And now we’ve arrived at another milepost in our pilgrimage: the release of Kicksend for Windows 8 devices, including desktop and tablets. 

We couldn’t be more excited to welcome our shiny new Windows baby into our flock of adorable miscreant platforms, including iOS, Android and web.

You’ve got all the functionality and design chops of Kicksend, combined with the unique features and fluid technology of Windows 8, for a photo-sending and printing experience beyond compare. Kapow!

Like any good parents, we’ve been exhaustively documenting its every step as it bravely enters into the world of Windows 8 apps. (“Honey! Get the video camera! It’s printing something to CVS!”)

Daaaaw. Our little Windows app is all grown up.

Key Features: 

★ Store Pickup - Order photo prints for one-hour pickup from over 17,000 stores across the country, including CVS, Walgreens, Target and Duane Reade.

★ Unlimited Photo Sending - Share unlimited, full-resolution photos privately with your family and friends. No social networks necessary.

★ Share Photo Albums - Send entire photo albums with a tap. Nobody ever takes just one photo. Your pictures tell a story – and size limits shouldn’t get in the way.

★ Create Conversations - Chat with your friends and family about the photos you’ve shared! Comment on photos and show your love for albums by “hearting” them.

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I recently sat down with the brilliant and affable Anbuselvan Periannan, our resident Windows engineer with over 16 years of experience, to talk about the app.

Anbu, the coolest Windows cat in the Northern Hemisphere.

What’s one of your favorite features of the app? 

Store pickup. If a user downloads a store-specific app, like if I downloaded the Walgreens app, I can only order photo prints at Walgreens. If I download any other store-particular app, it’s the same thing. However, if I use Kicksend, I can print to any of the stores we’re partnered with. That’s a big advantage for the user. It’s essentially one app where they can get everything done, with coupon discounts when available.

How did you leverage Windows technology to build this app? 

We completely rearranged all the nice features available in Windows Metro and utilized most of the Windows 8 SDK features to create a rich photo-viewing experience for our users.

I also found that it was an interesting challenge, engineering-wise, to integrate Bing Maps into our store pickup flow, where you can locate the stores nearest to your current location or search for a store by city or zip code.

What did you enjoy the most about creating this app? 

Everything is new, in terms of Metro/WinRT. This is a brand new sandboxed SDK that Microsoft created for Windows 8 Metro app development. It wasn’t available until last year, so whatever I worked on for this app was completely new (something that I had never done before) and it was exciting.

Thanks, Anbu!

The Kicksend experience is now tailor-made for Windows 8 and it truly was a labor of love. Windows users, have at it! As always, you can let us know what you think by emailing us at contact@kicksend.com.

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* Yes, we agree they’re very pretty.

Android users, this one’s for you!

Say you’ve just thrown your preschooler a birthday party. Or staged a cat fashion show for the local rotary club. (We were surprised to learn the former is far more popular.)

Only the savviest of grandmothers would purchase that shirt for her grandson. Kudos, grandma! (photo credit: QT1p via flickr cc.)

Anyway, you’ve taken a ton of photos at the event. You want to use Kicksend to order photo prints so you can pick some up for yourself at a drugstore nearby, in addition to mailing these prints to your mom and grandma five states away. You love the feeling of sending them photo prints nearly as much as they love getting them from you. (Not only that, but they brag about your thoughtfulness to all their friends!)

But what if your 4G phone is limping along due to low signal strength? Or you have a Wi-Fi only tablet? Oh no! You slouch over and stare deeply into the screen like a dysfunctional magician’s hat, willing a connection to appear out of thin air. But the rabbit never quite appears, does it?!

This image may mean nothing to you now, but after you read below, return, my friend, and weep at the sheer beauty of it all.

If you’ve ever experienced this, you’ll probably be very happy to hear we’ve partnered with Open Garden, the crowdsourced mobile connectivity network. “Crowdsourced? Network? Garden?” you’re thinking. “These terms may all be old hat to you startup nerdlingers, but in English, please?”

This means Kicksend users can now print photos directly to any Walgreens, Target, CVS or Duane Reade nationwide, as well as mail photo prints to anyone’s doorstep – even if they don’t have a connection. Once you’ve installed Open Garden, you’ll get connected to all the other Open Garden-enabled devices around you, becoming part of one large mesh network which seamlessly shares Internet access and bandwidth amongst everyone.

For example, if you have Open Garden installed on your phone and tablet, your tablet can tether to your phone. Or if your phone is suffering from weak signal strength, you’ll automatically be connected to other Open Garden users around you and share in their abundant Internet – all for free!

Ooh, how can I get started? 

We love that you’re as excited as we are! You can either be proactive and download Open Garden immediately from the Google Play Store, or if you open Kicksend on a device with zero connectivity, you’ll also be prompted to get Open Garden. And that’s it!

Now you can sit back from your throne on easy street and print photos to your heart’s content. No connection? No problem.

—

*Mother’s Day is this Sunday. Don’t you forget it!

Go ahead, make someone’s day. We dare you.

We all know the famous American playground rhyme:

First comes love,

then comes Kicksend,

then comes more love,

which we obviously all crave

like the bundles of neuroses we are. 

Awwww. You knew our name sounded familiar for some reason! And yes, that is indeed how we named our startup.

Anyway, if it’s love (platonic? familial? romantic? bromantic?) you’re after, you need look no further than Kicksend.

We started out by allowing you to send tons of digital photos to your loved ones. Next, we helped you order photo prints for pickup at your local store – and the feedback from our community has been a pleasure to behold.

We also began to notice a theme.

“I love the application. I am recommending this to anyone who has an iPhone and looking for an easy way to send pictures for easy printing. I sent pics to my parents’ local pharmacy in their town. Easy peezy!” – Dave T.

“I realized that [Kicksend] would be perfect for sending photos to my elderly parents who live clear across the United States in Pennsylvania. I love the idea that that I’ll be able to send photos to their local CVS and they can pick them up.” – Carolyn G.

“I was looking for an easy way to send pictures to a variety of stores near me and the fact that I can send it to stores across the country for my family and friends to pick up is super.” – Barbara A.

“It’s amazing to be able to send photos to my family since they all live a few states away and my grandma loves getting prints of her great grandchildren!” – Rachel C.

(We love that our customers are the kind of people who say “easy peezy.”)

Our customers adored that they could send photo prints to be developed at a store anywhere in the country, so their relatives could pick them up thousands of miles away. We loved hearing that they were keeping in touch not just with digital photos, but with actual physical prints.

We just took the next logical step.

Our newest feature, Home Delivery, allows you to ship photo prints directly to your loved ones, straight from your phone or computer. 

We’ve done research, backed by science, showing that receiving photo prints is the #1 way to make someone’s day. Seriously, you know it’s the best thing anyone will receive all week, short of finding you in their mailbox. (Trust us,  our next feature is a teleportation device. “Kicksend: Send You To Your Loved Ones.”)

OK, you’ve sold me. How does Home Delivery work? 

1. Open the newest version of our app on iOS, Android or the web.

2. Select your photos and choose a size (4×6, 5×7, 8×10 or 4×4.)

3. Enter in the addresses of all your favorite people.

4. Pay with our secure checkout. (Bonus: if you order 10 prints, you get free shipping!)

5. Sit back and wait for the adoring phone calls, emails, texts, Facebook messages and carrier pigeons to roll in.

But don’t take our word for it! Home Delivery has been out in beta for a little bit and we’ve already had some heartwarming stories roll in from our customers. Like this one, from the lovely and charismatic Michele V.

“My grandma LOVED the photos. It just so happened they arrived on her 91st birthday. We will be using Kicksend quite a bit!”

The birthday girl, Fern, with her great grandson, Holden.

Woo-hoo! Thanks for sharing, Michele!

So anyway, what are you waiting for? We bet you know someone who’d be ecstatic to get photo prints in the mail from you. Go ahead, make someone’s day. We dare you.

In fact, we think they’ll be so happy to get your gift that they’ll probably turn right around and send photo prints to someone else, thus furthering the cycle of love. Good job in advance, you!

P.S. Use the coupon code, “HIPPOS” at checkout to get 15% off your Home Delivery order!

Image of NYC skyline: jahborgs via flickr cc

As anyone who’s ever listened to Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” (and more recently, Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind”) can attest, New Yorkers really do love their city.

While the Kicksend team can’t claim loyalty to one geographic region or another – we’ve got roots all over from Singapore to Maryland – we can now officially say there is another reason to love New York.

Due to popular demand from our NYC customers, Kicksend is thrilled to announce that we’ve partnered with Duane Reade, New York’s pharmacy, to offer one-hour photo printing from your phone for pickup at 75 convenient locations around the city. Whether you’re a lifelong New Yorker or just visiting for the weekend, it’s even easier for you to turn your smartphone photos into stunning, high-quality, honest-to-goodness prints in just an hour!

With the addition of Duane Reade to our other retail partners, including Walgreens, Target, and CVS, Kicksend offers one-hour printing at over 15,000 stores across the United States – more than any other app in the country. (USA! You, too, can print your heart out!)

Minor tweaks? Bug fixes? Please. This is Kicksend 3.0 we’re talking about.

Kicksend 3.0 is unlike any Kicksend you’ve seen before. We’ve been hard at work completely redesigning the app – both inside and out – and we know you’re going to love it.

Here’s what 3.0 is about. You take photos all the time. Your family wants to see them. With our new update, sending photos is as simple as breathing. No resizing photos or texting them one by one. No more asking your grandparents to join social networks so they can see your photos. Just the ability to share your world easily and privately through photos.

Our mission has always been to make keeping in touch with your loved ones as easy as possible. We’re even closer to that goal with Kicksend 3.0 and can’t wait for you to try it.

New Features Galore:

★ Print to Family - Print photos for yourself and the people you love. You choose the prints, they choose their favorite local store for easy pickup. Gorgeous, high-quality prints in an hour! (USA only)

★ Over 15,000 Stores - We’ve partnered with CVS and Target, in addition to Walgreens (previously available) for your photo printing convenience. Over 15,000 one-hour-photos across the US to choose from!

★ Unlimited Photo Sharing - Share unlimited, full-resolution photos privately with your friends and family.

★ Share Photo Albums - Send entire photo albums with a tap. Nobody ever takes just one photo. Your pictures tell a story – and size limits shouldn’t get in the way.

★ Send to Phone - Send photos to any phone number or email address. Add your favorite contacts to People You Love.

★ Smart Album Grouping – Automatically organize your photos into albums instantly ready for sharing.

★ Set Weekly Reminders - Set weekly reminders to send photos so your loved ones never miss out.

★ Have Conversations -  Chat with your friends and family about the photos you’ve shared! Comment on photos, show your love for albums by “hearting” them and call the photo sender directly to express your thanks.

And, of course:

★ 100% private: Only share photos with the people you care about – without getting a thousand random friends involved.

★ No tech-savvy required: Easy enough for mom and dad (and grandma and grandpa!) to use without tech support or training!

★ Photos anywhere, anytime: Receive, view and download photos from any device.

• Check out the new Kicksend web app! Just login or sign up at http://kicksend.com.
• Download the latest version of the app from the Google Play Store or the App Store.
• We’re in the news! Check us out in TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Pando Daily and Yahoo! News.
• Read up on the press release.

When we first met Margot, we quickly realized she was a wonder. Margot is extremely, extremely passionate about helping people, and this quality shone through with every interaction we had with her. She’s also quite an amazing writer, with a voice and style all her own.

Before Kicksend, Margot was helping our friends at Ridejoy with their community-building efforts. Prior to that, she helped with PR at Borders + Gratehouse and worked in corporate communications in Hong Kong.

At Kicksend, Margot will be responsible for taking care of Kicksend’s rapidly growing global, multilingual community. You may also get emails from her time to time checking in to see how things are going and to hear about how you’re using Kicksend everyday. You can reach her at margot [at] kicksend [dot] com or tweet her @margotleong. She’d love to hear from you.

Welcome to the team, Margot!

Android users can now select up to thirty photos at a time from the Gallery or Kicksend app and send them to be printed any of the 8,000 Walgreens locations in the US and pick up high quality prints within an hour.

Our printing feature on Android and iPhone works great with the photos you receive on Kicksend from the people you love. For example, you could send photos from your iPhone to your mom’s Android phone. She can send her favorites to Walgreens and pick up the high quality prints in an hour. She can also print her own photos instantly through Kicksend.

Another feature we’re announcing is the ability to send photos to any phone number. Now Kicksend on Android users can send a high-resolution album of photos from their phone to any other phone number in their Address Book directly.

We built Kicksend to make it easy to keep in touch with the people we love. As of today, Android and iPhone users can send, receive and print photos through the easiest, most seamless private photo-sharing app made to date.

You can learn more about the new Kicksend Android app, and install it from the Google Play Store now.

P.S. Use the KICKSEND3 coupon code to get 25% off your order!*

Coupon code KICKSEND3 valid thru October 31, 2012 on the Walgreens Mobile Partner application only. Code must be entered in the mobile app quick prints checkout flow to apply discount. Timing will be determined by Walgreens server clock. Discount does not apply to previous purchases or taxes.  Cannot be combined with any other offer.  Walgreens reserve the right to expire the offer at any time.  In store sales associates reserve the right to monitor and prevent offer abuse.

I’ve been fortunate enough to spend the last month and a half here at Kicksend as Product Designer. It’s been so much more intense than I could have imagined, and I’ve learned a lot about how working in a startup differs from leading a consulting team. These are a few of those things that stand out the most.

1. You are the creative product culture lead.

Just as important as good product design is good design culture. What does that mean exactly? It’s a way of thinking about product (and, I suppose, the world in general) with awareness of how things are designed, what about them constitutes good or bad design, and how it could be improved. It’s all subjective, and you don’t have to be ‘right’ – you don’t even need to be a designer or a ‘visual person.’ Engineers, biz ops, marketing, and whoever else on your small team should be thinking about design. If your team can get into the habit of noting usability and aesthetic problems (or successes) when critiquing another company’s product, they’ll be much more helpful when you ask them for critique on the work you’re doing with them. As the first designer, you can’t benefit from a strong team critique structure, so take advantage of  your great team by sharing your knowledge and passion for design, and ability to discern good design from bad design when observing the world around you.

Most small startups and early-stage companies are still figuring out the nuances of their culture. Company culture can’t be forced – it has to be discovered. It’s defined by the way product, business goals, and the team work together. If you exude design from the get-go, it will be forever ingrained in the company’s fundamental values and culture.

For example, I talk about design incessantly. Ask anyone on my team, ask my girlfriend, my parents, strangers… I just can’t seem to shut up about it. I see the world through this lens that makes badly set type literally impossible for me to read, and I instantly ragequit anything with bad usability. I can’t even use certain mobile OSes because the confirmation dialogues won’t make up their minds about which side the confirm button will be on.

I also bring design into the office…

(Amperbranch by Ryan Putnam and Ropersand print by Rogie)

(My baby baby grand)

Posters lying on the floor waiting to be hung. Can you believe we don’t have nails in our office?

Posters and letterpress prints aren’t the lynchpin to design culture success, but it gets me excited about design. By extension, it gets everyone else excited about design or, at least, exposed to it constantly. Culture is contagious… you just gotta start the fever.

2. Take religious and verbose notes before you dig too deep into the trenches.

This is something I wish I had done more of. For the first 72 hours you’re part of a new product team, write down everything. Think about how it works, what’s wrong with it, what stands out in a good or bad way, what you think the product can do for you, etc. The ‘newbie’ perspective is something you can never get back, and it’ll give Future You some great insight into how a new user feels stepping into your product for the first time. Think of it as doing user testing on someone with a great design vocabulary.

On my first day, I walked into the office and said “No one wants to send photos. No one wants to use Kicksend” and it’s the most valuable observation I could have ever made. It informs most of my design decisions, because I know people (especially our market of Average Joes and soccer moms) are adverse to using software. Their goal is for Grandma and Aunt Sue to see their vacation photos or Timmy’s first steps. How can I design Kicksend to help people achieve that goal? As we iterate on our product, you’re going to see it get more and more out of the way. There’s nothing revolutionary or shocking about that approach, but it’s informed by experience and observation, not jargon.

After your first week, present your notes and feelings to the team. It’ll give everyone a fresh perspective on something they’ve been looking at under a magnifying glass for (possibly) months or even years. Fresh perspective is crucial for any product to stay relevant and keep improving… ask any startup founder.

3. Never stop learning. You don’t know as much as you think.

Coming from a more traditional role as a design consultant, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how software / product design worked. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I was pretty much completely wrong about that.

Rarely as a consultant did I ever have to ‘clean up’ an existing product, and I never had to stick around after the first release to maintain, iterate, and bugfix. Stepping into an existing product with thousands of manhours and four passionate engineers behind it is an entirely different experience. At first, it’s almost impossible to make sweeping design changes. In the first week, I felt paralyzed by it. As I eased in, I learned the ins and outs of Kicksend for iPhone, then ‘realized’ there was a webapp, Android app, Mac app, and an Air app for Windows. O M G.

It was overwhelming, and even today I’ve only made headway on three of those five. Even on those I’ve only scratched the surface but fortunately Brendan, one of our co-founders, has always held high design standards, and Mike Kus has done some great consulting work for Kicksend before I got here. If you’re used to a fast workflow through consulting or freelancing projects prepare to slow waaay down, while working faster and more intensely than ever before. That’s not to say I sit at my desk twiddling my thumbs, however. I spend 90% of my time on product, and the rest…

4. Wear many hats.

My business card says “Product Designer” only because “Design ALL THE THINGS” wouldn’t fit. I’ve helped with iOS, Android, and Mac App icon design, created marketing collateral, business cards, landing pages, giveaways… the list goes on.

I expected (and desired) these responsibilities upon joining the team, but the workload adds up. Make sure you know where to draw the line, how to design for re-use, and always work smart, not hard. When the design team grows from guy-in-the-corner to Design Team, you’ll have the insight and experience to lead others effectively.

So that’s it. I’m still learning, failing, iterating, and insert-important-sounding-gerunds-here-ing at Kicksend. I’ll keep you updated.

Today, we’re making it easy to print tons of photos from the people you love, with a deep integration with Walgreens, the country’s largest pharmacy chain.

Kicksend for iPhone users can now select a stack of photos they either received from family or took themselves, and print them in full quality to their nearest Walgreens store, right from their phone. They can then pick up their shiny new prints in an hour.

We’re all about empowering everyday people to stay in touch with people they care about, and our brand new, incredibly seamless photo printing experience through Walgreens’ QuickPrints is a big step in that direction. There is no better way to share and keep your memories with the people you love.

Learn more or install the app from the App Store.

P.S. Android version coming soon!

Big thanks to the Google Chrome Team for featuring us!