The Instafaces experiment started on a whim. I asked @yanivg: “What if we went to Union Square, put a cardboard on the pavement with a pair of feet drawn on it, and whenever a person steps on it we’ll shoot their portrait?”… “hmmm, sounds cool” said Yaniv.
The next day, at lunch break, I went down to Staples and got a piece of cardboard, some sticky letters and a marker. I came back to the office and gladly enough Yaniv agreed to be the first “user” of Instafaces (bootstrapped with $18.69 :-) ).
We gave some thought about how to provoke the reaction we wanted, and Yaniv came with the brilliant addition of using a tripod. This creates a situation where the photographer is static and people from the crowed need to stop their flow and stand on the Instafaces mat for a 5 seconds magical moment with the photographer.
We set off for Union Square and set up our Instafaces mat near the Subway exit, and Yaniv started stopping people, pointing to the mat, and guiding them to stand on it so that he can shoot their portrait. What followed was truly amazing. Initially it took us about 5 minutes per shot and people hesitated (it’s in the human nature to think that everything has a hidden motive) but gradually people started coming.
The first question they all had was “What is this for?”, so we decided to A/B test (a product manager is a product manager:-) and drew the Facebook “F” logo on the mat so people will understand these photos are going to be uploaded to Facebook. It’s amazing how powerful the Facebook logo and brand have become. Adding the Facebook logo increased conversion by a 100% and we we’re shooting a portrait every 2.5 minutes or so.
What we decided to do next was much more dramatic for conversion. We simply took the Instafaces mat and put it in the middle of the sidewalk, effectively blocking the traffic and making people go around us. At this point we were taking a portrait every 30-60 seconds (compared to the 5 minutes it took us at the beginning). I had to stop when a cop came to me and told me I was blocking the traffic. I was so overwhelmed with Adrenaline that I actually asked him if he would agree to have his portrait taken before I leave, very, very stupid move in the US, but luckily I encountered a nice cop who replied with a simple “no”.
One minute later, when it all ended, I stood there in Union Square and my whole body was shaking. It was only then that I realized what a rush my body was experiencing from this amazing, unmediated, random encounter with hundreds of people, including the many that said “no please” because that was an important part of it too.
WOW, I’m sure this is not the last time I’m going to do this. I do have some “Product” insights, both about the Instaface mat itself and about the “interface” between the photographer and the people. The most important being that we must have a card with the URL of the Instafaces Facebook page the photographer can give to the people so they can see their pictures and spread the love, starting with you.
Posted
on Saturday, October 16th, 2010 
Name's Avi Charkham. I'm a product person, co-founder @ Familio and Chief Product @ lool Ventures. Normally I prefer to simply tweet my thoughts but some times 140 are simply not enough :)