Picnik: From a Simple Email… To 50 Million Visitors… To a Sale To Google
By Anna Johnson on March 10th, 2010The story of how Picnik – the online photo editing service recently bought by Google – came into being provides an inspiring insight into how entrepreneurs see and seize opportunities.
Picnik started with an email exchange between the company’s co-founders, Mike Harrington and Darrin Massena. According to Mike Harrington, the idea of starting a Flash based online photo editing service began “by having a brilliant friend I love working with, some free time and an active imagination.”
According to Mike, it was in the summer of 2005 that the two wanted to “do something interesting with Flash.” Having come up with – and dismissed – a range of ideas, he and Darrin finally came up with the idea of providing an online photo editor.
Business plan? Who needs a business plan? Darrin Massena captured the essence of the idea – including its potential as a business – in a simple email he sent to Mike on 10.56 pm on Saturday, December 10, 2005. (Yep, real entrepreneurs work on Saturday nights… sometimes…)
You can read Darrin’s email here. You’ll see that he divides the email into sections, addressing the ‘market’, ‘problem’, ‘solution’, ‘competition’, ‘getting there’ and additional ‘thoughts’.
The only thing more significant than Darrin explaining the idea for Picnik in this email, is that he and Mike actually went on to execute on the idea. Entrepreneurs don’t just see opportunities; they seize them. Indeed, the two built the service into a revenue making business that was generating nearly 50 million visitors per month, before they recently sold it to Google for an undisclosed amount.
