Mission:Pic 3.0

@jsneedles Good question! That went great! Thousands and thousands of people attempted to take a picture related to the daily challenges every day of 2016 but only a couple hundred actually managed to accomplish it and only a couple thousand stuck with it. I think it was a little tough for some people to setup an internal expectation to not miss a single day and then, when life inevitably gets in the way one day, it's easy to feel disheartened and throw in the towel. But we still believe strongly in the idea that repetition and restrictions are the best way to challenge and improve your creativity. So we focused on making the whole app experience more social and have tried to convey the idea that you don't have to do it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. for it to still be an awesome, world-view changing thing. Exciting stuff!

@shwood That's brilliant! If only we could get Private Investigators to follow every single user around we could do "just post that pic of your avocado toast you took at that brunch spot yesterday." There are worse ways to spend money.

@kevinguebert Thanks! Yeah, we pushed hard to get it out before New Years, of course that means we had to make a couple trade-offs so there should be some more cool features launching in January. Great question about engagement and one worthy of many very long conversations but I'll try to keep my thoughts short. I wish I could post a couple screenshots in my reply because we just had a cool experience three days ago involving this exact situation. I think the only long-lasting solution to this problem has to start at the community level. At it's simplest this is a messaging problem. We have to say, "Hey, this is just a fun way to be creative and look at the world a little differently each day. Don't stress out." But obviously we can't say that enough times or in enough places for it to be relevant at the right moment for the right person. That's where the community comes in. If this is part of the core of your early constituency then SOMEONE will always be around at the right time to say what needs to be said. Fortunately, so far we've done a good job of growing a very friendly and supportive community that does just that. Although I'm not sure how much credit we can take for that...but certainly being part of that community ourselves helps. (Ah ha! I'll just put those screenshots in the gallery for now so you can see what went down a couple days ago. They're just a small sample of the comments from one photo where someone said they were over not winning and TONS of users came out of the woodwork to offer thoughts/support!)

@amtrekker I don't think you could have answered the question any better. The screenshots and your answer fully encapsulate my concerns and now all I want to do is be a part of this community. That is probably one of the best parts about your app - the app itself is great, programmed well, and designed fantastically - but the fact that you were able to create a warm, welcoming, and supportive community is far more of an accomplishment. Bravo and congrats! 👏👏

@kevinguebert Thanks so much for all the nice words! I love conversations about this stuff. :)