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There’s a relatively short list of Internet companies founded in the late 1990s who are still considered successful.
But Shutterfly, founded in 1999, must invariably be included alongside names like Amazon (founded 1994), EBay (1995), and Priceline (1998) are among those who not only survived the Internet bubble of the late 1990s, but has thrived since.
In an age when consumers snap photos on their phones and share them globally on Instagram and Snapchat, Shutterfly’s business of selling personal photos printed in books, on greeting cards and coffee mugs seems as quaint a success as reruns of “Home Improvement.”
Having fended off literally hundreds of photo-sharing startups in its 17 years, Shutterfly finished 2015 with revenue north of $1 billion, having grown both organically and through acquisitions from $50 million at the time of its 2006 IPO.
Now this unlikely survivor from the Internet’s early years is looking to put itself on a solid tech footing to ensure it keeps growing. Among the priorities has been a multi-year effort to modernize its tech infrastructure for new efficiencies - and new business opportunities.
That made for an interesting conversation with James Berry, Shutterfly’s VP for manufacturing and operations technology, when we shared a stage at Apigee’s Adapt or Die conference in San Francisco in September. (Google closed on...