How big will your best idea grow to 6 years from now? Evan Spiegel’s 6-year-old idea has grown to $24 billion in size, with the IPO of his company, Snap, on the New York Stock Exchange today.

The story could have easily ended up very differently if Evan hadn’t snapped “yes” and “no” at two pivotal moments in his journey.

SNAP YES:

In a moment in 2011, Evan’s friend and fellow student, Reggie Brown, looked at his phone and said “I wish these photos I am sending this girl would disappear”. Evan called the comment a “million dollar idea” and the two decided to turn the idea it into an app. They launched “Picaboo”, from Evan’s living room with Evan coming up with the friendly ghost logo.

By the end of summer, the app only had 127 users.

But Evan and Reggie persevered, changing “Picaboo” to “Snapchat”, and after a slow start the app began to grow rapidly through word-of-mouth. Evan then quit college just three courses short of the credits he needed to graduate to focus 100% on Snapchat.

SNAP NO:

In 2013, two years later, with the app rising to over 150 million snaps a day, Mark Zuckerberg offered Evan $3 billion for Facebook to buy the company. This time, Evan said “no”.

What followed was a wave of criticism for turning down the deal. Evan remembers the most common comments: “Why didn’t you sell your business? It doesn’t even make money. It’s a fad. You could be on a boat right now. Everyone loves boats. What’s wrong with you?’”

Evan continues: “When we decided not to sell our business people called us a lot of things besides crazy - things like arrogant and entitled. The same words that I’ve heard used to describe our generation time and time again. The Millennial Generation. The ‘Me’ Generation. Well, it’s true,”

“We do have a sense of entitlement, a sense of ownership, because, after all, this is the world we were born into, and we are responsible for it.”

Today he says: “I am now convinced that the fastest way to figure out if you are doing something truly important to you is to have someone offer you a bunch of money to part with it.”

26-year-old Evan Spiegel’s two decisions has led him to the $24 billion Snap IPO today - 8 times Facebook's offer - just six years after Snapchat was launched. It will be the largest public listing since Alibaba in 2014.

What should you be saying yes to right now? What should you be saying no to?

Asking this daily is the fastest way to change your story in a snap.

"The oldest, shortest words - 'yes' and 'no' - are those which require the most thought." ~ Pythagoras