About This Episode
Way back around 2014 or 2015, people believed that there couldn’t possibly be any new social media platforms popping up. They believed that the existing platforms: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.; already solidified their niche in the market. But they couldn’t have been more wrong, as we have witnessed just in the last few years.
Jordan Greenfield, our guest in this episode of Brilliant Thoughts, a Success magazine podcast, also believed that “the war on social media” is not over. He saw the Internet as a huge, fragmented space, where audiences have to go to different platforms in order to find the information or content they wanted to see.
“I'm kind of the guy that gets relief out of cleaning out the closet and organizing things,” Jordan shares. “So I just saw the Internet as this fragmented chaos of all these online personalities that were fragmented across these different social platforms. … it was really four or five years ago when I first had this idea of centralizing the social web and giving people this one centralized location to draw their audience back to,” he continues.
That is how Hoo.be, a link-in-bio solutions company, came to be an integral part of tens of thousands of creators’ social media marketing strategies, including influencers, and big-name celebrities like Meghan Trainor, Chris Hemsworth, and Shane McMahon.
How can you get big names like them to use a product of your making, without having to pay them millions of dollars for a 90-day trial period and marketing? It wasn’t easy, according to Jordan. It takes a lot of iterations, having the right mentors, listening to the data from your audience, building relationships, and telling the right story.
Telling the right story
Jordan and his team are a group of young, hungry entrepreneurs, full of passion and skill. He believes that that passion, as well as putting themselves out there and staking their flag on the ground to build a better platform than what currently exists on the market has resonated a lot with their audience of all magnitudes.
“We’ve just been very passionate,” Jordan says, “we’ve told our stories since day one. That has allowed us to get some big names [to use our product].”
One thing he learned from his dad was to never underestimate the power of building a strong brand that connects to people through the right stories. That is what he and his team did to get their startup off the ground. That is also what they offer their audience–a chance to tell their stories and build their brands, in one centralized hub that showcases where they currently are, and what is important to them at the present.
To build the right product, you need to listen to your audience
Hoo.be wasn’t what Jordan originally envisioned when he had the idea for the startup. It is what came out to be after many iterations, listening to what their audience needed, gathering and analyzing the data, and delivering on their promise. And the promise has remained the same—to build a platform that puts a creator’s scattered or fragmented brand and stories on one platform.
Find the right people
For Jordan, having the ability to attract the right talent early on is what defines the DNA of your business’s culture. Reid Hoffman, the Founder of LinkedIn, is one of Jordan’s favorite entrepreneurs, and he described startups as “jumping out of an airplane and assembling the parachute on the way down.”
“I think that's incredibly true,” Jordan shares. For him, pivoting, doing tasks, and understanding the market are important before you can know exactly what to do, but it is having the right people who can do all of that with you that really makes or breaks your startup.
Relationship is key
In his success, Jordan acknowledges that building relationships play a huge part. Businesses are all about people, from having the right team to meeting the right partners, and most importantly, having the right connection with your audience.
That is why, unlike most link-in-bio platforms, Hoo.be decided to niche down. They are better positioned to serve their users if they can be within arms reach of their audience, and are able to pivot and be agile in their response. The creator market is a rapidly evolving industry, and knowing what creators, influencers, and celebrities need and being able to act quickly to meet those needs could mean being a platform that caters to tens of thousands of creators, instead of to a general population.
Listen to the rest of the podcast to learn more about where Jordan thinks social media is heading, and his partnerships, funding, and entrepreneurial journey to get Hoo.be out into the digital world.
Follow Jordan on social
You can check out the Hoo.be website and follow Jordan on Instagram @jordantaylor.
DISCLAIMER: The people interviewed are well-trained experts and highly skilled in their areas of practice. They take many safety precautions prior to attempting the activities described. The activities or research discussed in these podcasts should not be attempted without qualified supervision and training with professionals.