The early Quizlet team was awesome.
We bootstrapped the company for almost a decade, with a small, scrappy, team that had tons of passion and cared deeply about education. Most were just out of college, or even still in school. They set the stage for today’s Quizlet team… which is ten times bigger and still innovating like crazy to help students everywhere.
Here’s some photos of the early Quizlet team… I’m lucky to have worked with you!
2009-2011

In 2009 we started building the Quizlet team. I met Andrew in 2007 when he was in high school, and we started working on Quizlet together the following year. Our first hire was Phil, an engineer who’d recently graduated from the University of Florida. A few months later we added Will, a Dartmouth MBA, and then Joanna, a recent University of Arizona grad.

In 2011, we moved into a new, bigger office at 526 2nd St (we’d been subletting in the Folger Building on Howard Street). And that summer, Andrew left MIT to return to SF and work with us full time, after three years working on Quizlet in between classes.


2012-2015
The new office at 526 2nd St. was a huge upgrade – we added a ping pong table, started hiring more interns, and bringing in users for feedback sessions. Late night coding sessions with food and general goofing around (Starcraft etc) became routine.


























And some videos…
In this 2009 video Andrew talks about how Quizlet started as a high school project. His can-do attitude shines through… that’s what made it so fun working together early on.
Launches in the early years mostly happened on weekends or at night. Here we’re pushing an upgrade to ‘Classes’ in 2012. Note the ominous launch music.
Rapping became a thing at Quizlet in 2014/15 thanks to Arun. Here’s intern Eric Schmidt.
Jake’s rap. Here Jake tells how he built Quizlet’s first iOS app when he was fourteen.
This goofy hack night movie project attempted to show how Quizlet’s technology works.
The excellent Mme. Thomas made one of the earliest (2010) videos by a teacher on how to use Quizlet in the classroom. She, like a handful of other great teachers, was part of our extended team, constantly providing feedback and even coming to San Francisco to work with us in person.
Got any more great photos or videos from the early days of Quizlet? Email me (dmargulius at gmail) and I’ll add them. Dave
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