No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram

by Sarah Frier

It was not a fluke. It was just an indication that whatever her daughter would tell people to do, they would do. Over the next few months, whenever Kylie would announce on her Instagram that new products were coming, there would be more than 100,000 people waiting on her website for them to drop. Four years later, when Kylie was 21, Forbes put her on its cover and declared her the youngest “self-made” billionaire ever. Now every beauty guru on Instagram seems to have his or her own product line.

The founders picked their first users carefully, courting people who would be good photographers—especially designers who had high Twitter follower counts. Those first users would help set the right artistic tone, creating good content for everyone else to look at, in what was essentially the first-ever Instagram influencer campaign, years before that would become a concept.

Instead of trying to get everyone to use their app, they invited only people they thought would be likely to spread the word to their followers elsewhere, especially designers and creatives. They sold exclusivity to investors, even when so many of them were skeptical. In that sense, they were like a luxury brand, manufacturing coolness and tastefulness around what they’d built.

It was better to start with something minimalist, and then let priorities reveal themselves as users ran into trouble.

Krieger, who owned much less of Instagram than Systrom did, embraced the hierarchy. He didn’t want Systrom’s job, and Systrom didn’t want his. That’s why it worked.

At first, Systrom felt out of place among these celebrities; the feeling reminded him of his days at Middlesex boarding school, where his peers had yachts and summer homes and families who were in the news. But as he asked more questions and heard their stories and learned of their insecurities, he realized that everyone at the party was just trying to be better at their jobs. They could help each other.

Lafley’s theme resonated with the Instagram founders’ focus on simplicity. “No company can be all things to all people and still win,” Lafley wrote. First companies had to pick where to play; then they had to decide how to win in that market, without worrying about everything else.

In May 2017, in a widely publicized study, the Royal Society for Public Health in the U.K. named Instagram the number one worst app for mental health for youth, specifically because it drives people to compare themselves to one another and fosters anxiety. “Seeing friends constantly on holiday or enjoying nights out can make young people feel like they are missing out while others enjoy life,” the report said. “These feelings can promote a ‘compare and despair’ attitude in young people. Individuals may view heavily photo-shopped, edited or staged photographs and videos and compare them to their