From launch to shutdown in less than one day – the rise and fall of celebrity chat app Sociabl
When Sociabl launched on Monday, the tech sector waited with bated breath. But things quickly turned sour. Nic Christensen looks at what went wrong.
Sociabl was meant to be a positive news story – not that you’d know that from the torrent of negative stories on everything from news.com.au, to Mashable, Smart Company, Crikey and Business Insider.
It had all the required elements of a major tech launch: Young founders? Check. A cool new app promising to connect celebrities with their fans? Check. A multi-million dollar superyacht to host the media launch? Check. A string of celebrity endorsers? Er, this may be where Sociabl ran into trouble.
In fact, founders 21-year-old Brandon Reynolds and 22-year-old Jarrad Hrotek ran into real trouble on Monday when Reynolds appeared on Channel Nine’s Today Show where he was interviewed by stand-in host David Campbell, who was touted as an endorser of the app – which allows people to pay to chat with celebrities for a fee – when in fact the presenter knew nothing about it.
Not surprised to see Max Markson in the middle of this.
Two words: brogrammers
Today’s “takedown” might have had more cred if they had checked their supers before airing. “Mislead celebs”? I think they mean “misled”. Sounds like these guys were just young and out of their depth. Not sure they deserved this treatment.
This feels like a dumb question, but what is the app designed to do?
I would have saved the Jatz and cocktail onions for the 1yr mark.
@ellymc – make gormless investors part with their money.
@ellymc from what I can tell people were supposed to pay money to chat with celebrities through the app – I’m assuming in text format, not actual voice calls. Why anyone would bother is beyond me, there seems to be plenty of celebrities who are happy to chat with fans, at no cost, on Twitter.
I have a question.
Is there someone I can pay $500 to that would allow me to never hear of sociabl again?
I would double that to $1,000 to never hear from Max Markson as well.
Sincerley.
The Internet.
So they are young, and will learn from their mistakes but they are enthusiastic, capable and with the right mentoring could be real innovators.
I’d hire them, but probably keep them on a short leash 😉
A couple of nerdy kids who have squandered a few hundred grand of their mum and dads spare change which ultimately will end up as a nice 2015/16 tech research and development tax credit.
@ellymc, @Kathryn – it’s at the very top of his post!
“To give some context to those who may not have it… Sociabl is my startup (founded with Jarrad Hrotek) that allows fans, or really anybody, the opportunity to purchase a video call with their favourite celebrities.”
Sounds like a brilliant idea to me. It seems they’ve been strung along by managers and reps, and ultimately launched too early without having actual approvals. Shame…
@Josh – A brilliant idea, really? All this amazing, almost magical technology and what we get is a monetised means to do what people can already do through existing social media platforms?
And ‘ello’ (see what I did there) like we need yet another social media platform to begin with.
10,000 years of civilisation and it amounts to an app that supposedly allows the gullible to pay to ‘chat’ with the pointless.
I agree with you, Dee. I’m not sure they deserved this treatment and feel pretty sorry for them. But I really don’t think they got the product/market fit right at all. Yes Kathryn, you can already connect for free on Twitter – and even then, the engagement on Twitter is becoming non-existent.
@Andrew Bolt and Gina Rineharts Lovechild: excellent idea, sounds like a startup waiting to happen!
There’ll be a lot more failures such as this in the future. Jumping the gun, perhaps without the benefit of good research and solid deals.
@Josh “…to purchase a video call with their favourite celebrities.”
That sounds like someone came up with what sounded like a nice idea but forgot to think about the business model. What celebrity is going to do a paid video call with some random for any amount of money that’s less that five figures? Makes no sense whatsoever.
I’m a bit torn on this one. While no doubt these boys have made some grave errors, the takedown by Today was uncalled for and has had grave consequences for these young men. I hope they’re able to pick themselves up and move on.
I read that Garry Ablett Jnr had 2 video calls via Soiabl for $2,500 each , I also read that no charity’s have any connection with Sociabl, My question is where did the $1,250 wich is the half promised to charity go, mmmm
Poor bastards. To get all that way and be cut off at the knees. They just needed some quality grown-up advice. Line up your celebs, lock in the agreements, then execute the publicity. The idea is solid. The execution was a disaster.
I hope this isn’t the beginning of the undoing of public support for new ideas and entrepreneurial support from those who have an audience to help build awareness.
Who hasn’t been close to feeling exposed like this?! I hope people like Max and others around young / un-experienced starters ensure due-diligence is done before letting start-ups out of the gate and into the public arena.
Mentors come in all shapes and sizes… and should be mindful of their responsibility that it doesn’t stop with a quick exchange of cash and an expectation all is ok.
They need to ask questions and lots of them before commencing their agreement work with them.
On another note…
after reading the open letter on their website… The lesson here is to always… always have it in writing!
They know this already and have a recorded account summary of screenshot emails and correspondence as part of their letter to the public. Sadly, just not where it counted… with the the celebrity managers. Their core part of their business.
This is where they went wrong and could have shot Ch9 and anyone else down – very easily.