Bug Collection

Ben did.

When Ben was a kid he loved to collect bugs .. spiders, grasshoppers it didn’t matter .. he put them all in a box and labelled them … it was a cool collection.

As Ben grew up in Iowa he knew he was going to be a doctor … but then something else caught his interest … business … so he got a job as consultant and ended up making spreadsheets all day long … which wasn’t much fun … he moved to California and got a job at Google … but ended up doing exactly the same thing … .. finally his girlfriend told him … stop complaining and just do something yourself … so he quit and started his own app company with a friend.

However their timing was poor .. the great recession had hit and money was hard to come by … they pitched their idea for Tote, a catalog of store items app .. but it was rejection after rejection until finally they were able to secure some funding

But that was the easy part .. after getting Tote off the ground it struggled …the concept wasn’t quite right … something was missing .... and that’s when the Ben’s childhood bug collection sparked renewed interest.

Pinning their hopes on a new web approach that fed off people’s fascination with collections … they reinvented Tote as a new business and renamed it.

Today, the five year old company Ben and his partners created in part because of a childhood fascination with bugs is … is the visual bookmarking tool that helps people discover and save creative ideas .. has millions and millions of users worldwide. Pinterest.

Pinterest is a great idea … because solving a problem that bugs you and others is a great way to start a business.