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From side project to $7.25M for Unsplash (Founders Talk #54)
When Mikael Cho started Unsplash from its small beginning as a Tumblr blog and side project, he had no idea it would have such a huge impact and ultimately disrupt the photography industry. In this episode, Mikael shares the backstory of Unsplash, how it got started, keeping things focused, levers of growth, flipping the marketing funnel, turning free into a business, raising $7.25 million to build a new economy for photography, and the impact of an API.
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Featuring:
- Mikael Cho – Twitter, Website
- Adam Stacoviak – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Website
Show Notes:
- unsplash.com
- crew.co (a Dribbble thing)
- We just sold Crew to Dribbble
- How side projects saved our startup
- We just raised $7.25 million for Unsplash to build a new economy around photography.
- OST Invests in Unsplash — to Create the new Currency for Photography — $OST @Unsplash
- The future of photography and Unsplash
- The Unsplash API is now open & free
- The official Unsplash API
- Mikael’s Twitter thread on ‘Flipping the funnel’
- Ben Chestnut (CEO and Co-founder of MailChimp) — ‘Why I hate funnels’
- Zack Arias’s thoughts on Unsplash
- Zack Arias’s interview with Mikael Cho on Unsplash
- Mikael’s profile on Unsplash
- Tag stuff on Unsplash
- Unsplash Store
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!