Sean Howell, the founder of Hornet - the second largest gay social network with 15 million members worldwide, known for its ongoing “Know your Status” HIV campaign. He's a speaker on mobile technology and his opinions have been featured all over the place, even the New York Times. Outside of work, Sean likes to serve on various non-profit boards and committees like the World Affairs Council, PFLAG, and UNAIDS,
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Alibaba What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Insightly Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I started earlier”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:38 – Nathan introduces Sean to the show 02:13 – How Hornet generates revenue 02:23 – Premium subscription model 02:53 – Direct deals 03:08 – Premium subscription service 03:29 – No restrictions 03:43 – 5% of their user base 03:37 – 15 million user base 03:53 – Hornet was founded in October 2011 04:13 – MAU 04:22 – Metric 04:42 – Total revenue in 2015 04:50 – Fundraising 05:17 – Multi-million revenue last year 05:32 – Traditional advertising and mobile setting 05:55 – Gaming companies are buying display ads 06:20 – Direct deal with Uber 06:34 - CPM 07:10 – Demographic data for users 07:40 – Churn number that is being tracked 07:51 – Focus on user growth 08:20 - Monetization 08:32 – Total churn number 08:37 – Different subscription packages 09:00 – Monthly renewal 09:33 – Users buy in at a lower amount 09:49 – Average monthly churn is 20% 10:00 – Raised $ 1.5 million in the first year 10:26 – Costs in acquiring new paying customers 10:32 – 40 employees 10:44 – Getting customers through organic discovery and viral co-efficients 11:00 – Viral co-efficient technique 11:27 – Attribution links for social sharing 11:53 – Sean is based in San Francisco and his team members are in other parts of the world 12:27 – No revenue for the first year 12:33 – Started making revenue in 2013 12:48 – 2 biggest competitors 13:00 – Looking to raise several millions 13:08 – Valuation 13:47 – Connect with Sean thru AngelList, LinkedIn and his email. 16:05 - The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
Be motivated – use your competitors as inspiration. There are tons of ways to make your brand known without spending much. Start early – if you want to do something now, do it now.
Resources Mentioned:
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. AngelList – Sean’s AngelList account LinkedIn – Sean’s LinkedIn account sean@hornetapp.com – Sean’s email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
