What makes a 23 year old reject a $3 billion offer on a business which until today has had no revenues? How did one idea grow so quick so fast? What can you learn from a freak growth story like Snapchat’s?
In September 2011 Evan and his partner, Bobby Murphy, came up with the idea of Snapchat as their class project at Stamford, and set up the company from Evan’s father’s sitting room (Evan still lives with his Dad).
Last year, Evan dropped out of college to work on Snapchat. Today, more than 350 million images are shared on Snapchat every day (already four times more than Instagram).
Here’s 3 lesser known things about the Snapchat story:
1. DO THE OPPOSITE OF EVERYONE
While everyone was trying to copy success stories like Facebook and Instagram, that keep all your posts and photos forever, Snapchat came from the opposite direction. As Evan says “A buddy of mine was bummed about a photo he sent. When Bobby and I built the prototype (where photos and videos are deleted soon after being received), we realised how much fun we were having sending the photos back and forth.”
2. TRY, TRY AND TRY AGAIN
At college, Evan and Bobby tried over 50 different ideas before getting to Snapchat. When they got to that, no one liked it. Evan took the idea to his design class for review and says “All the VCs and people who came through were like ‘This is the dumbest thing ever… So, obviously, I went back to Bobby and I was like, ‘Oh, they really liked it!’”
“People call it an overnight success,” Evan says, “But it was anything but.”If they had listened to the ‘experts’, Snapchat would never have gotten off the ground.
3. RELY ON YOUR EARLY CUSTOMERS
With no support, they both thought the idea would fail: “We didn’t think we were ever going to raise venture capital.” All they knew was they liked it and wanted to keep working on it. But while the grown adults thought it a silly idea, the app began going viral in high schools in California.
That’s how they attracted funding. As Evan recalls, “This guy named Jeremy Liew, who works at Lightspeed Ventures, one of his partners, Barry Eggers had a daughter who was using Snapchat. She said her 3 favorite apps that everyone was using at her high school were Angry Birds, Instagram and Snapchat. So Jeremy sent me a Facebook message.”
“I ended up meeting with him and showed him some of the early data we had. That was the month we were not going to be able to pay our server bills any more. Bobby had a job that was paying for the server bills at the time. And it just got too expensive, so the timing was awesome. My dad didn’t want to pay for disappearing photos any more.”
What can we learn from Evan’s story? If you’re working on something you love, and the people using your product love it too, don’t listen to the ‘experts’ telling you what can’t be done.
The greatest barrier to progress is the ‘illusion of knowledge’. Those who ‘know best’ rarely know ‘what’s next’.
As for Evan turning down $3 billion from Mark Zuckerberg, what comes next? How long will Evan keep living with his Dad? Evan’s reply: “Until he kicks me out.”
How to learn like a Genius
How to learn like a genius? I loved making these videos! Excited that we’re approaching the 10,000 mark of people who have taken the Genius Test just few weeks after launch.
You have a natural way of learning and this determines your key strengths to learn more, quickly and effectively…
Watch this video on How to learn like a Genius
In this video, i talk about how different geniuses have a natural way they learn best. Knowing this lets you learn in the way that’s most natural to you, and helps you to see how your friends and workmates learn best – often in different ways than you.
Somewhere on an island
Benefits of the iLAB incubator include:
- A focused resort-style working environment to get a taste of work life balance in paradise
- Surround yourself with dynamic entrepreneurs and experts for instant support & feedback
- Training sessions on how to work remotely & build a global, anytime-anyplace business.
- Tap into experts on list building, translation, Internet marketing, online best practices
- Hands-on assistance in refining your message, creating your videos, media & web sites
- Mix work with adventure, relaxation and fun, and learn the skills to work from anywhere
Interested to find out more? Send us your contact details and we’ll call you.
Building Trust to deliver high returns
Join Michelle Clarke, Master Trainer from Talent Dynamics, on 5thDecember , to understand some practical, easy to implement strategies that will allow you to maximise levels of Trust within your organisation.
On this free online training you will learn:
- Why Trust is such an important Value to build in your organization
- How it directly impacts Business results?
- How can you personally improve the level of Trust others have in you?
- How you can measure the level of Trust you currently have in your organisation?
- Specific steps you can take to quickly and easily to improve Trust levels
Don’t miss this … Register today
08.30am – 09.30am UK London time
Talent Dynamics is the leading Business Development Pathway for accelerating levels of Trust and flow in your business.
Leave a Reply