I signed up for this the last time it came up on HN. Although I’ve had trouble on my end with mailing addresses and uncooperative nursing homes, Alex at Nanagram has been absolutely fantastic and proactively helpful.
It’s been a niche use-case for me - getting photos to the two grandparents that can’t get on board with smart phones - but as far as it goes, it’s a phenomenal product for that niche. It’s definitely allowed me to keep grandparents involved with my newborn in a way that would otherwise not be nearly as convenient. The closest alternative would be to make a point of sending a snapfish order every few weeks; with NG, I just text a photo to them at the same time I’m texting my other relatives.
My only wish is that they could somehow foolproof their packaging to get past the front desk at nursing homes, but I don’t know if that’s possible. NH seem to just not be built for accepting mail for their residents.
Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm working on some new packaging. Nursing homes tend to be pretty sensitive about HIPAA and mail. I had a dream to get NanaGram into nursing homes as a group activity, hammered on sales a while and put it on the back burner. I'll probably revisit it soon. The general idea is people would open their photos together, making for a way for residents and team members to get to know each other better. All of the photos would come in one box to avoid delivery issues.
All that said, I'm working on some new packaging and will reach out to you by email to get you hooked up in a beta so we can improve your delivery.
I really like this product. As others have said, Alex is excellent at customer service. He’s taken my actual phone calls, and really helped out. He’s even implemented some features that helped my sister contribute from Scotland (with no overseas SMS). I continue to recommend it constantly.
Thank you! I love talking to customers on the phone. I subscribe to the idea of building a product or feature for one person. You kickstarted what eventually became an international email product. Now we've got customers delivering all over the place. Pretty soon I hope to start shipping worldwide. Thanks for sharing us with your friends.
Thank you for a product that focuses on a real need for the elderly. It might seem like an inconsequential thing to some, but I’m sure this kind of thing can considerably improve the quality of life for older people.
My mom has always embraced technology, but as she gets older, I can see her struggling with increasing anxiety using her computer and iPad, etc. I can imagine some day this being the perfect thing for her.
It’s so easy to forget our older loved ones, and it’s easy for the elderly to slip through the cracks of our society. I’d love to see more companies out there solving problems like this that improve the quality of life for the elderly.
Bravo for a product that brings joy and makes the world a little nicer place.
The #1 factor to leading a long and happy life is the frequency of your social interactions, both with close friends and family and acquaintances. I'm certainly getting reports of people talking to their grandparents more since they started sending photos and it warms my heart.
There's quite a bit happening in this space which has recently been coined by some as "elder tech." Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan's fund Initialized are investing in the space in startups like https://www.joinpapa.com.
Thumbs up everything about this product. I just started a side project that has minimal interface goals for a low(er) tech use case, and this is lovely.
Good to see you ship to Canada too. I'm in Japan where Mixi has a service called [Nohana](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19966877) that's similar (but an app), but looking forward to checking yours out, maybe with the help of my brothers back home. Nice work!
@aacook this is awesome! I just showed it to my sister and we're going to sign up for my Grandma's birthday next month. One request:
Snapchat is our native photo sharing app (and I assume that's true for many other millennials) any chance there's a way to send from snapchat in the works?
Thank you! I've explored other platforms. One of the reasons I've been hesitant to rely too heavily on social tools is NanaGram is often used for photos that never make their way to social. That said, Whatsapp has an API but it's invite-only and I've had no luck getting in. It's too bad because it would be a perfect medium. Hopefully in time.
Snapchat would be a great fit. I looked it about a year ago and it wasn't feasible. I'll take a look again!
In the meantime, we do support email by giving you a unique NanaGram email address.
I also work on a product that's been unexpectedly beneficial for dementia, amount other things (Marco Polo). As a researcher, it's been a revelation about how often products are useful in ways we don't design for, and the inverse, how products designed for a purpose can end up having negative or even counterproductive effects. (Social Media might fall into both categories). This is a good argument for design and user research in general.
Awesome! My wife and her family are crazy about your app. Her mom discovered an unknown half-sister through an Ancestry.com match. They used Marco Polo to get to know each other. My wife's mom also sends monthly printed photos via NanaGram.
Just sent this to my mom. I think your product looks really useful, joyful, well-priced, well-built and well-run. I think if you keep it up, you'll be really successful! I'm rooting for you!
Nice! Thanks so much for the supportive words. There have been a few times were I've considered "giving up" (putting this on the back-burner to take on contract work and pay the bills) but I've been fortunate with things like this HN thread. I'm also lucky to have a crazy supportive wife and family.
Costco sends photos for free when you order from a computer. I regularly send a handful of photos to my older relatives and pay just 17¢ each. Print quality is much better than places like Walgreens, IMO.
Nice, thanks for sharing! Do you have to be a member? It's free shipping with no order minimum?
NanaGram works best for people with siblings or cousins who want to send a curated pack of photos to their loved ones. The account owner can invite people to send in photos and everyone can tailor reminders (1 week, 3 days, 3 hours, etc from the monthly ship date).
The other nice thing is the interface, since most of the time there isn't one. We give you a unique phone number and all you have to do is text your photos to the number.
I'm hoping to release a couple low-priced solo-sender plans soon.
It's a great idea and I wish I'd known last Christmas when I had to print and post 5-6 photos to 5 recipients with a total cost of ~£100. My hustle also costs something but it's not priced in.
Only one question if I may. How can I know for sure you delete the photos? Is the business GDPR compliant? If I am based in the EU, do my photos need to go to server in the US? I'd prefer if they didn't have my young daughter's pics...
Thanks for these details. We take privacy extremely seriously. Most international folks use the email version of our product. In that case, they'd go from your mailbox to ours (Google Apps / Gmail) and then onto our server (Digital Ocean, NYC). We never use your images for marketing or promotion, unless in specific cases where we have your permission. For example, when people post reviews with their loved ones holding NanaGram prints. We don't get that many requests for deletion, but when we do, I run a full delete on your data.
Thank you! I can't take credit for the idea. That goes to my brother Andy. He'd originally dubbed the prototype "Instagrandpa" but we thought Facebook might get upset and went with NanaGram.
As someone who is dealing with a mother with actual dementia, the term "tool to fight dementia" is deeply misleading at best.
It's fine as a product, but it does nothing to "fight" dementia. It's a convenience and that's it.
"Fighting" implies that it has some therapeutic value that can stop or slow down the progression of the disease, and this does nothing. It's just an easy way to flip through pictures. After watching my mom go from a brilliant pharmacist to an incontinent, paranoid, angry stranger in the span of 6 years, I guarantee you there is absolutely nothing that flipping through a photobook will do that will do to fight dementia.
It's great for grandparents and older folks because it's familiar and convenient and easy to change. It's not a tool to fight dementia.
I am truly sorry to hear about your mom's dementia progression. I can only imagine. Wishing you and your family strength.
A few of my customers have mentioned it's helping them. I observed first-hand that going through fresh photos seemed to help my grandma too. She had dementia, although hers didn't progress as far as your moms. Maybe the photos didn't help but instead it was the frequent interactions with her loved ones that did. Also, maybe products like NanaGram help in the early stages of the disease but not later on.
I'm not a psychologist and dementia is an extraordinarily complex disease. I'm most definitely not trying to mislead. I drafted a few different variations on the title and ended up going with this one to get the point across.
To say it's misleading is unfair considering the language is pulled from one of the testimonials the author has received. I don't interpret "fight" to mean "help cure the disease," but rather "help alleviate the effects."
I walked that walk and agree with you. My mom was the smartest person I knew until one day when she wasn't, didn't answer the phone, aunt found her on the floor incoherent, and for the next 6 years we cared for her in our and then her home next door. She never again recognized family.
Music from my mom's youth was the only thing that survived up until language was gone. Old photos maybe were recognizable to her for only a few months out of the six years we had her but she was great at covering up the dementia in retrospect I think she was essentially cold reading the conversation we were having into "recognizing" people in the photos, her immediate family.
There's a link to BBC archives another HNer posted that would have been wonderful to have in a US version. I dislike raining on Alex's product in a thread he should be proud of but from a product standpoint I believe the BBC thingie for US audiences could be more useful to caregivers and those suffering from dementia.
I don't really know how to respond to this. She literally asked me that nearly every time I saw her. Word for word, she said, "How's the photo business?" and/or "How many customers now?" Ask anyone in my family. This is kind of a mean comment that I doubt you'd say to me in-person, especially if you knew just how much I deeply cared for my grandparents.
What's wrong with you? His product is literally called "NanaGram". You might not even understand how disrespectful you are right now with this kind of comment.
[+] [-] arkades|6 years ago|reply
It’s been a niche use-case for me - getting photos to the two grandparents that can’t get on board with smart phones - but as far as it goes, it’s a phenomenal product for that niche. It’s definitely allowed me to keep grandparents involved with my newborn in a way that would otherwise not be nearly as convenient. The closest alternative would be to make a point of sending a snapfish order every few weeks; with NG, I just text a photo to them at the same time I’m texting my other relatives.
My only wish is that they could somehow foolproof their packaging to get past the front desk at nursing homes, but I don’t know if that’s possible. NH seem to just not be built for accepting mail for their residents.
It’s a good service, run by good people.
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
All that said, I'm working on some new packaging and will reach out to you by email to get you hooked up in a beta so we can improve your delivery.
[+] [-] abakker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crazydoggers|6 years ago|reply
My mom has always embraced technology, but as she gets older, I can see her struggling with increasing anxiety using her computer and iPad, etc. I can imagine some day this being the perfect thing for her.
It’s so easy to forget our older loved ones, and it’s easy for the elderly to slip through the cracks of our society. I’d love to see more companies out there solving problems like this that improve the quality of life for the elderly.
Bravo for a product that brings joy and makes the world a little nicer place.
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
The #1 factor to leading a long and happy life is the frequency of your social interactions, both with close friends and family and acquaintances. I'm certainly getting reports of people talking to their grandparents more since they started sending photos and it warms my heart.
There's quite a bit happening in this space which has recently been coined by some as "elder tech." Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan's fund Initialized are investing in the space in startups like https://www.joinpapa.com.
[+] [-] snthd|6 years ago|reply
https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2017-02-bbc-rem-arc-dementia-m...
https://remarc.bbcrewind.co.uk/index.html
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
This really should exist in the US too. I assume the footage is all BBC footage.
[+] [-] phasetransition|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokyokawasemi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
BTW, I'm hoping to drop the price for Canada in the next couple months!
[+] [-] lemiant|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
Snapchat would be a great fit. I looked it about a year ago and it wasn't feasible. I'll take a look again!
In the meantime, we do support email by giving you a unique NanaGram email address.
[+] [-] laurex|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mizza|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnicholas|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
NanaGram works best for people with siblings or cousins who want to send a curated pack of photos to their loved ones. The account owner can invite people to send in photos and everyone can tailor reminders (1 week, 3 days, 3 hours, etc from the monthly ship date).
The other nice thing is the interface, since most of the time there isn't one. We give you a unique phone number and all you have to do is text your photos to the number.
I'm hoping to release a couple low-priced solo-sender plans soon.
[+] [-] matthewaveryusa|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TadaScientist|6 years ago|reply
Only one question if I may. How can I know for sure you delete the photos? Is the business GDPR compliant? If I am based in the EU, do my photos need to go to server in the US? I'd prefer if they didn't have my young daughter's pics...
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willdotphipps|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brlewis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] docker_up|6 years ago|reply
It's fine as a product, but it does nothing to "fight" dementia. It's a convenience and that's it.
"Fighting" implies that it has some therapeutic value that can stop or slow down the progression of the disease, and this does nothing. It's just an easy way to flip through pictures. After watching my mom go from a brilliant pharmacist to an incontinent, paranoid, angry stranger in the span of 6 years, I guarantee you there is absolutely nothing that flipping through a photobook will do that will do to fight dementia.
It's great for grandparents and older folks because it's familiar and convenient and easy to change. It's not a tool to fight dementia.
[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
A few of my customers have mentioned it's helping them. I observed first-hand that going through fresh photos seemed to help my grandma too. She had dementia, although hers didn't progress as far as your moms. Maybe the photos didn't help but instead it was the frequent interactions with her loved ones that did. Also, maybe products like NanaGram help in the early stages of the disease but not later on.
I'm not a psychologist and dementia is an extraordinarily complex disease. I'm most definitely not trying to mislead. I drafted a few different variations on the title and ended up going with this one to get the point across.
[+] [-] econnors|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] howard941|6 years ago|reply
Music from my mom's youth was the only thing that survived up until language was gone. Old photos maybe were recognizable to her for only a few months out of the six years we had her but she was great at covering up the dementia in retrospect I think she was essentially cold reading the conversation we were having into "recognizing" people in the photos, her immediate family.
There's a link to BBC archives another HNer posted that would have been wonderful to have in a US version. I dislike raining on Alex's product in a thread he should be proud of but from a product standpoint I believe the BBC thingie for US audiences could be more useful to caregivers and those suffering from dementia.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] aiyodev|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] aacook|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jyriand|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duggan|6 years ago|reply