It's time for Snapchat to convince Wall Street and the world why they should be worth more than $20 billion — and here's a look at their secret 35-minute video that's meant to do just that.
The video is part of Snap's "roadshow" — a tradition in which companies about to go public visit with investors and analysts to drum up interest. The video is under password protection, but Mashablefound a way in and we're here to tell you what you need to know.
Let's break down what's in the video:
CEO Evan Spiegel starts off the 35-minute video by describing where Snapchat fits in. Snapchat for the last year has been referring to itself publicly as a camera company.
"Snap is a camera company. We feel like we’re really at the beginning of what cameras can do, evolve from being just a piece of hardware to software connected to the internet. Before cameras were the best way to perfectly save something that you saw. They sort of helped augmented memory and now making sure they augment the way that we talk," he said.
Credit: snapSpiegel positions Snapchat as a camera company that can innovate that form of communication, just as what happened with writing and with the telephone.
"At Snapchat, the camera has become the primary input for the phone. Throughout history people have wanted to communicate in intimate ways... I can’t imagine the way that it must have felt on that first phone call where you could hear the other person’s voice in real-time coming through," he said.
"Snapchat really tapped into that human desire to communicate in a way that’s face to face even if you’re far away. The first time you use it and you can see what someone else is seeing at the same time, from their perspective, that moment makes you feel close."
"Our dream was always to have an office on the beach," he said. The montage of Venice is followed by the appearance of Bobby Murphy, chief technology officer.
"We thought it was pretty big to what we needed at the time … that was the period of the time that we started a lot of the traditions that are carried out today," Murphy said.
Credit: snapSpiegel asserts that Snapchat's creative strategy has already broken the norm with it's "delete by default" approach.
"Everyone thought of cameras as a way to save really important memories. When we created Snapchat, where it’s delete by default, it didn’t make sense at the beginning. That’s why people love creating snaps, there isn’t pressure to feel pretty or perfect," Speigel said. "It’s about being a way to communicate how you feel and doing that in the moment."
Murphy then quips in to say that in addition to Spiegel's own genius, a lot of the product innovations are really inspired by what the users have done and the company prides itself in listening to users.
"People are sending so many snaps back and forth that they kept asking us for a select all button, but we were really worried that might ruin Snapchat … so came up with Stories," Spiegel adds.
Credit: snap"If you remember social media was always a reverse chronological feed," Spiegel said. "You were always scrolling backwards through a story and that didn’t make sense to us."
A quick reminder that even though people and especially investors may love Facebook, Spiegel is smart: “This ultimately comes from the brilliance of Evan, but the strong emphasis of building the product that makes people feel happy when using our service,” Murphy said.
“The more that we can create an environment where people feel comfortable trying things, feel comfortable expressing themselves, the more innovative our company can be,” Spiegel said.
Credit: snapMurphy said the 60 percent of users create snaps every day. Snapchat users, on average, visit the app more than 18 times per day and spend 25 to 30 minutes a day on the app.
“Just about everything in the app is focused around content creation,” he said.
For Snapchat, content creation isn’t just taking a photo. Murphy pointed to the “identity screen,” where users can create a Snapcode that allows them to share their accounts and follow their users.
“The camera should do more than just capture and share,” he said.
And Snapchat is also betting on a future in augmented reality. “We always care a lot about interactive … that the camera can be a launch point for interactive experiences,” he said.
Elaborating on Stories, Spiegel and Bobby share their first test of the Live Story product. Both of them had traveled to Las Vegas for the Electric Daisy Carnival.
“We were half expecting to see nothing, instead we saw the most amazing content,” Spiegel said, “very cool and creative fresh content.”
Credit: snapDiscover was, in part, inspired by Live Stories.
“You could watch something that was happening as if you were there but you didn’t understand why that was happening and that’s what’s led us to create publisher stories,” Spiegel said.
And that part is something Snapchat is “going to continue investing in.”
Lastly for the product, Spiegel discusses Spectacles and how it fits into the overall mission of creation.
“Snapchat has really empowered this human desire to feel closer to someone,” Spiegel said. “That’s an example of a way we’ve created a better way to make memories.”
Remember “Move fast and break things”? Supposedly, never a thing at Snapchat.
“We approach innovation in a different way at Snap,” Spiegel said. “It’s not a throw things at the wall and see what sticks kind of company. We try to take time to really listen to our community.”
That doesn’t mean they are slow builders.
“We’ve launched more products every year from the year before,” Murphy said. “We love this pace of innovation.”
Credit: andrew hutchinson/snapAccording to Spiegel, what they do change isn’t driving people away. “Our community is receptive to new things,” Spiegel said, “excited to see what you can build next.”
A continued issue is on metrics such as follower accounts, which Snapchat still declines to disclose. It’s because Snapchat would rather you not worry about it and rather you connect more closely with less people.
“What we identified with Snapchat is people were missing the intimacy of communication,” Spiegel said. “We love when people are selective with the friends that they add, we wanted to make a place that was comfortable for you to talk to the 7 most people.”
Snap CSO Imran KhanCredit: snapImran Khan, formerly of Credit Suisse, now Snapchat’s Chief Strategy Officer outlines their advertising play and ad products.
For Snapchat, it’s all being the mobile/digital pull to TV budgets. “It becomes harder for advertisers to reach the same number of people as they did in the past … spend less time watching traditional tv,” Khan said.
The description of a typical Snapchat user beyond the word millennial: “The people that use Snapchat are curious about the world, embrace change and are into learning new things,” Khan said.
Credit: snapSnapchat, like most companies built on advertising, is focused on ad products, ad delivery, measurement and sales channels.
Kenny Mitchell of Gatorade, Chris Watt of Adidas and Doug Neil of Universal Pictures all give their bullish view of Snapchat:
“30 percent completion rate on a 7 minute video. You don’t get that on the other platforms,” Mitchell said.
“We have a really collaborative relationship with the guys at Snapchat,” Watt said.
“We want to have as much real estate as possible,” Neil said.
Credit: snapKhan ends his presentation on the note of strategy, pointing out that Snapchat has a long tail future.
“Our user growth is driven by our product innovation,” Khan said. “It takes a while to make great products.”
Right now, Snapchat isn’t profitable. Enter Chief Financial Officer Andrew Vollero to tell you how that’ll change.
Snapchat, again like most companies, has three phrases: user engagement; monetization; profitability.
Snap CFO Andrew VolleroCredit: snapSnapchat has more than 158 million daily active users. They don't bother providing monthly numbers. "We believe that daily investment is the most reliable way to understand engagement," Vollero said.
Unlike Facebook, Snapchat is not after accessibility for all and connecting the world -- for now. It operates best in areas with "strong wireless networks" and to the benefit of advertisers these are more likely to be people who have "higher disposable income."
Snapchat, as we said, isn't a money printing machine. But it doesn't shy away from admitting that. "We have significant advertising revenue available," Vollero said.
Snapchat's gotten a lot of flack for not being profitable, though that's quite hard when you're trying to grow rapidly.
Where Snapchat thinks they have an advantage is low infrastructure cost. Vollero positions Snap's choice to use third-party infrastructure, such as Google Cloud, as a smart business move.
"We can focus on product innovation," he said.
Re-enter Spiegel, who offers up some charming language on how important it is to him.
After Chris Handman, General Counsel at Snapchat, emphasizes their commitment to privacy and how in fact they're product is built upon that. "We built snapchat to hopefully restore some of that honesty, intimacy," Handman said.
Credit: snapSnapchat has written its privacy standards, in plain English -- though Handman forgets to mention that came after Snapchat was sued by the Federal Trade Commission.
Turns out the word of disappear was vague enough to be brought up in court. Snapchat's messages aren't completely ephemeral since they're temporarily saved on Snapchat servers.
"We use Snapchat constantly both in work and in our personal lives, and we handle personal information with the same care as we would for our families," Handman said.
Credit: snapVP of Communications Mary Ritti shares that the company as a whole is committed to diversity.
Spiegel then highlights a tradition at the company called Council. There, Snapchat employees sit down in a circle and chat openly about their work.
"There's a really strong sense of not just are we driving numbers, but really making people happy," he said.
TopicsSnapchat
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