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@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ But also in today’s world, the “Big Social” platforms are profiting tremen
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The financial piece is just one of the problems with Big Social. Creators and influencers also face losing exposure through algorithms that change on a whim and being at the mercy of a handful of often egregious policies that they have zero control over, including advertiser preferences and even loss of content ownership rights. These are issues I wanted to tackle with my platform as well.
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-After a few months of mulling this over, I pitched the concept of Curafied at Dayton Startup Week in 2017. A female angel investor was intrigued by the concept and business model and we began working together to take this idea to a prototype. A few more angels hopped on board and the first iteration of Curafied launched just at the end that same year.
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+After a few months of mulling this over, I pitched the concept of Curafied at Dayton Startup Week in 2017. A female angel investor was intrigued by the concept and business model and we began working together to take this idea to a prototype. A few more angels hopped on board and the first iteration of Curafied launched just at the end of that same year.
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The web-only platform we built was set up such that creators could sign up for free and start posting videos, photos, and blog posts behind a paywall. We call this content space a Collection. Fans and followers of the creator pay a small subscription to access his or her Collection, as well as access to a subscriber-only live chat. For every subscription to their Collection, a creator receives a portion of the sale.
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@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ As my team and I set out to “disrupt” the influencer space, we very quickly
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Months—which turned into over a year—went by and we weren’t making much progress with our platform buildout or user signups. As if we didn’t have enough obstacles in our way, I am an Ohio-based, mixed Black, female, first-time, single founder, which is pretty much a death sentence in the tech startup world. I experienced so many meetings where I was belittled, talked over, yelled at, and even yawned at by potential new investors, I was beginning to feel like we wouldn’t have a chance in hell at success.
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-Pressure was starting to mount from our current angel investors, and although it was starting to seem like all was about to be lost, proverbial lightning flashed. “Have you ever considered a co-op model for Curafied?” my first angel investors asked me. When I told her I wasn’t sure how it could apply, she introduced me to a literal angel: Rachel Meketon at Co-op Dayton. Rachel and her organization help businesses determine if and how the cooperative model is a viable one for their mission and goals, and provide them with the resources to move forward with the conversion.
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+Pressure was starting to mount from our current angel investors, and although it was starting to seem like all was about to be lost, proverbial lightning flashed. “Have you ever considered a co-op model for Curafied?” my first angel investor asked me. When I told her I wasn’t sure how it could apply, she introduced me to a literal angel: Rachel Meketon at Co-op Dayton. Rachel and her organization help businesses determine if and how the cooperative model is a viable one for their mission and goals, and provide them with the resources to move forward with the conversion.
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Before we met in person, Rachel and I exchanged a series of emails and had a few phone calls that reignited my imagination of a world with Curafied in it. First, she explained to me that co-ops aren’t just for industrial workers or grocery store patrons, which were the only co-ops I had ever heard of before. She then gave me some examples of different types of cooperatives and how they serve to benefit those who contribute as members by giving them direct ownership in the company, including voting rights and a share of its profits.
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Nathan Schneider