Now, hear this: You won't believe what your ears are seeing

Ubersnap lets you upload photos with background music.

To satisfy his desire of creating a potential product aimed at changing the way people communicate with photos, Boon Chin Ng, 28, created Ubersnap with computer programmer Vincent Dupont, 38. Boon is a photographer and designer by profession and a self-confessed hustler.

Ubersnap is a company which is mainly about exploring photography as a medium for creativity and self-expression. Adding sound to photos is done with a sound recorder on Ubersnap. After you upload a photo, you can record a sound which will play when the photo is viewed.

Boon and Vincent both love photography and they wanted to explore the possibilities of not just photo sharing, but photography as a form of communication.

According to Boon, for the first time, people were curious when browsing through photos. They would see a photo and wonder what kind of sound came with it, making them click on the photo. Their findings are backed by research - a study has shown that more than 80% of participants find still images with sound more helpful and entertaining.

“We realised that most people just wanted to add music to their photos, so we are releasing a new and ridiculously simple way for our users to do that. With 1 click, you can add a soundtrack to go with your photo. We are working with a large digital distributor of music, so copyright is fully respected,” explains Boon.

Boon believes that there has been very little innovation in photo sharing, despite the number of applications out there. “100 years ago, sound brought a whole new dimension to silent film. We believe it can do the same for photography, by providing an additional layer of context and interpretation to photos,” says Boon.

Boon shares that the main reason he wanted to start Ubersnap was to ‘scratch his own itch.’ He was already working on Ubersnap for a few months but he was looking for a developer to join him before meeting Vincent. Vincent was really excited about the idea so Boon asked Vincent to come onboard as a co-founder and the rest is history.

“I'm a photographer and all the photo sharing sites and apps just weren't very interesting to me; they were more of the same. Ubersnap, a photo sharing site where photographers create photos that come with sound. We’re going against the conventional wisdom of what a photo is by providing a photo sharing experience that is both visual and aural,” explains Boon.

Ubersnap started out with a beta version of the site, which was built over 3 months and launched in March 2014. The website was launched with a minimal marketing budget, and most of the growth has been organic. The startup, which was initially self-funded, has taken $50,000 from the iJAM scheme under MDA with QuestVC as its key investor.

“We expected resistance to such a new concept, but the response has been incredibly positive. We’re laser focused on providing an incredible user experience and growing our user base organically, through word-of-mouth,” said Boon. 

Boon graduated with an Engineering degree from NUS. He is an alumni of the prestigious NUS Overseas Colleges program, where he worked as business developer for a year in Stockholm. Vincent is a superstar programmer from France, who has worked in organisations like NYSE-EURONEXT. He has a Master’s degree in Computer Science, and brings with him vast experience and knowledge in building software. He quitted his job and moved to Singapore for the startup.

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COMPANY PROFILE

Name of the Company: Ubersnap
Founders: Boon Chin Ng and Vincent Dupont
Website: https://www.ubersnap.com/
Total Funding at hand: $50,000
Source of Funding: iJAM
Major Investors: iJAM and QuestVC
Start of Operation: March 2014

For startups wanting to be featured, send your message to Lee Anne Babierra at [email protected]