From Multimillion-Dollar Company to Ghost: The Rise and Fall of Dote

The year was 2019. I was browsing through YouTube and saw the same video by different people over and over again in my recommendations: Dote Fiji Vlogs. The thumbnail was full of faces of YouTubers I watched and loved. Emma Chamberlain, Summer Mckeen, Ellie Thumann, and other insanely popular YouTubers posed in front of the beach; laughing with each other and sporting beautiful tans.

I wanted to be in Fiji. But what was Dote?

I watched the vlogs and figured out pretty quickly what Dote was and what it had to do with the girls’ Fiji trip. Dote was an online shopping app that was branded as an “online mall” with over 150 in-app stores like Forever 21, Tory Burch, Nike, etc. In every video I watched about the trip, the girls always said thank you to Dote for sending them on the trip. This meant this was a brand trip.

And an expensive one at that. All 30 of the girls stayed at a 5-star resort, ate at 5-star restaurants, enjoyed jet skiing, private boat rides, and other expensive activities; all funded by Dote. The gesture was extravagant; something they could afford.

The rise

I downloaded Dote in the app store and liked what I saw. All of the brands I knew and loved were on the app and I was given a unique coupon code that gave me $5 dollars for every $5 someone spent using my code as well as a $5 off your next order coupon.

I used the five dollars off coupon and ended up paying just a few cents for two lipglosses. “That was nice”, I thought to myself. I grew to really like the app.

Dote really grew, however, with the introduction of Dote Shopping Parties. “Dote Girls”, girls who worked with Dote and went on Dote trips, would go live on the app and shop in real-time with their fans. There was a split screen with the influencer on one side and the phone screen recording in real-time on the other.

This era was great for Dote; their new feature made the app even more popular and according to Techcrunch, Dote had raised $12 million in new funding. The influencers sponsoring Dote became dubbed the Dote Girls; a popular group of social media girls always going on vacations and events like Coachella. They were who every girl wanted to be and perfect for the face of the brand.

Things seemed to be going great for Dote. Until they started getting into scandals.

The fall

Soon after, some of the Dote girls began stepping forward to say that the trips weren’t as perfect as they were made out to be; at least not for some.

Kianna Naomi, a 19-year-old Youtuber who was on the Fiji trip, came out with a video saying while she was grateful for the trip and opportunity, she felt like an outsider and excluded. In the video, Kianna talks about how no photographer was taking pictures of her or some of her other black friends. When Kianna took her concerns to the event organizers, they scheduled a separate photoshoot for her and some of the other girls. However, those photos from the shoot were never used and have never seen by anyone while some of the white Dote girls’ photos were used by the brand all over social media. Kianna also mentioned that only the white girls were catered to in other aspects to. When the girls when to get their hair done, there was no one who knew how to do natural hair like Kianna’s. So, some of the girls had to miss out on the fun activities that were only catered to some of the girls.

In a separate incident, Dote took some of the girls to Coachella in 2019 and dubbed the brand trip “Dotechella”. There, a youtube named Daniella Perkins filmed a video of her experience on the trip. In the video, Daniella is seen crying and saying she feels as if she doesn’t belong. Through the vlogs of the girls on the trip, viewers quickly figured out something that would eventually cause Dote’s spiral:

The white girls on the trip all slept together on one side of the house in large beds while the non-white girls slept in tiny couch/pull-out beds on the other side of the house.

This was confirmed through some of the girls and through vlog footage. People were outraged and Dote tried its best to avoid further controversy, saying that bed placements were not intentional (despite some of the girls saying beds were marked with names) and that Dote would never try to intentionally segregate.

Vereena Sayed, another YouTuber at the trip, said “[t]hey shot all the white girls together and then all the minorities together” and that it felt “very weird”.

According to Daniella, there was an incident where she and the other girls of color saw a photoshoot happening without them. “We were told nothing; we were left out of the whole situation,” said Daniella.

With all of the commentary and experience videos being made on the controversy, Dote put out a statement saying that they would learn from their mistakes and that nothing that happened was intentional. Dote then also started a “This is What Dote Looks Like” campaign on Instagram, posting pictures of girls from previous brand trips of all different backgrounds, body types, and follower counts. Comments were disabled, but people still had a lot to say and were furious.

Slowly, lots of the Dote girls announced that they would no longer be working with Dote. Almost no influencer was now associated with Dote as it was now dubbed a racist company.

Dote, losing its famous “Dote Girls” and its once-famous reputation, turned to other tactics. It worked.

Dote Coins and The Revival Of Dote

Then, Dote introduced a new feature. The introduction of Dote Coins.

Essentially, anyone could now become a Dote Girl. The idea was that you post a picture on the app (like your outfit or a celebrity’s outfit) and you tag the clothes through Dote. Every time someone purchased something through your post, you got a certain amount of coins. The coins were originally made redeemable for coupons, but were later made redeemable towards purchases. They were basically like a currency and covered entire purchases excluding tax and shipping.

Bored in the heat of summer, I gave this new business model a try

I looked at what trends were most popular, made eye-catching and trendy posts, and ended up making close to $400 in Dote coins. I was ecstatic and enjoyed the marketing research that came along with the posts.

My Dote coin balance

I didn’t spend my coins immediately. Instead, I saved them up until I decided to buy Tory Burch sandals a few months later. I paid $16 (there was free shipping so I only had to pay tax) for the sandals which were originally $200.

Dote was doing great. People had mostly forgotten the scandal and regular girls enjoyed being “influencers” and making money from their posts. Dote made lots of money and the stores within Dote earned lots of money from the new business model as well. Things were good.

The Death of Dote

Then, users started noticing that their coins had an expiry date. A vague expiry date that Dote could not really explain. However, operations continued as usual.

However, things weren’t as normal. Users started complaining that they couldn’t buy things and their saved lists weren’t working on the app.

Then, Dote sent notifications that the app would no longer be supported for iOS.

Lots of confused, concerned, and angry users flooded the comments asking why this would be happening. Dote was at its peak and lots of users had $100s of dollars in the app.

The app was removed from the App Store and was no longer able to be opened. I still had about $200 left in the app and I was confused and slightly annoyed.

Dote limited its Instagram comments and eventually started deleting any comments asking what happened to the app. The app was no longer usable by anyone and totally shut down. For almost a year, confused users kept coming to the comments section to ask “what happened to Dote?”.

Eventually, everyone came to the conclusion that Dote shut down. Dote has now deleted its Instagram account.

What We Can Learn From Dote

While it isn’t clear what happened to Dote, we can assume it shut down. It isn’t clear why that happened, but lots of users speculated it may be because the pressure of the racial scandal got to Lauren Farleigh, the CEO. The scandal took a big toll on the company and it probably took a large toll on the CEO as well. The company lost tons of influencers and people are still mad at Dote for how they treated some of their influencers.

Lots of influencers who previously worked with Dote now respond that they are not allowed to speak on the Dote situation.

Dote should be a cautionary tale to all entrepreneurs. We should all learn a critical lesson from Dote: to listen to others.

For so long, Dote ignored people’s concerns and went on as if nothing happened. And when Dote did address all of the controversies, it was little too late. If we don’t respond and pledge to learn from our mistakes and do better, we could end up like Dote; all alone.

No one knows if Dote plans to make a comeback, but the story of its success and its fall is a tragic one.