From Excellent Intuition And A Chat At The Bar With Friends, This Man Has Created A Successful Company. Then Sold To Facebook For 400 Million
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It is in the winter of 2012 that Alex Chung and Jace Cooke are in a bar having a drink as friends do. Alex Chung at that moment finds inspiration: he understands the Gif format in a post literate society could attract users and make sense.
Ince that spark ignites his life will never be the same again. Before that enlightening discussion, he had not been unscathed by “sinkholes.” Two companies had been launched without success.
That’s what kills those who try, like Alex. In the same way he tried with Giphy and had the same enthusiasm despite the failures behind him.
He dealt with everything in the same way Jobs, Musk, Gates, Luxottica’s Del Vecchio (who died recently), and Zuckerberg, taking over their companies and their lives. Then, he won in life.
It is the same attitude that makes people happy, whatever position they hold in society and at work. Read on and I’ll explain what it is.
Now let’s find out who Alex Chung was
WHO WAS CHUNG AND WHAT DID HE DO BEFORE GIPHY?
Before founding Giphy, he was the CEO and co-founder of Justin.tv, a website that offered live streaming 24/7.
He was also a television producer for MTV and VH1. In short, an important event in the world of video production that will be very useful in the creation of Giphy.
There is also more, including a useless social platform and a collaboration with Intel.
In 2006, after leaving Justin.tv, Alex Chung enrolled at New York University to pursue a master’s degree in design and engineering.
After graduating with full marks in 2008, he founded his first entrepreneurial activity: aNYwhere Fridge.
aNYwhere Fridge was a social network that allowed users to share posts about food in their refrigerator via their mobile phone camera. In 2009, Google buys aNYwhere Fridge for an undisclosed amount of money.
After selling his first company, Alex Chung returns to TV production and builds software that allows MTV viewers to vote via SMS during live broadcasts.
In 2010, Alex develops hardware for Intel that allows users to share localization information.
So many activities up to now, without real turning points.
GIPHY IS BORN
In 2012, Chung and Jace Cooke founded Giphy, a website and app for sharing animated GIF files. The company was initially funded by Justin.tv co-founder Kevin Rose.
Giphy has been successful thanks to the simplicity of its product and the spread of the GIF format on the web.
The company grew rapidly and was able to attract investments from big names such as Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark Capital, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures.
In 2015, Giphy surpassed one billion visitors per month and was acquired by Facebook for an estimated $300 to $400 million.
Alex Chung remained at the helm of the company until early 2018, when he announced that he would be leaving the company to found a new project.
Then it was sold to Facebook for 400 million: an entrepreneurial success that paid off.
But Alex Chung’s story doesn’t end there.
AFTER GIPHY, A NEW PROJECT: FOREST
In 2018, after leaving Giphy, Alex Chung and two other partners founded Forest, a startup that aims to help people reduce the time they spend with their phone screen.
The company offers an app that allows users to temporarily lock their phone and only unlock it after planting a virtual tree.
The goal is to raise awareness of the importance of forest conservation and encourage users to spend less time with their phone screen.
So far, the company has raised over $2 million in funding from investors such as Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and GV (Google’s venture capital firm.)
Alex Chung’s project is still under development, but has already received an important recognition: in 2019, the Forest app was awarded as “Best App of the Year” by the Google Play Store.
WHAT MAKES CHUNG BETTER THAN MANY OTHERS (BEYOND GIPHY)?
Today Alex Chung is still busy with his Forest project. The application is having great success and we are sure that we will soon hear more about it.
We can say that the story of this entrepreneur is really very interesting: from an excellent intuition and a chat with friends at the bar, he managed to create a successful company that has allowed him to obtain important awards.
Because intuition alone would not lead him to anything.
Here is his life principle that many don’t apply (99% of people ignore it):
Thinking about ideas and then moving your ass and trying to implement them.
You have to fall in love with the process, not the result.
Remember that nothing comes overnight. Good things take time, effort and dedication. Be patient and let your ideas materialize over time.
Alex Chung’s, Giphyprototype was fine-tuned, the link sent to a few friends with his partner, and they unexpectedly had 30,000 page views in just a few hours.
I repeat, unexpectedly because they were thinking about the process and not about the result.
“We thought it was something that was going to make us phenomena on the web for just one day,” Chung explained.
“On the same day, we received several investment offers” including a million dollars from Betaworks, which had helped launch projects at the caliber of Kickstarter.
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