Snap-and-Dash Fun Photos with New App

From Nick Barron. Follow him on Twitter @nbarron; email him at nick[AT]borderstan.com.

Instead of applying filters and other edits after you take a photo with your phone, a new DC company wants to help you shape what you snap before taking the picture.

SnapDash, now available in Apple’s App Store for iOS devices, is on a mission to make photo taking more fun.

“Our theory is that the entire world likes looking at funny photos, so we want to make them easier to create,” SnapDash co-founder Daniel Hanks said.

Here’s how it works: You open the app and select from one of the categories preloaded on SnapDash. Within each category are different situations and poses for you and those you’re with to do when taking the photo, which SnapDash calls a Snaption.

The scenario you chose, like “There are bees in your pants,” is labeled at the bottom of your Snaption. Then you can publish your Snaption to SnapDash’s internal feed, as well as your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

“SnapDash turns taking photos into an entertaining and hilarious social game,” Hanks said. “Unlike other video and photo apps there is a built in idea generator that provides users with suggested poses and scenarios, eliminating the need to ‘be funny’ when put on the spot.”

Like many moments of entrepreneurial inspiration, the idea for SnapDash came from apparent randomness, when Hanks was at Delaware’s Dewey Beach last summer.

While taking pictures of his girlfriend and SnapDash co-founder, Meredith Balenske and one of her friends, Hanks began yelling out things for them to do while he took their picture. Others on the beach noticed, started joining into the fun, and the pictures were distributed across Facebook.

Hanks never thought much about starting a company, but his and Balenske’s vision for SnapDash inspired him to make the jump.

And with experience in investing in technology, paired with Balenske’s marketing and public relations background, the co-founders think they’re in good position to make good on that vision.

“We truly believe we are the first and only app that does what we do, using randomness and unpredictability to set the stage for social media interactions, as opposed to adding context afterwards,” Hanks said.

SnapDash will be at NY Tech Day 2013, and is working on an Android-version of their app. You can see SnapDash in action by watching this Meet SnapDash video.

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