by nearly all measures, snapchat is not a better messaging service than iMessages or google hangouts. image and video quality, the length of messages, and the ability to share other app data are all markedly worse.

still, millions of users send billions of snaps a day on snapchat. why? because the here today, gone tomorrow ephemeral nature of snaps and videos make the platform different. it solves a different problem.

when faced with certain business challenges, we often look at our competitors and stop before we even start. how can we make this any better than theirs?

you don’t have to make it better.

you have to make it different.