Shots CEO John Shahidi realized how to make an app successful when the mobile gaming company called RockLive he was running, crashed after Justin Bieber had played the game and posted his top score on Twitter.

Fate would have it that the two would meet. They would work together on a deal, with Bieber as an investor, and they eventually launched an app called Shots.

Shots is a social network that specializes in one kind of photo sharing experience - selfies.



The app launched last November, and it allows users to post a selfie to their followers. It is by no way any different from other social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or instagram. The only difference is that it is a social site where bullies don't exist. Putting up a selfie won't prompt criticism from anyone. If anyone thinks you're stupid, ugly or weird, they'll keep it to themselves.

The app will let a user's friends comment, and only if they share a selfie of their own along with it.

Only the front-facing camera works within the app. You can't upload from the camera roll either. Anyone who's reported for bullying gets kicked off the app, instantly.

“[Online bullying is] nothing that’s going to make me want to hurt myself, but going back to someone who’s 20 years younger than me — 14 or 15 years old — they are hurting themselves," says Shahidi.

The company announced 1 million downloads on Thursday, and gets 750,000 active users per month. Bieber and fellow investor Floyd Mayweather, the boxer, helped to market the app by sharing selfies to their other social media profiles via the app.

The selfie bandwagon has created other types of "Shots" apps. For example, there's Frontback, which is backed by celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Ashton Kutcher and Jack Dorsey.