4 ms·
Thought their initial pitch was an ad free social network?
by ugochiowo 8y ago
Thought their initial pitch was an ad free social network?
- village-idiot 8y agoIt was. Turns out that’s really hard to do.
- Deimorz 8y agoEspecially when you take a bunch of venture capital: https://ar.al/notes/ello-goodbye/ https://ar.al/notes/ello-goodbye/ Note that that was written when they had taken $435,000 in VC, and now they're up to $11M: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello-inc https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello-inc
- village-idiot 8y agoI’m genuinely surprised they’ve lasted this long.
- dredmorbius 8y agoAnd ... it turns out there's just been a management coup.
- whywhywhywhy 8y agoNot exactly an unbiased take from Aral considering he tried to launch a social network where "you were not the product" around the same time too.
- dredmorbius 8y agoNot really. I'd have to dig for references (one of the site's failings is terminally flawed search), but it really was an artists' & designers' space. That orientation allowed them to make additional pledges, including ad-free and no tracking, and yes, they did pledge that. But the SNpivot came after the initial interest boom in September, 2014. From Crunchbase: "Ello was originally built as a private social network. Over time, so many people wanted to join Ello that we built a public version of Ello for everyone to use." https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello-inc#section-overview https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello-inc#section-ove... An early interview with Paul Budnitz (founder): https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-ello-founder-paul-budnitz-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-ello-founder-... I've cooled on the site myself, though think it might work, in its niche.