Ever wondered, what makes one head to the gym and work on him or herself for hours - to change how one looks.

Imagine looking at yourself in the mirror one fine morning and not being able to recognize yourself or sitting with friends and be subjected to public ridicule just because of your weight. Fills you up with self-hatred, doesn't it?

The only solution to this problem is losing that extra weight.

Well, there are tonnes of options out there for weight loss: gyming, dieting, etc. But for many people it's hard to take out time from their busy schedule for gyming or for keeping a check on what they eat. Most people call these excuses lame and to some extent yes, they are.

In case, you're one of those people who want motivation more than reason then you must check out SnapWeight.

SnapWeight is an online service that visually motivates people to lose weight.

According to their website, "Dissatisfaction with physical appearance is one of the biggest motivators for people to lose weight. SnapWeight sends you an email each weekday (Monday through Friday) containing a picture of yourself to give you a powerful source of motivation to lose weight."

All you have to do, once you register on SnapWeight, is to upload a picture of yours in your profile in which you look overweight (the picture should be such that it should motivate you to lose weight) and set your weight loss goal. Your work is done here!

Now in order to motivate you to lose weight, SnapWeight would send you emails everyday with your picture in it; Monday through Friday based on the plans you have chosen, Quick Loss Plan or Healthy Life Plan.

Want to know more about SnapWeight, read on our exclusive interview with its founder Jonathan Spillman.

Happy reading!

1. Jonathan, please introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi. My name is Jonathan Spillman and I am the founder of SnapWeight. SnapWeight is a simple and effective way to get motivated to lose weight through email.

2. Tell us about the conception of SnapWeight. Was there a story behind its inception?

SnapWeight originated from a personal experience of mine and was accelerated by a recent study on weight loss motivation. About 7 years ago I went through a weight loss transformation, losing 85 pounds or about one-third of my body weight. One of the keys to my success was staying motivated to achieve my weight loss goal. I did that by looking at a picture of myself (pre weight loss) multiple times each day, and visualizing what I'd look like after achieving my goal. Recently, I came across a study that showed about one-third of Americans trying to lose weight are motivated by their physical appearance. I knew there had to be a way for people to easily see at themselves each day to stay motivated to lose weight without having to carry a picture around in their pocket or look in the mirror. That is where the idea for SnapWeight came from.


Right now, we include weight loss tips and special offers from our partners alongside a user's picture in our daily emails. In the future, we hope to add a few more features and options -- especially for our paid users.

4. We noticed that you share a lot of interesting and useful stuff on your Facebook page. How do you go about collecting the information to be shared?

Our team is always on the lookout for great content and advice to share with our users. There are so many great resources on the web for people to use when trying to lose weight and live healthy. We do our best to highlight some of the really effective content on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

5. We are curious as to why you send emails only on weekdays. In all probability a person is likely to have more free time to partake in any exercising activity on weekends, so why not send emails on the weekends with a gap in the weekdays?

Great question. There are really two parts to the answer. The first is that people check their email more frequently during the week because of work schedules. The second is that we truly believe everyone needs to have a couple days off each week from their weight loss routine. If you don't take mini-vacations from dieting and exercise, you are less likely to follow through in the long run. Basically, we want to give you a break on the weekends!

6. What sort of traction are you seeing as far as your users is concerned? Being a start-up how are you promoting your site? What is your take on promotion via social media networks vs word-of-mouth promotion?

We are seeing really good growth in our user base. We haven't done a lot of paid advertising yet, but we hope to launch some campaigns in the near future. Right now we are relying on SEO and traction through word-of-mouth to grow our user base. I think word-of-mouth can be very effective if you are able to reach the right users. You have to find advocates that are ready and eager to help sell your product. From our standpoint, social media is a way to maintain and cultivate your current users, but not necessarily the best route for promotion.

One of their success stories.

I am an exercise nut. I love running, lifting weights, hiking and playing tennis among a number of other activities. I am also very involved in raising money to support research for Parkinson's Disease. I run an organization called Pints for Parkinson's that helps raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

8. What are your future plans for SnapWeight? Do you plan on augmenting the functionality in any way?

We want to keep the service simple, but still interesting and effective for our users. We are looking to add some more tools in the future to help track weight loss over time and also integrate with some of the wi-fi enables scales on the market. Other than that, we don't want to deviate too far from our core value proposition.

9. Having gone through the process of conceiving a start-up successfully what advice would you like to share with aspiring entrepreneurs?

The biggest piece of advice I'd have is that there is nothing wrong with failure. Too often people shy away from starting a business because they are scared what will happen if they fail. The answer is nothing. Any successful person will tell you that they have failed multiple times in their lives. Failure is what makes us stronger and really helps us to learn the best lessons in life at the end of the day.