Tapiture

Tapiture was a social discovery site and mobile app where people could find, share and buy content to share on social networks as well as products available for purchase. The platform identified users' interests by analyzing the images, video, products and other content they interact with on Tapiture, and then recommended new content based on that behavior. People could also add new content to Tapiture from other websites or from their phones to share with others.

Tapiture

Type of business	Private
Type of site	Social network service, ecommerce
Headquarters	Santa Monica, CA , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Founder(s)	John Ellis, Leo Resig, John Resig
Key people	John Ellis (CEO) Alvin Fong (COO) Joshua Bauer (CTO) Brian Lee (Board Member) Randall Kaplan (Board Member) Leo Resig (Board Member) John Resig (Board Member)
Industry	Internet, Ecommerce, Consumer Goods
Employees	20 (2014)[1]
URL	tapiture.com
Registration	Required to post, follow, or be followed
Launched	2012[2]
Current status	Closed (October 2, 2015)

Content on Tapiture was provided by the community. Tapiture required registration for full functionality, including adding content, which can be done via its mobile app (phone, camera roll, or web browser) and via Tapiture's browser extension. Web publishers could also implement a button to allow tapping of content directly from their site. Unlike other social networks, however, Tapiture also enabled the direct sale/purchase of consumer products via Tapiture's integrated ecommerce platform.

History

Leo and John Resig launched an early version of what would become Tapiture in the Summer of 2012. They were looking for someone to run it and were introduced to John Ellis through a mutual friend. They liked John's vision for the site, which was an integrated approach to content and commerce, and spun it out as a separate company.[3] John joined as CEO in September 2012.[4] John raised the capital required to hire the initial team and retool the site into a platform that would scale for a larger audience.[5] John Ellis recruited serial entrepreneur, Brian Lee, to join Tapiture's board of directors.[6] This is the only board Brian Lee is on outside of his own company, The Honest Company. Leo and John Resig also joined Tapiture's board of directors and continued to promote Tapiture via their Resignation Media properties, including the primary one, theChive. Tapiture attracted an audience from theChive in the first year but quickly reached a completely new audience of millions of users.

As of December 11, 2015, if you visit the Tapiture URL, it displays a message stating: "We are proud to announce that Tapiture has joined the Playboy family."

As of August 22, 2018, if you try to visit the Tapiture URL, you are automatically redirected to playboyshop.com.

Usage and demographics

Tapiture's visitors were split roughly 50/50 between U.S. and International traffic. The main age group consists of 24- to 35-year-olds, of which approximately 70% are males residing in metropolitan markets. Tapiture reported reaching 10 million monthly unique visitors in December 2014.[7]

Funding

As of February 2014, Tapiture received a combined $2.25 million from angel investors, including Randall Kaplan, Barry Sterlicht, Brad Keywell, Brian Lee, Herb Simon, Hilary Swank, Amar'e Stoudemire, Dwight Howard and others.[8]

References

1. "BuiltInLA".
2. "Crunchbase".
3. "Tapiture Bets Men Will Say, "Hey Dude Check This Out"".
4. "Resignation Media Hires CEO John Ellis To Run Tapiture, Its Fast-Growing Pinterest For Men".
5. "Tapiture nabs mln seed funds".
6. "Tapiture Appoints Brian Lee to Board Of Directors".
7. "Tapiture Experiences Explosive 300% Growth".
8. "Social Commerce Site Tapiture Raises $2.25M In Seed Funding".