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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 buildi
by 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 agoThis 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 agoI sometimes feel guilty for not keeping up with the world of crypto but love being here in the physical world focused on smiles.
- imauld 8y agoI really like how often I can get the reminders sent. I am basically in a state of constantly forgetting things so having frequent reminders will keep taking some pictures for my Grandma fresh in my mind as I normally don't take many pictures. Great idea
- aacook 8y agoThanks a bunch. We started with a default 2 weeks, 1 week, 3 days and 24 hours and recently changed it so you can tweak which reminders you get. A thing I like about the phone number implementation is I can snap a photo and push it to a loved one (just search their name in my contacts, saved with a NanaGram number behind the scenes) with a few swipes. SMS is the first option on iOS when sharing an image. We've spent a bunch of time obsessing about notifications and they're not quite where I want them to be yet, but close. I'm not a big fan of addicting apps or services that steal your attention. Every user can tweak exactly what notifications they get. Right now, by default, we notify all the users on an account when a new photo is posted by another user. This is nice since it makes a community of sorts, like a private social network for families. It also helps teach people how the service works. Recently I created a setting allowing you to subscribe to a Saturday morning email instead. This makes for a nice surprise factor, kind of like getting film developed. I'll probably adjust things at some point so all users move off the instant notifications (which help teach people what the service is all about) and onto the Saturday morning digest after a few weeks of using the service.