If they want to justify $25 billion plus valuation they will need to open the platform to be useful to businesses other than the high spending brand advertisers

If they want to justify $25 billion plus valuation they will need to open the platform to be useful to businesses other than the high spending brand advertisers, which is certainly a lucrative segment but not the totality of advertisers. Once the people at Snapchat just accept that buying things is also apart of the human experience, then they'll be able to build in direct response ad formats and sales tracking (online and offline). Right now their ad formats are on the level of vanity, though vanity does sell it doesn't sell to all. In the long run, for Snapchat to justify $25bn and greater the local Chinese restaurant needs to be able to send an ad with a call to action to Snapchat users in a vicinity of their choosing, and also be able to track conversion by who walked in. This is all technically feasible, and Snapchat may open up to more sales conversion advertisers. But, that same Chinese restaurant could be doing this advertising campaign today on Facebook and Google. So what makes Snapchat special? They will need to train their users to accept advertisements from unknown entities, because right now their ad content leverages previous brand recognition and borders more on entertainment than sales.