Sitting with the co-founder of Chatbooks, Vanessa, in a noisy, yet quaint coffee-shop in Union Square, my eyes were opened to a new world. Guilty, as many in my generation are, of snapping hundreds of photos in any given week, letting them pile up on my phone’s SD card and never sharing them outside of my phone – many of us have promised ourselves when we have time we will organize them. With the emergence of the Cloud, and other electronic back-up devices, many have learned the hard way that in this digital age, you must back-up! Especially if you use a digital camera that requires a compact flash or SD memory card. The best Micro SD cards have every type of memory card you can think of at affordable prices.
But what happens to all of those filtered selfies, vacation photos, and snaps of friends on a spontaneous night out? They often get lost in the cyber world. Never to be printed, and soon to be forgotten. A busy mom of seven, Vanessa contributes the idea to start her company to her family. “Scrapbooking was my hobby as a young mom, and my first three children have very well documented childhoods. But my seventh child didn’t even have one printed photo!” In this digital fast-paced world it becomes increasingly difficult to scrapbook, a tradition in her family for generations, so she needed a super simple way to translate all those iPhone photos to a tangible item to be shared with family and friends.
Founded in June 2014, about 1 million books were sold in their first year. Understanding the millennial tendency to spend more time editing their Instagram posts than curating a family Scrapbook, Chatbooks makes it easy by connecting the App right to your social media accounts, and My Favorites on your phone. For only $8 for a 60 page 6×6 book filled with your favorite memories, the decision-making is almost erased. Everyone can be a contributor to the creation of the memories, allowing multiple people to add photos to a new edition.
Looking to document a whole summer in one book, or add some extra flair, Chatbooks has an option to create a Custom Book, with added photos and a hardcover. For mindless magic, setting up the Chatbooks Ongoing Series service, you are able to create amazing books automatically, receiving notifications as you get close to 60 so you can edit or add captions. If you want the book as is, you can just sit back and it will ship as soon as it is ready, with no shipping fee! It is almost too good to be true.
While Vanessa attributes the business idea to being a mother, and not wanting to let the memories slip away, Chatbooks is the perfect solution to millennials and entrepreneurs everywhere. The ideal client is anyone with a smart phone, which according to PC Magazine, will be 70 percent of the global population by 2020. For small business owners, stylists, and artisans – it serves as the ideal solution to displaying your work to potential clients and employers.
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Images courtesy of Chatbooks
