Doing Whatever It Takes To Build Your Team With Pod Founder, Dr. Jo Webber

Listen to the episode!

If you're an early stage company, you can't afford to bring on a cofounder who doesn't get the job done. Which means your selection process needs to be on point, and you need to be willing to go the Malcolm X "by any means necessary" route to assemble the right team.

Read the Blog Post!

The following is written by this week’s podcast guest, Pod.io CEO, Dr. Jo Webber.

 

Hello HypeNation!

I am Dr. Jo Webber, the founder and CEO of Pod – a new social networking platform that utilizes location data and artificial intelligence to help users to connect with people who share similar interests, all within close proximity.


The Problem

As parents, I saw a whole generation of teens and young adults growing up and staring at their phones. We realized that the first generation of social media apps like Facebook, have encouraged users to take their in-person relationships and put them online.

 

Over time, this can become an isolating experience where people are only communicating online and are having less and less in-person connections.

 

According to a study by YouGov, over 20% of millennials said they have no friends and 31% of Americans said they find it difficult to make friends.

Our Solution

Connecting with people around us is one of our most basic psychological needs but in today's digital world it's become harder than ever to build and maintain genuine relationships in real life.

 

We wanted to try and create a solution to help young adults foster strong, genuine relationships in person and decided to build a platform that could help people meet new people in real life based on shared interests.

 

With Pod we’ve enabled people to easily search, set up meetings and connect with each other in person all over the world.

 

How Pod Works


A free Pod membership allows users to create a user profile with tags to mark their personal and professional interests (ex. Graphic design, fitness, sales, real estate, ice skating, etc) and search for connections with shared interests.

Members can then access Pod's interactive map to connect with users' close to their own location and create a "Pod". Everyone from individuals such as consultants, graphic designers, real estate agents, lawyers, accountants and students, to groups like universities, athletic groups and alumni associations can benefit from Pod's networking functionality.

Find Pod online at:

www.pod.io

Rajiv Nathan