Instagram Surprises With Fifth Employee

Small-staffed photo startup hires an early adopter to evangelize

Instagram, the wildly popular photo-sharing startup known for its tiny staff and huge number of users, is adding one more member to its ranks. And in a surprise, it's not another engineer.

Jessica Zollman, who starts Aug. 8 and will become the fifth employee at a company that touts some 7 million users, tweeted the news Friday afternoon: “Excited to announce that I'm joining @instagram as their Community Evangelist!”

What exactly does a community evangelist do? Founder Kevin Systrom explained that Zollman will be helping current employee Josh Riedel manage and “nurture” all aspects of the company’s relationship with its rapidly growing fan base.