Joel Flory was a wedding photographer and Greg Lutze had an eye for web design. These two men joined together at first to start building websites. Their simple idea lead to the release of their first website in November 2011 to desktops. After the website brought in more than a quarter million dollars in the first 48 hrs, they dropped the website making business and turned their attention to the app we know as VSCO.
The evolution of VSCO is very interesting for a number of reasons. VSCO was initially intended to be a website where you could access tools to edit photos. This idea emerged because of the skills Lutze had with web design and Flory’s photography job. I think that there is a very important lesson to learn about timing when we look at VSCO. If this app had been released earlier or later than it was then we could be without VSCO. VSCO was released at about the same time as Instagram and other social media platforms. These other platforms paired well with VSCO and contributed to its grow, but VSCO has separated itself from the rest. As an entrepreneur, one of the hardest things to account for is timing. In the case of Flory and Lutze, they managed to get lucky with the timing of their app. However, it is still an important factor to take into account.
The story of these co-founders is also encouraging to young entrepreneurs and college students. Flory went to Cal Poly university as an electrical engineer, but quickly switched to information technology. In addition he decided to take time off his sophomore year. Looking back at his journey, Flory gives this piece of advice, “The rules aren’t exactly clear, and each year you start to learn a little more about how to be successful. Don’t take failure as the closing of a door — rather, a new skill you need to learn.”
The creators of VSCO and their story should be taken as an encouragement to young entrepreneurs. You do not need to have everything figured out to be successful, you just have to be motivated. In addition, I think that this story teaches us to be open to iterations in ideas that might not have been expected.
VSCO founder’s unique perspective: How alum Joel Flory’s side hustle took off
VSCO found the perfect niche- like Instagram, but for more serious photographers. It’s awesome that they took such a simple concept, but knew when and where to market in the perfect way to be successful. It really is all in the timing!
I love how these two guys took both of their strengths and came together to create VSCO. Yes they were partners, but they also had some very different and unique skills and abilities that they capitalized on. I also like how they started with the hopes of creating a website to help people edit pictures and now it is a social media app that still has the edititng component. It is a great entrepreneurial story!
The progression from a photographer and a design artist to an amazing platform such as VSCO is inspiring. Its a very classic example that with some basic skills and a good idea, people can become very successful. They truly created something unique.
It’s really cool to see even more new innovations in the incredibly competitive social media market and how these two entrepreneurs put their skills together and created this amazing app.
This is such a great entrepreneurial story! I love using VSCO and did not know about how it was started. Also, I did not know that it was launched around the time Instagram did as it became very popular a couple years ago. It is very inspiring to hear how the two founders combined their skills and abilities to make this awesome app. We frequently see this in different entrepreneurial stories.
This was honestly super interesting. I never really knew how VSCO started or where it came from, but I like how you tracked their entrepreneurial growth. The bit about their timing being crucial was also really interesting. That’s something that I think is more applicable to entrepreneurial ventures than we usually think. It also makes me wonder how many great ideas out there never grew because it was the wrong time.