In 2009, Kevin Systrom, a 27-year-old Stanford University graduate, was working at Nextstop, a travel recommendations startup. Systrom had previously worked at Google as a corporate development associate and interned at Odeo (a company that would later evolve into Twitter).
In 2010, Kevin had no formal training in computer and coding, but he loved it. He learned to code at night after work and on the weekends.
After learning to code, he built an HTML5 prototype called Burbn (the name was inspired by his love of fine whiskeys and bourbon). The Burbn app allowed users to check in, post their plans, and share photos.
In Mar 2010 when Systrom attended a party for Hunch, a startup based in Silicon Valley. He had raised $500,000 in seed funding from both Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz to further develop his entrepreneurial venture.
The first to join him was 25-year-old Mike Krieger, a Stanford graduate. Krieger had previously worked as an engineer and user-experience designer at the social media platform Meebo. The two knew each other from their time as students at Stanford.
They renamed the app Instagram, a portmanteau of "instant camera" and "telegram". The Instagram app was launched on Oct 6, 2010, and racked up 25,000 users in one day.
