Pinterest began as a phone-sized clothing store nobody would buy from.
The shopping app, called Tote, let you browse 30 retailers, save favorites, and get pinged when prices dropped. Nobody bought. Instead, shoppers emailed themselves photos of clothes, hoarding lists they never meant to buy. In 2010 Ben Silbermann dropped the shopping and rebuilt the saving into a pinboard, which now draws 640 million users a month.
Pinterest on Brandseum