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Olivia DeRamus is flipping the script: What if scrolling by way of social media didn’t make us depressing? What if, particularly for girls, social media might really make us really feel extra supported?
“It’s actually not what mainstream social platforms have been constructed for,” DeRamus informed TechCrunch. However together with her social platform Communia, DeRamus is daring to attempt one thing that appears counterintuitive.
Communia is each a social platform and a psychological well being software; you possibly can submit updates in a group feed, or you possibly can privately journal and observe your feelings over time. However for customers to get weak, they should really feel secure. So, the platform is taking an strategy that might polarize some, however might reassure others: Individuals should confirm their id earlier than they’ll totally use the app.
“It’s a security function, but it surely additionally type of units the tone that that is an intimate house and that you just’re secure right here,” she stated. “So individuals really feel extra empowered to speak about their PMDD, or to speak in regards to the tough life expertise they’re going by way of.”
DeRamus used to work within the nonprofit sector, targeted on ladies’s anti-violence efforts. However she pivoted to tech as a result of she knew first-hand how beneficial a supportive on-line platform could possibly be. When DeRamus was in school, she was sexually assaulted. In a time when opening as much as her buddies was a problem, she sought out on-line communities to assist her course of her expertise.
“I turned to social media as a result of I used to be making an attempt to determine what even was occurring to me,” she stated. “It was pre-MeToo … The place are ladies even having conversations round sexual assault?”
With Communia, DeRamus is creating the app that she wanted at the moment. “We don’t have all of the solutions at Communia, however even at our tiny, tiny quantity of funding, with our tiny fraction of sources, the options to lots of the web’s points are oftentimes extra easy than massive tech platforms would really like us to consider,” she stated.
And since she isn’t a typical tech founder, DeRamus isn’t utilizing the standard tech playbook. “I’m conscious that in tech, most individuals go very far with out realizing how they’re going to make cash, and I do know BeReal was acquired lately, and so they by no means figured it out,” she stated. “That’s not the pathway for Communia, so we actually needed to take our time not solely in constructing a greater digital world for girls, but in addition in constructing a extra sustainable kind of tech product.”
So, Communia’s plan to monetize is to onboard creators. The concept is that followers might pay to entry extra intimate communities with creators they know, the place the emphasis is on the group’s connections as a complete, fairly than their particular relationship to that creator.
To determine its creator technique, Communia introduced on ex-OnlyFans CEO Amrapali Gan as a strategic companion and progress adviser.
“We’ve been attending to know one another for a few yr now. I really slid into her DMs, chilly, no intro, and he or she responded to me. We met up, and over time, she was advising us on quite a few various things,” DeRamus stated. “We realized that she felt actually captivated with our mission, and that she was serving to us in so many facets of the enterprise that it made sense to convey her on in a proper function that was rather more than a conventional adviser.”
Gan labored at OnlyFans as CMO, after which CEO, in a time when the platform was explosive with progress. Like Communia, Gan emphasised security in her time at OnlyFans – As a platform most related to grownup content material, OnlyFans makes use of a digital id platform referred to as Yoti that forestalls minors from signing up. Gan left OnlyFans final yr to discovered Hoxton, a artistic company working with startups.
“Her experience is actually permitting us to make even higher choices and develop sooner, but in addition deal with a variety of tough questions that come up for any social media platform together with her experience,” DeRamus stated.
Communia stays a comparatively inexperienced platform. The app participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200 in 2022, however has taken a gradual strategy to constructing out the platform. DeRamus hasn’t marketed the platform very a lot but, however maybe Gan’s involvement will change that. Gradual progress is smart for a platform like Communia, although, as a result of its total premise might deteriorate if it lacks the content material moderation capabilities to develop at scale with out sacrificing security. Communia is embarking on its first institutional fundraise now, with the hope that additional funds might assist navigate secure progress.
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