The Challenge
By 2010, social media was dominated by Facebook and Twitter. Every new social app tried to compete on the same axis: real-time sharing, news feeds, likes, and followers. The market seemed saturated.
Ben Silbermann had a different observation: people didn't just want to share what they were doing — they wanted to collect and organize what they were dreaming about. Wedding ideas, home decor, recipes, fashion inspiration. No platform served this "aspirational" use case.
The Approach — Tools in Action
- White Hat (Facts): People bookmark and save images across dozens of sites. No tool organizes visual inspiration well.
- Red Hat (Emotions): Saving beautiful images feels hopeful and creative. It's planning for the future, not documenting the past.
- Black Hat (Risks): "Visual bookmarking" sounds too niche. Advertisers may not understand the platform.
- Yellow Hat (Benefits): Users in a planning/shopping mindset have the highest purchase intent of any social platform.
- Green Hat (Creativity): What if we built a tool for collecting dreams, not sharing updates?
- Social sharing (Facebook): saturated, attention-based, backward-looking
- News/opinions (Twitter): saturated, text-based, present-focused
- Visual discovery (Pinterest): uncontested, image-based, future-focused
The Impact Effort Matrix prioritized features:
- Quick wins: Visual boards, repinning, image-based search
- Major projects: Shopping integration, recommendation algorithm
- Eliminated: Messaging, real-time feed, like counts
The Outcome
Pinterest carved a unique and valuable position:
- 480M+ monthly active users
- $3B+ annual revenue — primarily from shopping-intent advertising
- The highest purchase intent of any social platform (users are planning to buy)
- IPO in 2019; market cap of $20B+
- Proved that not every social platform needs to compete on attention — aspiration is a separate (and valuable) axis
Key Takeaway
In a crowded market, don't compete on the same axis as incumbents. Use Six Thinking Hats to explore what users actually want that isn't being served, and build for that uncontested space.
Tools Used in This Story
Six Thinking Hats
Decision MakingLook at a decision from different perspectives
Decision Matrix
Decision MakingChoose the best option by considering multiple factors
Impact Effort Matrix
Decision MakingPrioritize by weighing impact against the effort required