WeChat

Snap Minis: be the WeChat-style mini-app platform for the West

Shaan breaks down Snapchat's new Minis as mini-apps built inside the messenger, copying WeChat where you pay bills or buy movie tickets without leaving the app. He argues Snap must become a platform to survive Facebook copying its features, making early builders welcome.

“Minis is actually, I think, a bigger move by them. So Minis are basically mini applications built into Snapchat. What they're doing is they're copying WeChat, which is the big messaging app in China. WeChat has like a million little apps built in, like, oh, you need to pay your bills? You just do it through WeChat.”

Steal thisBuild a utility (rent splitting, payments, ticketing) natively inside a messaging app instead of forcing users out to your own app.