2012, just 23 months after its March 2010 launch. In the process, Pinterest revolutionized web design, a trend known as the "Pinterestization of the web." Today, the company is valued at $2 billion.
28. 17 Year Old Becomes Multimillionaire, Thanks to Marissa Mayer
Yahoo acquired mobile news aggregator Summly in March, turning London teen Nick D'Aloisio into a 17-year-old millionaire. Summly allows users to quickly find news they're interested in, as it aggregates and displays snapshots of articles from various news sources. Three members of Summly's team will be joining Yahoo, and the technology powering the app will soon come to Yahoo's mobile products.
29. Warby Parker's Sales Per Square Foot in NYC Showroom Exceeds Tiffany & Co.
Few brands are more beloved by consumers than stylish eyewear company Warby Parker, whose trendy frames severly undercut designer frames at $95 a pair. While the company is mum on annual sales and revenue figures, co-founder and co-CEO Neil Blumenthal told Mashable that Warby Parker's Manhattan showroom does $3,659 in sales per square foot — more than Tiffany & Co. And these customers are thrilled with their product — Warby Parker boasts a Net Promoter Score of 91.
30. Mailbox Accrues 800,000-Person Queue
Inbox zero is a beautiful thing, and Mailbox came on the scene to help smartphone owners achieve it through a triage email management system. The app quickly amassed a wait list of 800,000 would-be users, who were clamoring for the promise of productivity in a mobile-first world. Shortly after launch, Dropbox bought Mailbox.
31. Job-Search Site Indeed Hits 100 Million Monthly Users With No Marketing
The search engine Indeed launched in 2004, at the time competing with companies like CareerBuilder and Monster, which spent $250 million on advertising that year. Indeed raised $5 million round in 2005 and focused on one thing — competing on product, not marketing. Indeed emulated Google's simple search functionality and finally knocked Monster off the pedestal, becoming the top U.S. site for job search activity in 2010. In January 2013, Indeed hit 100 million unique visitors.
32. Microsoft Acquires Skype
Skype
In October 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype for a hefty $8.5 billion. While Skype had a large user base (663 million users), the company was not yet profitable. Today, Skype users spend 2 billion minutes a day connecting with one another.
33. OpenTable Reaches 15 Million Reviews
Reservation site OpenTable reached 15 million restaurant reviews in October 2012, four years after launching reviews. Hot on the heels of this milestone, OpenTable acquired Foodspotting, adding a strong visual and social component to the platform.
34. Google Acquires DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion
In 2007, Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, giving it access to all of DoubleClick's advertisement software as well as relationships with web publishers and advertising agencies. This acquisition enabled Google to expand its presence in display ads, giving it reach beyond algorithm-based online advertisements.
35. UberTAXI OK'd for NYC
In New York City, there are three ways to get around — walking, public transport and cabs, which often can seem impossible to hail. So when Uber arrived in New York City, city dwellers rejoiced at the service's luxury, on-demand black car service. And in December 2012, New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission announced it would launch a year-long pilot program to let New Yorkers use their phones to e-hail nearby yellow cabs via UberTAXI.
36. Yahoo Buys Flickr
In 2004, Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield launched photo-sharing platform Flickr in Vancouver. Just 13 months later, Yahoo came calling and purchased the site for a reported $35 million. Despite the arrival of newer photo-sharing apps like Instagram and even Facebook photos, Flickr's image base has grown steadily, with more than 8 billion photos uploaded to date.
37. Aviary Downloaded Two Million Times in One Week After Inking Twitter Deal
In December 2012, Twitter inked a deal with Aviary for the photo-editing firm to provide Twitter's built-in photo filters. The app has 25 million active monthly users going into the deal, but post-Twitter news, the app was downloaded two million times in one week.
38. TED Launches TEDx
You know your brand is powerful when people want to franchise it out as independent events. That's exactly what happened with TED, which launched its TEDx program with the University of Southern California on March 23, 2009.
39. Facebook Reaches 1 Billion Users
Facebook made history in October 2012, announcing it had reached 1 billion active users, 140.3 billion friend connections, 1.13 trillion Likes and 219 billion shared photos. If $1 billion is cool, what's 1 billion users?
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, lightkey, jeremkin, istockphoto, svariophoto, kizilkayaphotos, sematadesign, andrearoad, Scott Beale via Compfight, cc, mikkelwilliam, World Economic Forum
TOPICS: BUSINESS, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, STARTUPS, TOASTING SUCCESS
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