I'm joined by Mady Dewey, the 24 year old cofounder and CEO of Herd Social, a social space focused on community over comparison. By throwing out the social scale, empowering casual creativity and providing experience autonomy, Herd aims to restore authentic expression. In an ecosystem that deprioritizes user well-being, Herd is the greener pasture; grown from honesty, empathy, respect, and discovery.
Mady Dewey and Ali Howard are friends from college, whom after 8 months together in Seattle, found themselves living alone, far from family as COVID-19 hit. In a time of immense isolation, both turned to social media as a way to find community, but as their screen time went up, their mental health went down. Trapped in the game of social comparison and recognizing they needed help, the duo began researching how to improve their well-being and found a theme:
Mady & Ali believe we can do better, not only for women, but for all who have been impacted negatively by current photo-sharing platforms. As mobile-social users since age 2012, Herd's mission is focused on creating a space that would have enriched the lives of their 15 year old selves, not harmed it.
They are re-thinking the content feedback loop, giving users control over their feed, and eliminating inherently addictive features (i.e. pull to refresh), they believe that there is room for a new category of social. Herd can be a tool that helps create a kinder world.
In a media landscape filled with unrealistic beauty standards, harmful comments and toxic highlight-reel culture, Herd aims to be the greener pasture, where users can express their creativity without worrying about what other people think.
In this episode, we talked all about:
-main lessons she got from working in Google and Youtube
-what is it Herd Social and how it started
-when did she realize she could work on it full time and how was that transition
-from 1 to 10, how hard is it to create an app in 2021
-how we put so much trust in algorithms
-where is herd social right now and what are some of the things that differentiate it from other social media platforms
-being a female in tech creating a social media app, in a world that's mainly dominated by men
-advice for anyone that’s struggling with comparison on social media
Hope you enjoy!
Herd Social: https://www.theherdapp.com/
Mady's IG: https://www.instagram.com/madydewey/
My Point Of View on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mypointofview.podcast/
Music: Lukrembo https://soundcloud.com/lukrembo/
