Categories: Founder Stories

Mark Zuckerberg: What Were Mark Zuckerberg’s Hardships During His Success?

Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms in the world because it has millions of users. It even allows businesses to promote their products or services to grow sales. However, the journey of Facebook has not been smooth because it has faced many hardships during its initial years. As a tech entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg encountered several issues when he started the Facebook company. However, he managed them effectively and became a strong leader in the business world. Mark achieved great success because of his skills and other factors.

The major problems faced by Mark Zuckerberg

1. Criticism for his inventions

Mark Zuckerberg faced criticism for his inventions in the early days because Facebook was still in the development stage. While studying in college, many claimed that he had stolen ideas from his seniors. The Winklevoss twins, who are working for HarvardConnectins.com, accused Mark of betraying them so that he could build a competing product. Moreover, they claimed that Zuckerberg wanted to earn a name for himself by sabotaging their project.

It was not enough for Facebook’s founder because his image was further tarnished by Ben Mezrich when he published the book ‘The Accidental Billionaires’ in 2009. The book shared some unknown information about Mark.

2. Funding and investments

Funding is one of the major challenges faced by Mark Zuckerberg because he doesn’t know how to attract investors. Since Facebook was a start-up company, no one came forward to put their money in. He has to face several struggles due to difficulties in bringing in investors and securing funds for the company.

In 2004, Facebook narrowly missed getting the first angel investment, but it still got the funds for further development. However, Accel Partners made a venture capital investment deal with the company that helped to accommodate five members on the board, out of which two remained empty. Microsoft invested money in Facebook in 2007, which acquired a significant stock share. On the other hand, Mark felt that it was a risky decision, so he decided to raise funds through IPOs, which collected $16 billion.

3. Zuckerberg faced difficulties in making the best decisions

Mark Zuckerberg faced difficulties making the best decisions before launching Facebook. This is because he approached every problem with several questions in mind. Furthermore, Mark was also having a problem determining what to sell and to whom to sell it in the market. Many companies wanted to acquire Facebook due to its financial constraints. However, Mark improved his leadership skills, didn’t like to sell his company to others, and wanted to remain independent. His company started to grow and earned a net worth of around 8 billion dollars after 2008.

4. Critical need for massive users

When Mark Zuckerberg started his new company, Facebook, he had to face a critical mass problem that supported further growth. He has to work hard to garner a massive number of users for his innovation. Besides that, the founder has to raise money to develop the platform and get more users.

The Biggest Risk Is Not Taking Any Risk.

Moreover, Zuckerberg decided to use his website for marketing campaigns but failed to drive over a million users. The company’s stock market values started to rise greatly after it issued the IPOs. This resulted in high growth rates for the company from 2012 onward.

5. Invasion of privacy scandal

Facebook has to face privacy issues when it launches every new product on the website, and users have to share more details about them. Many companies and customers claim that the company is selling personal information to others. According to Zuckerberg, Facebook doesn’t share any details with external parties. He says that the website guarantees user privacy when it comes to personal details.

Sameer
Sameer is a writer, entrepreneur and investor. He is passionate about inspiring entrepreneurs and women in business, telling great startup stories, providing readers with actionable insights on startup fundraising, startup marketing and startup non-obviousnesses and generally ranting on things that he thinks should be ranting about all while hoping to impress upon them to bet on themselves (as entrepreneurs) and bet on others (as investors or potential board members or executives or managers) who are really betting on themselves but need the motivation of someone else’s endorsement to get there.

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