Snap doing things that don't scale

In the competitive landscape of social media, few platforms have captured the imagination and loyalty of young users quite like Snapchat. Founded by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy in 2011, Snapchat revolutionized digital communication with its ephemeral messaging that allowed photos and videos to disappear after viewing. But before it became a global phenomenon with hundreds of millions of daily active users, Snapchat faced the same challenge that confronts every new social platform: how to achieve critical mass when your value proposition depends on network effects. The solution Spiegel and his team employed exemplifies the “do things that don’t scale” philosophy that has become essential startup wisdom.

The Birth of Snapchat

To understand Snapchat’s growth strategy, we must first understand its origins. The app was born out of a class project at Stanford University, where Evan Spiegel was studying product design. The initial concept wasn’t Snapchat as we know it today, but rather an app called “Picaboo” that allowed users to send photos that would disappear after viewing. This idea emerged from a conversation about regrettable social media posts and the permanent nature of digital communication.

Spiegel, along with fellow Stanford students Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown, developed the first version of the app in 2011. The initial reception was lukewarm at best. When they released Picaboo on the iOS App Store in July 2011, it gained only a small number of users. By the end of the summer, the app had just 127 active users.

After a falling out with Brown and a subsequent rebranding to “Snapchat,” Spiegel and Murphy faced a critical challenge: how to grow a social platform that depended entirely on having friends already using it. Unlike utility apps that provide standalone value, social networks face the classic chicken-and-egg problem—users won’t join unless their friends are already there, but how do you get the first users when there’s no existing network?

The Unscalable Solution: Family Connections in High Schools

Faced with this challenge, Spiegel turned to a strategy that was completely unscalable but remarkably effective: leveraging his personal connections, particularly his family ties to Los Angeles high schools. As one source described it, “Evan was pushing Snapchat on anyone who would listen—students at Stanford, his cousins and sisters who were in high school in LA, pitching every person he could.”

This approach was particularly strategic for several reasons:

1. Targeting the Right Demographic: High school students were the perfect early adopters for Snapchat. Teenagers are highly social, constantly communicating with friends, and quick to adopt new technologies. They also value privacy from parents and teachers, making Snapchat’s disappearing messages particularly appealing.
2. Leveraging Trusted Relationships: By starting with his own family members—cousins and sisters who were in high school—Spiegel ensured that his initial pitch was coming from someone the potential users already knew and trusted. This personal connection increased the likelihood that they would try the app.
3. Focusing on Closed Social Environments: High schools are relatively closed social environments where trends can spread quickly. Once a few students in a school started using Snapchat, it could rapidly spread throughout the entire student body through word of mouth.
4. Creating Density: Rather than trying to spread users thinly across a wide geographic area, focusing on specific high schools created dense clusters of users who could immediately derive value from the app by connecting with their existing friends.

The execution of this strategy was remarkably simple but labor-intensive. Spiegel personally reached out to his cousins and sisters who were in high schools across Los Angeles, explaining the app and encouraging them to try it with their friends. This direct, personal outreach was completely unscalable—Spiegel couldn’t personally contact millions of potential users—but it was precisely what Snapchat needed at this early stage.

The Viral Spread Through Los Angeles High Schools

The results of this targeted approach were dramatic. As one source noted, “The app started going viral in high schools in the Los Angeles area, including at Spiegel’s cousin’s school.” What began as a few isolated users quickly turned into a phenomenon. “Snapchat started spreading like wildfire through every high school in Southern California. Within weeks it was moving very organically to other high schools across the country.”

This rapid spread through high schools wasn’t just luck—it was the result of several factors that Spiegel and his team had built into both their product and their growth strategy:

1. Perfect Product-Market Fit for Teenagers: Snapchat’s ephemeral messaging addressed a real pain point for teenagers. In an era when parents and college admissions officers were increasingly scrutinizing social media profiles, Snapchat offered a way to communicate without leaving a permanent digital record.
2. Simple Onboarding Process: Snapchat made it incredibly easy for new users to join and start sending “snaps” to their friends. The app didn’t require extensive profile creation or complex setup processes, reducing friction for new users.
3. Built-In Virality: The very nature of Snapchat encouraged users to invite their friends. Since you could only send snaps to other Snapchat users, there was a natural incentive to get your friends to join the platform.
4. Exclusivity and FOMO: As Snapchat began to spread through high schools, it created a sense of exclusivity and fear of missing out (FOMO) that drove further adoption. Teenagers who weren’t on the platform risked being left out of conversations and inside jokes.

The focus on high schools proved to be a masterstroke. Teenagers are not only early adopters of technology but also highly influential in their peer groups. When a new technology becomes popular among teenagers, it often creates a ripple effect that extends to other demographics. As Snapchat gained popularity in high schools, it began to attract attention from college students, young adults, and eventually, a broader audience.

Beyond Los Angeles: The Expansion Strategy

While the initial growth came from Los Angeles high schools, Snapchat’s team recognized the need to expand beyond this initial base. They employed several strategies to facilitate this expansion:

1. College Campuses: Building on their success in high schools, Snapchat began to target college campuses, particularly during orientation weeks when new students were forming social connections. This approach allowed them to capture users as they transitioned from high school to college, ensuring continuity in usage.
2. Leveraging Existing Networks: As high school students graduated and moved to colleges across the country, they brought Snapchat with them, creating new clusters of users in different geographic areas. This organic spread helped Snapchat expand without requiring direct intervention from the company.
3. Word of Mouth Marketing: Snapchat relied heavily on word of mouth rather than traditional marketing. The company understood that recommendations from friends were far more powerful than advertising, particularly for their target demographic.
4. Continuous Product Improvement: As the user base grew, Snapchat continued to refine the product based on user feedback and usage patterns. Features like Stories, which allowed users to share moments with all their friends for 24 hours, were added to enhance the user experience and drive further engagement.

This combination of strategies allowed Snapchat to expand from its initial base in Los Angeles high schools to become a global platform with millions of users. By December 2012, just over a year after its launch, Snapchat had reached 1 million daily active users. By the end of 2013, that number had grown to 10 million.

The Psychological Insight: Understanding Teen Communication

Underlying Snapchat’s growth strategy was a profound psychological insight: understanding how teenagers communicate and the social dynamics that drive their technology adoption.

Teenagers have always had a desire for private communication away from adult supervision. In previous generations, this might have meant passing notes in class or having private phone conversations. Snapchat digitized this need for private, ephemeral communication in a way that resonated deeply with its target audience.

The app also tapped into the changing nature of communication among young people. Rather than long-form text messages or emails, teenagers were increasingly communicating through images and short videos. Snapchat’s focus on visual communication aligned perfectly with this shift.

Perhaps most importantly, Snapchat understood the social currency of exclusivity among teenagers. By creating an app that initially spread through specific high schools, Snapchat became associated with being “in the know” and part of an exclusive group. This exclusivity drove further adoption as teenagers sought to be part of the trend.

Lessons for Entrepreneurs: The Power of Targeted Growth

Snapchat’s growth strategy offers several valuable lessons for entrepreneurs facing their own growth challenges:

1. Start with a Specific, Targeted Audience: Rather than trying to appeal to everyone immediately, Snapchat focused on a specific demographic (high school students) and even more specifically, high school students in Los Angeles with connections to the founder.
2. Leverage Personal Connections: Spiegel’s use of his family connections to seed initial growth demonstrates the power of personal networks in the early stages of a startup. Sometimes the most effective growth strategies start with the people you already know.
3. Create Density Rather Than Breadth: By focusing on specific high schools, Snapchat created dense clusters of users who could immediately derive value from the platform, rather than spreading users thinly across a wide area.
4. Understand the Social Dynamics of Your Target Audience: Snapchat’s success was built on a deep understanding of how teenagers communicate and the social pressures they face. This insight informed both the product design and the growth strategy.
5. Build Virality Into Your Product: Snapchat’s very nature encouraged users to invite their friends, creating a natural growth mechanism that didn’t require direct intervention from the company.
6. Be Patient with Growth: Snapchat’s growth wasn’t overnight. It started with just 127 users and grew steadily as the team refined their approach and expanded to new markets.

Perhaps the most important lesson from Snapchat’s experience is that sometimes the most effective way to build a global platform is to start extremely local. By focusing on specific high schools and leveraging personal connections, Snapchat was able to create the initial momentum that would eventually propel it to become one of the most popular social platforms in the world.

The Legacy: From High School App to Global Platform

Today, Snapchat is a global platform with hundreds of millions of daily active users and a public company (Snap Inc.) valued at billions of dollars. The company has expanded far beyond its initial focus on disappearing messages to include features like Stories, Discover, Snap Map, and augmented reality filters.

This success can be traced back to those early days when Evan Spiegel was personally reaching out to his cousins and sisters in Los Angeles high schools. What began as an unscalable, manual process laid the foundation for a social media giant that has transformed how people communicate.

What makes this story particularly powerful is that Snapchat’s growth strategy wasn’t just a clever hack; it was an expression of the company’s deep understanding of its target audience. The decision to focus on high schools wasn’t just about finding any users—it was about finding the right users who would embrace the product and help it spread.

In a world where many startups focus on rapid scaling and broad appeal from day one, Snapchat’s story reminds us of the power of starting small, focusing on a specific audience, and growing through authentic connections. Sometimes, the most effective way to build something that scales is to start by doing things that don’t scale at all.

As Evan Spiegel reflected on Snapchat’s journey from a Stanford class project to a global platform, the decision to leverage his family connections in Los Angeles high schools wasn’t just a growth strategy—it was a recognition that technology adoption often follows social patterns. By understanding and leveraging these patterns, Snapchat was able to achieve what many social platforms struggle with: creating a network effect from scratch.

This alignment between growth strategy and user understanding is perhaps the most enduring lesson from Snapchat’s experience. In a crowded digital landscape, a deep understanding of your users and a willingness to start small can be the most powerful growth drivers of all.