I build the places people want to hang out online. I started in 2018 with niche Instagram pages, then built games inside Discord and started companies around communities.
The thread through all of it: find where people already gather, then give them something to do together.
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Go where people already are.
My games live inside Discord, so nobody has to download anything. Hideout put a whole world inside Discord, one for every server.
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Let people in on it.
Fans want a say in what they love. At Badlion, players voted on cosmetics before each drop. On Nothing, Forever, a Bingo card turned a repetitive show into something to play along with.
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People trust people.
Fans listen to the people they already watch. Creators sold MrCoco for us on TikTok Shop, and Bloxd grows when players make videos about it.
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Know when to grow and when to listen.
Some months are for reach. Others are for getting to know the people already there. Refract was a whole company built on listening.
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Make people feel something.
Fun gets the first session. Feeling something with other people brings them back. In Grow A Tree, one server has been watering the same tree for over four years, and players made friends there.
Very little of what I know is mine. These are the people whose ideas I've borrowed most, and whose work is worth reading if you want to understand where new media is going.
on the creator economy
- Em Herrera
- Colin Rosenblum
- Samir Chaudry
- Reed Duchscher
- Jordan Schwarzenberger
- Nathan Graber-Lipperman
- Derek Yang
on business
- Blake Robbins
- Mitch Lasky
- Paul Graham
- Matthew Ball
- Donella Meadows
- Scott Kupor
Surprised by how few creators have made a real move into software, like apps or productivity tools.