A brief timeline of snapchat's success and failures.

1. Snapchat

2. Reggie Brown- CMO (left)
Booby Murphy- CTO (center)
Evan Spiegel- CEO (right)
3 friends from their fraternity at
Stanford came up with the idea for
Snapchat and developed the app.
“Pictaboo” was launched on the app
store.
Brown was kicked out of the company
Murphy and Spiegel changed the
name to Snapchat
Spring 2011
Summer 2011
Fall 2011

3. App grew to 100,000 users
Jeremy Liu from Lightspeed Venture Partners invested 458k seed round with a $4.25
million valuation.
Spring 2012

4. NYT article about Snapchat being a sexting app.
Facebook launched “Poke” but failed while snapchat got
even more popular.
Over 60 million snaps sent per day.
Raised a $13.5 million series A from Benchmark.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/disruptions-indiscreet-photos-glimpsed-then-gone/?_r=1
Summer 2012
Winter 2012
Spring 2013

5. Reggie Brown filed a lawsuit for breach of joint venture.
Agreed on settlement.
Big brands take interest and start to advertise.
$80 million series B from IVP, 800 million valuation.
Facebook offered $3 billion in cash for
Snapchat.
Launched “My Story”.
My Story
volkselectronics.com
Spring 2013
Summer 2013
Fall 2013

6. Winter 2013
Suffered attack that exposed usernames and numbers of
4.6 million users.
Addressed privacy policy with FTC.
Valued at $10 Billion
Launches “Our Story”
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/snapchat#/entity
Buys QR scanning startup and Vergence Labs
3rd most popular social app among millennials.
Spring 2014
Winter 2014

7. Received $200 Million from Alibaba
Launches Discover Channels : Vice, People, National
Geographic, etc.
QR codes for every user.
Acquires facial recognition app
Memories launches
www.engadget.com
Spring 2015
Fall 2015
Summer 2016

8. How did Snapchat grow so quickly?

9. Impermanent
Not as much thought goes into a post that will soon disappear.
Photos don't have to be “good enough” to remain on user’s profiles
In the moment, fun and casual. Closer to how we communicate
with friends face to face.
Temporary media that won’t clutter up your phone and feed.
An entirely and new different type of social media that feels more genuine.
6video views per
day
billion
Growth

10. “This brief, unpredictable thrill, to me, is a major selling point of the app
and why it is so successful.”
-Morgan from GrowthHackers
“The unexpected and self-destructing nature of the content overcomes our ever-
shortening attention spans, while at the same time creating an intense social
experience […]”
-Everette from GrowthHackers
Growth

11. How did Snapchat get funding?

12. Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed Venture Partners heard about it from his
business partner, Barry Egger’s daughter.
Funding
VC’s observed a growing number of users rapidly.
Snapchat became more and more successful, always creating
new features.
2.63billion in 8 rounds of funding
$
22 investorsfrom

13. Controversy

14. Sexting
Controversy
“The fun thing about Snapchat is really the surprise and the joy that comes from learning how to use it. [..]
I would go up to people and be like: “Hey, you should try this application. You can send disappearing
photos.” And they would say: “Oh, for sexting,” which kind of meant that we had to do a better job
teaching people.”
-Evan Spiegel CEO
Spiegel talks about how much more Snapchat is than just a way for sexting. It’s a way to communicate with
friends “It’s fun. Period. And that’s the most important part.”
80% of snaps are sent during the school day less about sex, more about freedom of expression.

15. Today

16. million active
daily users
Discover channels offer articles, life hacks, news, trends, etc.
Companies are able to advertise with their own geofilters, face
recognition, and ads.
Our Story informs users on what events are going on in different
parts of the world
Memories allow users to save their stories and experiences.
Today
100

17. Sources
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/snapchat#/entity
https://techcrunch.com/gallery/a-brief-history-of-snapchat/slide/65/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-05-26/evan-spiegel-reveals-plan-to-turn-snapchat-into-a-real-business
https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/the-snap-generation-a-guide-to-snapchats-history/
https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/snapchat
https://www.quora.com/How-did-Snapchat-get-traction
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/disruptions-indiscreet-photos-glimpsed-then-gone/?_r=1
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/02/silicon-copy/
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-lightspeeds-jeremy-liew-invests-in-startups-like-snapchat-2013-12
http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/11/01/snapchat-ceo-evan-spiegel-chats-about-sexting-and-the-future-of-his-social-app/