If you are a female or know any girls, you are most likely aware of the recent internet phenomenon that is Pinterest. The site is described on a large spectrum from time-sucking white-girl website, to a corporate advertising tool to a useful personal bookmark manager. However, regardless of how it has been taken it is undeniably true that Pinterest has had incredible success being valued at over 7.7 billion dollars and serving 70 million registered users. The man to thank for the multifaceted Pinterest juggernaut is Ben Silbermann, founder in 2010 at only 27 years old.

For many it’s surprising that the founder of a site with a 70% female demographic is male. He has reported that the idea came to him when he was attempting to develop a system through which to manage the bookmarks on his computer, thus was born Pinterest. After the initial programming, Ben originally shared his creation only with friends and family. After receiving a mountain of positive feedback he decided to make it available publically, but by invitation from a current user only. Requests for invites exploded, and never stopped growing.

My first exposure to Pinterest was from my now sister-in-law as she was planning her wedding. I have to say that I didn’t quite take to it at first, not being the girl who plans her wedding at 16. However, with continued exposure I came to see how good Pinterest was at having something for everyone, and just how useful it was to keep track of the vast amount of internet content that appealed to me. A secondary benefit pointed out by the founder specifically for men is that if you keep track of your significant other’s Pinterest board you’ll never be wanting for gift ideas.

Ben is a quiet, unobtrusive but solid entrepreneur. He isn’t a big flashy persona taking his newfound wealth and beginning radical endeavors, but he is continuing to solidly evolve and run where he originally found success. His advice to budding entrepreneurs is as follows;

“Don’t take too much advice….Most people generalize whatever they did, and say that was the strategy that made it work…In reality, there’s very little way of knowing how various factors contributed to success or failure”.