GramGram

Share your memes, moments, and memories with your offline family. Because a picture’s worth a thousand words, but grandma’s smile is priceless.

During the height of the pandemic, when isolation hit hardest, I dreamed up GramGram. The idea was simple yet heartwarming: bridge the digital divide between tech-savvy youngsters and their offline grandparents. With everyone stuck inside or separated by distance, I wanted to bring a little joy to the older folks who couldn't scroll through our Instagram feeds.

The concept? Tag a photo with #gramgram, and boom – it's on its way to Grandma's mailbox as a physical photograph. Set it up once with Grandma's address and your credit card, and you're good to go.

Under the Hood: I built this project using Ruby on Rails, connecting to Instagram's API via OAuth to grab your posted photos. Then I'd ship those images (along with your custom message) to Lob, a service that turns digital content into physical mail. Stripe handled the payments and the credit cards. For the curious coders out there, you can peek at the full GramGram source code on GitHub.

The Dream vs. Reality: My vision was to create a set-it-and-forget-it system. But a few hurdles tripped us up:

  1. Instagram's API was not very helpful. Their auth tokens expired quickly requiring the user to reauthenticate every day or so. I wouldn't be able to do my hashtag method and users would have to pick their photos when they wanted to send them.
  2. Lob's print quality wasn't quite up to snuff. The postcards looked... well, like postcards, not the high-quality photos I'd envisioned. Plus a handful never made it to their destinations.
  3. The business model was shaky. At under $3 per photo, I'd need to sell a ton to make it worthwhile. The marketing effort required seemed daunting for such slim margins.
Postcard front Postcard back

Ultimately, I decided to shut down GramGram. While it was a blast to build and came from a desire to connect more with my grandma, keeping it going wasn't sustainable for me. In the end, I found a simpler solution - I bought a digital photo frame for my grandma. The spirit of sharing and connecting remains even if the method changed.

And hey, whether it's through high-tech solutions or good old-fashioned phone calls, don't forget to reach out to your grandma. She'd love to hear from you.