Mark Zuckerberg's emails to his CFO before buying Instagram💰| Sam Altman's number one founder quality😮| YouTube's original pitch deck💻
Here is the best of my research.
Welcome to Explore, your weekly Startups and VC podcast. 📈
This is a summary of all my research from the week.
This week, I released an episode with Martin Habfast, founder at Umiami, a plant-based meat startup, listen here to be inspired. 🌱
Zuck to his CFO before buying Insta 💰
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Here is Mark Zuckerberg talking about Instagram before buying it. 💰
And why it matters for startup founders.
A bit of context:
In early 2012, Zuckerberg emailed his CFO about the idea of buying smaller competitors, including Instagram. Zuckerberg said:
⤷ "These businesses are nascent but the networks established, the brands are already meaningful, and if they grow to a large scale the could be very disruptive to us"
⤷ "What we are buying is time. Even if some new competitors springs up, buying Instagram now will give us a year to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again"
Why it matters for founders:
For founders reading this, be aware of your value.
Corporates are afraid when you are disrupting their core business.
And that often results in an acquisition offer.
While it might be a great exit. it also means that:
⤷ you're on track to deliver a great business.
And exiting is a big change in your lifestyle.
You could loose some freedom in how you build.
Instagram’s Example:
For example, Kevin Systrom (Instagram's co-founder) turned down an offer from Twitter few months before getting acquired by Facebook. Why did he agree to sell to Facebook in the end?
Zuckerberg offered Systrom something Twitter didn’t: relative independence.
In exchange for joining Facebook, the company would give him resources with which to build Instagram and let him run it as CEO. Systrom agreed.
Altman's quality for founders😮
Not giving up is the most important thing. 📈💚
In Sam Altman’s (OpenAI's co-founder) word:
“I think the most underrated quality, is being really determined. This is more important than being smart. This is more important than having a network. This is more important than a great idea.
The hardest thing about starting a company is the level and the frequency of bad stuff that happens to you. And most people that are good in other ways, eventually just get killed.
So much about being a successful entrepreneur is just not giving up.”
Key takeaway:
⤷ get the basics right - you need a good product and a strong market
⤷ work on something meaningful and play the long game
YouTube's original pitch deck 💻
You can find the deck here.
Why I love YouTube?💚
2005 - YouTube raises a $3.5M Series A
↓
2006 - Google acquires YouTube for $1.65BN
↓
2023 - YouTube delivers $31B revenue
Why I love their deck?💚
1️⃣ YouTube's business in 2 words - impressive
3️⃣ A real problem that resonated with investors
4️⃣ The solution slide still works today!
6️⃣ I'm sad to see DailyMotion there.. I wish they had succeeded
8️⃣ Who said YouTube premium was a new thing?
1️⃣0️⃣ Dominant player in less than a year.. what else?
It's fun to observe how YouTube has had little to no evolution.
If you were to re-design this deck, it could almost be used today!
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