A social product about difference, not sameness.
Wirlix was a Tik Tok for debate where people could connect over different opinions instead of shared interests, responding to videos with videos of their own. To avoid negativity and increase intention, people had to put their face behind what they said so there were no text comments.
It was early in my building journey, and honestly one of my favorite projects to work on. After dropping out of NYU I deeply valued getting different perspectives and opening my mind so this felt like an extension of who I was.
As a solo founder with the help of some awesome friends and interns, we got a creator program running with 20 influencers, reached 1,000+ users, and created 450 debates.
Fun fact: I got to meet Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street himself through this.
Notes
Wirlix was a consumer product with real adoption, at one point we had over 100 people logged in at once. This was my first experience understanding the nuances of adoption and daily active usage. To increase users we had to understand why users were using the app and what types of people ended up enjoying the experience versus not. We initially thought college students would enjoy the app but learned many creators were kicked off of tik tok and other social platforms randomly for stating opinions or posting about taboo topics so they enjoyed the free speech of our platform.
The learning: innovation always starts with a hypothesis that can oftentimes be wrong or not completely right. Talk to your users deeply to understand every perspective and usage pattern. To collect this insight I personally texted every user who signed up for the app asking for feedback and trying to build relationships with them.