Nearly every social media experience today is built on the same premise: Humans identify with individuality. Users create a profile, upload an avatar picture, write a short biography and can then scream into the ether to other users on behalf of their digitally sculpted selves.<\/p>\n
Naj Austin<\/a>, the founder behind Ethel\u2019s Club, built Somewhere Good<\/a> last year on an entirely different premise. She believes that humans crave collectivism more than individualism in a post-COVID world. So she\u2019s in the process of reinventing how social media looks and feels, and with community and people of color at the core.<\/p>\n Less than a year after launching<\/a>, Somewhere Good announced this morning that it has raised $3.75 million in a seed round led by True Ventures. Existing investors Dream Machine, Debut Capital and Canvas Ventures participated in the round, along with new investors, including Slauson Co., NextView Ventures and 2PM Inc. Notable angels include Ellen Pao of Project Include and actor Gabrielle Union. The money will be used for continued product innovation and expanding its nine-person team.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m thinking about scale and trying to ensure that the most people have access to a safe and authentic community on their phones, and that means it has to be venture-backed in terms of being able to accomplish that in a way that also feels delightful,\u201d Austin said. \u201cTo build a platform that allows for us to have consultants who are thinking about accessibility, safety and privacy, we have to pay them.\u201d<\/p>\n Somewhere Good is a mobile app that connects people and then fosters that connection in a solely group setting, across a diversity of interests \u2014 such as a birdwatching collective for people of color or an anti-capitalist book club.<\/p>\n The platform arose from Austin\u2019s other company, subscription-based community for people of color, Ethel\u2019s Club. Members kept asking her for different things: a cooking club, a therapist recommendation, a wellness group. She said she became a de facto Google for members, and that Ethel\u2019s Club began to \u201cfrankenstein\u201d into different groups and needs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhich is, you know, not scalable,\u201d she said. \u201cWe thought \u2018Why don\u2019t we build a technology layer that communities like Ethel\u2019s club need?\u2019\u201d Somewhere Good is now a social search platform for people to join, chat and discover new communities.<\/p>\n Somewhere Good<\/p>\n Users can visit and drop into different \u201cworlds\u201d or communities that fit their interests, she explained. Once a user has entered a world, they can view and post content and have real-time audio conversations with others. People are encouraged to cite content in order to promote content and nuance.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I add an Angela Davis article in \u2018Abolition World\u2019 I can also see that you added it to \u2018Black Feminists\u2019 world and so on,\u201d Austin explained. \u201cThis is likely to encourage you to look into the Black Feminists world and further your discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n Austin stressed that no one person or host controls the experience, instead putting focus on the community as a whole to create a world that is living and breathing. It\u2019s her response to the rise of community in every startup right now.<\/p>\n \u201cCommunities become a buzzword that everyone\u2019s trying to tap into their platforms now,\u201d she said. \u201cThings I know about community and what I\u2019ve learned over the last year-and-a-half is that you need intimacy, you need nuance, you need collaboration and you need this magical collision of people who have shared identities.\u201d<\/p>\n How Somewhere Good actually executes this mission will rely heavily on its product, which is still in its infancy. Right now, Austin shared that they have made intentional choices to remove what she sees as the \u201cempty noise\u201d of other social media platforms. At this point, there are no advertisements on Somewhere Good, no user profiles, no friending, no following and no feed.<\/p>\n Notably, this differentiation is also one of Somewhere Good\u2019s biggest challenges.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen building something new, it potentially feels like we are taking it away from the users,\u201d she said. \u201cFor example, taking profiles away may feel like it is a less than, versus that it is additive in the long run because you no longer have to have a perfect profile and worry about users.\u201d<\/p>\n Chief community officer is the new CMO<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The startup is testing out user reaction to these sorts of fundamental structural changes over the next couple of weeks. Somewhere Good also launched SHIFT<\/a>, a $50,000 year-long fellowship program, to invite people to join the team and create a feedback loop on product, team and community, as well as explore some of the ideas that Austin is experimenting with today.<\/p>\n \u201cWe still aren\u2019t going to be able to make the most perfect platform for everyone on Earth to start, and we know that, but in doing so we\u2019ve created a fellowship to help inform us, and kind of heads down and deploy that occurs when you\u2019re building a product.\u201d<\/p>\n The app was meant to go into beta in January 2020 but that has now been pushed to the second half of 2021 so the team could continue to tweak the product. The beta will be invite-only to start, including 50 to 75 communities and their members that Somewhere Good has vetted beforehand and the some 5,000 people on its waitlist.<\/p>\n Somewhere Good\u2019s monetization plan is also in the early innings, and the founder says it will focus on that more when the app reaches scale.<\/p>\n Clubhouse, an app valued at $1 billion that is similarly focused on community and spontaneity, could be seen as competition to Somewhere Good. Clubhouse has an exploration page that helps users discover different clubs, and it also built out a creator network to bring high-quality, recurring content to its platform.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a solid company,\u201d Austin said. \u201cBut I think they\u2019ve struggled with really big questions and I think that there are solutions and answers out there that Clubhouse has chosen not to embed to their platform, and that was simply a choice that they made.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, she doesn\u2019t seem fazed.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like most of the platforms that exist are taking what already exists and kind of putting a veneer on it,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with repainting, but then it\u2019s just repainting.\u201d Reinventing feels like an outsized opportunity.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI believe if we get Somewhere Good right, it can replace many of the apps on your phone,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you think about it, where you receive the most value, outside of the calculator app, is with your friends and the people you know and trust.\u201d<\/p>\nExtracting the buzz from Community<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Entering the Clubhouse<\/h2>\n
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