Ello

What did it do?

Ello was a social network opened to the public by Paul Budnitz and Todd Berger in March 2014, promising never to show ads or treat users as the product. With its minimalist design it positioned itself as an alternative to Facebook. Over time it turned into a Pinterest-like community of creators focused on art, photography, fashion and web culture.

Why did it shut down?

Despite a sudden wave of interest in September 2014, VentureBeat observed that users were joining in droves but posting very little. Its structure as a public benefit corporation, legally ruling out advertising, limited its revenue options to T-shirt sales, buy links and planned paid features. The site was criticised for being buggy and for its overly sparse design, and its audience gradually narrowed to a small community of artists. In 2018 Talenthouse acquired Ello for an undisclosed sum. In July 2023 the network shut down completely.

The story

In the last week of September 2014, Vox reported that 31,000 people an hour were trying to join a social network called Ello. The trigger was the way Facebook was enforcing its real-name policy: after a practice seen as excluding drag performers in San Francisco, many people in the LGBTQ community left Facebook in search of a new home. That week Ello became the name of the anti-Facebook social network.

Ello began as a private network of seven artists and programmers. A year later Paul Budnitz and Todd Berger redesigned the site and opened it to the public on 19 March 2014 with a manifesto; the promise was an ad-free social network that did not treat users as the product. A $435,000 seed investment from FreshTracks Capital in January 2014 kept the company going in its early days. In October 2014 Ello became a public benefit corporation legally committed to never selling ads, and raised another $5.5 million.

But the wave of interest did not turn into a lasting habit. VentureBeat observed that users were joining in droves but posting very little. The site was criticised for being buggy and for its overly sparse design. The revenue sources meant to replace advertising also stayed modest: branded T-shirts were sold with Threadless, buy buttons were added to posts and paid features were planned. In June 2015 Ello tried to win back attention with an iPhone app.

Over time the network's audience changed. In 2016 Wired wrote that the early adopters of new social media had abandoned Ello but the artists had stayed. Ello turned into a Pinterest-like community focused on art, photography and fashion, adding buttons that let members collaborate and find work. In 2018 Talenthouse acquired Ello for an undisclosed sum. In July 2023 the network became unreachable and shut down.

Ello's story shows that anger at a rival can make a product popular quickly, but is not enough to keep people. Being ad-free was a strong principle; a revenue model capable of carrying that principle was never fully built.

Lessons for founders

• Have the product features that turn a wave of interest sparked by a rival's bad moment into lasting usage ready before the wave arrives.
• If you make a permanent commitment such as going ad-free, settle the revenue model that will replace it (subscription, commission) on the same day.
• If your audience is turning into a niche community, rebuild the product and cost structure around that community; you cannot carry the costs of a general social network on niche revenue.

Sources

1. Ello (social network) (Wikipedia)
2. Ello Raises $5.5 Million, Legally Files As Public Benefit Corp. Meaning No Ads Ever (TechCrunch, 2014-10-23)
3. 31,000 people an hour are joining the social network Ello. The anti-Facebook, explained. (Vox, 2014-09-26)
4. Ello users: joining in droves, not posting very much - VentureBeat - News Briefs - by Kia Kokalitcheva (VentureBeat, 2014-10-02)
5. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18136409
6. Wikipedia (Turkish)
7. Wikipedia (English)

This section is compiled from public sources (Wikidata, news archives and company announcements). Figures are given as they appear in those sources; unknown fields are left blank. If you spot a mistake in an entry, you can send us a correction.

Is something in this entry wrong? Request a correction → Method