Evan Spiegel, who was b
orn in 1990, became the world’s youngest billionaire at the age of 25. He accomplished this by developing a particular app; an app that is now practically synonymous with the word “millennial.” That app, which started out as Picaboo, would later be renamed to Snapchat. Evan founded his company with the help of his friends Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown, and their app grew to over a million users in just one year. What’s so great about Snapchat was the fact that it solved a problem most people didn’t know they even had – the need to send temporary messages to someone. At first, when Evan pitched this idea to his friends in 2011, they ridiculed it. Now, with Snapchat boasting over 150 million daily users, it’s safe to say that Evan had a truly amazing idea, and he knew just what to do with it. Evan Spiegel is an important role model to me in the field of entrepreneurship; not just because of his incredible success, but because of the difficulties he faced when he was going through the process of growing his company, and how he responded to them.
When Evan first started his company, he faced some difficulties with getting investors, since none of them really thought being able to send temporary messages was a good idea. However, he didn’t quit, he didn’t give up; he kept at it, and pushed harder and harder to find someone to invest in his company. He was successful eventually, but who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t persisted with his idea? One thing’s for sure, he definitely wouldn’t have become the world’s youngest billionaire.
Snapchat was truly an extremely innovative idea. Allowing you to sent temporary picture messages solved the problem of texts having a lack of emotion and people not being able to tell whats peoples tones are in text. Snapchat is easy for your facial expression is everything. I personally use it most days to stay in touch with friends back home.
That is an excellent point that Snapchat “solved a problem most people didn’t know they even had.” Evan thought about the trouble people were having, whether they knew it or not, with sending temporary messages and easily expressing emotions. Then he created a program to help people do just that. It was also important that he pushed on even though people did not think it was a good idea. Sometimes this is a bad sign and means you should not continue because there is no market for the product, but other times people might just not see the problem they are having, and it could be a brilliant idea. In this case, Evan definitely made the right decision to pursue his idea.
I think the idea of him having the vision to notice the problem that many people didn’t notice they had and making that a reality is inspiring and innovative. It’s inspiring to hear success stories of someone so close to us in age. I know I often have ideas but I lack the confidence to try and push them. I want to continue to grow closer in confidence to Evan and to learn to persevere even when others may not see me being successful.