On October 1st, 2010, my boyfriend Mike Krieger and I moved into our first apartment together. On October 6th, he launched Instagram with his co-founder Kevin Systrom. Mike came home at 6AM the next morning, exhilarated and exhausted. I snapped what's still one of my favorite photos of him:
Over the past year and a half, Instagram has attracted over 15 million users and hundreds of millions of beautiful photos. It hasn't been a cake-walk for Mike, who's constantly on call in case Justin Bieber posts a shirtless photo. Yet despite the long hours, the unpredictable server crises, and all the media attention, Mike has always found time to make me feel special.
To return the favor, I built Lovestagram. I started from scratch, learning Python, Django, Jinja, HTML, CSS, jQuery, and Photoshop (whew!). I had a lot of help from my amazing friends: Jesse Farmer, Jon Cowperthwait, JP Cozzati, Andrew Le, Dane Hurtubise, and of course, Mike himself.
Happy Valentine's Day, and thanks for using Lovestagram.
Love,
Kaitlyn