Startups Anonymous Est. 2013 · Read-only archive
Stories

I Attracted The Wrong Demographics In My Social Network

I built a social networking platform from scratch. Unfortunately, I got traction from the wrong demographics who are not making me any money. These users are mostly teens who are interested in sexting. I feel like my site is getting trashed. I don’t want to be in the business of porn so I ban members who are posting sexually suggestive pics of themselves.

The technology I built is what you see from popular social networks. It’s like Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook rolled into one. My site could easily be like something similar to StackOverflow, Quora, Fancy with just a minor tweaking.

What should I do? I want to pivot to give a clear message on who my social network is for. Right now it’s for everyone just like Reddit.

11 answers from the community

AAnonymous· Oct 16, 2014

Sounds like you're looking at this the wrong way. I can find 10 ways off top of my head how to monetize this niche.

AAnonymous· Oct 17, 2014

I can run adult affiliate but I certainly don't want to turn off normal users who don't want to see this.

My users are mixed, but there's a lot those who are there looking for someone they can do sexting with. And actually, this is turning off some of the users. So my inclination is ban these creepy members.

AAnonymous· Oct 17, 2014

Omegle dealed with it in a very simple way - just gave them an option for "adult" chat. How about "adult" profiles for those who want it, isolated from the rest of the system?

AAnonymous· Oct 16, 2014

Your customers are telling you something, now figure out how to monetize it. How many times have you heard successful companies say "...and then, our customers started using our service in ways we never dreamed of?"

AAnonymous· Oct 17, 2014

My customers are everyone. It just happen right now, majority are creepy guys who just want to find someone they can exchange nude pics. And this is a huge problem for me because this is driving off other members who are not into this.

AAnonymous· Oct 16, 2014

And what social network is this?

AAnonymous· Oct 17, 2014

hello ?

AAnonymous· Oct 17, 2014

Hi

AAnonymous· Oct 19, 2014

You don't have the control here, your users do. Maybe ask the nudists to pay? 'Hey, it looks like you enjoy dick pics! Us too! To deliver high quality dick pic matching algorithms, we ask you to upgrade to free99 per mo'

AAnonymous· Oct 19, 2014

you did't attract the wrong demography, you didn't use a good business model to manage them.How did you acquire most of your sites users? How many of your sites users can boast of having people in their friend list which they know?

AAnonymous· Oct 20, 2014

well...to grow startups buy likes on FB for example (dodgy names from India and Russia)... then CEO wonders why nobody who really cares for a product clicks likes on FB ...

There is no way to correct this, I am afraid.

But you wanted volume, now deal with it.