Snapchat's parent company could go public as early as Wednesday. Illustration: Carl Court/Getty Images 
 
 With Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, expected to go public as early as Wednesday, March 1, investors are preparing for the hottest IPO in years. The company is aiming to price shares between $14 and $16, which would give the company a total market value of $20 billion. For comparison, Twitter is worth about $11 billion, and Facebook, nearly $400 billion. 
 
 The lead-up to the Snap IPO has been a bit rocky. Investors appeared initially skeptical of the company after its prospectus -- an SEC form that companies must file before going public -- revealed some concerning numbers about the business. 
 
 Snap’s IPO Pricing: As soon as March 1, with trading beginning the next day 
 
 As soon as March 1, with trading beginning the next day Expected price: $14-$16 a share 
 
 $14-$16 a share Ticker: SNAP 
 
 For one, Snap’s user growth has started to slow considerably, coinciding with the release of Snapchat-like features on Facebook’s Instagram service. Plus, as expected, Snap revealed that it doesn’t make any money. It also said that it might never become profitable. 
 
 But investors might be coming around right in time for the IPO. Snap, apparently, is a lot of things. To consumers, it’s a messaging company, but Snap calls itself a “camera company.” Now people are beginning to think of it as a serious media company that could draw ad dollars away from television spots. 
 
 If Snap can bring in considerable ad revenue, the company might come to resemble Facebook in the near future. Facebook is up more than 250% since its May 2012 IPO. The fear, though, is that Snap could become the next Twitter, which has fallen out of favor with users, advertisers, and investors. The stock now trades significantly below its IPO price. ||||| Snapchat is popular among teens and twenty-somethings, but their parents, or even grandparents, are more likely to consider buying into Snap Inc.’s $3.2 billion public offering. And that’s an issue as Snap’s initial public offering approaches. 
 
 Unlike Snapchat’s young user base — Snap says the majority of users are between 18 and 34, and users younger than 25 are the most active — many professional investors neither use nor understand the disappearing-message app. Combined with Snap’s large losses and decision not to issue voting rights to investors, the dissonance is holding back some from investing in the offering and may cause issues for the stock down the line. 
 
 Read also: The two views of Snapchat: An app that has peaked or a platform set to blossom 
 
 Snap SNAP, +1.54% is expected to price its offering Wednesday evening. At the top of its $14-to-$16 price range, Snap would receive an initial valuation of $18.5 billion, and this issue will certainly not keep it from selling the initial batch of shares: The offering is reportedly oversubscribed at the high end of Snap’s range, according to Reuters. 
 
 The question is long-term demand after shares begin trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. Experts say that reluctance and confusion on the part of traditional investors could weigh on the stock, and those who do buy could be more likely to drop their shares if the company has a tough quarter. 
 
 While saying that he expects Snap to be the “most high-profile” but “controversial” IPO of the year, Rob Sanderson, managing director of MKM partners, wrote in a note Monday that it may face pressure from a lack of understanding of the app from older investors. 
 
 “We think the use case is much less tangible to middle-aged money managers than an Uber or Airbnb,” Sanderson wrote, adding, “We expect this will be a hurdle for the stock, one that lasts a long time.” 
 
 Paul Nolte, senior portfolio manager of Kingsview Asset Management, said he is struggling to comprehend Snap’s high valuation alongside large net losses and a low revenue-per-user ratio. Neither he nor his clients use Snapchat — “I’m old and they’re older,” he said — which makes it hard to see a user-growth case. 
 
 “Because of that lack of understanding, the first reaction is we’ll steer clear until we see the dust settle,” Nolte said. 
 
 Nolte, who invested in Facebook Inc. FB, -0.76% , but not Twitter Inc. TWTR, -1.25% , said he prefers to wait until the IPO lockup is complete to buy stock so he can see whether there is a long-term case or at least a path to profitability, though he has clients who are interested in investing at the time of an IPO. 
 
 See also: How Snap stacks up against Facebook and Twitter 
 
 David Menlow, president of SecondaryRatings.com, which rates IPOs and secondary offerings, attributes investors’ reported enthusiasm to an overall lack of tech IPOs and the buzz around the offering more than Snap’s long-term prospects. Older investors may not be leading the charge to invest, but rather are deferring to the opinions of their younger counterparts, he said. 
 
 “The investors are just looking around to say ‘I guess it sounds good because everyone’s telling me it is,’” Menlow said. 
 
 Snap’s roadshow presentation included a kind of tutorial, which explained how the app works. It also broke down each part of the app in its prospectus. 
 
 Snap’s prospectus broke down each part of the Snapchat app for unfamiliar potential investors. 
 
 Greater understanding of the app may not lead to higher opinions, though. Eric Schiffer, chief executive of private-equity firm Patriarch Organization, said he believes that if investors were to understand and use Snapchat, they would see that the company faces a large competitive threat from Facebook’s Instagram and its recently launched “Stories” offering that mimics Snapchat’s popular feature with the same name. 
 
 “I think that if they sat down at the table and had a conversation with their kids, they’d realize how flawed the investment is,” said Schiffer, who admitted he “occasionally” uses the app. 
 
 Don’t miss: Snap IPO boils down to a single question: Do you trust Evan Spiegel? 
 
 Snap reported slowing growth in daily active users and cited “increased competition” since Facebook released the Instagram Stories feature. 
 
 Snap may see trouble later on from investors who don’t quite understand the app, Menlow said, especially if Snap’s user growth slows during a quarter. If they don’t buy in to the importance of Snapchat or understand social media cycles, they may back away from the stock. 
 
 “If they had the understanding, they would know that this is a blip in a positive long-term profile,” Menlow said. 
 
 Opposing views: Three reasons to skip Snap IPO and Snap could be the new Facebook 
 
 Even if investors don’t use the app, they are able to see the benefits and advertising opportunities of social media companies while still not being able to separate Snapchat out as a clear winner, said Kim Forrest, vice president at Fort Pitt Capital Group. 
 
 “I think that shows how social media has really identified itself to investors regardless of age,” Forrest said. 
 
 Still, Forrest said she is steering clear of the offering because it does not sound like Snap will be returning shareholder capital for a long time and it is not giving investors voting rights. ||||| As many as a quarter of new shares sold in Snap's IPO could go to long-term investors who will be required to hold the stock for a year, the company said in a regulatory filing on Monday. 
 
 Snap is looking to raise as much as $3.2 billion this week by selling 200 million shares for between $14 and $16 each. The filing says that 50 million shares are expected to be subjected to the so-called lockup period. 
 
 Snap's IPO is the biggest tech offering since Alibaba Group's September 2014 share sale. Allocating big blocks of shares to large mutual funds or even corporate investors is one way to ensure a large stock sale's success. 
 
 In exchange for a guaranteed block, the big investors may agree not to dump the stock — though Snap's filing says it may waive the lockup requirement. Snap's IPO was already oversubscribed by at least $6.8 billion heading into the weekend, Business Insider reported. Snap's Monday filing says that it doesn't have any binding agreements relating to the lockup yet. 
 
 It is expected to set a price for its shares on March 1 and begin trading on March 2. The company could raise the price for its shares — or increase the number of shares it's planning to sell — before Wednesday. 
 
 Here's the excerpt from Snap's filing (emphasis added): 
 
 "We expect approximately 50 million shares of our Class A common stock purchased by investors in this offering will be subject to a separate lock up agreement with us providing for a restricted period of one year following the date of this prospectus. These agreements will reduce the number of our shares available for sale in the public market during their term. We may, in our sole discretion, waive any of these lock up agreements before the restricted period expires." 
 
 A representative for Snap declined to comment. ||||| Mark Zuckerberg says he created Facebook Inc. FB 1.17% to make the world more open and connected. Twitter Inc. TWTR 1.28% says it wants to give everyone the power to share ideas instantly. 
 
 Snap Inc., which this week could become the biggest technology public offering in years, is the unsocial social-media company. Not only does its app feature messages that disappear, the company defiantly operates unlike most Silicon Valley outfits, where collaboration and wide-open office spaces are prized. 
 
 When Snap Inc. goes public, Snapchat co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy will retain control of more than 90% of the company's voting rights. WSJ's Shelby Holliday looks at how Snap's rare share structure stacks up against other tech companies. Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP 
 
 Former employees say often the only way they knew co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel was at work was by seeing his chauffeured SUV. He avoids holding companywide meetings and prefers to dispense information to individuals or small groups, they say. 
 
 In contrast to the big, open campuses of Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL 0.74% Google, designed for employee collaboration, Snap doesn’t have a headquarters. Its main offices are scattered around Venice, Calif., keeping employees siloed and making communication difficult, the former employees say. The company in its IPO filing listed the lack of a headquarters as a risk factor that could hurt morale, prevent adequate oversight and cost talent. 
 
 So far, Snapchat has won legions of teenage users, who like that what they share now won’t define them permanently—and that it keeps their parents out of their business. And it has attracted advertisers who want to reach a young audience, setting the stage for Snap’s initial public offering. The listing on the New York Stock Exchange is expected to take place this week and could value the company at as much as $22 billion, which would make it the biggest U.S. tech IPO in years. 
 
 A Snap spokeswoman declined to comment or make Mr. Spiegel available for this article, citing the company’s quiet period ahead of the public offering. 
 
 The question is whether this management style and focus on privacy will help the company compete with television networks and challenge the Facebook juggernaut. Mr. Spiegel’s approach at times has left staff in the dark about important initiatives, the former employees say. And it has made the company resist giving advertisers the ability to narrowly target users based on their behavior and preferences, a strategy that has enabled Facebook, Google and others to mint enormous profits. 
 
 ‘Doesn’t talk much’ 
 
 “Evan doesn’t talk much,” says Hemant Taneja, managing director at venture-capital firm General Catalyst, an early Snap investor, saying confusion can stem from the fact that Mr. Spiegel doesn’t always feel compelled to explain his concepts to the public. 
 
 In September, he surprised potential investors when he began publicly calling Snap “a camera company” instead of a social-media company. Some investors wondered if Snap was suddenly becoming a hardware company, but Mr. Taneja says the camera concept wasn’t new. 
 
 Snapchat Evan Spiegel chief executive speaks onstage at the American Magazine Media Conference at Grand Hyatt New York in February last year. Photo: Larry Busacca/Getty Images 
 
 Rapid growth and increasingly intense competition are putting Mr. Spiegel’s management style to the test. Snap’s full-time workforce tripled during last year to 1,859 as it expanded internationally. 
 
 It is competing head-to-head with the global social-media giants, especially Facebook, whose Instagram unit already has emulated Snap’s features with some success, such as the Stories feature it rolled out over the summer. Snap in its public filing attributed part of its slowing user growth to increased competition. 
 
 Part of the competition is about the race to hook users first. Instagram is more popular than Snap internationally, and people could be inclined to stick with Instagram if they are already using Facebook, or with Snap if they landed there first. “You aren’t going to switch if you are satisfied with what you are using,” says Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. 
 
 Snap is also vying with traditional television networks to woo young viewers and advertising. Young people have been drifting away from television to their smartphone screen, where hours of videos from friends can be played. 
 
 Meanwhile, Snap must continue to generate unusual and captivating content—much of which has been meticulously managed by Mr. Spiegel, former employees and business partners say. 
 
 The listing is expected to take place this week and could value the company at as much as $22 billion. Photo: Brendan McDermid//Reuters 
 
 Like many tech executives, Mr. Spiegel attended Stanford University. But that is about where the comparisons end. He was more social than secretive when he arrived at college in 2008, friends recall, even though his high-profile lawyer-parents had had a rancorous and public divorce when he was in high school in Los Angeles. Far from geek, he was the life of the party, they say, and his style was more hipster than hoodie: skinny jeans, V-neck T-shirts, flip flops. 
 
 These days, Mr. Spiegel, who is more of a product designer than a computer scientist, eschews many of the tech industry’s habits, preferring to be away from what he has described as the bubblelike culture of Silicon Valley. 
 
 As he got to college, Facebook was taking off. In just four years since its launch in 2004, the social network had gained 58 million active users (it now has 1.9 billion monthly active users). In February 2009—during Mr. Spiegel’s freshman year—it added the Like button. From the start, Mr. Spiegel wasn’t a fan, friends recall. He would come to see it as a form of social pressure, where people create falsely perfect worlds in the quest to rack up likes. 
 
 Mr. Spiegel said Snapchat was much more, a place for spontaneous interaction that evaporates in the same way a real conversation would. It was also about creativity and fun: Photos and video could be animated in whimsical and ridiculous ways using its functions to make selfies that vomit rainbows, sport puppy and bunny ears, and wear banana faces. 
 
 Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina used Snapchat at the French Open in Paris last May. Photo: Christopher Levy /Zuma Press 
 
 In most cases, photos and videos that users send in messages disappear after they are viewed, and other content disappears after 24 hours, although some items can be saved. 
 
 In the recent company video, created for its IPO, Mr. Spiegel says the ephemerality is “why people love creating Snaps. Because there isn’t pressure to feel pretty or perfect. Self-expression isn’t a contest, it’s not about how well you can express yourself, it’s about being able to communicate how you feel, and doing that in the moment.” 
 
 Conceived for mobile 
 
 Also key to Snap’s success, and unlike incumbents such as Facebook and Twitter: Its design and concept is mobile-only. Content is presented vertically, to fill a smartphone screen; location-based tags and filters are popular; and bite-size content is swipeable. 
 
 As Facebook was trying to transition to mobile in 2012, Snapchat sped out of the gate, catching the bigger company by surprise. Mr. Spiegel saw the smartphone as the new movie screen. When Mr. Zuckerberg offered $3 billion to buy Snapchat in 2013, Mr. Spiegel turned him down. 
 
 Mr. Spiegel’s talent combining a Hollywood approach to content with a keen business sense is admired by many who know him. 
 
 Related Video Snap's initial public offering will enable the social media platform's founders and two Silicon Valley venture-capital firms to rake in a huge fortune. WSJ's Lee Hawkins explains. Photo: Zuma Press 
 
 “For someone of his age, he operates with much more wisdom than anyone else I have seen. I find him to be a very, very clear thinker,” Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, said in an email. When faced with critical decisions on issues like funding and partnering and selling, Mr. Schmidt says, “he gets it right every time.” 
 
 He says Mr. Spiegel, a former student of his at Stanford, is now a friend and customer. Snap has a five-year, $2 billion contract for Google to provide cloud-data storage. 
 
 Other people note Mr. Spiegel’s timing on the dominance of mobile, getting ahead of Facebook and the recognition that social media was getting boring. 
 
 Revenue is generated by brands placing short video advertisements and simple location-linked overlays called “geofilters,” plus more elaborate “Lenses”—Taco Bell made a Lens that turned faces into tacos being doused with hot sauce. 
 
 More than two dozen media and entertainment outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, also provide news, sports, fashion and features. Advertisements are sold to place in the content the media companies produce. 
 
 Snap’s revenue last year jumped more than 500% to $404.5 million. Its net loss widened to $514.6 million, and its user growth slowed somewhat, rising 48% to 158 million in the fourth quarter from the same period a year earlier. 
 
 That revenue is a fraction of the $27.6 billion last year at Facebook, which also booked $10.2 billion in profit. 
 
 Mr. Spiegel has been wary of advertising from the start, worrying that it would feel intrusive. As his business marketing team was crafting presentations for prospective advertisers and business partners, Mr. Spiegel didn’t want to explain the app to them, said one of the former employees. He preferred that CEOs learn it—not from a presentation but from their children. It was “difficult for a salesperson to run that one up the flagpole,” the former employee recalls. A product demonstration is now part of the meetings. 
 
 When Snapchat’s first ads made their debut in October 2014—Facebook was already generating $12.5 billion in annual revenue by that year—Mr. Spiegel’s ambivalence was evident in a company blog post. It told users if they didn’t want to watch the ads, which were in a different section, “No Biggie.” The company wouldn’t place ads in personal communiqués because that would be “totally rude.” It wanted Snapchat advertising to be “the way ads used to be, before they got creepy and targeted.” 
 
 In the past, he has resisted efforts to collect and share information that would enable advertisers to target the app’s individual users. Lately, he has made concessions. In January, for example, Snap signed a deal with Oracle Corp. to help marketers use data from offline purchases, such as supermarket loyalty cards, to target Snapchat users with more relevant ads. 
 
 Ad targeting 
 
 Snap is still far away from the more aggressive approaches of Facebook and Google, which have used precise ad targeting to make billions in profits. As a result, the giants can outspend Snap on talent and fresh content, and bankroll development of potentially expensive new products, such as hardware that taps into augmented reality, or tech that blends computer images onto a user’s real view of the world. 
 
 Mr. Spiegel with his fiancée, model Miranda Kerr, at a White House state dinner last May. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press 
 
 Because of Snap’s vision of ads as less intrusive than most digital advertising—more like old-fashioned television spots made for a broader audience—Snap ads must have a wider appeal, with high production values, and be spliced into the rest of the app in an interesting way. During the Super Bowl, for example, users could choose to adorn their selfies with either Falcons’ or Patriots’ football helmets or cascade gushers of colorful Gatorade over their heads. 
 
 Snap’s requirements set a high bar for its partners. The small group of media and entertainment outlets that appear on Snapchat have tough targets to meet, according to a person familiar with the process. If Snap isn’t happy, it suggests changes to the content, and if the material doesn’t get enough traffic, the providers fear they could be booted off the app, according to a current and a former editor of content for Snapchat Discover, the section of the app where publishers post content. 
 
 Until lately, a lot of Snap’s advertising has come directly from brands like Coca-Cola Co. and Yum Brands Inc.’s Taco Bell. It has been slow to woo Madison Avenue’s big ad agencies, which have bigger budgets and can commit to longer contracts, and to form partnerships that would enable advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. Last summer, Snap hired Viacom ’s Jeff Lucas to help court big deals. 
 
 As the IPO has neared, Snap has signed deals with Oracle Data Cloud, Nielsen and others to ramp up its use of metrics that will dispel some of the mystery that has enshrouded the effectiveness of advertising on the app. 
 
 The stock-exchange listing will force more transparency about the business, including regular updates on user and engagement data. Even so, Mr. Spiegel will continue to keep a tight grip on the company after it goes public. Snap is selling to the public only shares that have no voting power. Afterward, Mr. Spiegel and co-founder and chief technologist Bobby Murphy will retain more than 90% of the voting shares. 
 
 Write to Betsy Morris at betsy.morris@wsj.com and Georgia Wells at Georgia.Wells@wsj.com ||||| Last year, Snapchat's revenue growth increased by an astounding 589 percent, though the company is still not yet profitable. Its daily active user base rose to 158 million in the latest quarter, up from 107 million the year before, although the growth has decelerated a bit in the past couple of quarters. 
 
 The slowing user growth could potentially be a real issue, Cramer said. 
 
 Last summer, Facebook's Instagram launched its own Instagram stories platform, which appeared to be a knock-off of Snapchat. Cramer attributed this as the reason why Snap's daily active user base increased by just 10 percent in the first half of 2016 to the second half, compared to 33 percent in the previous six months. The other reason for deceleration was due to performance issues on Android phones. 
 
 Another possible problem that Cramer uncovered is the immense amount of spending that Snap is doing on cloud-hosting costs. In the next five years, it expects to spend $400 million annually on Google Cloud and another $200 million annually on Amazon Web Services. 
 
 Meanwhile, Snap only expects to hit $1 billion in ad revenue this year. This means at least 60 percent of that will be eaten up by hosting costs. 
 
 "Nevertheless, I think the good absolutely outweighs the bad here, at least for the near- and intermediate-term future," Cramer said. 
 
 While Snap's user growth is still impressive, it has plenty of opportunity to expand internationally. Any company with the immense amount of revenue growth must be doing something very right, Cramer said. 
 
 Additionally, Goldman Sachs is one of the underwriters of the IPO and estimates that Snap could hit approximately $2 billion in revenue by 2018. Even better, Snap could be a great investment if it uses the billions they expect to raise in the IPO to expand new lines of business, and those businesses are successful. 
 
 Regardless of the long term, Cramer expects Snap to be a "phenomenal trade" and its stock to soar when it comes public. Snap is also coming public about a year earlier into its cycle than Twitter did, which means investors can tap into the juicy early-stage growth. 
 
 "If Snap spikes really hard right out of the gate, I suggest waiting for a pullback before you buy or accepting that you missed it if the stock is more than doubled at the opening," Cramer said. 
 
 Ultimately, Snap is expected to price on Wednesday within an expected range of $17 to $18, which would put its market cap at $20 billion. Based on that IPO price, Snap would trade at 20.3 times this year's sales, which sounded expensive initially to Cramer, but compared to Facebook's 19.4 times sales when it came public, it's not exactly uncharted territory. 
 
 "I could see it doubling pretty easily simply because big firms that got a huge slug of stock in the deal will go into the regular market to buy more, so their cost basis will be superb versus the actual closing price," Cramer said. 
 
 Questions for Cramer? 
 
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 Questions, comments, suggestions for the "Mad Money" website? madcap@cnbc.com ||||| (Reuters) - Snap Inc priced its initial public offering above its target range on Wednesday, raising $3.4 billion as investors set aside concerns about its lack of profits and voting rights for a piece of the hottest tech IPO in years. 
 
 At $17 a share, the parent of popular disappearing-messaging app Snapchat has a market valuation of roughly $24 billion, more than double the size of rival Twitter and the richest valuation in a U.S. tech IPO since Facebook in 2012. 
 
 The company had targeted a valuation of between $19.5 billion and $22.3 billion. 
 
 The book was more than 10 times oversubscribed and Snap could have priced the IPO at as much as $19 a share, but the company wanted to focus on securing mutual funds as long-term investors rather than hedge funds looking to quickly sell, the source said. 
 
 The share sale was the first test of investor appetite for a social-media app that is beloved by teenagers and 20-somethings who use it to apply bunny faces and vomiting rainbows onto selfies but faces a challenge in converting “cool” into cash. 
 
 Despite a nearly 7-fold increase in revenue, the Los Angeles-based company’s net loss jumped 38 percent last year. It faces intense competition from larger rivals such as Facebook as well as decelerating user growth. 
 
 Snap priced 200 million shares on Wednesday night at $17, above its stated range of $14 to $16 dollars a share. 
 
 The sale had the advantage of favorable timing. The market for technology IPOs hit the brakes in 2016, marking the slowest year for such launches since 2008, and investors are keen for fresh opportunities. The launch could encourage debuts by other so-called unicorns, tech start-ups with private valuations of $1 billion or more. 
 
 Investors bought the shares despite them having no voting power, an unprecedented feature for an IPO despite years of rising concerns about corporate governance from fund managers looking to gain influence over executives. 
 
 Snap is set to begin trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SNAP. 
 
 A Banner for Snap Inc. hangs on the facade of the the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on the eve of the company's IPO in New York, U.S., March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid 
 
 OVERNIGHT MILLIONAIRES 
 
 Although Snap is going public at a much earlier stage in its development than Twitter or Facebook, the 5-year-old company is valuing itself at nearly 60 times revenue, more than double the 27 times revenue Facebook fetched when it went public in 2012. 
 
 To justify its suggested valuation and fend off concerns about slowing user growth, Snap has emphasized how important Snapchat is to its users, how long they spend on the app and the revenue potential of the emerging trend for young people to communicate with video rather than text. 
 
 The company has been vague on its plans to lead and monetize image-driven conversations, but has suggested investors put faith in the vision of its co-founder Evan Spiegel, whom it introduced in its investor roadshow as a “once-in-a-generation founder.” 
 
 The 26-year-old will walk away with a roughly 17 percent stake valued at $4.05 billion 
 
 Spiegel and co-founder Bobby Murphy will each be selling 16 million shares in the IPO that earned them $272 million apiece. 
 
 Slideshow (7 Images) 
 
 Dozens of other Snap investors could become overnight millionaires. 
 
 Spiegel and Murphy will maintain tight control over Snap’s stock through a unique three-share class structure. The structure will give Spiegel and Murphy the right of 10 votes for every share. Existing investors will have one vote for each of their shares, while new investors will have no voting rights. ||||| The drone gives a glimpse into what kind of future products Snap may be considering, which would affect the company’s growth. How the company plans to grow is on the minds of investors as Snap goes public this week. Snap priced its initial public offering on Wednesday and the stock is expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, in what is set to be the biggest technology I.P.O. since the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba in 2014. 
 
 Snap set its I.P.O. pricing at $17 a share — higher than the expected range of $14 to $16 — valuing the company at $24 billion. 
 
 Getting more visual data such as photographs and video is important to Snap because it helps bolster people’s interactions with Snapchat. Communicating on Snapchat is a highly visual process, intended to create an intense engagement among people with the app. Snap said in its public offering prospectus that the average Snapchat user opened the app more than 18 times a day, and that more than 2.5 billion messages and images were sent each day with the app. 
 
 Evan Spiegel, Snap’s chief executive, has been vocal about his company’s ambitions around cameras. In a video for investors about Snap’s public offering this month, Mr. Spiegel said cameras augmented the way a person communicates, rather than a person’s memory. 
 
 “We’re at the beginning of what cameras can do,” Mr. Spiegel told viewers of the video. 
 
 When Spectacles appeared, Snap faced questions from critics about why it would enter the realm of hardware products. The product is designed to make taking videos a fun and seamless part of everyday life, which dovetails with the company’s goal of getting users to feed Snapchat a steady stream of images and videos. ||||| Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is expected to price its initial public offering today and start trading on the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow. 
 
 Ahead of Snap’s IPO, Recode Senior Editor Kurt Wagner answered some of what are no doubt the questions you’re dying to ask. 
 
 What does an IPO actually mean? 
 
 IPO stands for Initial Public Offering, and it's the first time that a private company starts selling its stock on the public stock market. That means you (yes, you!) are now able to buy a piece of Snap. 
 
 Does this mean we’re all getting rich? 
 
 Sorry, you're probably not gonna get rich, but you never know. People invested in Facebook at $20-$30 a share. It's now worth over $100, so you can make some money. 
 
 Someone is getting rich off this IPO. Who? 
 
 Snapchat's co-founders are going to get very rich. Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy are both going to be worth billions of dollars by the time this whole thing is done. 
 
 Why does Snap want to go public? 
 
 Companies go public for a number of reasons: First, to pay back their investors that have given them money along the way to keep the business going. It's a good way for founders and executives to actually cash out some of the stock that they've earned during their time working there. It's also a way for the company to raise money from people like you who may invest. They can use that money to do things like acquisitions, international expansion and new product growth, things that Snap would love to do. 
 
 Does Snap even make money? 
 
 Believe it or not, Snapchat is a real business. The company brought in over $400 million in revenue last year, the vast majority of which came from advertising. So, even though the app is free, the company is still making money by putting ads alongside all the content that you're creating inside the app. 
 
 Doesn’t Snap make money in other ways? 
 
 Snap also makes hardware, called Spectacles. These are video-recording sunglasses that, until recently, you had to buy out of a vending machine. Snap says those sunglasses don't create meaningful revenue for the company. So while they may be cool, they're not actually benefitting the company's bottom line. 
 
 What could possibly go wrong with Snap going public? 
 
 When you're a publicly traded company, you have to share a lot of information and you have to do it regularly. When you're private, you can keep things like revenue or user growth to yourself, but now, as a publicly traded entity, Snap's going to have to report that number publicly to investors. That means if things aren't going well, all of us are going to know about it.
– Those who remember the hype when Alibaba priced its initial public offering of stock in 2014 will get to relive that excitement Wednesday when Snap does the same. Reuters reports the owner of the Snapchat messaging app will serve up a number at the end of the trading day, with expectations of anywhere between $14 and $16 a share and a possible valuation of more than $20 billion. What the buzz is on this "eagerly awaited" IPO: Recode offers a quick-hit Q&A, including such queries as: "What could possibly go wrong with Snap going public?" Kids, teens, and young adults are the ones who use Snapchat the most, but it's the older generations who are more likely to be investors. The elder set's confusion over the vanishing messages could be a problem, per MarketWatch. All eyes would be on Snap CEO Evan Spiegel right now—if anyone could find him. The Wall Street Journal takes a closer look at the company's "elusive" (and apparently reticent) founder. "Evan doesn't talk much," shrugs an early investor. The company's plans for the future are an important piece of the IPO puzzle. Sources tell the New York Times those plans may involve a drone. Despite Snapchat's sluggish user growth and the company's hefty hosting costs, Mad Money's Jim Cramer believes the trade will be a "phenomenal" one. "I think the good absolutely outweighs the bad here," he says, per CNBC. Lock them up? Find out why a big block of investors will agree not to sell their Snap stock for at least a year at Business Insider. A Barron's Next primer ponders whether Snap will follow in the footsteps of Facebook (up 250% since its own IPO) or Twitter (not doing quite as well).