If you float the theory that "younger users don't like the feeling of being alone. They want to be tethered to their friends constantly," important venture capitalists will invest in your app. It doesn't even need to solve that problem.

Snapchat investor Bill Gurley thinks anonymous apps like Secret and Whisper are just a fad, telling Business Insider: "I think it's going to be really hard to monetize."

Chris Poole, the founder of 4Chan can hardly believe that Facebook—"the standard bearer for what most people think of as 'online identity'"—would allow its users to be anonymous. Does the fact that you have to use a Facebook log-in for its new app Paper make it more believable?