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
• [email protected] – Sean’s email address
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives