It's not 2010 anymore - you can't start a social media company.
Building a new social media is almost impossible.
Why? Because all social media provides is PEOPLE.
You try to gather around a group of people who rely on the sole existence of themselves.
We're in 2022. Our every day is flooded with content.
Every morning I wake up, I check my WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, emails, newsletter, news app, discord group, Linkedin. If you're building social media, you're competing directly with all of them, even they all look very different and unrelated. But then it all competing on the same thing - our attention time span.
And with more and more options of content online our attention time span is getting shorter and shorter. This Youtube video is too slow? Skip. This slack channel is too dead? Quit.
You will slowly find out the tolerance of staying on new social platforms is very low nowadays (but it's also why Stories, Tiktok succeed). Trying to make a new social group now is just an extremely uphill task. In social media - People make content, people consume content. If no one consumes content, no one makes content anymore. It doesn't matter how many fancy features you build - it is only built to encourage people to make content.
As a result, you have to rely on people to provide value to other people. It can make your product skyrocket, it can also make your product straight to the ground - Best example? Clubhouse.
Be careful and don't mix up here. Because, if your product has great utilities like a two-sided marketplace (reselling, finding jobs) Then, it would be easier. Cause people now come to GET THEIR JOB DONE, no matter they want to sell their car, or find a job. In this sense, your product is not selling the people anymore, you are selling a deal to help someone do what they want, just the solution involved people.
That's why local Facebook groups for reselling usually works well - but then the retention rate might vary. (Who sells their stuff every day?)
Backstory: Jupitrr, my company was once a business networking app aka Tinder for business. And I guess you know what it meant if you read till here. It flopped, big time.
Everyone comes here for their own purpose, while when they can't provide value to each other, they don't come back. And you can't really change anything with it but try to nurture a good environment, facilitate engagement, try to help out from all angles. It's like you are the manager of the sports team - you can do loads of stuff, except playing on the pitch.
Biggest mistake people make is trying to recreate a social media network based on how they know a social media network works.
Facebook didn't look like a 'social network' when it started. Back then that concept didn't exist.
The social media networks of the future won't look like social media networks when they start off. They'll definitely look and behave like something else.
So in a way, you're right, it's 2022 and you can't start a social media company. But you can start something else ;)
Ofcuz. I like the "trying to recreate a social media network based on how they know a social media network works." Straight to the point. Also excited to see what the future of social media will look like.
Trying to be the next big general purpose Social Media is never going to be an indiehacker thing, but, there could be opportunities in a niche like Ravelry.
Great Niche! Something more like it. Great choice to do some e-commerce for profit!
I'm actually trying to build a social network company. It's not a social media one, as people don't create content but plans/activities/events instead.
With dilo you can find a plan for tonight. You can meet new people with similar interests and explore cool things to do around you.
it's 2022 and it's still really hard to make friends... friends you can actually go out with, meet in person, and do stuff.
What's a mistake you learned from your business networking app that you wouldn't repeat if you started over?
Event App might be extremely hard buddy.
Remember they are all strangers. We are not comfortable with strangers or even skeptical. Facilitated host would be better here.
Even one has different purposes, some might wanna meet friends, some might just want a drink, some might want a night out. Focus on solving one problem, not 20.
Event is limited by location and time - Hard to convert with many factors influencing (where? How far? how expensive?)
I'm loving these points @tszhoi. Thank you. You have a keen eye and experience on this regard.
I agree with you. An app that wants more people doing things together IS extremely hard. You touch on the very specific problems I've encountered while developing dilo, and still, it's a problem I want to solve.
If you don't mind reading a long comment, I'll describe what I am doing to progress on those 3 challenges you listed, with the hope that it will inspire some great ideas/suggestions like the ones you wrote already.
dilo wants you to feel like you belong to the group from the very first time you see them in person. Today, to break the ice, dilo gathers people with a single interest (going out) into a chat group. People can chat and get more familiar with each other. However, even though chatting has a lower barrier compared talking in person to a stranger, just being in a chat group is not enough for people to chat. A facilitator would be of great help here, thanks for this. I could have a "dilo bot" that joins your plan. That would be me manually chatting/facilitating plans for people. Does anything else come to your mind?
Narrowing focus has been a learning experience. This version of dilo has 1 button: Find others going out. In terms of focus I went from "find something to do anytime" to "find something to do tonight" to "go out tonight". And still, I'm aware that "going out" is too broad 😅. dilo's bet here is that people's willingness not to be alone will make them join plans slightly off from what they wanted to do. For example, you might want to party but there's a group going out for drinks. You might join them because deep inside you're just bored and want to go out. I'll learn more about whether I need to keep on breaking down "going out". dilo could be an app that finds you a partying group, or so. How would you find what is not important, so that you can focus on the rest?
Indeed! I had 3 options in dilo's previous version: dinner, party, drinks. Two people close to each other didn't meet through dilo because one wanted to party and the other one drinks... That day I started working on this version, that has 1 button: go out. I'm addressing location by having a small radius when looking for other people going out (which only makes it harder because there's likely less people - so I'm "launching" dilo in popular zone where I live). I'm addressing time by theming the app as find something for tonight, and inside a plan-chat dilo gives people the option to suggest a time and a place. The other factors (where, how far, how expensive, and many others like who is in the group, their age, their interests, are they new in town, etc..) have not been addressed yet. dilo's bet, once again, is the chat: people will figure it out while chatting. Which you and I know it's so naive that I'm laughing while typing that. The facilitator is a great tool here again.
I apologize for the long answer. But it's a great exercise. Talking to other people that pop your bubbles is the best way of getting onto the right track. Thanks again @tszhoi
First - Don't apologize, Long answer means you care and I made an impact on you which I'm glad.
For 1., Would be great to have a human facilitator - just like in every group of friends there is a leader who plans out stuff and takes care of decisions. Not sure the bot will do better than people like you!
For 2, I would say going out is still board. Maybe wanna "go to a bar but don't wanna drink alone" sounds more solid to motivate me to go out.
For 3, I agree, I don't think features is the answer to push people to do stuff and gather around. Look at the bigger level, why people want to go out, How do people behave in those scenarios. It makes me think back to the first day of Uni - Going to class alone and moving into the dorm.
Human interaction is far more complicated than a simple transaction. Try to deliver value for the very first time. Don't hold off in the user experience.
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I guess you mean Trump’s app? Well, first it’s Trump, not a indie hacker with zero marketing budget. Secondary, this time last year everyone is crying for a clubhouse invite. Watch out for hype.
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It's going to suck...it'll hype up like the rest and then everyone will realize how can I troll anyone that echos the same things as me and go back to twitter so they can start trolling again.
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