Would you leave a high flying career in advertising to set up an adult content site? Most people wouldn't, but Cindy Gallop is not most people.
After leading one of the world's top advertising agencies, BBH in the United States. Cindy decided to try her hand at tech entrepreneurship. Her venture, Make Love Not Porn, is in the new category of "social sex" and aims to revolutionise how people talk, share and watch sex.
As a non-technical founder of an adult content business, Cindy had to learn how to work with developers, get users despite being banned by advertisers and create a troll free online environment.
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You've probably heard about network effects, but they aren't the only thing you need. Learning effects build the ultimate moat against your competition.
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On Airbnb, people stay at strangers' homes. On Twitter, people get trolled. Both are global tech platforms, but why do people treat strangers well on one, and badly on the other?
The answer lies in platform governance: the rules you make to encourage good interactions and punish the bad stuff. Learn how to set up platforms where people are nice to strangers with this week's podcast episode.
Learning notes from this episode.
How do you launch a dating app, if you have no men and no women on it? Or, how do you launch a market place with niether buyers nor sellers?
This is the chicken and egg problem that all platforms have to solve to succeed.
In this week's episode, you'll learn 6 methods for how to launch a platform when you have no users. Some are sneaky, some are fun and all are very clever.
Sophia's favourite book on how to build & grow platforms is Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy - And How to Make Them Work for You.
1. Pipeline to Platform conversion, e.g. Amazon to Amazon marketplace
2. Using a company that has the user base you want, e.g. Airbnb & Craigslist
3. Seeding content, e.g. dating apps & Quora
4. Bringing influencers to your platform for an incentive, e.g. Joe Rogan
5. Producer Evangelism: e.g. Kickstarter, Indigogo, Partyslate
Listen to Sophia's interview with Partyslate CEO & Co-Founder Julie...
Facebook disrupted the media market forever. The Apple App Store created the app economy, valued at $6.3 trillion today. What makes platforms like these SO successful?
In this episode, you will learn the core concepts behind platform businesses, so you can identify platforms in the making or build them yourself.
This is the beginning of a mini-series on platform fundamentals at Tech for Non-Techies.
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Put on your party pants! In this episode, you'll hear from Julie Novack, the CEO & non-technical co-founder of PartySlate. PartySlate is a platform that connects event professionals to people planning events.
During the pandemic, PartySlate had to quickly reinvent its offering, but managed to end 2020 with no revenue loss. This is a great story in about resilience, leadership and giving users what they want.
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Robyn is the CEO & Founder of HER, the world’s largest brand for LGBTQ women & queer people. Their app is home to 5 million people across the world, with dating and community connections, and their events run in 15 cities, hosting 50,000 people per year.
She is also an alumna of Y Combinator, the prestigious Silicon Valley accelerator, and has raised $2.5 million from investors.
Despite Robyn's Silicon Valley successes, she is not a technical founder. Her background is in branding.
Listen to hear how Robyn:
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