[Startup Interview] Wibe van de Vijver, Co-Founder, Mohi, Netherlands

Mohi is a media startup that has created a platform where users can remove the clutter and build a space where they can organize a selection of their most enjoyable content experiences and share the absolute highlights with their inner circle. The Co-founder Wibe van de Vijver explains.

Introduce your startup

Mohi is a Slow Media platform providing the digital Marie Kondo experience. Mohi helps to de-clutter your digital life and find content recommendations from people you trust.

We live in a world with an abundance of information. The movie 'Social Dilemma' shows how we are constantly bombarded with new options and triggers controlling how we spend our time. If we continue to spend our days merely consuming random experiences, we will continue to feel like a scattered consumer. Mohi wants to encourage inspiring content recommendations within your inner circle to spark the mind and strengthen relationships by sharing these content experiences

Who founded Mohi and what are their professional backgrounds?

Wibe van de Vijver, Sebastiaan de Stoppelaar, Rutger Bresjer

Wibe has been a senior strategist at Google's HQ and has worked after that at Y-Combinator startup Impraise. Sebastiaan and Rutger have both more than 14 years of product and development experiences at various organisations and companies including their own agency Woost.

How is Mohi  financed?

We have raised €220,000 in angel funding

What would you say are the dynamics that are shaping the media and tech industry?

According to 'Absolute Markets Insights', the global content curation market is expected to double. As Benedict Evans quoted on Twitter: "All search grows until you need curation". In today's abundance of information it's all about creating your own filters and curation. So the search has shifted from searching for the final object to searching for the right filters and curation. The increased desire for curation is also validated by the revival of the email newsletter where topic experts tell their followers what to read, listen, watch: substack is going through the roof and Twitter just acquired Revue.

In parallel, we believe that there is a transition happening in the social media landscape. Many users mainly aged in their 30s and 40s are fed up with the current platforms that have been optimized to make you addicted to noise. Those people would love to shut down these apps though its unlikely they will stop using their phone for social interactions at all. Therefore they are very open for new social experiences that are more conscious about how it impacts their life

Why did you start Mohi? What opportunities did you see?

There were two main drivers to start Mohi:

(1) Like many others today, we overly conscious about the precious time we have. We've therefore always been so frustrated when we had to search for good recommendations when we finally had time to watch a movie or listen to a podcast. The suggestions by today's algorithms are still too often not suited to our taste. We wanted a place where we would always have the recommendations of our (expert) friends readily available.

(2) Sharing great content experiences strengthens social relationships. More and more we came to realize that it gave such a positive boost to our friends relationships if we were both obsessed about the same book or serie; it really uplifted the quality of our conversations. We wanted to find a way to encourage more of such exchanges as we believe people are always looking for ways to deepen their social relationships

What problems does Mohi solve?

Content curation. There is limited time, an abundance of media, and its hard to have the recommendations of your most trusted source at hand: your friends and topic experts.

What gives Mohi the competitive edge?

There is no place where you can find at any moment the latest content recommendations of your friends, that's where Mohi comes in. We have a uniquely skilled team to solve this problem with all 10+ years of experience in each of our domains under our belt.

Who are your customers?

Curious, educated, digitally savvy content lovers mostly in their thirties and forties

What does your company need in order to grow?

At some point in the near future we will need to find an investor who dares to think as big as we do.

What is your growth strategy?

The main driver of our growth will be the virality of the product. It helps that we have many film makers, journalists, writers, CEOs, and other influencers endorsing our application. Social will be one of our key channels for growth

In which markets are you looking to establish your presence?

We believe we are the Goodreads for all your media and would like to go international from day 1, maybe day 2.

What are your plans for the coming 12 months?

Our main priority for this phase is our product. Building out the experience, testing what works, and getting a good understanding of our user cohorts.

www.mohi.app

 This is an entry for the Dutch Startup Competition 2021

Read about the Dutch Startup Competition and how to participate here