On April 3, 2018, we released an experimental iOS app called Sukusho Keshi ("Screenshot Eraser") — an app that does exactly one thing: lets you select and delete only screenshots from your camera roll.
The reception right after launch was large (especially on Twitter), and as a product for simply managing accumulated screenshots, it became a topic (and got downloads), even briefly appearing in Twitter trending topics.
Ishikawa and I built this product using our weekends — half a day on design and spec, about 1.5 full days on development. But we validated far larger hypotheses than the resources we invested.
The validation value from Sukusho Keshi was imported into our main product Tabery, and it supported the decision to do a major overhaul.
This post covers "What hypotheses was Sukusho Keshi designed to validate?" — as my own synthesis.
Validation 1 / The latent need to "keep memories in an easily retrievable state"
First of all, I think new products exist to validate hypotheses that are difficult to validate without actually building them. For example, before Tabery — our "10-second meal planning app" — many recipe sites and meal suggestion apps already existed.
But I hypothesized that there were multiple large issues those products couldn't solve, and proposed Tabery to the world as a more universal solution.
Similarly, Sukusho Keshi was born from three hypotheses:
- "Memory and memento storage may be completely replacing camera roll + SNS?"
- "Is the number of screenshots growing, introducing more noise into storage?"
- "Isn't the need to keep important memories easily retrievable permanent?"
Points 1 and 2 especially felt like "pain born precisely because smartphones have fully penetrated society" — matching the background from which Tabery was born.
From these background hypotheses, I thought there was demand for a product that manages the camera roll 10x more simply than before and keeps memories easy to retrieve.
Observing how screenshots are used, they're often used for "temporary memory storage and sharing" — the accumulation aspect isn't necessarily important. But conveniently, they end up scattered all through the camera roll.
Observing this reality, I thought an app focused on "removing unnecessary memories from the camera roll just by deleting screenshots" was a cost-effective way to validate the above hypotheses.
Validation 2 / Even micro-issues can work as products if they can capture unaided awareness
The app format is best suited for these two use cases:
- High contact frequency
- Unaided awareness as a solution to a perceived problem
Conversely, a product satisfying neither isn't suited to an app.
"Camera roll maintenance" — what I described above — isn't that high-frequency in daily life. It may not even be a big issue. But it definitely exists. And there seemed to be no product with unaided awareness for this issue yet.
Actually, iOS's standard "Photos" app has a "Screenshots" folder, and deleting everything in it achieves the same thing as Sukusho Keshi. We knew this and still believed Sukusho Keshi could deliver value. The reason was not "functionality" but "recall" and "simplicity."
The Photos app can certainly view photos (memories), create albums, and manage screenshots. It can do anything — which sometimes means it can do nothing. Having deepened our understanding through Tabery about the number of features users can tolerate, I'd been thinking along those lines.
As an aside: Dropbox, which recently completed a celebrated IPO, was once dismissed by Steve Jobs as "Dropbox is a feature, not a product." iOS got iCloud built in as a similar product. But Dropbox continued growing strongly and is where it is today. What that demonstrates — that's what we were validating through Sukusho Keshi too.
Now you probably get it: the name "Sukusho Keshi" (screenshot eraser) was deliberately verbified specifically to capture unaided awareness.
10X's product strategy
By releasing a hobby-style product with these two major intentions, 10X as a company gained quite practical learnings (including things not written here).
On the second validation point especially, we reached significant confidence — and it connected to the overhaul of our main product Tabery (specifically, "slashing features" and "simplifying design"; see the release notes in the app if you're curious). Post-overhaul performance is also tracking well. Having a clearer outline of what to do to keep building value going forward is also thanks to Sukusho Keshi's large role in Tabery's evolution.
10X is not a company built to realize a specific product or theme — we're a team aiming for "invention" that literally delivers 10x value. Adding Sukusho Keshi to the product portfolio was also good for the company in making this message explicit.
Our main bet right now is swinging for a home run in the Tabery domain, but there's plenty of room to challenge other markets too. In pursuing invention, we consider "experiment over discussion, facts over imagination" extremely important. Of course, good discussion for good experiments, and imagination to gather optimal facts, are indispensable — but for high-precision decision-making we want to use objective facts stripped of our own will and imagination, and we believe that gets us closer to invention.
For that reason too, building a fast, high-experiment-capability team is now the top priority. Building the ability to gather facts through experiments will definitely accumulate, and if we keep challenging only large issues, someday we'll produce a 10x invention. That's the philosophy we're building the company on.
With that, I also think experimental small products like Sukusho Keshi are important. I want to keep making them in the margins going forward.
