DAYTON TECH STARTUP GETS SILICON VALLEY SHOOTOUT
If you have worthwhile content, a sizable social media following and the vision to monetize all of that, then Arielle Jordan would like a word with you.
Jordan, of Miamisburg, is the creator of Curafied, a new Internet platform that enables users to place what they believe is expert, valuable content behind a paywall for publication in a userfriendly, ad-free environment.
Users on Curafied — the company name is a variation on “curated content” — receive subscription funds for access to their content.
“They’ll receive a dollar per subscriber per month,” Jordan said in a phone interview Friday. “It’s free for them to sign up to use our platform.”
Curafied aims for seamless transactions for users, handling payments and offering an array of features, such as the uploading of PDFs and charts.
“It’s behind a paywall,” she said. “It’s a way for people to directly monetize their content.”
Curafied can be a home for expert instruction in, say, auto maintenance or martial arts, arts and crafts or history. The content can range from posts to photos to videos.
“It’s less than a cup of coffee for all of this information,” Jordan said.
Posting mechanics are similar to Facebook, but ad-free. It’s also meant to be a friendly environment for customers, too.
“When you’re connected with an expert whose content you enjoy, but you don’t want to see on Facebook all those ads and trolls and all kinds of other junk mixed in ... it would be nice if these people had their own place to go,” Jordan said.
Curafied has enjoyed local support from the Entrepreneurs Center in Dayton and the area start-up support system. She was part of a series of workshops the center held last summer on how to obtain ESP (Entrepreneurial Signature Program) funding.
She has also worked with the software wizards at Webster Station-based Mile Two on getting alpha and beta versions of Curafied up and running.
Jeff Graley, Mile Two president, likes how Jordan has turned an idea into “action.”
“Her idea has as much upside as anything we have going on in Dayton region right now in the start-up space,” he said.
That support helped her take her business idea from “being an idea on a napkin” to “an actual, legitimate” business.
She calls her company “100-percent Dayton made and funded.” She has lived in Springfield and Butler County’s West Chester Twp. but now calls Montgomery County home.
Jordan recently got an important national nod from the Women’s Startup Lab, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based tech accelerator that focuses on women-run businesses. The thumbs-up is important. “Silicon Valley has a lot of heavy players, particularly in digital and social media,” Jordan said. “For them to want to accept me into that environment is really cool.”
While she doesn’t immediately know what acceptance into the Women’s Startup Lab will mean for Curafied, she is confident she and Curafied will remain Dayton-based.
“I don’t plan on moving,” she said.