Over two years ago I developed a service that unintentionally would set the course of the past years of my life. With a freshly released API from Instagram I hacked together a couple of screens to provide a private messaging platform for Instagram users.

The months passed and this little web app started to gain some traction, and some 100k users later, along with my brother we decided to create our first iOS app: instaDM.

Much to our surprise this little app got more than 500k downloads the first month, and placed in our pockets enough money to devote all our time and effort to improve the service. With a hockey stick graph, the revenue rushing in, and investors knocking at our doors we thought we were set for life, it was our ticket to internet stardom.

Except it wasn't. Within a couple of months, competition popped up, some visitors shifted away and it was impossible to raise money on a service that fragile, and connected to a third party.

We letted this external noise drown down our own mind, and over time we started testing some other ideas. As we failed time after time, instaDM was bringing in revenues steadily with no supervision at all.

Maybe it wasn't a billion dollar business, but it was something people wanted, something that made money, and interestingly enough, something that had it's own network. One that remained beyond the existence of alternatives, and beyond our lack of attention.

Over time the responsibility of going back to the concept was just too much, so we devised a plan; to build another app, for another network, something like Twitter, and create an infrastructure that could be used to upgrade instaDM at the same time.

While we were developing this app, and realising it was our fourth time creating messaging code from scratch, a lot of things happened in this space, Snapchat refused a 3 billion offer, Facebook revamped their Messenger client with phone login, Techcrunch talked about a stand alone app for Twitter, and most recently Gigaom rushed to say that Instagram has a proprietary service on the making.

Our take, amidst all this information, is that messaging is growing to be ubiquitous, and that it’s not a zero-sum game. In the future, people will belong to several messaging networks, either by obligation or choice, and niche services are going to be specially important.

At the same time, we realised that any platform for private texting, is easily replaceable. So what we’re left with, is a service that won't win by the size of the network, nor by advancement in technology. That’s were building for niches, such as Twitter or Instagram made sense for us, but we decided to dream bigger.

We decided to take our work one step further and make it an open source project. A product that anyone can use, and contribute to, that will enable the future of messaging to be decentralised, personal, and private. We're taking this road because, we know this is happening, with or without us.

Technology is enabling people to build their own tools, and niches aren't going to be owned by one large player, so this is just a natural progression, that we'd love to be a part of.

The very first release we're making is our iOS client for the Twitter service, which is connected to a private backend, which is nothing but a start. A first place where you can contribute with code and vision. Next, we'll release a backend, an unbranded iOS client, and if anyone is up to the task, an android version.

We're thrilled to be living in this time and age, where you can just build stuff and connect with people through your work. And we don't want to miss this opportunity of writing a part of history, even if it's a short, private one.

Come in, it's open
Cris