With close to 200 million users, Snapchat has established itself as a dominant force in the current realm of social media. Valued at 19 Billion USD, Evan Spiegal (CEO of snapchat) and his team have yet to turn a profit and only created 3 million dollars of revenue in the year 2014. The company has notoriously gained their lucrative valuation through massive Investments and potential. However, this could be subject to change. Snapchat is now on track to generate 100 million dollars of revenue in the next 12 months.
Snapchat has recently implemented a new custom animated lens 
feature to their app that has caught the attention of many of their users. According to Business Insider it is Snapchats intention to make these lenses sponsored in the coming month, charging upwards of $500,000 per day for a lens placement.
This evaluation is based on the assumption that the interest in these new lenses will sustain itself for the next 12 months. Snapchat has had trouble with revenue retention in the past. To relate to our class discussions, Snapchat uses a differentiation strategy from Porter’s Generic Strategies. Speigal created a unique product that is attractive to a large majority of the young population. Thus, advertising was the logical means of monetization for the company. However, 
Snapchats “Discover” did not withhold user interest and therefore did not produce enough revenue for the company to become profitable. Snapchat is doing well with adaption and using the transient advantage to try and prosper their company. It will be interesting to see how snapchat users respond to the longevity of this new revenue technique and how long Snapchat can make money from it.
third image http://jeffsaddmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/how-my-brain-works.jpg
