Created by a trio of Stanford University students in 2011. Three marketing pillars: target audience fitting, focus on engagement, and a word of mouth growth engine. Then.... Target audience pivot, a sense of security, social obligation, FOMO (fear of missing out), one-to-one communication at scale, instant onboarding.. Many students mocked the concept, but Spiegel didn't give up in the face of criticism.. Spiegel's mother had told his cousin who was in school about this app who later showed it to his classmates. The app became an instant hit and rapidly spread throughout Southern California. By early 2012, it's active user base had increased to 30,000. The guys swiftly got the hint and pivoted the app to Generation Z teens.. Friction-free creation growth hack embedded into the product that favored teens because of their natural impatience. After launching the app, the camera was immediately activated, encouraging instant photo-capturing.. Even the slightest friction can have a large impact on teenage audience.. Read-receipt subconsciously turns a simple question “Did you get my message?” into a commodity: “do you respect me?” and ”are you ok with me?”. Feeds are implicit broadcasts, not directed to specific individuals unless mentioned. In turn, consumers of the message have no obligation to respond and in some cases, may be hesitant to reply in a public forum.. As kids moved to Snapchat, their parents quickly followed, and the service became a way for teens to communicate with their parents too.. Since 2012 Snapchat’s growth channels have been comprised word of mouth (68%), invites (19%), and press (9%).. To manage all this growth hacks and keep the focus on the target audience, Snapchat hired a community marketing manager, their first employee, and by October of that year, the user base had increased to 1,000,000 and the app processed over 231 photos shared per second.