Unicorns: A Key to Success in the Internet 2.0 Era - Back in 2005, Gina Bianchini, alongside her high-profile cofounder Marc Andreessen, introduced a new social tool called Ning. At that time, several social platforms, including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Bebo, were experiencing explosive growth. Ning was one of them, capturing the interest of users and investors alike. Bianchini quickly rose to prominence within the social media scene.
Unicorns: A Key to Success in the Internet 2.0 Era
Her innovative approach and success with Ning earned her a spot on Fast Company's cover, and she became a regular speaker at various tech conferences. By the standards of the early 2000s, Ning was one of the most valuable companies in the social media space. Between 2007 and 2009, Ning's registered users doubled every three to four months, enabling the company to raise $130 million in funding. At its peak, Ning's valuation reached $765 million, close to the $850 million AOL paid for Bebo in 2008.
Stagnation and the Rise of Facebook
However, despite Ning’s early success, growth soon slowed. As Facebook grew exponentially, amassing more than half a billion users, the social media landscape changed, and it became evident that there might only be room for one dominant platform. By 2010, the momentum had shifted, and Bianchini left Ning. The new CEO took drastic measures, cutting 40% of the staff and introducing fees for users to maintain their social networks. In 2011, Ning was sold to Glam Media (now known as Mode Media) for $150 million in stock. Andreessen, who had remained involved during the sale, seldom talks about Ning in interviews, and in a recent New Yorker profile, the startup wasn’t even mentioned. Baca juga Sedot WC Medan.
After leaving Ning, Bianchini had to reassess her career and reflect on her purpose as an entrepreneur. With a Stanford degree from 1994 and a reputation for helping others solve challenging professional problems, Bianchini knew she had to channel that energy into reinventing herself. She asked herself important questions: “Why am I an entrepreneur? What’s my mission?”
A New Direction: Mightybell
By the end of 2011, Bianchini had found her new calling. As one of the pioneers of the first wave of Internet 2.0 companies, she possessed an in-depth understanding of what people wanted to do online and what kinds of products could meet those needs. With that knowledge, she co-founded a new company called Mightybell alongside engineer Matteo Melani. This new venture focused on building niche social networks, similar to Ning but with an updated approach.
This time, Bianchini took a more cautious path. Instead of raising massive amounts of venture capital, she started with just $2 million, later adding $4 million from seed investors like Floodgate, First Round, and Cowboy Ventures. Over the next several years, she kept her team small—fewer than 10 people—and quietly built a sustainable business by developing software that customers genuinely needed. Instead of relying on flashy marketing or extensive outreach, Bianchini focused on generating revenue, saying, "The good thing about revenue is it’s not diluted capital."
The Key to Sustainable Growth
Bianchini’s new approach stands in contrast to the strategies employed by many of today’s tech unicorns, like Dropbox and Snapchat, which face skyrocketing burn rates as they expand and build out large sales forces to sustain their growth. In contrast, Bianchini’s Mightybell is steadily adding customers and generating revenue. The company’s strategy prioritizes long-term sustainability over rapid growth.
There is no shortage of companies offering social networking tools, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Asana, and Slack. However, Bianchini has carved out a niche that none of these companies currently address: helping businesses and entrepreneurs create social networks centered around specific interests. This idea began to gain traction in 2013 when Mightybell powered the launch of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In Circles. Following that success, high-profile organizations like American Express, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Intuit QuickBooks approached Mightybell to create specialized social networks for their customers, such as small business owners and teachers.
A New Kind of Social Platform
Mightybell powers 35,000 free networks today and is launching a new service that gives individuals and small business owners—whom Bianchini calls "community entrepreneurs"—the tools to build their own online communities and mobile apps. Mightybell’s customers can create branded communities with their own domain names, landing pages, and membership fees. Using a freemium model similar to Ning’s early strategy, users can sign up and build a basic community for free, but they can also pay a monthly fee for a more robust version or a higher price for a branded mobile app.
Empowering Local Entrepreneurs
While entrepreneurs could build communities through groups on Facebook or LinkedIn, Mightybell offers them far greater control. They gain access to data, a wide range of features, and the ability to customize their networks to reflect their brand’s identity. Additionally, they can eventually launch their own mobile apps and even sell advertising.
Bianchini’s vision for empowering small businesses and community builders is embodied in early customers like Gerard Scarpaci and Randy Taylor, who run Hairbrained, a community for professional hairdressers. Scarpaci and Taylor initially built Hairbrained on Ning in 2009 as a side project to promote their services as educators. It proved successful, bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in sponsorship revenue. However, as Ning’s development stagnated, the pair began searching for a better platform to power their community.
The Hairbrained Success Story
After investing $8,000 in a custom website design, Scarpaci and Taylor learned about Mightybell and decided to relaunch Hairbrained using its beta service. In just one month, nearly 10% of their community had downloaded the app, which they use to share photos of their work, connect with peers, and stay updated on industry news. Scarpaci reports that hairdressers love the platform and are spending more time on it than they did on their old site. “We’re not technology people, but we’ve built this real community that is very valuable,” says Scarpaci. “We’re in 100,000 hairdressers’ pockets.”
Lessons Learned from Ning
In many ways, Mightybell is realizing the vision Bianchini originally set out to achieve with Ning: helping individuals and businesses create and nurture their own social networks. One can imagine that if Ning had not been pressured by investor demands for rapid growth to justify its high valuation, the company might have evolved into a very similar product to what Mightybell is today. Bianchini reflects on the lessons she learned from Ning, noting that venture capital skewed the company’s pricing strategy. “One of the things I took to Mightybell is when people are willing to pay for your product, it allows you to make money from those who are most vested.”
When a startup focuses solely on growth without considering revenue, it runs the risk of imploding quickly, which is something Bianchini is determined to avoid this time around. By taking a more measured approach, Mightybell is poised to thrive in the competitive landscape of Internet 2.0. Bianchini's vision of empowering community entrepreneurs through customized, niche social networks offers a unique solution in a world dominated by massive platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. This time, she's betting on sustainable growth, innovation, and a strong sense of mission to carry her new venture forward.