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Pinterest’s First Investor Explains the Secret to the Startup’s Success

“I was Pinterest’s first investor.” That’s a sentence I bet you wish you could say. Here at SXSW, I find myself sitting opposite angel investor Brian Cohen who happily owns that distinction. In other words, he found, as he calls them, a couple of young guys from NYU (Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp) at a business plan competition where angel investors “forage for new opportunities.” The rest is startup legend. Cohen, who has a background in publishing and is now the founder and chairman of the New York Angels, wanted to talk about what it was like to work with Pinterest in those early days, how the idea for Pinterest blossomed out of a different project Silbermann was working on, and what makes the Pinterest team different and therefore successful. There are also, Cohen believes, valuable lessons in the Pinterest story for other social entrepreneurs. “They listened,” Cohen said — repeatedly. The investor, who also mentored Silbermann, constantly marveled at how Silbermann listened to advice from investors, customers and partners. “They were incredibly open for input. That’s really important as an instructive element for social entrepreneurs—anyone—[they were open] to those angel investors who care deeply about their success.”
Where it All Started

That listening started with a different product Silbermann was working on at Cold Brew Labs — an app called Tote. The idea was the first women’s fashion catalog on the iPhone. Cohen told me Silbermann watched user behavior on Tote. “As the app was being used, he recognized that women were grabbing, tagging specific items that they were able to view later when they got home,” said Cohen. What Silbermann saw was that huge numbers of people were grabbing items and sharing them with friends. “He recognized that these women were sharing their tastes.” This led to Silbermann providing Tote users with a tool to organize those items and interests. “That tool became very useful and was the early incarnation of Pinterest,” said Cohen. Tote, however, did not have the concept of boards and pinning.

As Silbermann and company began developing Pinterest (a name Silbermann’s now-wife came up with) they again tapped into their advisor community and sought advice on curation. Cohen described their overall approach as “non-myopic behavior.” In the halls of SXSW, it’s not unusual to run into a startup with a Pinterest-like pitch. They often promise that their new product is a mashup of Pinterest and some other well-know idea. I asked Cohen about this. “I marvel about how many people ask me about Pinterest,” said Cohen. They want to know how they did it. Aside from what Cohen sees as the obvious simplicity and elegance of the site, Cohen said Silbermann remained open to smart people throughout the development process. Early on he engaged with partners, customers and even designers. “I used to see him in New York just taking out small rooms to meet with customers. I’d never seen anything like it.” As for where the concept of pinning on boards came from, Cohen doesn’t know. “The way I imagine it is that [Silbermann] saw customers/women needing to have a contrast of all the things they were buying organized.” Doing so in a visual way “lent itself naturally to boards.”

The site, which even Cohen says has “come out of nowhere” tapped into people’s natural desire to curate and others’ need to find those curators. “The majority of people look to others for taste,” said Cohen.

Besides listening, there is one other attribute that Cohen believes plays a role in Pinterest’s success, “They’re just happy.” In almost everything they do, Cohen sees “almost a child-like fascination.” Challenges

As Pinterest Investor Number One, it’s unlikely Cohen would have a single negative thing to say about the growing social sharing platform. When I ask him if there are any potential danger signs for the white-hot brand, Cohen deflected a bit and only offered the expected advice: “They have to stick to their knitting …improve usability.” Cohen, though, does see the difficultly of transitioning to the “commercial stage.”

Pinterest is now working with big brands and figuring out how to tie the product into their objectives. Meanwhile, it has struggled a bit with copyright issues, though Cohen naturally gives Pinterest high marks for how it handled the issue. “They listened to others,” he added. Cohen has been doing this for almost 30 years and I wondered when he realized that Pinterest was something more than the average startup investment. He told me it’s natural for an investor to talk to his family about the companies he’s working with, at least initially. “After my first 15 or 20 investments, I got tired of telling my family. Twelve months ago I came home, before there was any noise, and I said to my daughter, ‘Have you heard of this company?’ She said ‘Really, Dad? My friends are obsessed with it.’ That’s when I knew.” Cohen seems honestly astounded by Pinterest’s meteoric growth and success. He told me there’s no way to explain how the company that has done no PR, no marketing and is still operating on an invite-only basis is “captivating so much of the conversation” and getting women to stay on the site for an hour or more at a time. “Unless he’s tapped into some real, larger purpose of the Internet — he’s found some sort of heartbeat that’s going to continue to beat faster.”

Bonus: 10 Creative Pinterest Board Hacks