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

EP 440: $700k MRR, 100,000 Pay $7/mo For Gay Dating App Hornet, Will Beat Grindr?

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