Olivia DeRamus is flipping the script: What if scrolling by way of social media didn’t make us depressing? What if, particularly for girls, social media may truly make us really feel extra supported?

“It’s actually not what mainstream social platforms have been constructed for,” DeRamus advised TechCrunch. However along with her social platform Communia, DeRamus is daring to strive one thing that appears counterintuitive.

Communia is each a social platform and a psychological well being device; you’ll be able to put up updates in a neighborhood feed, or you’ll be able to privately journal and observe your feelings over time. However for customers to get susceptible, they should really feel secure. So, the platform is taking an method that would polarize some, however may reassure others: Individuals should confirm their identification earlier than they’ll totally use the app.

“It’s a security characteristic, but it surely additionally type of units the tone that that is an intimate area and that you just’re secure right here,” she stated. “So folks really feel extra empowered to speak about their PMDD, or to speak in regards to the troublesome life expertise they’re going by way of.”

DeRamus used to work within the nonprofit sector, centered on ladies’s anti-violence efforts. However she pivoted to tech as a result of she knew first-hand how priceless a supportive on-line platform could possibly be. When DeRamus was in faculty, she was sexually assaulted. In a time when opening as much as her buddies was a problem, she sought out on-line communities to assist her course of her expertise.

“I turned to social media as a result of I used to be attempting to determine what even was taking place to me,” she stated. “It was pre-MeToo … The place are ladies even having conversations round sexual assault?”

With Communia, DeRamus is creating the app that she wanted at the moment. “We don’t have all of the solutions at Communia, however even at our tiny, tiny quantity of funding, with our tiny fraction of sources, the options to lots of the web’s points are oftentimes extra easy than massive tech platforms would really like us to imagine,” she stated.

And since she isn’t a typical tech founder, DeRamus isn’t utilizing the standard tech playbook. “I’m conscious that in tech, most individuals go very far with out understanding how they’re going to earn a living, and I do know BeReal was acquired lately, they usually by no means figured it out,” she stated. “That’s not the pathway for Communia, so we actually wished to take our time not solely in constructing a greater digital world for girls, but in addition in constructing a extra sustainable kind of tech product.”

So, Communia’s plan to monetize is to onboard creators. The thought is that followers may pay to entry extra intimate communities with creators they know, the place the emphasis is on the group’s connections as a complete, moderately than their particular relationship to that creator.

To determine its creator technique, Communia introduced on ex-OnlyFans CEO Amrapali Gan as a strategic accomplice and development adviser.

“We’ve been attending to know one another for a few yr now. I truly slid into her DMs, chilly, no intro, and he or she responded to me. We met up, and over time, she was advising us on numerous various things,” DeRamus stated. “We realized that she felt actually enthusiastic about our mission, and that she was serving to us in so many points of the enterprise that it made sense to carry her on in a proper position that was far more than a conventional adviser.”

Gan labored at OnlyFans as CMO, after which CEO, in a time when the platform was explosive with development. Like Communia, Gan emphasised security in her time at OnlyFans – As a platform most related to grownup content material, OnlyFans makes use of a digital identification platform referred to as Yoti that forestalls minors from signing up. Gan left OnlyFans final yr to discovered Hoxton, a inventive company working with startups.

“Her experience is de facto permitting us to make even higher choices and develop sooner, but in addition deal with plenty of troublesome questions that come up for any social media platform along with her experience,” DeRamus stated.

Communia stays a comparatively inexperienced platform. The app participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200 in 2023, however has taken a sluggish method to constructing out the platform. DeRamus hasn’t marketed the platform very a lot but, however maybe Gan’s involvement will change that. Sluggish development is sensible for a platform like Communia, although, as a result of its whole premise may deteriorate if it lacks the content material moderation capabilities to develop at scale with out sacrificing security. Communia is embarking on its first institutional fundraise now, with the hope that further funds may assist navigate secure development.