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Check out the pitch deck Twitter’s former social media chief is using to raise $1.3 million for a Twitter alternative called Spill
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- A team of former Twitter employees are launching a new social platform called Spill.
- Spill aims to spotlight culture and compensate creators for their content, using blockchain tech.
- Check out the pitch deck Spill is using to help raise a $1.3 million pre-seed funding round.
A team of former Twitter employees is raising money for a rival social media startup they plan to launch next year, which aims to spotlight culture and reward the creativity of often underrecognized groups of creators.
Spill — named after the phrase “spill the tea” — is hoping to remove some of the barriers to entry that discourage users from posting on other social platforms and make it easier for creators to be compensated for their content.
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The startup is currently fundraising for a $1.3 million seed pre-seed funding round that it plans to invest in hiring engineers, a designer, and a community manager.
The platform intends to have a blockchain-based loyalty system that will automatically pay users if their content gains traction. On the content moderation front, the startup plans to use existing large language models — as well as training new models that tackle abuse aimed at alized communities — to reduce its reliance on large human moderation teams. Another point of difference, Spill says, is its plan to host so-called “tea parties,” both on the platform and in real life, for groups to gather.
Spill is led by Twitter’s former global head of social and editorial Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell, whose entire 27-person team was laid off by Elon Musk shortly after his takeover of the company. Terrell had marked his departure with a screenshot of the tweet he was unable to send from the official Twitter account — “bye literally everyone” — because he had been locked out of its systems when his employment was terminated.
—Phonz is Spilling (@Phonz) November 4, 2022
Terell told Insider the genesis for Spill was in 2019 when he and DeVaris Brown — now Spill’s CTO — both started working at Twitter on the same day.
“We were the only two Black guys in our new hire class and we were like, hey, we should talk,” Terrell said. “We bonded over a shared love of culture, building new platforms, and also knowing there’s not a lot of us in this space yet.”
While Brown left Twitter in 2020 to build his own data startup, the pair began “talking a lot more” earlier this year, as Musk’s Twitter acquisition progressed. Twitter has been in a state of constant tumult under Musk, a period that has seen mass layoffs, an advertiser exodus, and a reported surge in hate speech.
“It became pretty clear it was like, now’s the time,” Terrell added.
Spill is focusing its early community building efforts onboarding creators from communities that are often “underrecognized” on big social platforms, despite having a huge impact on their growth.
“A lot of the success, whether it’s QueerTok, #BlackTwitter, the creators from early YouTube and Vine, a lot of them are from alized groups, but they really define these platforms,” Terrell said.
More than 38,000 users have signed up to reserve their handle on Spill since the company announced its waitlist on Friday, a spokesperson for the company said. Spill is aiming for an alpha launch in January, followed by a beta launch in late March.
Check out the 14-page pitch deck Spill is using to court potential investors below.
Spill aims to launch early next year.
Spill
The startup is hoping to raise a $1.3 million pre-seed funding round at a 15.5% dilution.
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Spill’s cofounders met while working at Twitter. Terrell, the CEO, also has experience working at companies including HBO, Showtime, Def Jam, Sony Music. CTO DeVaris Brown, also runs the data startup Meroxa, and has previously worked at Heroku, VSCO, and Zendesk,
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The key insight behind Spill is that the discussion around a particular event — from the release of a new song to a soccer match — is often the most entertaining aspect of following along in real-time.
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But the issue with social platforms like Twitter, the Spill founders say, is that it can take a long time to onboard, it’s often difficult to discover the best content, advertising doesn’t always work effectively, and creators don’t get adequately rewarded for their input.
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Spill’s founders are key to emphasize that they’re not just building a Twitter alternative. “It’s clear to see there’s a desire and that people are hunting for a better experience on social, especially when it comes to real-time conversation,” said Terrell.
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Spill users can create or amplify posts and host virtual and real-world chat events.
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Brown said Spill’s trust and safety approach differs to that of other tech platforms due to its plans to hire candidates from diverse communities and its focus on large language models. Tech platforms “have taken the marine approach — just throw bodies at it — we’re taking the navy seal approach,” Brown added.
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Terrell said Spill aims to become the “de facto place people to to discover and discuss culture.”
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Spill will have a three-pronged revenue strategy: Advertising, in-app purchases, and by licensing out its data to companies and other organizations.
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Outside of Twitter, Spill counts Line, Koo, and WeChat among its rivals.
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Spill said it hopes a combination of its community, creator onboarding, and content partnerships will encourage users to check the app three to four times a day.
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The startup is fundraising for a $1.3 million pre-seed funding round, which it says will give it a runway of around 12 to 16 months.
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