Pinterest

Categories

Technology  
Media and Communications  

#865

Rank

$20.47B

MarketCap US

US United States

Country

Summary

Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool for saving and discovering creative ideas. Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool for saving and discovering creative ideas. It helps its users to discover and do what they love; including recipes, arts and crafts, clothing, and home projects. 

Its site and app allow its users to save and post images on different boards, categorized and curated to each user's individual tastes. Users can also follow boards created by other users, and re-post (or "pin") items to their own boards. The company was launched in 2009. To date, the site has more than 150 million monthly users and more than 1,000 employees.


History

2009: The earliest versions of Pinterest were pretty rudimentary, and the development of the site began in earnest in December. Cold Brew Labs’ first real product was a shopping comparison app called Tote, which launched in 2009 roughly six months after Cold Brew Labs was founded. Silbermann and Sciarra’s new prototype was largely finished by the end of the autumn.

2010: By December, Pinterest had grown to 10,000 users. Early in the year Ben and the investors in the company decided to sell the network to a magazine publishing company based in New York; the company declined. The notion of online pinboards was still novel, but people already knew how to use a pinboard.

2011: The launch of an iPhone app in early March brought in more downloads than expected. On August 10, Time magazine listed Pinterest in its "50 Best Websites of 2011" article. Pinterest won the Best New Startup of 2011 at the TechCrunch Crunchies Awards. Silbermann and a few programmers operated the site out of a small apartment until the summer.

2012: For January, comScore reported the site had 11.7 million unique United States visitors On March 23, Pinterest unveiled updated terms of service that eliminated the policy that gave it the right to sell its users' content. On August 10, Pinterest altered its policy so that a request or an invitation was no longer required to join the site. On September 20, Pinterest announced the hiring of its new head of engineering, Jon Jenkins. In October, Pinterest launched business accounts allowing businesses to either convert their existing personal accounts into business accounts or start from scratch. Paul left Pinterest and, today, he's working on new projects in technology. At the 2012 Webby Awards, Pinterest won Best Social Media App and People's Voice Award for best functioning visual design. Earlier this year, Silbermann gave the keynote speech at the Alt Summit 2012 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

2013: In February, Reuters and ComScore stated that Pinterest had 48.7 million users globally. Pinterest kicked off with a bang by raising even more funding. This year also saw the introduction of what was the biggest update to Pinterest as a product thus far: Promoted Pins.

2014: Pinterest generated its first revenue Aside from serving as an example of just how influential Pinterest was this year, Guided Search was a major step forward for Pinterest as a content discovery engine.

2015: On April 1, Pinterest launched its Jumpstart program, an experimental initiative designed to help the company break into overseas markets more effectively. The company’s Buyable Pins and Marketing Developer Partners program were both rolled out this year, but Pinterest wasted precious time by rolling these features out very slowly. It was the second-largest source of referral traffic on the internet after Facebook. It had more than 100M users worldwide and Pinterest’s international user growth increased by more than 135%.

2016: In October, Pinterest announced 150 million monthly active users, 70 million in the United States and 80 million outside the United States. By the time Pinterest introduced support for video and built its own native video player, Facebook had been enjoying strong revenue growth from its video ads for two years.

2017: Google Images introduced the exact same feature into its search function this year—three years after Pinterest pioneered the idea. Pinterest partnered with Target on a pilot program in which Pinterest users could take pictures of merchandise in Target stores, and Lens would offer suggestions for visually and thematically similar items on Pinterest. Revenue grew by 58%, softening the blow of its missed revenue target.

2018: By this year, just eight years after Silbermann, Sharp, and Sciarra first unveiled their prototype, Pinterest had become a social behemoth.

2019: The company still has to figure out how to compete with Google and Facebook’s stranglehold over the online ad space, but signs are pointing to an IPO in mid-year, based on strong revenue growth and advertisers’ attraction to its search technology on mobile.

2021: On October 20, Bloomberg reported that PayPal is interested in acquiring Pinterest, with a potential price of around $70 a share.


Mission

“Our mission is to help people discover the things they love, and inspire them to go do those things in their daily lives.” 


Vision

“Keep millions of people around the world find recipes, parenting hacks, style inspiration and other ideas to try.” 


Key Team

Paul Sciarra (Founder)

Paul Sciarra (Founder)

Evan Sharp (Board Member)

Andréa Mallard (Chief Marketing Officer)

Andy Steingruebl (Chief Security Officer (CSO))

Christine Deputy (Chief People Officer)

Christine Flores (General Counsel)

David Chaiken (Chief Architect)

Ines Lee (Executive Assistant Business Partner To COO)

Benjamin Silbermann (Co-Founder and CEO)

Evan Sharp (Board Member)

Lindsay Whittemore (Executive Assistant Business Partner To Co-Founder, Chief Design & Creative Officer)


Recognition and Awards
Fortune: Unicorns, TechCrunch: Unicorns - Best New Startup of 2011 at the TechCrunch Crunchies Awards

References
Pinterest
Leadership team

Evan Sharp (Board Member)

Lindsay Whittemore (Executive Assistant Business Partner To Co-Founder, Chief Design & Creative Officer)

Industries

Technology

Media and Communications

Products/ Services
Social Media App
Number of Employees
1,000 - 20,000
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, United States
Established
2009
Company Type
Public Limited Company
Company Registration
SEC CIK number: 0001506293
Net Income
100M - 500M
Revenue
Above - 1B
Traded as
PINS
Social Media

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Fri Mar 29 2024
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