
Show HN: NanaGram – SMS photos and we'll mail 4x6 prints to your Grandma - andygcook
http://nanagram.co
======
saintPirelli
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
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-
ser...](https://mashable.com/2018/04/24/nanagrams-photo-printing-service).
Plus my Mom, my Grandma, my future mother-in-law, and my Aunt all get a
monthly NanaGram.

~~~
saintPirelli
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
I sometimes feel guilty for not keeping up with the world of crypto but love
being here in the physical world focused on smiles.

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aacook
@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
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
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. :)

------
stephenr
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?

~~~
imauld
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
_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.

~~~
imauld
Those things still require a either a data plan or a phone with a
browser/email client. MMS (thanks for the correction) is familiar and every
phone made in recent history can use it with no login, sign up or password.

My father has an email account solely because an Android phone makes you get
one. He definitely doesn't know the password and I wouldn't be surprised if he
didn't know the address either. However he is very comfortable taking pictures
and attaching them to text messages.

He can easily save a contact in his phone on his own. I or my brothers would
have to help him set up a bookmark in a browser. Now my father may be somewhat
of a Luddite but keeping the barrier really low for family members who aren't
texh savvy is a good idea for this.

And as far as quality I can almost guarantee my grandma doesn't care what is
in the pictures or how blurry they are. She is going to care that I am sending
her something. That's the important part not HD images.

