How did Pinterest Start and What Magic 7 Things Make it so Successful?
What is Pinterest?
If you have to ask this question, you may have been living under a rock for the past decade. Pinterest is both a social network and search engine where users can visually find ideas and inspiration for almost anything. What are your interest? Home design, makeup, craft, cooking, fashion, DIY, book recommendations, gardening, poetry... The list is infinite.
Both the app and website act as a virtual pin board, allowing you to 'pin' or save your interests/ ideas in categories, as well as posting or sharing your own. In 2022, the company had over 436 million Monthly Average Users (MAU).
How did Pinterest Start?
Pinterest has three founders, Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, who today occupy some of the top positions in the company. (Ben always assumed he’d be a doctor.)
The idea for Pinterest started with an early application, Tote, which aimed to digitally replace paper catalogues. At the end of 2009, very first version of Pinterest was born and, by 2010, users had grown to 10,000, and this number only increased.
In 2014, Pinterest made its first revenue when it began charging advertisers to promote its products to the site’s millions of users. Advertisements could generate hundreds of million dollars worth of revenue!
In 2015, investors valued Pinterest, Inc. at $11 billion, making it a “unicorn” (a startup worth more than $1 billion).
What was key to its success?
No. 1: Unique Concept
In 2010, the virtual pin board was a novel way of sharing and creating content.
No. 2: Visual Appeal
Pinterest capitalised on the growing popularity of visual content on the internet. Its layout is image-led, making it both appealing and user friendly. Initially, this particularly appealed to users with interests in art, fashion and décor.
No. 3: Niche Target Market
It seems like a limiting factor but , for Pinterest, it was a game-changer. By having a dedicated user base (initially women interested in craft and lifestyle-related content), Pinterest could focus its energy on doing this job as brilliantly as possible, growing its users and eventually expanding into other user bases.
No. 4: User Engagement
The platform encourages high levels of user engagement as Pinterest's algorithm personalises content feeds based on user interactions. Users can curate their own boards and also browse, re-pin, and comment on others' pins. This creates a unique sense of community, particularly in niche interest areas, which also helps in retaining users.
No. 5: SEO and Link-Backs
Pins often link back to the source of the content, driving traffic to external sites, boosting SEO and encouraging more sites to promote their content on Pinterest, making it relevant in more areas and boosting user numbers.
Once its power to influence purchase decisions and its role as a discovery platform for products and ideas became apparent, brands and influencers began using Pinterest for marketing.
No. 6: Mobile Adaptability
Pinterest was quick to embrace mobile technology, developing a user-friendly app that aligned well with the increasing trend of mobile internet usage and has stood the test of time.
No. 7: Continuous Improvement
Whatever you do in life, you should always be looking to continuously improve. Pinterest knows this, and has remained relevant by introducing new features like rich pins, buyable pins, visual search, and more.
Final Thoughts
If you're not yet a user, whether personally or commercially, have we convinced you to try it? Since Pinterest started, it has gone from strength to strength, and we hope you have learned from - and been inspired by - its story.
You can read more about Pinterest here and check out our Pinterest page here.
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