Podcasts about growlr

We discussed a few things including:1. Their career journeys  2. The Meet Group3. Noom4. New book Designing Success and female entrepreneurship5. Trends, challenges and opportunities re health, wellness and techGeoff is the CEO of Noom. He is also a serial entrepreneur and long-time public company CEO.He co-founded The Meet Group, a NASDAQ-listed social dating and live-streaming company connecting millions of active users globally. Geoff served as The Meet Group's CEO from 2013 to 2023, leading it through its sale for $500 million in 2020.Geoff grew a live-streaming video & creator economy revenue stream from $0 to in excess of $200 million annualized. Post-acquisition, Geoff also served as co-CEO of the parent company ParshipMeet Group, which includes a portfolio of dating apps including eharmony, MeetMe, Tagged, Lovoo, Skout, Growlr, among others.Under Geoff's leadership, The Meet Group was early to social networking, mobile apps, live-streaming video, and creator economy. A driving force of industry consolidation, Geoff acquired 4 companies and was acquired twice.With smart viral marketing, Geoff grew MeetMe from nothing to millions of active users. With product and strategic vision, he acquired and turned Tagged into a live-streaming video leader. With Livebox, he created a successful enterprise Creator Economy service powering some of the top-grossing social apps in the US.Leveraging product and technology to transform the user experience, Geoff successfully transitioned The Meet Group from an advertising model to a fast-growing live-streaming video & creator-economy solution, ultimately attracting tens of thousands of Creators and powering some of the largest social apps in the world.Under Geoff's leadership, the video Platform-as-a-Service enterprise product that he conceived of — Livebox — launched and grew to power 6 of the top 50 social apps in the US by revenue.Geoff is an expert in building culture across disparate teams. As CEO of The Meet Group, he acquired and integrated 4 companies: Tagged, LOVOO, Skout, and Growlr, into one cohesive culture.While building culture, Geoff also drove efficiency, realizing major cost synergies while growing top-line revenue at every acquisition target, through a combination of off-shoring and building a single shared services platform to power multiple apps.Geoff is the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner for the Philadelphia Region.Geoff graduated from Harvard University in 2000 with a BA in Economics.------Catherine Connelly is an entrepreneur, engaging speaker, and author of Designing Success: Lessons from 20 Years as a Female Tech Entrepreneur. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DM9C9CC4Catherine co-founded The Meet Group, a NASDAQ-listed social dating and livestreaming company connecting millions of active users globally. The Meet Group was acquired in a $500 million sale in 2020.Catherine's nearly two decades of entrepreneurial experience includes co-founding myYearbook at fifteen, creating what would eventually become The Meet Group, and leading brand strategy and marketing for The Meet Group through a series of mergers, acquisitions, and rebrands.Catherine graduated from Georgetown University and holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She was named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner for the Philadelphia Region in 2011.  Catherine has been featured on CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, MTV, ABC News, Fox News, CosmoGIRL, BusinessWeek, the San Francisco Chronicle, and CBS. Catherine writes the newsletter Growing Up Startup, sharing lessons inspired by her entrepreneurial journey.  Subscribe and learn more about Catherine's free office hours at: cconnelly.me.#podcast #AFewThingsPodcast

Online dating and apps such as Grindr, Tinder, Bumble, Scruff, Plenty of Fish, Growlr, and Hinge have become popular but the question is, how do we use them successfully? I walk through my personal experiences and those that I have seen to hopefully make your online dating experiences more enjoyable and help you find your ideal partner sooner. I hope you were able to learn something from this video. I love you all!!!

My name is Fausto Fernós and It's my birthday! I'm proud to say that I'm 50 years old. I'm not one of those gays who's afriad to tell their real age and I like to kick, stretch, and kick. I'm 50. 50 years old.Well you're 50 everywhere except on YouTube-land, Podcast-land, Instagram, Facebook-land, Grindr, Scruff, Growlr, Adam4Adam,Boy Ahoy, Tinder, BeeGeeCee, Christian Mingle, and last but not least, all the other lands across the land.Ok, I'll switch back after a couple of weeks to my original age, 33.Today we're celebrating Fausto Fernós' birthday, my handsome co-host and husband, who along with me created one of the first podcasts in history 17 years ago. We're taking a look at Fausto's life as a Puerto Rican drag queen, stilt-walker, elementary school teacher, fire-eater, musician, line cook, graphic designer, podcast pioneer, lesbian flag designer and bodybuilder, and what it's like to be 50!Plus--➤ US life expectancy suffers a historic decline➤ Hey ya'll, Britney Spears says she's preggers!➤ Weird Easter traditions from around the world.Episode #3021

This week, Anna welcomes Lesley Marshall (Head of @mavnetwork) to talk about dating app perils and mysteries, Covid, and niche city scenes. "Time is a Car" Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGwaUeQdNuE Oh No! Links: https://linktr.ee/iamthecampion Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/Ohnothepod

Carson and Brendo are joined again by James Bosquez to discuss nights 12, 13, and 14 of the Portland's Funniest Person contest. Thanks for listening and tell your friends!

Ken discusses gay men's approach to gay smartphone apps like Grindr and Scruff, and getting your sexual and emotional needs met with a clear perspective. 

Lobbyen var live fra BamseScena i Pride Park 24. juni, og Melinda og Robin snakket med Big Daddy Karsten og John Earhart om bamsekultur! Hva er en bearcub? Hva er Growlr? Hvem kan være bamser? Hvordan kan du bli med i en bear cave? Karsten og John deler sine erfaringer fra det norske bamsemiljøet.

#HomoHomies share their thoughts on dating apps, or what they like to call them: hookup apps! Is dating replaced by hookup culture in the LGBTQIA+ community? Valentine's Day is around the corner and we know it gets lonely! Do you sometimes give in to desperate needs for sex or just to release some stress? Let's talk about it! Grindr, Scruff, Growlr, Jack'd, Sniffies, Tinder, Bumble, Chispa, Adam4Adam, Craigslist -- they're all up for debate. Please share this episode with that hoe in your life! Follow Us: @TheHomoHomiePodcast @TheHomoHomie @TheJoseResendez

Geoff Cook is a serial entrepreneur and currently the CEO and co-founder of The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET), a social dating and live streaming company. You may have heard of some of their platforms, like MeetMe, LOVOO, Skout, Tagged, and Growlr. He recently sold the company for $500 million in September of 2020. He started his first company from his Harvard dorm room and sold it for millions of dollars at the age of 24, he sold his second company for a hundred million dollars in 2011, he's done a ton of stuff in the entrepreneur space, the dating space, and in the live streaming space. We discuss both how to acquire companies, and how to get acquired as an entrepreneur! Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow Follow us on social media @joinentre --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week on the pod, Maria chats with the founder of one of her favorite apps to meet people, MeetMe’s Catherine Cook Connelly!  Catherine is co-founder and SVP, Marketing at The Meet Group. The Meet Group owns and operates the most engaging dating communities in the world, spanning five apps including MeetMe, Skout, Tagged, LOVOO and GROWLr. Serving millions of daters daily, our community sends 70 million chats per day. Each month, our livestreaming solutions entice our community to spend 1.1 billion minutes in video. Our network size, technology, and leading moderation and talent teams enable us to partner for and acquire new audiences, including through video platform-as-service products. The Meet Group, Inc. is a subsidiary of ParshipMeet Group, a diversified international market leader in online dating, which also owns and operates leading matchmaking brands eharmony, Parship, and ElitePartner. In this episode, Maria and Catherine discuss… The history of MeetMe and why the app was created. How MeetMe is different from every other app out there. (it’s not all about dating!) How to connect and chat with someone in a speed dating situation. How to handle a potential long distance relationship at the beginning. Great ice breaker questions to get a conversation going with someone.  Follow Catherine on Twitter Connect with Catherine on LinkedIn To learn how Maria can help you find love in 2021, go to: https://linktr.ee/agapematch Follow Maria on Instagram Follow Maria on TikTok Have a question for Maria? Visit http://askamatchmaker.com Enroll in Agape Match’s Group Coaching Intensive: https://agapematch.com/events To learn more about how Maria and how her team can help you find love, visit agapematch.com    

Big Dipper and Meatball are back at it again to discuss a whole mess of things including the Wendy Williams bio pic, Growlr live, Brandy and Monica, and an update on Kandy Muse News. Plus they listen to some very sloppy voicemails. Listen to Sloppy Seconds Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus Also check out hipdot.com to order Meatball's new makeup palette!  Call us with your sex stories at 213-536-9180! Or e-mail us at sloppysecondspod@gmail.com FOLLOW SLOPPY SECONDS: https://www.instagram.com/sloppypod FOLLOW BIG DIPPER: https://www.instagram.com/bigdipperjelly FOLLOW MEATBALL: https://www.instagram.com/spiciestmeatball SLOPPY SECONDS IS A FOREVER DOG AND MOGULS OF MEDIA (M.O.M.) PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/sloppy-seconds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mrs. Ballcuzzi herself (Muffy) joins me yet again for another hilarious episode of NFWJ. We did this podcast on election day to help soothe the nerves somewhat. Other than the below stories we talked about people with dirty underwear fetishes and age gap relationships. Storie 1: A woman is hired to photograph a couple having sex. Why, you ask? I have no earthly idea. I guess some people like to be watched by strangers, but the photography isn't the kicker in this story. The woman gets so turned on that she decides to join in with the couple... and it doesn't stop there. She has been having a rendezvous with the man in the relationship without the knowledge of his girlfriend. Did I also mention that this woman is married?! WOO CHILE! This one was a whole hot mess.Story 2: A woman wants to know how to improve her sex life with her boyfriend who is 9 years older than her. When they first started dating, the sex was amazing according to her, but since he has been a little distant. I personally believe that it's the age and that she needs to find other ways to be intimate with her boyfriend that doesn't just include sticking a penis in a vagina. She also mentioned he was on medication, so who knows what's going on. I just know she needs to communicate the issues.Story 3: Here we go again with the foot fetishes. LOL. A gay man is having trouble finding other gay men to date who have a foot fetish. HE has tried apps that I hadn't even heard of to find people which includes Scruff, Growlr, Recon, and Manhunt. Maybe I'd have to be a gay man to know about these apps. He even goes on to say he's searched Craigslist... Bad idea. Muffy and I give him the best advice we know-how and more on this episode on NFWJ.References:Pulley, A. (2019, April 8). Ask Anna: A couple invited me to photograph them during sex, but I joined in. Retrieved from https://www.chicagotribune.com/redeye/ct-redeye-ask-anna-watching-another-couple-have-sex-cheating-voyeurism-0411-story.htmlPulley, A. (2019, January 14). Ask Anna: I'm a gay man with a foot fetish. How do I meet men who are also into feet? Retrieved from https://www.chicagotribune.com/redeye/ct-redeye-ask-anna-gay-male-foot-fetish-kink-sex-20190109-story.htmlTallon-Hicks, Y. (2020, May 11). The V-spot: I blame myself for my partner's low libido. Retrieved from https://yanatallonhicks.com/2020/05/libidos/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/nofactswithjenn)

Growlr...and all the stuff that goes with it.

Growlr...and all the stuff that goes with it.

What's cooler than cool? These ice cold polar bear facts. Drag Superstar, and general sweetheart, Holly Baloo guests this week to talk about everything from delayed implementation to the beauty of fireflies, how important toilets are, and how to classify humans for dating apps.

Hot take Tuesday. Doug can't get the lug nuts off his golf cart. Threesome apps. Iggy got hole-in-one on his golf app. Scruff app. Tinder/Bumble strategy. GROWLr is for bears. The dais discuss the best rappers. Yellowstone. Kevin Costner. Fashion through the years. FPCC committee announces that handicaps will be updated following round 2. GP defends HOV.   

Hot take Tuesday. Doug can't get the lug nuts off his golf cart. Threesome apps. Iggy got hole-in-one on his golf app. Scruff app. Tinder/Bumble strategy. GROWLr is for bears. The dais discuss the best rappers. Yellowstone. Kevin Costner. Fashion through the years. FPCC committee announces that handicaps will be updated following round 2. GP defends HOV.   

Right now, you're probably longing for real, human contact and you might be feeling stressed out and lonely. Moving to socialize online as you're observing ever-shifting distancing guidelines can be daunting, but you may have a better opportunity virtually to connect with others than ever before!    EPISODE 146 of The Charisma Quotient Podcast is titled:  Digital Dating Trends And Social Connection:  Interview With Geoff Cook     This week, Kimmy addresses this issue with an authority on the topic of virtual connection, serial entrepreneur Geoff Cook. Geoff is the CEO and co-founder of Meet Group, a social dating and live streaming company behind Meet Me, Tagged, and Growlr. Kimmy and Geoff jump right in to talk about how people are using technology differently to connect, date and find sustained love.    Kimmy asks Geoff to shed some light on the major trends in the virtual dating space and how our current reality of physical distance has created a space for fun new ways to connect. You'll hear some fascinating stats on how the increased desire for virtual and video options across all age groups. Plus, Geoff delves into the future of virtual dating. You may be surprised to find out that video and live streaming are here to stay, even after quarantine -- listen in to hear why!  Kimmy highlights the importance in combining technology, first impression management and conversational skills training in order to be a successful dater today.  This discussion is incredibly informative and will help broaden your perspective about how to navigate the dating landscape now and in the future.    If you are feeling disconnected and you want to know how to make a great first impression online to meet someone, reach out to Kimmy for help. You can sign up for a complimentary call with Kimmy here: meetme.so/kimbreakthrough It's one thing to swipe through matches at a record pace, and it's another to understand how to make a real, genuine connection online. All it takes is one call to start your journey to meet this new reality.   EPISODE 146 of The Charisma Quotient Podcast is titled: Digital Dating Trends And Social Connection:  Interview With Geoff Cook.  The Charisma Quotient Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and many of your other favorite podcast channels. ⁣ ************************************************⁣ The Charisma Quotient Podcast: Building Confidence, Making Connections, and Finding Love from the Outside In is hosted by Kimmy Seltzer. ⁣ ************************************************⁣ Kimmy Seltzer is a Confidence Therapist and Authentic Dating Strategist implementing targeted style, emotional and social intelligence to your life. ⁣ ************************************************⁣ Sharing a wide array of relational topics, The Charisma Quotient Podcast focuses on the themes of building confidence, making connections, and finding love from the outside in.⁣ ************************************************⁣ This Podcast is available on:⁣ Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/Charisma_Quotient ⁣ Libsyn: https://charismaquotient.libsyn.com/⁣ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2mLh5AwLC0xryeKzKyph2g And many other podcast sites. ************************************************⁣ Would you like to connect with Kimmy?⁣ Website: https://kimmyseltzer.com/⁣ Chat: https://meetme.so/kimbreakthrough⁣ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kimmyseltzer/ ⁣ Facebook: https://facebook.com/kimmyseltzer/   Join her FREE Facebook Group Love Makeover Insiders: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lovemakeovers

In this episode of COL Drag Race ‘T-Time’, Gary and Damon ru-view the next installment of RPDR. The top six (AGAIN!) are challenged with presenting a one-queen show. From the ridiculous to the sublime, listen in as the guys critique the queens’ performances. Which queen deserves a standing ovation and which one should get the … Continue reading COLDR: S12E011: One Woman Show →

Aneesh’s Instagram gets shadowbanned, so Auntie Aneesh has come back in full force and hashtags, discovers a new way to market his events on Growlr, the 90s rap episode of season 6 of Drag Race, & much more! You can get our merch at teespring.com/stores/botmainstream! Whether you’re a Professionally Petty, Read My Lisp, or a SloMoSexual kind of queen, there’s something for you!

Geoff Cook is a serial entrepreneur and public company CEO. He started his first company from a Harvard dorm and sold it for millions of dollars at age 24. He sold his second company for $100 million. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET), a social dating and livestreaming company with a $400+ million market cap. He has spent $200 million in the last 3 years buying 4 companies, including most recently, Growlr, a dating app for gay bears. Geoff also runs the leading podcast player, Podcoin, and can drive thousands of listening hours and hundreds of subscribers to podcasts on which he appears. Geoff is the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner for the Philadelphia Region. He is also a children's book author and a mentor at Princeton University's Keller Center. He lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife, two daughters, and son. Website: https://www.themeetgroup.com/ https://www.podcoin.com/ Twitter: @geoffcook @themeetgroup @podcoinapp LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/meetme https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-cook-0a35ba3 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themeetgroup/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetmeapp/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MeetMeVideos

A Digital Meet Cute  How Geoff Cook linked up dating apps and live-streamed video to form a happy and profitable relationship. Geoff Cook has built a small empire of successful meeting and dating apps—beginning long before anyone ever swiped right on Tinder—by following a philosophy of fearlessly trying new things.  “Ten years from now, what will I have regretted—losing half a million dollars or not having done the thing that I wanted?” Of course, the fact that he has a half a million dollars to lose in the first place should be some indication that a lot of those risks have paid off. Thanks to a series of auspicious business decisions, starting with a profitable essay and resume editing business he launched as a sophomore at Harvard, Cook is living proof that experimentation lies at the heart of a successful startup career. While his fellow Harvard-attendee Mark Zuckerberg was busy refining Facebook, Cook launched his own spin on a social media platform. Rather than focusing on adding friends that users already knew in real life, his platform would be geared toward meeting entirely new people. So myYearbook was born. Today, myYearbook has evolved, changed hands, and expanded to encompass a whole collection of meeting and dating apps, all housed under The Meet Group, where Cook serves as CEO. “I tend to be a tinkerer,” he says. “I’ll push forward an idea even if it seems strange, just because it’s an itch and just keep moving the ball forward. Sometimes, opportunities fall out of that, and sometimes you just lose a lot of money. But it’s an itch I had to scratch.” In this instance, Cook’s itch proved to be so much more. Extracurricular Activities  Cook started his first business in 1997 when, while still writing college essays of his own, he decided to put his economics classes to work and start a small side hustle editing his classmates’ papers and resumes. But in astoundingly short order, EssayEdge and ResumeEdge had scaled to millions in revenue, and the Thomson Corporation was knocking at his door with an acquisition offer. So Cook sold his first business in 2002, and just like that, he had the seed money to begin his first post-grad venture. But it wasn’t until he was in his mid-20s, when the social media era had just begun, that the light bulb flicked on. “The thought was that there needs to be a place to connect to people you don’t know,” he says. “It seemed both MySpace and Facebook were heavy into connecting to your real life friends.” Teaming up with his brother and sister, who were both still in high school, he created a social network designed to introduce rather than deepen existing friendships. Using games and his search algorithm, making new connections was simple. All they needed now were users. Luckily, the Cooks had the perfect in. At Montgomery High School in Skillman, NJ, where both of the younger co-founders were still in school, myYearbook rolled out in 2005. In the first two weeks, there were hundreds of users. Within nine months, there were over a million. But the road to a million required some clever maneuvering. “I think we built a pretty good mousetrap in the beginning, but we had nobody in it,” he says, laughing. “What really helped it take off was…we were able to create this great quiz app that ended up getting millions of users every month.” Reminiscent of today’s Buzzfeed quizzes, users would take a quiz to determine what Seinfeld character they were most similar to. They would then share their results on their MySpace profile, and when a friend—intrigued to learn whether they were an Elaine or a Kramer—clicked on the link, it whisked them away to myYearbook where they were invited to register. “Quizzes are a very high-uniques business,” Cook says. “You get a lot of uniques, but you get very few page views per unique, because you only basically need to see the quiz and the quiz result. So we turned that business from two page views per user to closer to two or three hundred, because we brought them into a very social experience.” Once the former MySpace users began chatting with the new people they met through myYearbook, the platform blossomed. “That was when we were basically off to the races,” Cook says. But unfortunately, “the races” had an expensive entry fee. ‘The Servers Were Melting’  “We had to raise some money,” Cook says. “The servers were melting. The traffic was growing. The expenses were going up.” So, in 2006, to keep their rapidly growing platform afloat, Cook and crew decided to begin their first round of funding. The success of this venture round left them with enough money to put a team and an office together. The social media website continued to flourish, and in 2008, they began a Series B round of funding that enabled them to raise $12.8 million just before the financial crisis laid waste to the economic landscape.  Grateful for their luck, but tired of raising capital, they vowed that this second round of funding would be their last, which meant only one thing: it was time to monetize. Luckily, Cook had a rapt audience at his disposal. “I’m of the belief that if you can amass a big enough audience…you can monetize it,” he says, “especially if it’s an engaged audience that’s spending 10 or 20 or 30 minutes a day with you.” In 2011, revenue was up to around $25 million to $30 million, and Cook was thinking long term. What was next for his company? When he was introduced to Quepasa—a company similar to myYearbook but for South America, and the first publicly traded social network—he knew he’d found a fit. The two companies merged, transforming myYearbook into a publicly traded company, and Cook thought the time had come to rename the company, as well. “We were always a social network for meeting new people, but the name [myYearbook] to people who didn’t know that made people think of Classmates.com,” he says. “It was not really what we were about, so we changed the name to Meet Me.” As part of the merger, Cook stepped into the role of COO with the intention that he would soon move back into the CEO role. In 2013, he made his return as CEO of the company, a position he has held since. When asked how the job of CEO at a private, venture capital-funded company differed from that of a publicly traded company, he says that the two roles are far more similar than they are different. In a privately owned, venture-backed company, he says, the CEO answers to several large investors who are knowledgeable about the industry and who demand growth. It’s the same for a CEO whose company goes public, he says. There are just a whole lot more investors to keep happy. Cook says it can be difficult to know when the time has come to take a company public, but he did offer some insight for founders. “I think the best time to be public would be when you have a lot of insight into your future revenues and profits,” he says. “One of the key differences of a public versus private company is that…you offer some guidance for the year—or even long-term guidance—on how the business is going to go, and then you’re measured to a quarterly yardstick on that.” Without a degree of foresight, he says that going public would be an extremely difficult task. “If you don’t have enough insight into your business to know your revenues except within a very wide range, or to know your profits except within a very wide range, that’s probably not the best candidate to be public,” he says. “You’re just setting yourself up to have some very bad quarters. In other words, the key is predictability. But he reminds business owners that even the most predictable companies can present a challenge. “You’re never gonna know everything, and there’ll always be some surprises, because things happen,” he says. But despite the added pressures and challenges, Cook insists that there are many advantages to being publicly traded. “There’s definitely pros and cons of being public,” he says, “but I would say we’ve had more pro than con.” And the primary advantage of going public for Cook was a clear path toward acquiring other companies.  Forming the Group  Not long after myYearbook became Meet Me, the business was renamed The Meet Group, the moniker it’s known by today. Because the business encompassed more than a single app, the name change was apt, and it only became more appropriate as the years passed. In late 2016, The Meet Group acquired Skout, a meet-up app that was approaching its 10th birthday. Then in 2017, they acquired Tagged, the San Francisco-based meeting app with high engagement in the African-American community, and Lovoo, a European dating app. And this year, The Meet Group also acquired GROWLr, a dating app geared toward the gay community. But Cook says all of these acquisitions stemmed from a strategy inspired by one popular Chinese dating app. The company decided to start building a live-streaming video product after seeing its success at a Chinese dating platform called Momo.  Cook felt the app was somewhat similar to Meet Me, and when Momo added live streaming, he says that about 90 percent of Momo’s revenue was a result of that service. The Meet Group wanted to give it a try. “We were also kind of clear-eyed enough to know that building a live-streaming business is a big commitment,” Cook says. “It’s essentially kind of an all-in sort of company bet.” It was the kind of bet Cook was comfortable making. So they dove in headfirst and got to work building up the infrastructure, talent, and moderation capabilities they would need to execute their plan. And it paid off in tens of millions. Cook says that their annualized live video revenue grew from $0 to $82 million in just 16 months. This became the inspiration behind their acquisition of meeting and dating apps—to integrate video and watch as revenues skyrocketed. “If we believed in our story enough to make that bet, well, then we could make that bet again and again,” he says. “There’s no reason not to double down, triple down, quadruple down on it.” As they acquired social apps and fitted live-streamed video into them, they noticed that the engagement on those apps markedly increased. “In meeting- and dating- and chat-oriented communities, there’s often periods of time where you just don’t have any inbound chats,” he says. “So, it’s kind of boring.” But rather than exiting the app, the users of the video-fitted apps can simply hop into the tab labeled “Live” during those gaps. “Our users are coming to us for human connection,” he says. “Meeting new people is kind of all about that. Interactive live video is actually human connection, right?” Cook says that around 20 percent of their users visit the live streaming sections of the apps each day and that those users, on average, spend 20 minutes more a day on the app. Users can watch popular streamers, send them comments and witness their reactions. They can also buy and send digital gifts to the streamer. “They do this because they want the attention of the streamer,” he says. “It’s almost like buying someone a drink at the bar. You don’t have to, but if you want a better shot, you maybe should.” Cook is pleased with the success The Meet Group has found by incorporating live streaming into the apps—but he still has his eyes on Momo. Thirty percent of the Chinese app’s users visit the live section daily, a goal that Cook wants to push toward. He also wants to continue pushing the boundaries of live video and sees one-on-one live video and various video dating experiences in the company’s future. As the social media landscape continues to coalesce around a select few apps, this self-proclaimed tinkerer believes that the unique nature of his business will allow it to keep flourishing. After all, as long as there are people searching for connection, there will always be a need to meet someone new. Interview by Nathan Chan, feature article reprinted from Foundr Magazine, by Erica Comitalo Key Takeaways How Cook’s resume editing side hustle at Harvard eventually led to an acquisition offer Why Cook decided to take a different route from MySpace and Facebook The surprising tactic that led to myYearbook surpassing a million users in nine months How Cook approached the funding and monetization of myYearbook The road to becoming a publicly traded company and the lessons learned How The Meet Group was born Why an investment in the live-streaming business changed the game What Cook has his eyes on for the future of The Meet Group

Company of one and other wisdom is on the cards today in the Join Up Dots business coaching podcast. Lets start with some major words to get into your head. When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK David Ralph Yes. Hello. Good morning. Good morning everyone across the world. How are you welcome to Join Up Dots. Yes, the global hit show, the business motivation conversation, inspirational show, that is literally driving you guys to success. Its driving you guys forward. And for a long while it was driving me into an early grave. But I'm things things are a lot more on an even keel.   This Week In Join UP Dots This week's been a bit of a bit of an unusual week, because I've been away. I often say that I'm very good at disconnecting. But it's very hard to 100% disconnect. It's very hard not to just go "Oh, I'll go on the internet, I just do this. And I just do that." This week, I've been trying my hardest to really be free from everything, not knowing what's going on in the news, not knowing what the football result are. And Im about 80% achieving my aim. I needed to do that because I started to feel myself getting a little bit frazzled by the amount of work I was taking on. That's kind of what I'm going to be talking about today. Because when you start your online business, when you start any business, more often than not, you go for the dream. I suppose the dream isn't what the dream ends up being. Because first of all, you start with a tiny little dream thinking "Oh, as long as I can get x y Z, then ill be alright". It's a kind of scraping through kind of dream. Which is perfectly acceptable, because you haven't moved through to the next stage where you you've had the proof. As my wife always says, "When I see it, I'll believe it. "   When I See It I'll Believe It And so that's what happens in Join Up Dots and everyone that I coach  have to have that moment of realisation that this can work. Now, when they're starting to build it, you set a ceiling on what you need. More often than not, I call it my keeping the lights on figure. That point when you can get to a certain point where you go, "Yeah, we're okay now. I'm actually earning the income. That means that the bills are paid, but I've got free time and everything is good." But of course, of course, things get a little bit greedy. It's very hard not to go out and just squeeze in another client, or just do another little bit of this and a little bit of that. I found myself falling into that trap where I was actually starting to think, "Oh my god, I need to do this and then I need to do that. " In many ways, it wasn't becoming fun. It wasn't when I was connecting with people and thinking, "I'm really looking forward to this" It was like what I need to get this done because I got another person straight afterwards. So I've tried to clear the decks, I've gone back to basics with Join Up Dots where I'm doing the bare minimum. But what I need to do to actually sort of make a living. And if you can make a living, that's great. If you make a greedy living then more often than not, it comes with certain sort of restraints.   Matt Devella And Minimalism  You know, along that line, when I did dip into the internet, I saw this video now there's a guy that I've mentioned on the show called He's on YouTube, and he does a lot of lifestyle design videos, and they're very good. They're very professional. But as with most things, once you've seen a few of them, you start to think, "okay, you're kind of repeating yourself." It must be very hard as it is with Join Up Dots . I'm sure after 1500 shows, you guys are going "God, he's talking about the same thing. He's constantly telling us Yes, you can go out and do it." And I'm gonna keep on doing that. I will keep on doing that until the last breath is in my body. And I'm laying there. And I say," Did it work? Did it work? " And we open the window.and if I hear crying and mourning across the globe, and I'm hoping Yes, it's worked and join up dots delivered what I was hoping for. Anyway back to Matt Devella, as these are really good videos. And one of the ones I watched this week was a minimalist approach to business. Now I like minimalism, although I am more into , which I will actually talk about later. But is how you reduce everything in your life to that which you need. You don't need to be out having to work to support them. Now, it's a long standing principle, really, so many people are going to work just to pay for that car loan, which they don't actually get a chance to use because they're going to work to pay for it. They have a big mortgage too, and they're supporting a lifestyle that isn't conducive to having life experiences.   Life Is About Having Your Breath Taking Away I saw a sign in the pub the other day. It said something like, "Life isn't about the amount of breaths you take. It's about the amount of moments that your breath is taken away." That's brilliant, isn't it, where it's all about having those experiences and those moments when you say "Oh, my God, that is wonderful." I think most of us don't get many of those because we're so busy just living a life and sort of moving on. Now, Matt, the minimalist guy. He done that. H has stripped his life down. He's made it very basic. He was talking to a guy called , who's got a book out which I jumped onto Amazon and bough.  I bought his book "Company of One", which is saying, staying small is the next big thing for business. The principle which is building minimalism into your business. So not to think to yourself "Right? I want to have a million pound a month." Instead saying "If I can get to my keep the lights on figure, and then double it. That's good enough. That's, that's fine." So if I could get like two clients a month, and that gives me what I need, and then double, why go for five clients and 10 clients? Why get staff and employees? You keep it all stripped back. Now one of the things he was talking about is how so many people people start paying for employees. When you're better off is having people on contract that only get paid when you need them. So they're kind of non paid employees. So if you're sort of struggling with your website design and your email marketing list, have somebody that is ready, and you've signed them off, and you know them and you trust them. You can say, "Jane, Jane, I need you to do that today." And she does it. When you pay her, it's not an employee, but it's a contracted worker to keep your business small, meaning that you can just focus in on what you're doing. Well when I was watching that video i was thinking "Yeah, I think that's what I need to do." Because I've taken on so many client, which is brilliant, me, my 30 day business coaching course, has been flying, and which is great. But as I say you get a bit frazzled. And you think to yourself, "Actually, I can't do this. And I can't do that, because I've got this person to speak to"   Building Your Own Company Of One So that's what I've been doing. If you jump onto YouTube and look for that Company of One, why staying small, it's the next big thing in business by Paul Jarvis and Matt, they develop a very interesting conversation. The other thing that I'm going to say is I want to read an email. Now I won't give this guy's name, but I'm going to be speaking to him live tomorrow. I just wanted you guys to hear somebody out there who's listening to the show. I will tell you that his name's Scott, nothing else, nothing else. But I will tell you, he's named Scott. And I'm going to be speaking to him live tomorrow. He's connected with me. And I'm gonna, I'm going to try to help him on his way. He said me? I'm Scott. Good morning David massive fan of the show. Thank you for the effort you put in, I know you're a busy guy. So out of 12 months anyway, so I'll be brief. I'm totally into your way of thinking. My goal is to create an online business, that I can operate from anywhere and spend more time doing what I want, when I want, who I want with, just don't tell the wife. The issue is I'm totally lost as to what the business will be. The more podcasts and videos I watch, the more lost I get. I totally understand that. You can go into sort of analysis paralysis, as they say where every single person's got a point of view. I always say to people find two or three people that you really believe in and ignore everybody else. Now, I still got the same two. But I look at all the time. One of the guys is Pat Flynn from Smart Passive income. And the other is a guy called . He's taken his podcast into seven figures. It would be stupid for me not to at least go over every now and again and have a look at what he's doing and how he's structuring it. Everybody else I ignore, got no interest in them. I just go for the two guys I believe in and I trust and you should do as well. Now, Scott says, "The issue is I'm totally lost as to what that business will be. And the more podcasts and videos I watched the more Lost I get. Digital marketing, affiliate marketing, FBA, God knows, I'm just getting stressed trying to figure out what way to go. I'm open to anything, I just need to be shown the path and not told I'm going to be worth a million quid in a week's time. Now that is one of the thing I loved about this email. And that's why I decided to connect with him. Because I hate these things where you see somebody next to their infinity pool. It's not their bloody infinity pool. They've just gone on holiday and said to somebody else "Can I make a video and jump into the infinity pool?" Or they walked past a jet while they're trying to get into EasyJet, and they taken a quick photograph of themselves. So it looks like their lifestyle. I don't believe any of it. I really don't. I think most of it is total rubbish out there. I'd much rather see somebody wearing, you know, a pair of jeans and a T shirt and saying, you know, I live my life. I go and pick the kids up from school, I come home, I do three hours work. And I make a full time income. To me that is far more doable, and far more believable than what these people are saying "Yes, if you follow me, you can be a millionaire in a week's time, total total rubbish. " Scott also says "I don't need a Lamborghini, Chelsea and New York homes, I'd be happy knowing every month the bills are paid no matter where I am in the world". And that is totally doable. It really is. And there's three ways you've got to think about how to do this.   The Three Ways To Build A Company Of One You've really got to stop thinking about affiliate marketing. It's great, but it's small potatoes. You've got to step more into the bigger part of the business. If you've got something that you can do, and believe me, you will have something that you can do that somebody else wants, you can become that product and that service . You then making more money. Now what you then need to do is obviously separate yourself from the business by training somebody up to be able to do what you do so that you can then service two people. You can scale it and it doesn't mean that you're trapped in the business. It's just you have to get the ball rolling. Now there was a guy on the show the other day called Geoff Cook, who is the founder or Growlr, the Gay Bear app. Yeah I bet Yogi's having a great old time in the woods. The was saying that at the beginning, he started a CV resume business in college. He was doing all the work himself.  He had to until he could find people that would help him. And then his issue was about how to make sure those people remain good. Keeping the quality up. So there's certain issues at the beginning. But the strategy really is if you can put yourself into the service, first of all, you're going to start making more money.   Why My Company Of One Was An Early Failure  I think with Join Up Dots I screwed up on that. I kind of thought that you could just make a podcast, be like a radio host and make a million pounds. But of course that's not the case. You've got to be more in your business than out of your business. Now Scott also says "I'm a builder of 25 years working self employed and although massive potential in the industry, I fell out of love with it and the desire for the online business lifestyle you dangle" Yes, my dangling out, I dangle in front of him every week. "I know that there's a shitload of work ahead of me. And that's something I don't have a problem with at all. Please help or show me where to start maybe. So I love that email. There's realism, there's understanding that it takes work. There's understanding, that you aim to pay your bills. There's understanding that yes you could be a millionaire but who wants to you know? I used to want to be a millionaire. And now when somebody says to me, "David I'm going to Be a Millionaire Next year, I just go Yeah, go and go for it." # Because making a million pounds online, does happen. But it's difficult, more difficult than making a replacement income from what you've got at the moment to where you want to be. But you've got the free time, you've got the choices, you've got all that kind of stuff. That is totally doable. That is a company of one. So I suppose in a summary of blending this podcast in with the company of one, why staying small is the next big thing for business, and Scott's honest realization of what it takes. I think that I was on the wrong track recently, I think I've started to go for certain points of business. Well, as I said, I'm aiming for a million listeners. Now I am I'm still aiming for a million listeners, because that's part of my overall strategy. That doesn't mean that I've got to do any more work, I've just got to do the right things behind the show. Totally doable, and will bring me a lot of rewards. Lovely, lovely, lovely. But on the other side, I can have too many clients, which means that I am restricted from having a life and feeling frazzled. Wanting to disconnect and hide out online. Can't do that, because that's not going to be good for me. You got to think about that right at the very beginning. You got to think about how much you're willing to put in. But always having that ability to separate yourself, you know, don't trap yourself, paint yourself closer to the door, but then leave yourself on the other side of the door that you can close it up behind you and disappear. I can literally turn off for months at a time my business will still operate I close it up. I'd say I'm not going to take any more coaching clients any more mentoring clients and then I'll come back in August or September or whatever and then I will go again totally controllable. That is the company of one, I am heading for.

Introducing The Growlr Founder Geoff Cook Today's guest joining us on the Join Up Dots business coaching is a serial entrepreneur and public company CEO. He started his first company from a Harvard dorm and sold it for millions of dollars at age 24. He sold his second company for $100 million. Of all the guests that have appeared on Join Up Dots he is one of the hardest to research. Most have a fixed talent base that they spin their ventures around. However our guest seems more than most to be an "idea" man who has an idea, finds an audience and then BOOM business time. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET), a social dating and live-streaming company with a $400+ million market cap. He has also spent $200 million in the last 3 years buying 4 companies, including most recently, Growlr, a dating app for gay bears.   How The Dots Joined UP For Geoff Cook If you have no idea what a Gay Bear is (I do as I Googled it) this will of course become clear in today's show. Geoff also runs the leading podcast player, , which is an app that pays a digital currency called Podcoin to listen to podcasts. Geoff is the Winner for the Philadelphia Region. He is also a children's book author of "" and a mentor at Princeton University's Keller Center. So as you can see this interview can literally go in any direction, with any question fitting perfectly. I suppose a great one to start with is what is his definition of an entrepreneur, and is this a title that is earnt or actually born with? And do the ideas come more and more easily once the first shoots of success occur in a business? Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. Geoff Cook.   Show Highlights During the show we discussed such weight subjects with Geoff Cook such as: Geoff revealed how he never claimed the badge of an entrepreneur when he first started earning his own cash. It was just something that he did. Geoff talked about his early stages in business and how he knew that he would need to scale as soon as possible We discuss about Product Market fit, and why it is so important to try you best to fit three key strategies - entertainment, status and utility. And lastly...... Why Geoff feels that the Live Streaming is still in its infancy and is ready to explode in all our lives. Watch out NBC and CBS!

Geoff Cook is the Co-founder & CEO of MeetMe and The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET), a social dating and live streaming company with a $400+ million market cap; Geoff has spent $200 million in the last 3 years buying 4 companies, including most recently, Growlr, a dating app for gay bears. Geoff is also the CEO of myYearbook--a social network to meet new people. Geoff Cook helped raise $20 million and grew myYearbook to profitability with 100+ employees and $30+ million in revenue. Geoff started his first companies EssayEdge and ResumeEdge from a Harvard dorm and sold them to The Thomson Corporation for millions of dollars at age 24. He sold his second company for $100 million. He also runs the leading podcast player, Podcoin, and can drive thousands of listening hours and hundreds of subscribers to podcasts on which he appears.   Podcast Highlights   Who is Geoff Cook? Geoff is a husband and father in addition to an entrepreneur. He started his entrepreneurial life in school because he didn’t want to get a job making only a few dollars an hour. Before then he didn’t really have any ideas about being an entrepreneur. Geoff realized that if he wanted to really make some money, selling your time wasn’t going to cut it because it has a linear relationship. You need to create something that isn’t tied directly to your time. He thought that instead of working a regular job, he could create something and potential make nothing, but also potentially make way more money, and at the very least have some fun. Geoff’s first venture was an attempt to just solve a problem, in his case essay and resume editing. He built a website from scratch and slowly grew his business from $10k a year in his first year in college to over $300k a year by the time he graduated. His second business was the social network myYearbook, within 9 months he had acquired over a million users to the site by leveraging existing platforms like Myspace. How much did your education contribute to your business success? In the early days of his first business, Geoff’s education did actually help him figure out what to charge and better tailor the experience to certain people. But it’s hard to draw a straight line from his education to everything that has happened since. Growing a Business Geoff runs a public company called the Meet Group which has a heavy focus on live streaming video. The cost to execute live streaming lead to them start acquiring other apps so they could leverage the infrastructure they already had. In the early days of Myspace and Facebook, creating a viral campaign that acquired email addresses was much easier and very powerful. Today you need to either buy it or build it, in the case of building it you need novelty in order for it to grow. Instead of relying on a lucky strike of a marketing campaign, another strategy to grow is to just buy companies that have already acquired the audience you want to reach. Why is live streaming such an important tool? Regular media like photos are very flat, where live video is much more interesting and interactive. The interaction is key and in the next few years, the quality and quantity of live streams available is only going to go up. Live streams are becoming part of many more traditional broadcasts as well. Podcoin Live streaming video is a lean in media, it’s very interactive and keeps your attention. Audio is the opposite, most people consume audio media while they are doing other things, it’s more passive. Podcoin was born out of the idea of “what if we paid people to listen to podcasts?” It allows the listener to share in the rewards of the organization that they are directly generating. The hardest pr

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Geoff Cook, the CEO and co-founder of The Meet Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: MEET)--the company that markets the MeetMe, Lovoo, Skout, Tagged and Growlr--joined me for a conversation about the social impact of dating apps and the challenges of entrepreneurship. Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.

Hosts: Nard and Ray Nard and Ray went to dinner and saw Captain Marvel. We talked about the second man to be cleared of HIV, GROWLr being bought by the Meet Group, and parents who saved their son's sperm to continue their legacy. Send your comments to show@gaygeekbizarre.com.Leave us a voicemail at 281-947-2327.

Hosts: Nard and Ray Nard and Ray went to dinner and saw Captain Marvel. We talked about the second man to be cleared of HIV, GROWLr being bought by the Meet Group, and parents who saved their son's sperm to continue their legacy. Send your comments to show@gaygeekbizarre.com.Leave us a voicemail at 281-947-2327.

Grindr, Growlr & Scruff, oh my! This episode we discuss gay dating apps - who's on em? who's lookin? and what are we really all lookin for? Recommendations this week are @ladykillerspod & Art School - links below. https://soundcloud.com/ladykillerspod https://www.instagram.com/artschool_london/?hl=en Email us! Feedback, nudes, hate, DMS and your own on-app experiences to btmuppodcast@gmail.com @btmsuppodcast or anonymously at https://curiouscat.me/btmsuppodcast & FINALLY - rate, subscribe and review!

Trillificent and special guest ChartreuseDisaster talk about some of their experiences on #DemApps (Jack’d, A4A, Grindr, Growlr, etc.)Sounds of the Stories Playlist: https://soundcloud.com/gaysidestories/sets/sounds Trill Minds Blog: www.GaysideStories.com/blog Check out the latest Gayside Short Story:www.GaysideStories.com/shortstory Twitter/Instagram/Facebook: @GaysideStoriesTumblr: http://thegaysidestories.tumblr.com GaysideStories@gmail.comwww.GaysideStories.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gaysidestories/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gaysidestories/support