Turning Ideas into Revenue – Social Discovery New York ’24 Roundup

In this roundup of our recent conference in New York City, Social Discovery Insights explores the emerging friend-finding industry and the business insights which are shaping its future.

At last year’s inaugural Social Discovery Insights conference in London, around a dozen entrepreneurs and some dating industry veterans met to discuss the imagination and ideas that were firing the fledgling Social Discovery market.

Little more than six months later more than 40 entrepreneurs – and some returning veterans – heard even more inspiring ideas for new market initiatives, but they also heard about how some of these startups were already focused on how to turn ideas into revenue.

Across the whole conference day, platform after platform talked about monetization. In fact, generating and driving revenue was almost as popular a topic as finding that generous investor that was going to unlock the next stage of growth. 

Selin Sonmez, CEO and Co-Founder of neighborhood app OneRoof, revealed how they were now entering in partnerships with retailers close to each ‘roof’ so that they could offer discounts and deals that not only benefitted the OneRoof community but also drove income to local businesses that might otherwise be overlooked, even by the people on their doorstep.

Meanwhile, Ulrika Lilja and Claudia Gärd of Sweden’s women-only friendship app, GoFrendly – who were among the speakers in London last year – revealed that their recent UK launch had seen a much quicker take-up than expected, so much so that retail brand partnerships were now beginning to take shape that would help GoFrendly accelerate revenue and growth.

And although Olivia DeRamus of women’s wellbeing and support app Communia was wary of seeking advertisers that might seem to exploit her database, she also recognised that her users – while becoming adept at supporting one another – might also benefit from expert coaching and counselling sessions and would be willing to pay for specialist Ted-Talk style group sessions. 

Turning ideas into revenue is the only way that these innovative apps and services can survive – especially if the founders have bootstrapped and funded development themselves. And while good ideas can often attract outside investor funding, showing that those ideas can generate revenue is key to that process.

We were fortunate to explore insightful business initiatives during the day’s discussions, and we look forward to fostering more of these important conversations at our upcoming Social Discovery Insights conference in London on the 26th of September 2024.