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Snapchat

also referred to as: snapchats

includes Snapchat Stories, Snapchat Discover, Snapchat Chat, Snapchat Lenses

66 statements across 41 episodes · 28 bullish · 10 bearish · 37 people on the record · first statement Feb 5, 2015 by Niko Bonatsos · said 811 times in 303 episodes since 2015 · across every show →

Mentions by year, the whole family

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (584), Jeremy Liew (41), Jack Brody (14), Kelly Peeler (10), Will Wu (6), Jason Calacanis (6), Peter Fenton (5), Roseanne Wincek (4)

tap a year for its mentions
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075150201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
0057510150201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
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2025 24 mentions in 7 episodes 3 per episode
2024 25 mentions in 9 episodes 3 per episode
2023 55 mentions in 14 episodes 4 per episode
2022 14 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode
2021 59 mentions in 6 episodes 10 per episode
2020 11 mentions in 10 episodes 1 per episode
2019 16 mentions in 10 episodes 2 per episode
2018 45 mentions in 22 episodes 2 per episode
2017 288 mentions in 105 episodes 3 per episode
2016 255 mentions in 98 episodes 3 per episode
2015 12 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Snapchat, oldest first

Feb 5, 2015 neutral
Assertion Supported
Bonatsos notes Snapchat's valuation was $10 billion in early 2015
“The latest was ten billion, yeah.”
Niko Bonatsos Feb 5, 2015 ▶ 10:10 20 VC: Niko Bonatsos on Startup Valuations
Apr 2, 2015 neutral
Prediction Partly held up
Major telcos will launch mobile payments to compete with Facebook and Snapchat
“I think there are much more other big players offering similar services in the next few months, including a lot of the big telcos, because they're not really interested just to let the Facebooks and Snapchats taking away this interesting interaction to the end…”
Marc Bernegger Apr 2, 2015 ▶ 11:36 20 VC 024: Financing Finch with Marc Bernegger of Orange Growth Capital
Apr 9, 2015
Disclosure
Transmedia Capital gained Snapchat, Twitter, and LinkedIn stakes via startup acquisitions
“Well, those Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Twitter were all through acquisitions. Scan was a company that was acquired by Snapchat. Snappy TV was acquired by Twitter, and Nozzle was acquired by LinkedIn. So that's how we have positions those companies.”
Chris Redlitz Apr 9, 2015 ▶ 3:37 20 VC 026: Chris Redlitz on The Importance of People, Pivoting and The Last Mile
Apr 16, 2015 negative
Assertion Partly supported
Teare: Series A and B Face Severe Capital Shortage
“There's about five billion dollars available at the seed stage for all the companies every three to five years. There's about one to two billion available at the A and B stage. And then at the growth stage, at the other end, there's more than a hundred billion…”
Keith Teare Apr 16, 2015 ▶ 21:15 20 VC 028: Co-Founding TechCrunch and The Benefits of Not Raising Venture Funding with Keith Teare
Jun 29, 2015 positive
Assertion Supported
Lightspeed's Snapchat Investment Originated From a Partner's Daughter Using the App
“I think it was at light speed, I think, where one of the partner's daughters was on Snapchat permanently, and he was asking her what it was, and that stemmed their investment.”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 6:59 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Sep 18, 2015 positive
Opinion
Silicon Valley bias against LA startups is now a non-issue
“Fast forward to today, I think that's a non-issue with people like, you know, Mark Suster and Upfront Ventures and Snapchat in LA.”
James Borow Sep 18, 2015 ▶ 18:43 FF 013: 'Make Bets And Believe In What You Are Doing' with James Borow @ Shift & Brand Networks
Oct 12, 2015 neutral
Insight
Hartman: Ephemerality is a design pattern lowering friction to post
“On the ephemerality side, I think that that actually, think about that not as a feature, but as a design pattern. What has ended up happening is that it lowered the friction to post. So I know that it's not going to everybody, and I know that it's going to dis…”
Matt Hartman Oct 12, 2015 ▶ 8:57 20 VC 078: BETAWORKS WEEK: Matt Hartman, Director of Seed Investments @ Betaworks
Jan 11, 2016 bullish
Prediction Held up
New breakout consumer mobile companies will emerge soon
“And I think you'll see new companies emerge. Is it going to happen this year? Is it going to happen next year? It's going to happen soon. It hasn't happened since Snapchat, right? They're the Snapchat, Tinder are the last big consumer companies to emerge. Thos…”
David Tisch Jan 11, 2016 ▶ 20:26 20 VC: David Tisch @ Box Group on The Future of Consumer Mobile, Developing Pattern Recognition and FOMO
Jan 11, 2016 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
West Coast tech hubs in NYC risk stifling local giants
“All the big companies from the West Coast have set up product offices here over the past five years, and I think that that might on one hand prevent the emergence of a standalone New York A monster, but it also brings more talent here, and so you've seen what …”
David Tisch Jan 11, 2016 ▶ 6:53 20 VC: David Tisch @ Box Group on The Future of Consumer Mobile, Developing Pattern Recognition and FOMO
Feb 5, 2016 neutral
Prediction Held up
A successor to Snapchat will emerge within five years
“I have absolutely no doubt that there will be another, you know, the next version of Snapchat will come along in five years”
Kelly Peeler Feb 5, 2016 ▶ 15:57 20 VC FF 034: What Fintech Can Learn From Uber and The Shift From Financial Organisation To Financial Efficiency with Kelly Peeler, Founder & CEO @ NextGenVest
Feb 5, 2016 positive
Assertion Supported
45% of Snapchat users are under age 25
“45% of Snapchat users are under the age of 25, and they're over there's nearing about two hundred million users with about seven billion video views per day.”
Kelly Peeler Feb 5, 2016 ▶ 14:42 20 VC FF 034: What Fintech Can Learn From Uber and The Shift From Financial Organisation To Financial Efficiency with Kelly Peeler, Founder & CEO @ NextGenVest
Feb 5, 2016 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Every consumer brand will eventually need a presence on Snapchat
“In my opinion, that's where every single brand will have to be. Because you have to be where your users are.”
Kelly Peeler Feb 5, 2016 ▶ 15:17 20 VC FF 034: What Fintech Can Learn From Uber and The Shift From Financial Organisation To Financial Efficiency with Kelly Peeler, Founder & CEO @ NextGenVest
Feb 15, 2016 positive
Insight
Mary Meeker: Evan Spiegel views the iPhone purely as a camera
“Mary Meeker told me the story about Evan Spiegel from Snapchat about how he just sees the iPhone as a camera. He doesn't even look at it as a phone. He's like, you're holding a camera. You know, that really carries through in the product vision for Snapchat.”
Arielle Zuckerberg Feb 15, 2016 ▶ 24:55 20VC: Arielle Zuckerberg @ Kleiner Perkins: A Review Of My First 6 Months in Venture
Aug 1, 2016 bullish
Opinion
Justin Kan: Snapchat Is the Most Compelling Product of the Past Decade
“Their product teams are like pretty good and they've Really built a, what I think is the most compelling product I've seen in the last 10 years.”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 19:35 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Oct 28, 2016 positive
Opinion
Mark Suster Is the Best VC at Social Media Branding
“You know who I always love is Mark Schuster. He's like, so when we first, first started getting going in, in Twitter, 2008, nine, he was crushing it then. He's now crushing it on Snapchat and doing really interesting stuff.”
Ryan Holmes Oct 28, 2016 ▶ 20:04 20VC: Hootsuite's Ryan Holmes on Optimising Productivity in Meetings, Creating An Ownership Culture & Lessons From Running A Pizzeria!
Oct 28, 2016 bullish
Opinion
Ryan Holmes Was Extremely Bullish on Snapchat's 10 Billion Daily Views
“Oh man, no, I, I'm hugely bullish on Snapchat. Ten billion views daily. Facebook's at eight billion. Huge audience. Very engaged audience. Recently, this, yesterday, memories coming out. That all of a sudden is, is really interesting seeing your archive of Sna…”
Ryan Holmes Oct 28, 2016 ▶ 21:33 20VC: Hootsuite's Ryan Holmes on Optimising Productivity in Meetings, Creating An Ownership Culture & Lessons From Running A Pizzeria!
Jan 13, 2017 positive
Insight
Nelson: Snapchat succeeds in AR by grounding innovation in familiar behavior
“Snapchat has this Relentless product focus. And now, of course, they're the people introducing the idea of augmented reality to tons and tons of people, and games like Pokemon Go, right, where there is this slow but sure corralling of technology-enabled innova…”
Maren Nelson Jan 13, 2017 ▶ 7:16 20VC: Building An AI Company For The Long Term? How Humans & Machine Learning Can Work Together? What Applications Are The Conversational Interface Best Suited To with Maran Nelson, Founder & CEO @ Clara Labs
Jan 23, 2017 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
John Lilly disagrees with Fred Wilson's consumer tech downturn thesis
“I mean, I don't know exactly what Fred's been talking about consumer downturn, but I don't, I think there's plenty of space. So, I think most people didn't think there was space for Snapchat a couple years ago. Now, now people do. You used to look at Musical.l…”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 11:38 20VC: Greylock's John Lilly on How Greylock Continues To Invest In The Next Big Markets, The Importance Of Building Tribes & Why There will Be Another Boom In Mobile
Apr 3, 2017 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Harry Stebbings Reports 64% Open Rate on Snapchat Versus 36% Newsletter Rate
“I think for me in particular, the conversion is better than any other channel that I've seen. So if you compare it to like my newsletter, whereby I will have, say, a I think currently it's about a 36% open rate. My Snapchat is currently a 64% open rate”
Harry Stebbings Apr 3, 2017 ▶ 29:18 20VC: Homebrew's Hunter Walk on Why There Is No Series A Crunch, How To Package Portfolio Companies For The Next Round & Why The Bridge Round Is Not Always A Negative Sign?
May 1, 2017 neutral
Insight
Stebbings: Creators should choose immortal content platforms over ephemeral ones like Snapchat
“And then just with the content, fundamental to choose immortal content platforms, so Snapchat for content isn't really great unless you're looking to create connections. It dies and is not searchable. The likes of Jason Lemkin have done incredibly well with Qu…”
Harry Stebbings May 1, 2017 ▶ 21:56 20VC: Explosion of First Time Funds, Only 1 Mega Fund Raised: What The Heck Happened in Q1 Venture Markets with Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director @ Sapphire Ventures
May 26, 2017 neutral
Insight
Sean Rad says top tech companies begin as passion projects, not missions
“Evan Spiegel in, in starting Snapchat or Uber and Twitter and all these companies that tend to have an impact on society. Or Facebook, they start out as little passion projects. They don't start out as missions to kind of change the world.”
Sean Rad May 26, 2017 ▶ 8:03 20VC: Tinder's Sean Rad on Why Humility Is The Key Trait For Founders To Have, Why Today's Incumbents Are Stronger Than Any Before Them & How Leaders Need To Scale With The Scaling Of Their Company
Jun 19, 2017 bullish
Opinion
Fenton: Snapchat has replaced the native camera for heavy users
“I think the camera is now, in many cases, for most, most people who are heavy users of Snapchat, like myself, the camera's been replaced by Snapchat, because it's plugged into a network.”
Peter Fenton Jun 19, 2017 ▶ 9:42 20VC: Benchmark's Peter Fenton on How To Differentiate Between Good & Great VCs, Why Ownership Is A Bigger Determinant Of Returns Than Valuation & What Makes A Truly Exceptional Board Member
Jul 3, 2017 bearish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Snapchat Was the Last Breakout Consumer Tech Company, Says Feng
“The last breakout iconic consumer company that's proven today is Snapchat, and that launched in 2011, so it's been almost six years since we had that level of success on the consumer side”
Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 9:42 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today
Jul 10, 2017 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lasky: Benchmark held no champagne celebration following Snapchat's IPO
“I came back from New York after the Snapchat IPO. I was in New York for the pricing and to see the stock open on, on the New York stock exchange floor. And I flew back from, it was on a Thursday on, came back on, on Monday to the partners meeting. And our cele…”
Mitch Lasky Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 19:26 20VC: Benchmark's Mitch Lasky on The Snapchat Journey From Series A to IPO, Why Small Is Beautiful In Venture Partnerships & Why Venture Is Very Much Like Hollywood
Jul 10, 2017 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Benchmark: Snapchat was 12 people in a dining room at Series A
“When we invested in the Series A, the company was essentially a dozen people camping out in the dining room of Evan's dad's house in Los Angeles.”
Mitch Lasky Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 15:45 20VC: Benchmark's Mitch Lasky on The Snapchat Journey From Series A to IPO, Why Small Is Beautiful In Venture Partnerships & Why Venture Is Very Much Like Hollywood
Aug 14, 2017 bullish
Prediction Held up
Calacanis: Snapchat will reach a $1B run rate by end of 2017
“They'll be at a billion-dollar run rate by the end of the year, you know, two hundred fifty million a quarter.”
Jason Calacanis Aug 14, 2017 ▶ 10:47 20VC: Jason Calacanis on The 4 Questions Investors Must Ask Founders, Whether YC Have Scaled Their Process Successfully & Why Early Founder Liquidity Is Good Not Bad
Aug 14, 2017 negative
Opinion
Calacanis: Facebook is on a jihad to kill Snapchat
“I mean, it's not inspired by Snapchat. They're on a jihad to kill Snapchat.”
Jason Calacanis Aug 14, 2017 ▶ 14:28 20VC: Jason Calacanis on The 4 Questions Investors Must Ask Founders, Whether YC Have Scaled Their Process Successfully & Why Early Founder Liquidity Is Good Not Bad
Oct 25, 2017 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Nicole Quinn: Lightspeed requires a 33% DAU/MAU ratio for social apps
“So we like to think about DAU divided by MAU. If you're A social media app , then we want it to be over a third. If it can be over 50%, then it really is a daily use case, and that's exactly what we saw from Snapchat back in the day, but we definitely need for…”
Nicole Quinn Oct 25, 2017 ▶ 23:26 20VC: Lightspeed's Nicole Quinn on Why We Are Not In A Consumer Downturn, Why M&A Has Not Been This Exciting For A Long Time & Why Amazon Is Never Your Friend
Feb 19, 2018
Disclosure
Jeremy Liew: Lightspeed invested $475k in Snapchat at $4.25M valuation
“It was a 475 A thousand dollar investment at a four and a quarter million dollar pre-money valuation when the company was just the two founders.”
Jeremy Liew Feb 19, 2018 ▶ 8:42 20VC: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on Being The First Investor in Snapchat, Why The Pessimism Around Consumer Is Wrong & Why Silicon Valley Is An Isolated Bubble and What Can Be Done To Change This
Feb 19, 2018 positive
Assertion Supported
Liew: Snapchat grew 50% month-over-month prior to Lightspeed's investment
“It was growing at a 50% per month rate. It was showing incredible retention and incredible engagement.”
Jeremy Liew Feb 19, 2018 ▶ 8:59 20VC: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on Being The First Investor in Snapchat, Why The Pessimism Around Consumer Is Wrong & Why Silicon Valley Is An Isolated Bubble and What Can Be Done To Change This
Jun 18, 2018 neutral
Disclosure
Taneja: Snapchat was General Catalyst's last large media company investment
“In fact, as you said, Snapchat was actually the last large media company we've invested in.”
Hemant Taneja Jun 18, 2018 ▶ 9:58 20VC: General Catalyst's Hemant Taneja on Why We Are In A Golden Age For VC, Why Pro-Rata Is A Lazy Posture and Why He Does Not Focus On Price
Sep 4, 2018 positive
Disclosure
Eggers: Snapchat had under 100,000 users when Lightspeed made seed investment
“They still had less, less than a, about a 100,000 users when we invested and they'd gone up from 10,002 months before. Really good engagement, and so we made the seed investment.”
Barry Eggers Sep 4, 2018 ▶ 17:09 20VC: What It Takes To Found and Scale A Global Venture Firm Like Lightspeed, 3 Ways Firms Do Not Succeed in Generational Transition & What Makes The Truly Special Board Members Like Jim Goetz with Barry Eggers, Founding Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partn
Sep 10, 2018
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Snapchat had only 13 employees when Shabih Rizvi first met them
“So I remember when I first met the Snapchat team, it was only about 13 people at the time.”
Shabih "Shabby" Rizvi Sep 10, 2018 ▶ 9:20 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures
Dec 2, 2019 negative
Opinion
Tisch: Digital ad channels on Instagram and Snapchat mature instantly without arbitrage opportunities
“When you see Instagram and Snapchat open up their advertising products, they're basically mature on day one.”
David Tisch Dec 2, 2019 ▶ 24:27 20VC: BoxGroup's David Tisch on Whether Concentrated Investing At Seed Works, Do Founders Really Want Direct Feedback and Is It Good For Them & Why Consumer Social Is Interesting Again
Sep 28, 2020 positive
Opinion
Luckey: Improving DoD 1% saves lives unlike incremental consumer app work
“You're not going to make the world very different if you make Snapchat one percent better. But if you can make the United States Department of Defense one percent better, you are going to save a lot of lives. You are going to save a lot of money.”
Palmer Luckey Sep 28, 2020 ▶ 44:09 20VC: Anduril Founder, Palmer Luckey: "I Am Here To Build a $50Bn Company", How Palmer Evaluates His Relationship To Money Pre & Post Oculus' $2.3Bn Exit & Why The US DOD Needs To Be More Like China in It's Approach
Feb 24, 2021
Disclosure
75% of Snapchat's Early Users Were High School and College Women
“When we met Snapchat, one of the things that really caught our attention was that 75% of the user base were young women in high school and college”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 9:33 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021
Assertion Supported
Lightspeed Invested in Snapchat's Seed Round at a $4.25M Valuation
“At the seed at four and a quarter pre, and, like, here we are looking at 13, and just thinking, well, you know, that's three times higher.”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 32:40 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021
Assertion Supported
Snapchat's Monthly Burn Rate Exceeded $1M Within a Year of Seed
“Burn, within a year from our investment, Burn was in excess of a million dollars a month”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 30:57 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021 positive
Assertion Supported
Snapchat Had 50% MoM Growth and 50% 90-Day Retention in 2012
“But I remember seeing 50% month on month growth. 50% DAU to MAU ratios, which suggests very high engagement, and 50% retention after 90 days, which again suggests high engagement, high retention, high growth.”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 15:45 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021
What-if
Lightspeed Passed on a Snapchat Follow-On Investment at a $13M Valuation
“If we'd invested, I think that if we'd done that round, I think the terms were three on 13 or something like that. It would have been a great outcome for the company and for Lightspeed.”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 31:58 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021 positive
Assertion Supported
Bobby Murphy Built Early Snapchat Code Off-Hours While at Another Startup
“Evan was partnered with Bobby Murphy, who was a fraternity brother of his from Stanford, who graduated a couple of years earlier. And he'd been the guy who was building all of this and had obviously demonstrated an ability to like build high quality, scalable …”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 24:31 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021 positive
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Snapchat Became the Third Most Popular App in Norway in 2012
“In fact, it had become the number three most, most popular app in Norway at that time, so ahead of Instagram, ahead of Facebook, and so forth.”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 13:22 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021
Insight
Consumer Social Apps Lack Context Without an Active Friend Network
“If you start using Snapchat without having other friends who use Snapchat, you lose all context. You don't sort of understand what it's for.”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 4:41 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Snapchat Raised Seed Capital When Server Costs Exceeded Spiegel's Credit Card
“Frankly, I think the thing that probably changed the most was that they finally had a need for financing. You know, at that first meeting, they ran us through some of the metrics of the business, and it looks tremendous. And we said, well, is there anything we…”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 7:32 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021
Assertion Supported
Snapchat Had 90,000 DAUs on 180,000 Installs When Lightspeed Invested
“So when we met them in, you know, March, April of 2012, they had about 90,000 daily active users off of a base of 180,000 installs.”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 15:24 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021 negative
Opinion
Instagram Stories Is Restricted by the Platform's Highlight-Reel Culture
“Stories on Instagram, the culture of Instagram is still, look at how great my life is. You know, it's still highlight real type, you know, use case and culture, and that then propagates into stories.”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 28:48 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 24, 2021 positive
Assertion Supported
Snapchat Stories Became the Dominant Format Across All Social Networks
“And with that one insight, starting from first principles, thinking about how people interact with each other, he has changed the course of all social networks, because you can't find, you know, whether it's Twitter, or LinkedIn, or, you know, obviously, Whats…”
Jeremy Liew Feb 24, 2021 ▶ 27:01 20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Eva
Feb 9, 2022 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Belsky: Snapchat consistently rethinks its first-mile onboarding for new cohorts
“You know, Snapchat, I think, is probably one example. Of a company that I feel has consistently rethought their first mile experience for a different cohort of new customers.”
Scott Belsky Feb 9, 2022 ▶ 6:21 20 Product: Scott Belsky on How to Hire Your Product Leader and Team, 3 Questions All Great Product Leaders Ask, How To Structure and Run Effective Product Reviews & Is Product More Art or Science?
Aug 24, 2022 negative
Disclosure
20VC Abandoned 100,000 Snapchat Followers Due to Declining Engagement
“I invested heavily in Snapchat stories when they were big for business. We gained a 100,000 plus fans there, but with the reducing popularity of the platform for business, The audience declined, and it was no longer worth the investment for me over other platf…”
Harry Stebbings Aug 24, 2022 ▶ 6:31 20VC: 10 Lessons on Scaling 20VC to 100M+ Downloads | How To Build an Audience and a Next-Generation Media Company
Sep 23, 2022
Disclosure
Vasconcellos passed on Snapchat's seed round due to Facebook conflict concerns
“I'd say the biggest miss I had was not investing at the seed round of Snapchat... Facebook conflicts committee said, oh, and you guys can't invest this because it could potentially be competitive... We said, oh, this whole like disappearing messages thing does…”
Julio Vasconcellos Sep 23, 2022 ▶ 42:02 Julio Vasconcellos: Scaling to $100M and 1,200 Employees and then Cratering | 20VC #928 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 7, 2022 positive
Disclosure
Weil: Instagram explicitly credited Snapchat when launching Stories
“When we launched stories, the number one thing we made sure to say was like, kudos to Snapchat. You invented this format.”
Kevin Weil Oct 7, 2022 ▶ 6:41 Kevin Weil: Lessons from Leading Product at Instagram & Twitter | 20VC #934 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 7, 2022 neutral
What-if
Weil: Directly plopping Snapchat Stories into Instagram would have failed
“But I think if you had just taken stories and like plopped it in the middle of Instagram, it wouldn't have worked.”
Kevin Weil Oct 7, 2022 ▶ 7:36 Kevin Weil: Lessons from Leading Product at Instagram & Twitter | 20VC #934 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 18, 2023 neutral
Insight
Snapchat and Pinterest ad channels cannot scale like Meta or Google
“Snapchat, Pinterest, those work, but those are hard to scale. Like you don't get large scale, similar to Facebook and Google.”
Hila Qu Jan 18, 2023 ▶ 10:01 Hila Qu: The Ultimate Guide to Product Growth at Your Startup | 20VC #967 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 26, 2023 neutral
Insight
Brody: Communicating with friends is far more frequent than taking photos
“Talking with friends is a far more frequent behavior Than capturing an image of something pretty.”
Jack Brody Apr 26, 2023 ▶ 52:22 Snap's VP of Product Jack Brody: The Future of AR; Snap Glasses; Evan Spiegel's Product Mind | E1006 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 26, 2023
Disclosure
Snapchat created Stories to avoid a 'select all' send button
“And with stories, you know, what we were hearing from the community was they wanted a way to send a snap to everyone. They wanted it to be easier for them to go. Take a snap. Tap everybody on the send to list and blast it off. Now we recognize that if we did t…”
Jack Brody Apr 26, 2023 ▶ 49:28 Snap's VP of Product Jack Brody: The Future of AR; Snap Glasses; Evan Spiegel's Product Mind | E1006 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 26, 2023 positive
Opinion
Snapchat Stories remain more raw and authentic than rival platforms
“While stories has, you know, been successful on other platforms, the way stories are used on Snapchat is still fundamentally different. It's still more raw, authentic in the moment content. There's less of this need to be, you know, pretty or perfect.”
Jack Brody Apr 26, 2023 ▶ 16:34 Snap's VP of Product Jack Brody: The Future of AR; Snap Glasses; Evan Spiegel's Product Mind | E1006 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 9, 2023
What-if
Paik: TikTok could not exist before Twitter due to bandwidth constraints
“There's a very clear reason why the order of founding went from Twitter first, to Instagram, to Snapchat, to TikTok. And it is because mobile as infrastructure and bandwidth in its earliest stages, supported the lowest packet size, text. And then next compress…”
Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:17:30 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 2, 2024
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Evan Spiegel offered Will Wu a Snapchat job the day they met
“In that moment, he was like, I have the perfect job for you. And later that day, I got a job offer in my email, and it said product designer as a job title.”
Will Wu Feb 2, 2024 ▶ 6:30 Will Wu: Top Five Product Lessons from Creating Snapchat "Discover" and "Chat" | E1111 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 2, 2024 positive
Assertion Supported
Wu: Moving Snapchat Discover next to stories completely changed its fate
“We moved Discover one screen to the left, essentially, to be on the same screen as where you see your friends' stories, And that completely changed the fate of Discover.”
Will Wu Feb 2, 2024 ▶ 9:26 Will Wu: Top Five Product Lessons from Creating Snapchat "Discover" and "Chat" | E1111 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 17, 2024
Disclosure
Index passed on Snapchat due to fund concentration limits
“What happened there was we, to my recollection, we had the opportunity to invest, but we had a growth fund, and we were unwilling to put the amount necessary to lock in the round, and so as a result of that, we didn't do the deal.”
Danny Rimer Jun 17, 2024 ▶ 50:25 Danny Rimer: The Biggest Lessons from Missing Snap, Airbnb, Spotify and Facebook | E1166 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 13, 2025 negative
Disclosure
Pishevar: Menlo Ventures passed on Snapchat seed and Series A rounds
“I, so, I brought Snapchat to Menlo. Evan and I hit it off. I really believe that. I was on it in the first 30 days, because my kids were on it, and so they showed it to me, and I was chasing it, and Evan and I hit it off and unfortunately Menlo passed on the, …”
Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 1:17:37 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 14, 2025 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Solomou: Snapchat will remain an innovative hub for Gen Z over 5-10 years
“I believe Snap is an interesting place over the next five to 10 years. Whether it can compete with the TikToks, and the Metas, and at this scale, I mean, these players are Huge. And we've seen what they've done in AI. We've seen what they're doing in e-commerc…”
Solly Solomou Feb 14, 2025 ▶ 1:09:57 Solly Solomou, Founder & CEO @ LADbible Group: From Penniless Shop Offices to Public Company | E1259 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 14, 2025 bullish
Assertion Open · timeframe Feb 2025
Solomou: Snapchat is the number one messaging platform for young demographics
“They are huge amongst the younger demographic. It's the number one messaging platform.”
Solly Solomou Feb 14, 2025 ▶ 1:09:10 Solly Solomou, Founder & CEO @ LADbible Group: From Penniless Shop Offices to Public Company | E1259 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 9, 2026 bearish
Opinion
Weitzman: Meta is completely eating Snapchat's lunch
“I think they're overpaying creators, left, right, and center. And I just think that the lunch is completely eaten by meta at this point.”
Cliff Weitzman May 9, 2026 ▶ 1:04:30 Cliff Weitzman: What I Learned from 100 of the World’s Top CEOs & Why Tokens Will Outspend Salaries · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 9, 2026 negative
Assertion Partly supported
Weitzman: Speechify's early hires from Apple and Snapchat failed within three months
“We had two people that we hired from Apple and Snapchat, like very legit people. And they messed up the culture of the company. They would leave at 5:30 p.m. They like didn't live and breathe the company. And in the end, both of them quit after three months.”
Cliff Weitzman May 9, 2026 ▶ 1:03:06 Cliff Weitzman: What I Learned from 100 of the World’s Top CEOs & Why Tokens Will Outspend Salaries · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 9, 2026 negative
Disclosure
Speechify has never succeeded in running profitable ads on Snapchat
“One, we try to run ads on Snap all the time. We never succeed.”
Cliff Weitzman May 9, 2026 ▶ 1:04:10 Cliff Weitzman: What I Learned from 100 of the World’s Top CEOs & Why Tokens Will Outspend Salaries · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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