Norby raises $3.8 million for an all-in-one platform for creator promotion.

Norby raises $3.8 million for an all-in-one platform for creator promotion.

Nick Gerard, Steven Layne, and Samantha Safer Valentine had a hit on their hands early in the pandemic. The trio established Mainstream Live, a website and newsletter that aggregated live virtual events across platforms and sent consumers text-based reminders to check them out, before Zoom fatigue set in.

 

Gerard told TechCrunch, "We started with the discovery problem of people looking for fascinating stuff to do online." “We knew we were tapping into something right away.” Thousands of people flocked to the site last night, looking for online events to keep them linked during a period of unprecedented social isolation.

 

The Mainstream Live crew was swamped with queries regarding the techniques it used to surface events and keep its community informed when it went viral. As the team developed more services to meet their own needs, they finally opened up their unique toolkit, sharing the code with other community leaders and content creators who desired the same set of tools.

 

“Everyone loved it, and they kept asking for it,” Gerard added. “We were juggling a dozen of [them] for various partners at one point.” By the fall, the team had shut down the original community, capitalized on the growing interest in its toolset, and launched Norby.

Everything that individuals had been asking for was incorporated into the new company: a link-in-bio service, referral tracking, SMS, ticketing, and other marketing tools required to keep a small brand or creator community humming.

 

Since then, the Norby team has been "following that signal," according to Gerard. Norby has now raised $3.8 million in a seed round led by Gradient Ventures, Google's AI-focused startup capital fund, to expand its staff and develop its full-stack marketing platform to new heights. In addition to Bungalow Capital, BBG Ventures, Charge VC, and Notation, the fundraising round included Bungalow Capital, BBG Ventures, Charge VC, and Notation.

Norby's big idea is to merge services like Link Tree, Eventbrite, and MailChimp into a single, reasonable, subscription-based service, giving anyone in charge of an online community a single solution instead of an expensive patchwork of services that must be set up and managed individually. Norby is designed for small businesses and solitary entrepreneurs, with the majority of its customers employing fewer than ten people. The creative tool suite is solely subscription-based, and unlike Eventbrite and other popular services, it will not charge any fees.

It starts at $20 per month for businesses, and the startup is working on a $5-per-month tier for individual use. There is no free tier, and Gerard wants to believe that Norby's consumers will be thrilled to save time and money by taking advantage of the company's bundled offering. “What we discovered is that people spend a lot of money on these tools,” Gerard explained .“We can get rid of a bunch of your tools and save you money. However, we can also help you save time.” Norby's staff spends a lot of time talking to small businesses and creators. Its clients include everything from sexual wellness businesses to advice columnists and campaigners — basically anyone who needs to manage an online community. Sad Girls Club, EVRYMAN, and All bodies were among the first customers.

 

The firm is developing slowly and naturally, with new members being added via a waiting and invitation system, and group demos guiding them around the software. “What's been really nice for us is that we'll acquire a new customer for one or two features... then they come into the product and say, ‘Oh, we've always wanted to try SMS,' and it's just there and they can start using it,” Gerard explained.

 

Norby sees itself as a champion for creators, as well as a buffer against the influence that big platforms have. In the long run, Gerard intends to assist creators in taking control of local communities as a "counterbalance" to large platforms like Instagram, Tiktok , and YouTube.

 

Big platforms will never have a motivation to assist creators in “owning the relationship” with their communities. However, those same platforms are recognizing that creators have significant power, including the capacity to pick up their content empires and take them anywhere they want.

 

“What's wonderful about this time is that, looking ahead five or ten years, nothing is predetermined,” Gerard added. “These opportunities don't come along every day.”