Did you know that Jon Oringer, the only founder of Shutterstock, owns 46.3% of the company and that it generates $625 million annually?
How was this accomplished by him?
These are his initial actions:
- Prior to 2003, Jon Oringer was always searching for digital pictures for his company’s needs, but they were either $500 or required him to make calls to obtain the rights. There was a significant issue with no answers; there were no websites where you could just select and purchase whatever photograph you desired.
- As a result, in 2003, Jon made the decision to create a straightforward website where people like him could purchase digital images.
- However, he ran into a major issue: where to find digital photos? He required photojournalists. But he made the decision to start his own photography business rather than paying them with the money he lacked.
- For $800, he purchased a Canon Digital Rebel digital camera.
- He took 100,000 solo photos over the course of around six months.
- After that, he picked the top 30,000 photos and uploaded them to the Internet, allowing anyone to download them indefinitely for a monthly starting price of $49.
- When you come up with the initial solution to a significant unmet need, it spreads like wildfire at a petrol station and erupts. Your best growth hack is to put time into identifying such a sizable unmet need.
- He handled every task in that business alone, including photoshooting, programming, and email customer service.
- The first servers were set up in his apartment, making it unbearably hot, and the demand was so great that he was unable to meet it all.
- As the service gained popularity, more photographers began to approach Jon about uploading their own images to the site.
- Jon built an upload mechanism that anyone could use and paid about 25% per download.
- Shutterstock had 1.8 million images by 2007.
- In 2007, Jon Oringer persuaded a savvy investor to join the business and assist him in growing it from a 40-person operation to a 200-person operation while the business was profitable.
- Shutterstock now employs 700 people and generates $625M in annual revenue.
Source: www.inc.com