5 ms·

Show HN: NanaGram – SMS photos and we'll mail 4x6 prints to your Grandma

14 points by andygcook 8y ago

aacook 8y ago
@andygcook, Best Middle Brother Ever, thanks for posting. NanaGram is a super simple service for sending regular printed photos in the mail to your loved ones. Our service acts like a Netflix account. After you sign up, we give you a unique phone number and you can share it with unlimited family and friends. Once someone is approved by you they can send in photos and together the group curates a few fresh photos per month. We print and ship 4x4 and 4x6 prints in glossy or matte. All you have to do is text your photos and wait for a phone call from your loved one. We’ve had a nice bump in growth the past couple weeks, with Mother’s Day on the horizon (Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! <3) and lots of new folks planning to use us as a gift. This is the happiest product I’ve worked on. It’s super heartwarming to see it bringing families closer together (the product functions like a private family social network), bringing our elders into the loop (many of whom don’t do social media), and most of all the increase in phone calls and visits. Would love to answer any questions.
mtmail 8y ago
Word of caution from another comment thread that Instagram is suing companies claiming trademark violations https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16998127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16998127 I really like your wording and photos on the website. Refreshing and joyful.
- aacook 8y ago
  Thanks so much, appreciate the kind feedback and words of caution. The credit for the awesome Rusty the dog photos (https://imgur.com/a/3cRZu https://imgur.com/a/3cRZu) goes to my Grandpa and his brother Arnold who took the photo in the 1940s as teenagers, using a camera borrowed from their Aunt Florence. The negatives were lost for decades, discovered among a bunch of family old papers. The photo of Andy and I at the fancy kid's table in the 90s was most likely taken by Grandma Cook. :)
saintPirelli 8y ago
I'm generally very sceptical of "start-ups" and I see most of them as bound to fail, but this actually fills a hole. I think this has great potential to make both money and grandparents everywhere very very happy.
- aacook 8y ago
  Thank you. At the beginning (and even now, really) we didn't treat it as a start-up, more of a passion project. So during the first few months when I was building everything out I threw out all the standard advice and just focused on making the best thing possible for my siblings and my grandparents, no matter how long it took. I'm enjoying every moment working on this product, especially the moments with my own grandparents. My grandpa Tirrell Cook, aka Grandpa Cook, passed away peacefully on April 9th after a tough month-long battle in the hospital. I was fortunate enough to have flexibility in my schedule to be by his side 4-5 days a week. He was truly a great man - I don't know anyone else like him - and I'll miss him dearly. I'm super grateful for all the crazy great times we had the past couple of years. I wrote more about my relationship with him here: https://nanagram.co/blog/on-happiness-from-tirrell-cook https://nanagram.co/blog/on-happiness-from-tirrell-cook With his passing, I considered putting NanaGram on hold for a while but the feedback from customers has been tremendous, as well as the media: https://mashable.com/2018/04/24/nanagrams-photo-printing-service https://mashable.com/2018/04/24/nanagrams-photo-printing-ser.... Plus my Mom, my Grandma, my future mother-in-law, and my Aunt all get a monthly NanaGram.
  - saintPirelli 8y ago
    This is great and I think it is the only way to build something profound and meaningful. None of the buzzwords (blockchain, crypto, AI) can compete with a puitting a smile on the faces of the people you care about.
    - aacook 8y ago
      I sometimes feel guilty for not keeping up with the world of crypto but love being here in the physical world focused on smiles.
stephenr 8y ago
I get that the grandmother side of thing is “old school” because of the printed photos, but why is the “modern” input side of this also using antiquated tech like sms?
- aacook 8y ago
  We'll probably build an app at some point but one of the reasons was just to get something built as quickly as possible, just for our family, and an app seemed like overkill. Another thing is that it's super tough to get my youngest brother to engage with anything tech (I doubt I would've been able to get him to download an app and install it) and SMS reminders ended up being a low friction way to get him involved.
- imauld 8y ago
  Because it's a platform agnostic way of sending images. IMO this is actually a really good decision given the purpose of the service. A lot of my older family members that I will likely invite to my new account (great idea btw) are familiar with sending pictures through SMS and don't really use any other messaging apps or many apps at all, if their phone even supports apps. Believe it or not many older people and some younger people still rock low powered phones with little or no data plan. However most if not all phones made within the last decade can send SMS messages and more than likely are on a plan with free texting. Why should I need to download another app that is a glorified REST client when SMS does the job perfectly well?
  - stephenr 8y ago
    Nobody is 'familiar' with sending images over SMS, because its technically impossible. They may be familiar with sending images over MMS, which generally limits the size to less than half a MB. Hardly "high quality". I never once suggested that it should be an "app". This could literally be a web page with a single file input and a button, or a fucking customer-specific email address. It could be any number of things that makes more sense than sending shit quality images over MMS.
    - 8y ago

14 points by andygcook 8y ago

@andygcook, Best Middle Brother Ever, thanks for posting. NanaGram is a super simple service for sending regular printed photos in the mail to your loved ones. Our service acts like a Netflix account. After you sign up, we give you a unique phone number and you can share it with unlimited family and friends. Once someone is approved by you they can send in photos and together the group curates a few fresh photos per month. We print and ship 4x4 and 4x6 prints in glossy or matte. All you have to do is text your photos and wait for a phone call from your loved one. We’ve had a nice bump in growth the past couple weeks, with Mother’s Day on the horizon (Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! <3) and lots of new folks planning to use us as a gift. This is the happiest product I’ve worked on. It’s super heartwarming to see it bringing families closer together (the product functions like a private family social network), bringing our elders into the loop (many of whom don’t do social media), and most of all the increase in phone calls and visits. Would love to answer any questions.

mtmail 8y ago

Word of caution from another comment thread that Instagram is suing companies claiming trademark violations https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16998127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16998127 I really like your wording and photos on the website. Refreshing and joyful.

aacook 8y ago
Thanks so much, appreciate the kind feedback and words of caution. The credit for the awesome Rusty the dog photos (https://imgur.com/a/3cRZu https://imgur.com/a/3cRZu) goes to my Grandpa and his brother Arnold who took the photo in the 1940s as teenagers, using a camera borrowed from their Aunt Florence. The negatives were lost for decades, discovered among a bunch of family old papers. The photo of Andy and I at the fancy kid's table in the 90s was most likely taken by Grandma Cook. :)

saintPirelli 8y ago

I'm generally very sceptical of "start-ups" and I see most of them as bound to fail, but this actually fills a hole. I think this has great potential to make both money and grandparents everywhere very very happy.

aacook 8y ago
Thank you. At the beginning (and even now, really) we didn't treat it as a start-up, more of a passion project. So during the first few months when I was building everything out I threw out all the standard advice and just focused on making the best thing possible for my siblings and my grandparents, no matter how long it took. I'm enjoying every moment working on this product, especially the moments with my own grandparents. My grandpa Tirrell Cook, aka Grandpa Cook, passed away peacefully on April 9th after a tough month-long battle in the hospital. I was fortunate enough to have flexibility in my schedule to be by his side 4-5 days a week. He was truly a great man - I don't know anyone else like him - and I'll miss him dearly. I'm super grateful for all the crazy great times we had the past couple of years. I wrote more about my relationship with him here: https://nanagram.co/blog/on-happiness-from-tirrell-cook https://nanagram.co/blog/on-happiness-from-tirrell-cook With his passing, I considered putting NanaGram on hold for a while but the feedback from customers has been tremendous, as well as the media: https://mashable.com/2018/04/24/nanagrams-photo-printing-service https://mashable.com/2018/04/24/nanagrams-photo-printing-ser.... Plus my Mom, my Grandma, my future mother-in-law, and my Aunt all get a monthly NanaGram.
- saintPirelli 8y ago
  This is great and I think it is the only way to build something profound and meaningful. None of the buzzwords (blockchain, crypto, AI) can compete with a puitting a smile on the faces of the people you care about.
  - aacook 8y ago
    I sometimes feel guilty for not keeping up with the world of crypto but love being here in the physical world focused on smiles.

stephenr 8y ago

I get that the grandmother side of thing is “old school” because of the printed photos, but why is the “modern” input side of this also using antiquated tech like sms?

aacook 8y ago
We'll probably build an app at some point but one of the reasons was just to get something built as quickly as possible, just for our family, and an app seemed like overkill. Another thing is that it's super tough to get my youngest brother to engage with anything tech (I doubt I would've been able to get him to download an app and install it) and SMS reminders ended up being a low friction way to get him involved.
imauld 8y ago
Because it's a platform agnostic way of sending images. IMO this is actually a really good decision given the purpose of the service. A lot of my older family members that I will likely invite to my new account (great idea btw) are familiar with sending pictures through SMS and don't really use any other messaging apps or many apps at all, if their phone even supports apps. Believe it or not many older people and some younger people still rock low powered phones with little or no data plan. However most if not all phones made within the last decade can send SMS messages and more than likely are on a plan with free texting. Why should I need to download another app that is a glorified REST client when SMS does the job perfectly well?
- stephenr 8y ago
  Nobody is 'familiar' with sending images over SMS, because its technically impossible. They may be familiar with sending images over MMS, which generally limits the size to less than half a MB. Hardly "high quality". I never once suggested that it should be an "app". This could literally be a web page with a single file input and a button, or a fucking customer-specific email address. It could be any number of things that makes more sense than sending shit quality images over MMS.
  - 8y ago