NewsPicks

@matthartman Great question! They are indeed using the app itself. For a lot of our influencers (and normal users), existing platforms are not providing the optimal experience for discovering interesting content and reaching a relevant audience. What we've done is create a more natural experience--read a story, have a thought, write it down, share it. Otherwise, it's more like: read a story, go to Twitter, copy and paste, try to remember your thought, write something down, go to Linkedin, copy and paste, and on and on. They use the app themselves because news consumption is personal and it's habitual--it's not like have a social media account which is handled by a PR person to create an online persona. On the community side, we are focused on curating content and commentary that is interesting for business people--be that tech, media, finance, fashion, etc. Existing platforms are so noisy, that it's extremely difficult to find relevant content and be heard, even when you have something interesting to say. And even then, the toxicity is overwhelming. We've designed our product so that the best commentary, on the most important stories, will always be surfaced to our front page every day--whether it comes from normal users or influencers. For our ProPickers, we convinced one, then two then the third came more easily. They really enjoyed the product and began to invite their peers. Most of our ProPickers are recommended by existing ones.