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My Candid 90 Minute Video Conference With The Founders of Simily

I was surprised when I received an email from the founders of the publishing site Simily. But I was totally blown away by what they had to say

By Kurt DillonPublished 2 years ago 9 min read
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The Simily Logo was provided by and is used here with the direct permission of the founders of Simily

On April 26th, I received an email I wasn’t expecting. In fact, I had to check it closely because my first inclination was that it was spam. After all, I had only created a profile on the Simily platform about 3 weeks earlier. I couldn’t comprehend why a representative of the site would reach out to me and ask me to participate, let alone one of the platform’s founders.

As it turns out, that email wasn’t spam

After scheduling my meeting with ‘the founders’ for a couple of days later, I have to admit I was perplexed. I couldn’t imagine what this video conference would look like, or exactly what type of feedback the founders of the publishing platform would want from someone as new to the site as I was.

Honestly, I was also skeptical. There is no shortage of derogatory articles circulating around the Medium platform with negative implications regarding Simily and the negative experiences various users have had with the very new platform. My own personal experience with the site, as both a reader and as a writer, has been mixed.

Unlike others, I wasn’t harboring any intention of abandoning the site, at least not yet. My biggest issue was and still is, generating traffic to the stories that I publish on the platform. But the site is new and doesn’t have tens of thousands of subscribers yet, so I hold out the hope that will improve with time and site improvements.

The article that follows is the condensed synopsis of the ‘45 minute video conference’ I had with two of the founders of Simily

That same conference that was supposed to be ‘about 45 minutes’ effortlessly stretched into an hour and a half. Even more, it really opened my eyes to the possibilities and the potential of this, the newest of the crowdsourced publishing platforms like Medium, and Vocal Media. But I was really intrigued when I learned that the founders conduct those video conferences weekly, by invitation, to about five users of the platform per meeting.

To be sure, this article isn’t going to answer all of your questions about the site, just as our video conference that day, didn’t answer all of mine. Because of this, the founders of Simily have agreed to appear on my podcast “The Veracity Report with Kurt Dillon,” sometime within the next few weeks. Video of that show will be shared exclusively on Simily (which is free to view) before ultimately being added as an episode of my show and incorporated into articles on Medium and NewsBreak.

In it, I will be asking deep and probing questions about each of the founders’ areas of expertise, personal histories, educational backgrounds, interests, and motivations for creating Simily, as well as the specific contributions each founder makes to the daily functionality and operation of the company and the platform.

When I post notice of the recording date for the show, all of you will be able to submit questions in the comments of that notice that you would like me to ask the founders of Simily during the interview. I will select the best and most common of those questions to ask the founders directly on your behalf.

Make no mistake, this won’t be some fluff piece

We will directly address Simily’s still abundant shortcomings, their expected resolutions, and the projected timeframes for those fixes to be implemented. The founders also tell me they will be making some public announcements regarding the future of the platform and its functionality during that interview which are, as of yet, top secret.

For the purposes of this article, I will restrict the scope of the information I disseminate to include only the topics that we discussed during that video conference. That’s because I’m good at keeping secrets. However, I can tell you with absolute confidence, that there are some really cool things brewing on the horizon over at Simily (wink wink).

Now, without further adieu, it is my pleasure to introduce the founders of Simily.

Three women with a mission

Simily was founded just a few short months ago by three extremely talented and indefatigable young women: Allegra and Shannon O’Neill are sisters. They partnered with Katie Wilson to form the dynamic trio who would eventually create Simily.

The project, however, hasn’t always been champagne and caviar. As it turns out, forming a crowdsourced content publishing / social media platform hasn’t been without its problems.

Despite being a great idea, the logistics, and infrastructure that go into making a site like Simily work has been daunting at times

Frequent site crashes, coding glitches, and server problems are only a few of the technical frustrations Shannon, the company's engineering guru, has had to deal with since the site went public just a few short months ago.

We will be going into much more detail about these tech topics in the upcoming podcast. I only mention it here because I felt it was important as a writer on these platforms myself, to let the rest of you know without a doubt that the key decision-makers at Simily are 100% aware of the issues and are dedicated to resolving them as expeditiously as possible.

Many problems have already been resolved (such as the site doesn’t crash nearly as much anymore). As for the glitches that persist, progress is being made every day to fix the issues — at least the ones they have ascertained the cause of.

The peskier to diagnose problems — the causes of which are not so easy to identify — are also diligently being troubleshot. So much so, that the Simily executive team has recently hired an ace CTO who has already started working to determine the causes of those few remaining elusive technical quagmires.

This being said, the founders passionately encourage anyone who is experiencing an issue with the functionality of the site to let them know immediately. They remain wide open to constructive feedback of any kind, be it good, bad, or ugly.

A direct quote from Simily’s Chief Community Officer, Allegra O’Neill:

Getting to know our readers is very important to us. We listen to ALL the feedback and no one is more invested in making the site better than we are.

The Founders' mission and purpose for creating Simily

When I directly asked the sisters O’Neill what their purpose and mission for creating Simily was, they both iterated (without hesitation) that the mission of Simily is to connect readers with writers, as well as to help creators make more content and to retain all of the rights associated with what they create.

When I further inquired about the site’s similarities with Medium And Vocal Media, I was quickly corrected that Simily’s focus is on creative writing and not just on gathering massive amounts of mediocre content.

The founders didn’t openly say this next comment, but I am; massive amounts of mediocre and inferior content are unfortunately commonplace on Medium and Vocal. And while they would never say this, Simily is quietly hoping to help minimize poor content on their platform through the bonding of the community.

They are also very well aware that Medium only compensates its writers using Stripe, which severely limits the number of people who can participate in Medium’s Partner Program and get compensated for their work.

This is one of the primary reasons Simily compensates its writers through Paypal (which is accepted much more globally than Stripe is). However, Shannon was also quick to add that they are in the process of adding various additional payment options so that creators will soon be able to choose which way they are paid for their work.

What can we look forward to from Simily in the near future?

Hearing about these types of changes lit the journalistic fire within me. At that point, I had no choice but to ask what other changes we, as content creators and readers, should look for in the near (within 30 days or so) future.

Shannon told me that we could expect new payment options to be added sooner rather than later. She couldn’t commit to my 30-day time frame, but she did concede that if it doesn't happen in that period, it shouldn’t be much longer than that.

She also added that while it might not be a particularly visible change to users, her primary focus over the past month or so has been the meticulous debugging of the site and all of its attributes.

Put simply, Shannon told me that we will be able to look forward to the much-improved functionality of Simily’s website over the coming days and weeks, as she and the new CTO have taken it on themselves to resolve those issues personally.

What goodies are in store for Simily users within the next six months or so?

In short, a lot. Both Allegra and Shannon were rocking huge smiles when I asked this question. I started the conversation by asking about the searchability of Simily, particularly finding the site itself.

Specifically, I addressed the fact that, due to the play on spelling the founders chose for the name of the site, it frequently wreaks havoc in search results if people don’t know the proper spelling of the platform.

Shannon went first and explained how it’s in the works to increase the SEO discoverability of the site and the content that it hosts. She and the new CTO are frantically working to maximize the searchability of the platform itself as well as the content of the users.

That’s because, right now, when you Google search the word Simily, Google assumes you misspelled ‘simile’ — the form of speech, and it corrects you showing results for ‘simile’ anyway. Shannon is working hard to fix that.

Also in the works is a full-featured smartphone application which I was concerned might be a limited functionality version like Medium’s. As most of you know, the Medium app doesn’t allow writers to write new content, edit drafts, or publish new stories from the app.

When I addressed this with the founders, I was resoundingly assured that this would not be the case with the Simily app. Shannon sincerely expressed that this was part of the reason they aren’t rushing to release an app. The founders of Simily feel it is more important to get it right and release a good product, rather than throwing together a limited app, just to say they have one.

Conclusion

Is that it? No, actually it isn’t. But, that’s all I’m going to share in this article. If you want the rest, and if you want to actually meet the founders of Simily for yourselves, you're going to have to watch my newly formatted podcast, ‘The Veracity Report’ with Kurt Dillon when I post the interview on Simily in a couple of weeks, unless you want to wait several weeks for it.

No worries, it’s free. And who knows, during the podcast, I might even convince the founders of the platform to offer some kind of promotion to the people who watch the show on Simily. After all, promotion is the name of the game for all of us, right?

If you don’t want to miss the podcast launch date, you can always subscribe to my newsletter and you will be among the first to know. Otherwise, just keep your eyes peeled for notices that I'll be posting across social media and on Vocal.

Authors
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About the Creator

Kurt Dillon

Kurt Dillon is an Author, Writer, Educator, & Chef with Master's Degrees in English/Journalism and Clinical Psychology from Columbia University. He has worked as a writer and as an Associate Professor of English for almost 30 years.

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  • test2 years ago

    Thank You for this, Kurt! 💥💯💥 I also spoke with Allegra back in October of 2021 when I first joined Simily, and like yourself, I was also impressed by her dedication and drive. Simily has certainly had its growing pains, but I'm still a member there, and I will continue to root for Allegra, Shannon, and Katie, the Founders Fantastic, as they move forward to create a Vibrant and Dynamic Creative Community. 💫 Take Care, Kurt! TC

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