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Bebo Co-Founder: How to Build an $850 Million Social Network

Sep 3, 2026 · 1:08:08

Bebo co-founder Michael Birch explains how he built Bebo into the UK's biggest website—briefly overtaking Google in traffic—and sold it to AOL for $850 million in 2008. He traces the path from Ringo.com, sold to Tickle, to Bebo's viral mechanics: an address-book importer that added a million users in nine days and quizzes that drove hundreds of thousands of signups a day. He explains selling while growth flattened against Facebook, and never meeting anyone from AOL Time Warner before the deal closed. After open-heart surgery, he and his wife opened The Battery, a San Francisco members club, and built Sonato hospitality software. Now he argues social drifted from friends to broadcast feeds, and that AI let him build Bluebell, his new messaging app, without writing code.

The Nas Daily Story

Aug 22, 2025 · 49:52

Nuseir Yassin, creator of Nas Daily and founder of Nas.io, explains how after 271 failed daily videos he finally broke through in Bangkok, then pivoted his entire content operation to AI—achieving 250 million views from 60 AI-generated videos. He argues that creators must stop building on social media 'quicksand' (only 3-5% of his 70 million follower revenue comes from platforms) and instead build real businesses. Nas.io, built with $10M+, lets anyone turn an idea into revenue within 24 hours using AI for design, ads, and customer acquisition. Yassin predicts the next big trend is internet capital markets—tokenizing ownership of real estate and companies so anyone globally can buy fractional shares. He also launched an entrepreneur fellowship giving 100 people $3,000 each to build businesses on the platform.