Popular Posts
To top
3 Oct

Ep. 67 – Mark Weinstein – Founder & CEO of MeWe

“Everybody’s greatness is different. Your greatness is uniquely yours. You’ve got to stick with it. Doesn’t matter how hard it is. Doesn’t matter the hardship that you cause for yourself, or your family. If you’re really committed to it, then you must keep going.

Mark Weinstein – Founder & CEO of MeWe; tackling privacy and the Internet; creating an alternative to Facebook; Being habitually great; the journey.

Segment 1: (Length :04:00) – General Updates; Introduction to Mark Weinstein and his journey as an entrepreneur; being involved with social media since the beginning; wanting to change the social norms on the subject of privacy; creating MeWe as the alternative to Facebook.

Mark’s finer points:

It's an honor to be here talking about how to be unstoppable and also about the future of social media and why MeWe is here today.

“It’s great to be here. Listen, we should also just note MeWe is a South by Southwest startup of the year finalist in 2016.”

“We have Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, as 1 of our esteemed advisors. We have many great advisors, the founder of Conscious Capitalism, great technology advisors.”

“It starts, for me, back in ’98 when we’re all much younger, there’s an opportunity. I’m talking to my 11 year old nephew about what we want to do on the web to stay in touch when we’re traveling around the world.”

You fast forward. Remember, everybody, this is before MySpace, before Facebook. There was actually an era of great social media companies at the turn of the millennium.

“Fast forward to went on to write a book series on greatness, worked with technology companies around the world and executives around the world. I have a book series called Habitually Great.”

“In 2010, I was watching the interview with Mr. Zuckerberg. He said that privacy was a social norm of the past. I literally just about fell off my chair. In that moment, I decided to change my life. I had 3 new books coming out in 2011. I decided to change my life and relocate to Silicon Valley and fix this problem.”

“We start engineering in earnest in 2013. We run a very quiet data project under our corporate name, Scruples. In 2016, we announced that we’ve come out of beta. We’re South by Southwest finalist startup of the year. We’re giving people back privacy and control with great technology.”

“The platform is quite robust. Here’s the thing. Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world. When you look at what does that mean, that means that while there are a lot of 1 trick ponies, what people actually love the most is a platform. They love the opportunity to do several different things on a platform.”

“3 weeks ago WhatsApp announced that they’re tracking everybody. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. They have finally announced it. I read about this in Europe a year and a half ago because I also write in support of my ideas and vision and what I believe privacy should be.”

MeWe is really next gen revolutionary in terms of what it offers, a great platform, which is what people around the world love. They love a platform most of all with privacy you trust.

“MeWe has secret chat encrypted, end-to-end encryption with no tracking. WhatsApp knows who you’re talking to, when you’re talking to them, where you are when you talk to them. They just don’t know what you’re saying. They feed all that information into the data packet about you. Then it goes into Facebook’s data echo system.”

Segment 2: (Length :04:00) – Talking with Mark Weinstein; Privacy over monetization; Millennials and privacy; Owning your own content posted;

Mark’s finer points:

“Facebook is so big and so ubiquitous, they’re going to be here. We’re not saying we’re taking over Facebook. There is a definite fork in the road. Millennials, Pew Research, this year, says the millennial demographic is most concerned about their online privacy and not being monetized. That’s what we’re about.”

“I’m not for sale. You’re not for sale. That’s weird, that’s creepy. Our members are our customers. They’re the people we serve. At Facebook, their members are their products that they sell to their customer. Their customer are the data brokers and the advertisers and marketers.”

When you start with that premise, as an entrepreneur, which just makes sense, our customers are our members, so we get to serve and take care of them. You build an entirely different company.

“There’s a fork in the road with people around the world becoming aware of the huge issue of privacy matters.”

“There’s a clear fork in the road. Let’s say 2 years ago it 0% of millennials cared about privacy. Now it’s probably 30 or 35%. Next year, it’s probably 50 or 60%.”

“The world awareness is growing. It’s growing quickly. It’s at a tipping point. The whole world is now concerned. We’ve launched in 6 languages. We’ve got Brazilian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, English. We’re translating the Arabic right now, our 7th language.”

We see a new way of doing it. Number 1 is that we see large communities moving over to MeWe.

“You don’t own your content at Facebook. MeWe has a Privacy bill of rights right at our homepage. It clearly articulates your rights as a member of MeWe and really your rights in the world to privacy. For Hollywood, for a fan page, where we don’t have an algorithm, or a bot. When you post, your followers see what you post in timeline order.”

Segment 3: (Length :04:00) – Algorithms; the power of “unstoppability”; Habitually Great.

Mark’s finer points:

“We think the natural way is better than an algorithm customizing your feed. We think that you know who your friends are. You know who you’re following. Therefore, you know what you want to engage with.”

“We shouldn’t run an algorithm for a marketing purpose to try and keep you so hyper engaged so that we can serve you ads and content so that we can make money.”

“Our revenue model’s completely different. It’s all about serving our customer. We’re looking at moving large, connected communities of people to MeWe. That’s what our marketing team is focused on.”

Unless you pay Facebook a lot of money to boost and to reach your followers. That's not how MeWe operates. 100% of your content goes to 100% of your people.

“If I’m following you, then I want to see everything that you post. That’s why I’m following you. Facebook runs on an algorithm. The data, you might have 20 million members. You might have 20 million followers as a Hollywood star. You might actually reach 20,000 of them.”

“Let’s talk to our audience especially for those that might listen to this who are entrepreneurs. You’ve got to put people around you that support your unstoppability.”

“There’s only really 1 secret to success at the end of the day. Of course, you’ve got to be smart. You’ve got to develop the right product. You’ve got to market it correctly.”

You've got to keep going. If you stop, you're not in the game. If you really believe in something, then you've got to keep going. You got to pivot. This something that takes a lot of training. This is how somebody becomes an Olympic athlete. This what greatness is about.

“I really undertook studying greatness myself. I’ve written books about it. I have a book series called Habitually Great. You can find them on Amazon. I don’t claim to know what greatness is for anybody else, but me.”

“Everybody’s greatness is different. Your greatness is uniquely yours. You’ve got to stick with it.”

“Doesn’t matter how hard it is. Doesn’t matter the hardship that you cause for yourself, or your family. If you’re really committed to it, then you must keep going. Your family will understand. They will support you. When you get to the promised land, they will all go, “Ah-ha.” Of course, they’ll tell you they supported you the whole time.”

Listen, being unstoppable is not easy. It's the hardest thing in the world. I'm running a startup company. We run out of money. People get sick. People quit, whatever.

“There are times when you run out of money. You tell your girlfriend, or your wife, “We’re actually going to go to Taco Bell, or whatever you’re going to do. That’s the best you can do right then. You have to have people around you that support you and understand you.”

“My wife slept on the couch in my office while I would work all night. She never complained. That’s how she became my wife. I knew that she counted on me and that she supported me. She didn’t care whether I took her out to dinner that night. She was there for me. She saw that I’m passionate and committed to what I’m doing.”

Segment 4: (Length :03:00) – Hustler Thought of the Day:

You know something is wrong when the government declares opening someone else’s mail is a felony but your internet activity is fair game for data collecting. – E.A. Bucchianeri

GENERAL NOTES:

Mark Weinstein – Founder & CEO of MeWe

  • MeWe is the first-of-its-kind social networking platform brought to life by tech entrepreneur Mark Weinstein, who is taking a stance on the issue of privacy and giving users the ability to interact and post about their lives in a social environment they can trust.
  • On MeWe, there are No Ads. No Tracking. No BS. With features including a unique custom camera, animated selfies and disappearing content, a cutting-edge texting and chat app, 700+ emojis, personal cloud storage, privacy mail and voice messaging, MeWe is the next generation in online communication.
  • MeWe’s Privacy Bill Of Rights creates transparency protecting their users and ensuring that private information shared on the site is not subject to tracking or data mining.
  • Mark Weinstein has an impressive and reputable background as a privacy advocate, an award winning author of the books series Habitually Great, and founder of several tech start-ups including Sgrouples.com.
  • At the turn of the millennium, Mark founded SuperFamily and SuperFriends (both became PC Magazine’s “Top 100” sites), which were precursors to today’s social networks.
  • His expertise in the field has granted him the honor of being named Canada’s “Privacy by Design Ambassador” and has served as a Steering Committee Member of National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC).
  • Weinstein believes in a future where privacy is not only a right, but a priority. Privacy has become a main concern for the general public with gradually growing concerns on cyber bullying, stalking, oversharing and informational leaks. The possibility of enjoying social networking away from these risks lies in innovation and MeWe has achieved it.
  • Weinstein has also created a league of extraordinary advisors to catapult this revolutionary platform, including inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee. With talent like this, it is clear MeWe is bound for success.

###

Matt Gottesman

Matt Gottesman is a global digital strategist and technology advisor, creator and editor-in-chief of Hustle & Deal Flow™ - an online magazine dedicated to the world's entrepreneurs, creators and makers, a Social Media Influencer and a consultant on New Media and go-to-market strategies for investments in digital marketing, technology, websites, mobile applications, eCommerce, social media and content.

ARE YOU A CREATOR OR ENTREPRENEUR? DO YOU DO THINGS A BIT DIFFERENTLY?
Then JOIN our COMMUNITY & get exclusive content that MOTIVATES THE HUSTLE.
Your Information will never be shared with any third party, PERIOD.
No Thanks, I subscribe to the Status Quo.
WE'RE ALWAYS ON THE LOOK OUT FOR NEW AND EMERGING COMPANIES ACROSS THE GLOBE.
If that's YOU or SOMEONE YOU KNOW,
please submit below.
ARE YOU READY? GET IT NOW!
Increase more than 500% of Email Subscribers!
Your Information will never be shared with any third party.