Vito, 2020–2026

In 2020, the pandemic caused the bottom to fall out of our business. We had an event registration app whose model was “we only make money when you’re selling tickets”, and no one was able to sell tickets.

Through the panic, we had an idea to build the community platform we always wished existed. This turned into Vito.

We ran a bunch of our own experiments on it: a virtual version of our Admission conference, a series of office hours livestreams, plus a podcast series called Ayo! we used as an excuse to interview people we admired. We also convinced some friends (and strangers) to run their own events on Vito, and we delighted in seeing their communities come together and interact, using the tools we’d built.

But, things never quite took off as we’d hoped. We struggled to define exactly what the product should be, and we never reached enough of the people who had a need for what we were offering. And then the pandemic ended and things mostly went back to normal.

Fast forward to six years later, and our small team was still maintaining an app that hadn’t ever really proven itself to be viable. We realised it was finally time to say goodbye.

We want to thank everyone who ever signed into Vito: the organisers who trusted our platform to run their event, and the many attendees who viewed the streams and shared or liked a comment. It was really fun while it lasted. 🤍