A $32,000 Startup That Was Sold for Millions

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I meet entrepreneurs all over the world who think that venture capital is a prerequisite for starting a company. They write business plans and ask for introductions to venture capitalists. I tell them that they should instead bootstrap their startups. That what would have cost millions of dollars a few years ago now costs thousands.

Think about it. Today’s laptops have the same processing power as the minicomputers which cost millions of dollars in the 1980s. For storage, you once needed server farms and racks of hard disks. Today you have cloud computing and cloud storage—and these are cheap.

You can also bootstrap hardware companies like Nest (which Google acquired for $3.2 billion). Sensors such as those in our smartphones would have cost tens-of-thousands of dollars a few years ago. They now cost practically nothing. Entrepreneurs on shoestring budgets can build smartphone apps that act like medical assistants and detect disease, body sensors that monitor heart, brain and body activity, technologies to detect soil humidity and improve agriculture.

Entrepreneurs can also participate in the genomics revolution (here is an article that explains this). It cost more than $100 million to sequence a full human genome about a decade ago. It now costs $1,000. Genome data will soon be available for millions, then billions of people. Anyone anywhere can write computer code that compares one person’s DNA with another; learns what diseases people with similar genes have had; and analyzes the correlation between genomes and the effectiveness with which different medications or other interventions have treated a given disease.

There are similar advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing and many other fields.

In 2011, I mentored a startup called Beat The GMAT that figured out how to rebuild and bootstrap itself on just $32,000. The company was acquired last year for millions of dollars by Hobsons. Its founders Eric Bahn and David Park say they are really enjoying their financial freedom and are glad that they took the risk. It wasn’t easy, but was the most incredible experience they have ever had. Below is a version of an article I wrote for Bloomberg BusinessWeek about how they did this. There
 are valuable lessons that you can learn.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1999, David Park founded discussion forum service Coolboard.com. It took more than a dozen software developers, product managers, and quality assurance staff 18 months to build the company's core technology. To fund it, Park raised $10 million in venture capital, of which $4 million was spent before the company was launched. It went down in flames in 2003, a casualty of the dot-com bust.

In 2005, Park partnered up with his friend Eric Bahn to launch his next business, MBA admissions social network Beat The GMAT in San Mateo, Calif. Rather than take venture capital, they limited startup costs, spending just $119,000. The site steadily gained traction, but they were nervous that technologies like Facebook and Twitter would make it obsolete. So they chose to make it obsolete themselves.

In 2011, the team decided to rebuild the site and the company. Their goal was to create a social network for business-school applicants that had features such as aggregated GMAT-prep and MBA-admissions news; a way for members to connect with one another; and social gaming elements to keep members motivated. It makes money advertising test prep services. Amazingly, the new site took only four months and cost just $32,000 in total.

I was skeptical when Park and Bahn approached me last year to ask for advice on business strategy for the site. They were convinced they could build a bunch of sophisticated technologies in months—on a shoestring budget. They were determined not to raise venture capital. I had doubts. My two software companies had taken years and cost millions. Yes, technology is much easier to build today than it was during my tech days. But I meet Silicon Valley startup founders every week who tell me about their ideas and their plans; and no one says they can build their products for less than the cost of a BMW 328.

But Park and Bahn did. How? To start with, they crowdsourced the design. Instead of hiring a bunch of marketing people, as tech companies usually do, they asked their user community for volunteers to help conceive a new site. Then they selected a handful of the most eager users and trained them on the basics of Silicon Valley–style product management. Next, Park and Bahn needed to find a designer. They used 99designs.com, which hosts design competitions, for a two-week contest that attracted hundreds of designers, yielding a design they used as the theme for the new site. The contest, prize, and designer's time cost $9,200.

They broke up Web development into two tasks: front-end engineering (turning design artwork into code) and back-end engineering (making the code actually function). They built their technology on top of WordPress, phpBB, and Drupal—free, open-source platforms. Front-end engineering usually requires sophisticated coding done by contractors who earn as much as $100 an hour. Instead, the Beat The GMAT team turned to a service called PSD2HTML.com, which converts Photoshop design files into HTML and CSS code. The cost of this service, at $160 to $220 per Web page, totalled $4,500. For back-end engineering, they hired four developers from Hungary and Ukraine on the outsourcing website oDesk. They paid $15 to $20 per hour. The back-end engineering cost $18,000 in total.

In software development, things don't usually go as planned. Park and Bahn had their share of missed deadlines, buggy code, and product problems. Outsourcing always makes things more difficult, because developers are in different time zones, speak different languages, and don't always understand what is expected of them. It took many sleepless nights and lots of caffeine to surmount these obstacles.

In the result, a company that later sold for millions cost its founder just $32,000 because the relevant technology now is so inexpensive. The ability of entrepreneurs to build sophisticated technologies so cheaply in the Web world is even foreshadowing the marginalization of venture capitalists. Software startups often spend the first few months of their existence polishing business plans and pitching to investors. They can instead be working with smart people all over the world, focusing their energy on perfecting their technologies, as Beat The GMAT did. When a law-school grad (Park) and a sociology graduate student (Bahn) can build successful technology companies, the notion that website founders need computer-programming backgrounds too is outdated.

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This Is The Usually Absent Secret Ingredient of Content Marketing""

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I believe these things:

- The best content is content that people cherish, not content that people tolerate.

 The best content is content that people want, not content that companies think they need.

- The best content is content so useful that people would pay for it if you asked them to do so.

- The best content is a Youtility.

More and more corporations and individuals are starting to espouse and adopt this philosophy, to which I say “thank goodness” and “it’s about time.”

All too often, however, I find that they (and perhaps you?) are missing the secret ingredient of content marketing success….COURAGE.

Content marketing success isn’t about marketing, it’s about courage (tweet this)

- It takes courage to give away something of value without expectation of immediate return

- It takes courage to trust that your customers and prospective customers will reward you with attention and sales and loyalty at some point in the future

- It takes courage to play the long game, not the short game

- It takes courage to create a true Youtility and resist the temptation to put a coupon in the middle of it

- It takes courage to measure impact via correlation and surveys instead of click stream and definitive ROI

- It takes courage to interact with and assist people on a one-to-one basis, because as Gary Vaynerchuk has said: “giving a shit doesn’t scale”

- It takes courage to be a farmer instead of a hunter

Before rushing into a brainstorm session to figure out what nifty content marketing execution you and your company can make, consider whether you have the courage (and the culture that serves as the petri dish for that courage) to stay the course?Because consumers aren’t stupid; they can smell fear a mile away

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   Author: Jay Baer    CONVINCEandCONVERT

I Used The Giant Samsung Phone That Apple Wants To Kill — And I'm Never Going Back To A Tiny Screen Again """

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When I first started using Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3, almost everything about its enormous size annoyed me. I couldn’t text with one hand. It barely fit in my pocket, or didn’t at all. I felt silly holding it up to my ear to talk on the phone. It was the least subtle or elegant phone I’d ever seen.


Even my friends were horrified. I’d plop the Note onto a table or I’d whip it out to take a picture, and anyone I was hanging out with would double-take.

“What is that thing?!” they’d gasp.

I quickly learned that people who don’t write about tech for a living have never heard the term “phablet” — a phone / tablet hybrid, which is what the Note 3 is. It clocks in at a whopping 5.95-inches long and 3.12-inches wide, which is about the width of a Pop-Tart, with a couple extra inches tacked on, length-wise.

Large-screen phones are well on their way to becoming the “next big thing,” even though many people still think that they’re ridiculous-looking. Analysts estimate that nearly one-fourth of smartphones shipped world-wide in the third quarter of 2013 had displays of 5 inches or more, with that number set to increase (giant phones are especially popular in the burgeoning Asian market).

Rumor has it that even Apple is planning an upgrade for iPhone 6, from its four-inch display to something bigger. If a big-screen iPhone happens, it will be because the Samsing's Galaxy phones proved that consumers want big screens. Thus the prospect of a big-screen iPhone 6 is the No.1 threat to Galaxy
The Beginning
I’ve been an Android person for several years now (I initially switched from the iPhone for price reasons when it broke between upgrades, but I stayed for the customization and integration). I’ve been using a phone with an average 4.3-inch display. But now, having switched to the humongous Note 3 for several weeks, I don’t want to go back to a small-screen phone ever again.

Eventually, other less-obvious pros started becoming apparent. In general, the camera on the Note 3 kicks ass, but even if it wasn’t inherently light-years ahead of my old camera, it would still benefit from the huge screen. Not only could I frame each shot much better, but it was easier to put the camera’s focus on exactly what I wanted. I really stepped up my QuizUp game because, with so much screen real-estate, it was nearly impossible to flub a quick tap and press the wrong answer. If I was a Flappy Bird fan, I know that I’d have a much easier time keeping the creature aloft and I’m sure the Candy Crush experience would be divine.

Even something as simple as scrolling through my Twitter feed was a more enjoyable experience with 5.7-inches of reading room. Oh, and did I mention that my Snapchat art became a lot more ornate? (Samsung’s Galaxy Note phones come with the “S Pen,” a sort of stylus on steroids, which lets you make detailed drawings on the huge screen, among a million other things.)

Once I started using Swype (an Android keyboard that lets you type without lifting your finger between letters), I actually mastered using the Note one-handed and was texting twice as fast. I feel like I could write a novel on the Note 3, or at least a Business Insider article.

At first, answering phone calls on the Galaxy felt like the most awkward thing ever, because it looked like I was holding a brick up to my head. But guess what? Bricks are exactly the right length to extend between your ear and your mouth! I swear, when talking on the phone with the Note 3, each call was clearer.

To anyone who says that they wouldn’t like using a big phone before ever trying one, I urge you to reconsider. A huge phone like the Note 3 provides an amazing overall experience. Everything a little phone can do, a big phone can do better, besides fitting in your pocket. After using the Note 3 for several weeks, I can confidently say that that tighter fit isn’t even remotely a game-changer.

CONVERTED
To anyone who says that they wouldn’t like using a big phone before ever trying one, I urge you to reconsider. A huge phone like the Note 3 provides an amazing overall experience. Everything a little phone can do, a big phone can do better, besides fitting in your pocket. After using the Note 3 for several weeks, I can confidently say that that tighter fit isn’t even remotely a game-changer.

At this point, I’m downright rabid about how much I love using Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3. Every time I have to go back and do something on my tiny-tiny phone, I balk in horror at how small everything looks, frantically wondering how soon until my next Verizon upgrade so I can buy one to use permanently. In short, I fell in love. You may think that the nearly 6-inches look foolish at first, but, trust me, bigger really is better.

If Apple doesn’t actually end up releasing a big phone this year, it’s going to be left in the dust as more people decided switch to Samsung and others to get their big-phone fix.

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Source: BusinessInsider      Author: Jillian D"Onfro

HOW TO STAY UP-TO-DATE ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS TRENDS"""

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In the past ten years, social media has changed the way that businesses communicate with their audiences. Research shows that a significant number of people use social media to follow their favorite brands. According to a survey conducted by The Social Habit, 53% of those who follow brands on social media show more brand loyalty. This medium of communication has proven very effective, and also very dynamic. Shifts occur so often in the world of social media that whole websites exist just to keep track of them all. If you’re convinced of the power of social media for reaching audiences, yet are a bit befuddled when it comes to how to keep up with it all, then this guide is for you.

why social is great for brands

Needless to say, B2C commerce has changed a lot in the past decade. For a long time, brands depended largely on traditional advertising mediums, celebrity endorsements, and other gimmicks to get their message in front of potential customers. Then, they’d initiate the hard sell in order to close the deal. While these tactics still have their place in the business world, today’s consumers desire information and two-way communication more than ever. Consumers want to know all about the products and services they’re spending money on, and they expect brands to oblige them. Social media facilitates this by creating a platform for exchanging ideas. Information flows freely and easily across social media platforms, and allows brands to reach a large number of people with little effort. It puts everyone on a level playing field. Whether you’re a mom and pop shop or a multi-national corporation, you can reach your audience using the same technology. Social media is also free to use, and you can’t get more cost effective than free.

The downside to all of this is that since social media is so accessible, literally anyone can create a Facebook page and call themselves your competitor. Also, as mentioned above, social media is ever evolving and sometimes difficult to keep up with. Terms like “social graph” and “sponsored tweets” often pop up literally overnight. Staying ahead of the curve can seem daunting, but there are a number of ways to effectively keep on top of social media for your business.

track blogs

There are a number of great blogs that will keep you up to speed when it comes to social media for business. Social Media Today brings together news and commentary about all things social media, and also related topics like content marketing and blogging. Social Media Examiner is another helpful source of social media marketing information. TechCrunch and Mashable are both highly respected blogs about internet and technology trends. The best way to keep track of these and other blogs is to sign up for an RSS reader like Feedly or Newsblur. These user-friendly platforms allow you to track multiple RSS feeds, therefore keeping you in the social media loop.

Follow The Right Accounts


Using social media to stay on top of social media is pretty intuitive, and also quite effective. If you know who to follow on Twitter, then you’ll have pretty much all the news you need in your Twitter stream. Social Media Examiner, TechCrunch, and Mashable all have Twitter accounts, as do notable social media mavens like Jeff Bullas and Heidi Cohen.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a great tool for keeping your ear to the virtual ground. All you do is enter the keywords you would like to track (e.g, social media for business, social media trends), and you will receive regular emails with the top results for your keywords. You can choose the frequency of the emails, and also control how many results that get returned to you.

attend conferences and expos
Catching up on news from the convenience of your home or office is great and all, but nothing beats going straight to the source. Conferences and expos give you the chance to do just that. Plus, they give you a chance to network with social media insiders and other business owners. Annual conferences like the well-known Search Marketing Expo (SMX) usually feature high profile speakers and guests that are on the cutting edge of social media trends. If you or your company have a vested interest in social media, then attending at least one conference a year is a worthwhile investment.

local meetups

If you can’t afford a conference this year, or if you simply prefer not to travel, then attending a local business meetup might be a better choice. Meetup.com has tons of meetups to choose from depending on your location. You can also contact your local chamber of commerce to see if they’ll be hosting any meetings about social media, or see if any professional advertising or marketing organizations have chapters in your area (e.g, the American Advertising Federation).

intra-office updates

If you have a team of people involved in your business’ social media efforts, then it’s a good idea to hold regular meetings so that everyone is on the same page. It’s a good time to talk about the company’s digital marketing campaigns, as well as update each other on news and tidbits. This is also a good way to clue other team members in who may not know much about social media marketing.

Social media is booming, and it certainly shows no signs of slowing down. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ allow brands to share information and increase customer engagement on a whole new level. Luckily, you have lots of ways to stay on top of the latest social media developments, though the best way to learn will always be to dive in and try it for yourself.

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Source: BlueHost

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CS5 TUTORIAL""" By: Derek Banas

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In these two video’s I show you how to use Adobe Illustrator CS5. I created this tutorial because of a request from DeathByKazillion.

Adobe Illustrator Tutorial & Review Part 1

Here I cover every new feature available with Illustrator CS5 and provide a review.

I cover specifically:

1. Bristle Brush
2. Perspective Tool
3. Creating Custom Brushes
4. Live Paint
5. Live Trace

If you like videos like this tell Google To make me extra happy, feel free to share it

Adobe Illustrator Tutorial & Review Part 2

Here I show you how to convert a jpeg or any image into vector art / EPS with Illustrator CS5. I also cover:

1. Rasterizing Images
2. Live Trace
3. Live Paint
4. Live Paint
5. Convert Muli-color Image into Vector Art
6. Working with Text Tool’s
7. Using Gradients
8. Using Strokes
9. Using the Knife Tool
10. Cleaning up Vector Art
11. And a bunch more in just 9 minutes

Adobe Illustrator Tutorial & Review Part 3
Here I show you how to use every other tool available with Illustrator CS5. I also cover:

1. Line tools
2. Shape tools
3. Layers
4. Colors
5. Text
6. Art boards
7. A bunch of random tip’s and trick’s

That’s All Folk’s

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The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Up Our Lives"""

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Let’s talk about the two basic mindsets that shape up our lives: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.
A fixed mindset presumes that our mental ability, character, and creative skills are constant givens that can’t be altered in any significant way. Additionally, success is confirmed by that innate intelligence, which is actually an evaluation of how those givens correlate to an equally fixed standard. Moreover, evading failure at all cost and striving to succeed no matter what turn into a way to maintain the belief of being smart or at least skilled

On the other hand, a growth mindset flourishes on challenges and views failure not as a proof of being poor mentally or of lacking aptitude but as an encouraging starting point for growth and for enhancing our potential. A great deal of our behavior, the way we see success and failure, both in a professional and a personal context, and finally our capability to be happy springs from these two mindsets which we manifest in the earliest stages of our life.

Here’s How You Can Be The Best and Shine This Year

So, for those of you who are looking to shine this year and be the best you you can be, here are ten tips for how to achieve it.

As we embark upon a new year, there are so many ways to view our lives and the chances ahead of us – new opportunities, old regrets, the same cycles people go through every year. However, if you want to change this year-  if you want to shine this year as a human being and as the best version of yourself – then you’re going to need to work at what makes you tick. What makes you happy, what makes you sad, your strengths, weaknesses, your days and nights. Everything about yourself has to undergo an examination if not a re-evaluation.

1. Drink water every morning.
One of the easiest ways to shine this year is start every day off by drinking plenty of water as part of your early morning routine. The reason? Drinking water first thing in the morning has an incredible set of health benefits, including purifying the colon and allowing better nutrient absorption, aids weight loss and better metabolism, helps give you glowing skin thanks to flushing out toxins, and helps balance your lymph system. In short, it helps rejuvenate your system and helps you start every day off in the right way.

2. Change your morning routine to suit you.
Everyone has a morning routine and one of the ways to shine this year is to go through it and modify aspects of it that can be best suited to you. After all, everyone’s different and has their own way of working things in the early hours. If you always feel like you need more sleep, go to bed earlier or use a sleep calculator to find out when you should be going to bed to work with your circadian rhythms and cycles. Add in time for a morning shower if you always feel better with one but never have time. Make sure you have breakfast. All these little things can have a big positive effect on your morning routine and wlll help you shine this year.

3. Make an active effort to see the good around you.
The world is, surprisingly, a good place despite the bad things going around and not a lot of us actually choose to see. Let’s face it, with the news creating catastrophe and calamity in every news item, some pretty seriously twisted ideals of perfection and beauty being pushed on us, and a general feeling that cynicism is the standard, it can be hard to be optimistic and someone who sees the silver lining when everyone else sees an oncoming storm. If you want to truly shine this year, look for the positive. Surround yourself with positive friends and be more considerate to people going through their own situations, so that by looking for the positive, you transfer it forward and become the positive change yourself.

4. Exercise at least three times a week.
Exercise is a bit of a hate word around people – it brings back memories of school gyms and forced running and mandatory activities. However, choosing to go out and engage in something that gets your body moving is absolutely a fantastic thing to get involved in and something that is certain to make you shine this year. Find the kind of exercise you like to do, rather than immediately going down the gym even though you’ll hate it. If you like slow rhythmic movements, take up tai chi or yoga; if you like high-energy stuff, check our Zumba or aerobics. There are more than enough exercise options out there for you and if you really want to shine this year, it’s a good idea to go and get your body moving.

5. Get plenty of sleep.

This one cannot be stressed enough – sleep is key. All of our culture seems to be screaming, ‘you don’t need sleep, you can go for longer’ – but to do is to put into jeopardy your physical and mental health because sleep is an option. Sleep is a legitimate physical need that will cause you severe problems if you don’t get enough. A way to truly shine this year is to take care of yourself by engaging in some sleep hygiene. Make your bedroom the best kind of sleeping environment possible for you. Sweet dreams.

6. Make sure to dance at every opportunity.
A bit of a cliche, perhaps, but let’s be honest- people who shine through life are always ready to dance at the drop of a hat. Dancing is both ridiculously simple and complex – it’s a true expression of human emotion and the ability to translate our physical body into a joyous or mournful or reverential proclamation. Plus, dancing has incredible health benefits as it helps you keep fit, works your legs and arms through rhythmic movement, and releases endorphins into the bloodstream providing an entirely natural rush. Whenever you find the chance to, put on your favorite kind of music and dance to it. Dance with a friend, dance alone, let your body do the talking and feel yourself begin to shine.

7. Try something new at least every month.
There’s nothing that kills as quick as routine nor boredom – so the paraphrased saying goes. One of the most enjoyable ways to shine is to keep putting yourself out there more and trying new things as often as possible, within a minimum of one new thing a month. There’s an entire world out there waiting for you to experience it – a world full of fantastic films and delicious food and astonishing plays and beautiful music and joyful dance and great TV. People who shine always try and broaden their horizons and their own perspectives, so make sure you give into that childlike curiosity with that new album, new restaurant, new film. After all, you might just find a new favorite.

8. Visualize your happiness.
If you want your happiness, you’ve got to visualize it. See it, imagine it. Work through it so it becomes an approachable goal rather than a lofty ideal which is as unattainable as it is ill conceived. We create our own happiness and shape our own lives so if you want to truly shine this year and be the best version of yourself that you can be, is to decide what makes you happy and either cultivate it if you have it, or work towards it if you don’t. Create a vision board, a Pinterest channel, a sigil – whatever you need to try and plan out your happiness, use it. The future is yours.

9. Stop comparing yourself to others.
Comparing your life and yourself to other people is one of the most toxic and self-destructive things you could ever do to yourself as it undermines your own experiences and your personality and erodes away at all the positive achievements you’ve managed to accomplish throughout your life. Simply, you need to finish with both the negative and positive comparisons to other peoples’ lives in order to focus on your own. Comparisons lead to negativity, anger, jealousy and gossiping which not only makes you look more petty and negative, it also stops you from focusing on your life and your goals. Cut the comparison and truly shine this year as an example.

10. Stop the ‘should have’ thoughts in your life
We’re constantly being told what we should have and shouldn’t have in our lives. Designer clothes, cars, the latest electronic products, haute cuisine and expensive coffee, everything is construed as a status symbol, an indicator that the person has met untold requirements for being seen as desirable. That is an incredibly toxic way of viewing life and viewing ownership, because if you live your life by the ‘should haves’, then you will be forever chasing trends because what is a la mode always changes, always evolves.

Your life, however, should be based on the wants and needs that you yourself cultivate and desire. It’s not the end of the world if you want the latest tablet or phone or a cup of coffee or shoes – that’s fine – but what you need to assess is why you’re wanting it and then go off your instinct as to whether or not it’ll make you happy. If it makes you happy, go for it. If not, then find something that does make you happy. And then you’ll truly shine this year, and the years to come.

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Why Snapchat is Valuable: It's All About Attention"""

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Most people who encounter a link to this post will never read beyond this paragraph. Heck, most people who encountered a link to this post didn't click on the link to begin with. They simply saw the headline, took note that someone over 30 thinks that maybe Snapchat is important, and moved onto the next item in their Facebook/Twitter/RSS/you-name-it stream of media. And even if they did read it, I'll never know it because they won't comment or retweet or favorite this in any way.

We've all gotten used to wading in streams of social media content. Open up Instagram or Secret on your phone and you'll flick on through the posts in your stream, looking for a piece of content that'll catch your eye. Maybe you don't even bother looking at the raw stream on Twitter. You don't have to because countless curatorial services like digg are available to tell you what was most important in your network. Facebook doesn't even bother letting you see your raw stream; their algorithms determine what you get access to in the first place (unless, of course, someone pays to make sure their friends see their content).

Snapchat offers a different proposition. Everyone gets hung up on how the disappearance of images may (or may not) afford a new kind of privacy. Adults fret about how teens might be using this affordance to share inappropriate (read: sexy) pictures, projecting their own bad habits onto youth. But this is isn't what makes Snapchat utterly intriguing. What makes Snapchat matter has to do with how it treats attention.

When someone sends you an image/video via Snapchat, they choose how long you get to view the image/video. The underlying message is simple: You've got 7 seconds. PAY ATTENTION. And when people do choose to open a Snap, they actually stop what they're doing and look.

In a digital world where everyone's flicking through headshots, images, and text without processing any of it, Snapchat asks you to stand still and pay attention to the gift that someone in your network just gave you. As a result, I watch teens choose not to open a Snap the moment they get it because they want to wait for the moment when they can appreciate whatever is behind that closed door. And when they do, I watch them tune out everything else and just concentrate on what's in front of them. Rather than serving as yet-another distraction, Snapchat invites focus.

Furthermore, in an ecosystem where people "favorite" or "like" content that is inherently unlikeable just to acknowledge that they've consumed it, Snapchat simply notifies the creator when the receiver opens it up. This is such a subtle but beautiful way of embedding recognition into the system. Sometimes, a direct response is necessary. Sometimes, we need nothing more than a simple nod, a way of signaling acknowledgement. And that's precisely why the small little "opened" note will bring a smile to someone's face even if the recipient never said a word.

Snapchat is a reminder that constraints have a social purpose, that there is beauty in simplicity, and that the ephemeral is valuable. There aren't many services out there that fundamentally question the default logic of social media and, for that, I think that we all need to pay attention to and acknowledge Snapchat's moves in this ecosystem.

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