Invest Like The Best
Episode 148 How to Build a Great Product
Invest Like The Best

Episode 148: How to Build a Great Product

Invest Like The Best

Episode 148

How to Build a Great Product

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are the co-founders of Instagram. We cover data and machine learning, growth and distribution in startups, and lessons in leadership.

[00:01:38] – Projects they’ve been working on since leaving Instagram 

[00:05:22] – How they can apply what they are learning in machine learning 

[00:07:18] – Most interesting experience diving back into data and machine learning 

[00:08:42] – How startups compare today to when they founded Instagram 

[00:13:23] – Judging founders and whether they know how to use their data effectively 

[00:14:26] – The jobs-to-be-done framework 

[00:19:14] – Laying out a vision vs solving problems that pop up  

[00:25:20] – Developing and sharing the principles of the company with the team 

[00:30:48] – Creating a community when it includes almost the entire world 

[00:39:03] – The most popular ways people used the platform 

[00:41:24] – What was the jobs-to-be-done rational behind the stories feature 

[00:44:15] – Interesting things that they saw as Instagram entered the developing world 

[00:46:40] – Their thoughts on how Instagram shaped culture and if they focused on those 

[00:52:58] – The new waves that they are observing right now 

[00:55:11] – How their thinking on leadership and teams changed during their time at Instagram and Facebook 

[01:03:23] – The pillars of a good business, including humility and confidence 

[01:06:06] – Focus on growth and distribution in a startup  

[01:10:01] – How early were they thinking about monetization on this free platform 

[01:13:43] – How do they think about how they invest their money and allocate resources 

[01:17:36] – Mentors for Kevin and Mike 

[01:20:30] – Their passion for learning to fly and the someday/maybe list 

[01:23:01] – Their interest in coffee 

[01:26:24] – Advice for everyone else 

[01:30:00] – Kindest thing anyone has done for them 

How to Build a Great Product

Introduction

Patrick
Our guests this week are Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram. I met Kevin and Mike a few months ago over a shared interest in business and investing. I found them both to be extremely good people who have a rare talent for finding and solving interesting problems. Indeed, problem-solving and jobs-to-be-done is a big part of our conversation. I realized walking into the podcast that Kevin and Mike also have a rare set of experiences, having both built and sold an extremely successful product from scratch, but then also operated and scaled inside of one of the largest businesses in the world. This means they have unique knowledge to offer, just about anybody interested in business and in products. We dig into all those lessons here. I'm working on hosting more founders and CEOs on this podcast, and can't think of a better pair to show you why I want to do so. Please enjoy my conversation with Kevin and Mike.Current Areas of Learning

So, gentlemen, we're going to talk about a lot of business-related stuff. We'll talk about Instagram for sure, because I'm fascinated by what you learned, both building the business from scratch and then also operating inside of a massive organization. But, I always like to begin with whatever has your interest and attention right now. So, you've had some time since leaving Instagram. The last time we were here, we were talking about all sorts of interesting companies that you had seen, and data science-related projects you were working on. And, you just strike me as two incredibly curious and interested guys. So let's just begin there with, what have you been tooling away at, playing with, learning about, since having a little bit more free time?

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