What’s Yik Yak?
Launched in 2013, Yik Yak was an anonymous messaging app for college students as a way of discreetly communicating with others nearby. Yik Yak’s value revolved around the ideal premise that if a user’s identity was masked, they were more likely to have a more transparent conversation. According to Yik Yak Yak’s website:
“By letting you share news, ask questions, offer support, and interact freely with others who are in the same place at the same time, Yik Yak acts as a springboard for discovering, meeting, and connecting with people in your local community”.
Who was Yik Yak for?
Yik Yak was geared towards college students, and it used geofencing to block out other users such as middle and high students. In fact, to join the app, users had to submit their college name. The app acted as a virtual bulletin board for students to post whatever they wanted and unlike, their competitors, there was no concept of “friends” or “followers.”
What went wrong?
Yik Yak was actually on their way to becoming a significant player in the social media apps realm. Along their way, the company got a total of $73.5 million in venture capital funding and the #2 most downloaded social media app and #3 most downloaded iOS app in the United States. At one point, Yik Yak even had an estimated $400 million evaluation.
However, by the end of 2017, the mobile payment Square bought Yik Yak’s engineering talent, as well as, some minor intellectual property for just $1 million.
So, how did an app that was valued $400 million at one point, flunk this badly? Even though, the founders wanted to create an app where they tried to help students connect with each other, the product ended failing because it was built around assumptions mainly about their market and users’ behaviors. So, some of the following assumptions are just some factors that contribute to Yik Yak’s ultimate doom:
- “By giving anonymity to users, we encourage more transparent conversations”: This was one of the primary assumptions that contribute to the app’s downfall. Because Yik Yak encouraged an anonymity status for their community, this gave the app a more gossip centric usage. Yik Yak became the go-to place for college students to express hateful speeches and there was no way to control this type of abusive online behavior. According to the app’s privacy policy, Yik Yak will not reveal users without a valid subpoena, court order, or search warrant that states explicitly imminent harm. As we can see because of the founders’ naive assumption, it caused the app to become something that they never thought it could become — a space for cyberbullying.
- “By using geofencing in high schools, we could decrease cyber-bullying”: Even though the company tried blocking the usage of a younger audience to decrease the number of hatred posts, this tactic didn’t work as they planned. The amount of bullying still plagued colleges and universities. In 2015, a student at Western Washington University was charged with a hate crime for making alleged threats to the app directed another student. These type of cases kept recurring on the app more and more frequently.
- “By introducing “handles,” it could make the app safer and more enjoyable for users”: Back in March 2017, in the mist of all these cyberbullying cases, Yik Yak tried to force their users to add “handle” to their posts even if handles didn’t have to contain the users’ real names. However, this assumption didn’t work as intended. Users were quite displeased with this requirement, which lowered the app’s overall rating since it defeated the app’s whole premise — anonymity.
All of these assumptions does have one factor or problem in common, “did Yik Yak even truly know who exactly were their target market?”. The app, by its design, was problematic from its ideation. A platform where people can say whatever they’d like while being able to maintain their identity a secret? In the ideal world, this app would have been a perfect place where people would share positive thoughts and experiences. However, it seems that Yik Yak based their design process and decisions mainly around assumptions. They were so focused on their micro social mission — connecting college students with each other that it caused them to ignore other important macro social issues — hatred and ignorance.
Yik Yak is a good example that shows the importance of analyzing and converting assumptions into hypothesis to make sure that the product will create more good than harm.