Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Mike Diedrichs, Co-Founder & CEO at BoomerangBoard:
Q: What’s the story behind BoomerangBoard?
A: Like a lot of stories it starts with a pivotal personal moment. I had just lost my mother to cancer and I was living in that suffocating bubble of sadness and anger. I was surrounded by a network of friends and colleagues – and connected to even more people via social networks but I had never felt more alone. I either didn’t want to burden friends with my sadness or found they couldn’t relate. And I became painfully aware of just how carefully curated social networks had become. My feeds were filled with happy smiling pictures of happy smiling friends seemingly without a care in the world. This wasn’t a network. It was the opposite. It felt isolating.
I kept thinking: What if there was a site that could harness the power and reach of social networks and make it meaningful. Encourage people to share advice and pass long wisdom to others. Provide mentorship or support to truly help other people, in a focused and organized way.
I couldn’t let the idea go – and I shared my thoughts with my longtime friend John Borenius. He felt just as passionate as I did and together – when we couldn’t find this network we both knew people would need…we built one. John and I teamed up with our wives Amy and Jennifer to make BoomerangBoard a reality.
BoomerangBoard offers the power of social networking in an anonymous setting so you can feel safe to share real stories, seek help with real challenges, share honest advice and create authentic connections.
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Q: Why is now the time for a technology solution like BoomerangBoard?
A: This is the new wave of social networking; the ability to communicate in small groups, privately or publicly, and get real value out of it to improve your life.
People are fed up with the alternative social networks that just push carefully curated information. People are looking for social networks that provide real value in their lives and where they can feel safe and open up.
Our goal at BoomerangBoard is to truly help people. We firmly believe in privacy and allow users to be anonymous and we do not share any of our users data with third parties. Our platform is focused on creating private and public chat groups in a safe and secure environment that allow users to feel comfortable discussing personal or sensitive subjects.
Q: Can you tell us how exactly does it work?
A: We like to say users are in control. They control whom they connect with and how they connect. We’ve created a simple and streamlined registration form that allows the users to describe who they are, their knowledge and past experiences. Our search function allows users to filter through and find the people they feel are best equipped to help them based on whatever criteria is important to them.
The users can then start communicating – We have created our own messaging service within BoomerangBoard platform
The users can communicate with other users on their terms. They can go to our Classifieds section where they can post questions to specific users (based on search criteria) or to the entire BoomerangBoard community.
Or they can communicate via a feature called Boomerangs. This is where users can create private chat groups of any size. This is ideal for topics that may be more sensitive or for long term chats for mentors, support groups, or a personal board of advisors. The person that created the Boomerang is in control and drives the conversation by stating topic and can have multiple conversations within one Boomerang.
We encourage all our users to participate and be as involved as possible. We have a reward system called Golden Boomerangs that rewards users for the amount of participation and users can also give Golden Boomerangs based on quality of help.
Q: So what does it take to join? Is there any cost or special requirements?
A: Its simple to join – and it’s free! Go to www.BoomerangBoard.com and create a username with a valid email address. its free! BoomerangBoard is about real people helping each other. As we grow we will create a premium level that will have a nominal fee but gives access to users that have the highest rating (Golden Boomerangs).
Q: What is your current status?
A: Currently we are in a soft launch, testing the site in a full production environment. We are open for new users and encourage people to join. Our IOS and Android mobile apps are available in the Apple Store and Google Play.
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Q: What can we expect from BoomerangBoard in the future?
A: We are finishing two more apps to add to our suite of offerings. We are close to launching BoomerangBoard India that will be available only within the borders of India and is focused on specific Indian cultural needs. We anticipate BoomerangBoard India to be ready for launch end of Q2 ’19.
We are simultaneously finishing BoomerangBoard JR. This is a platform designed for a young adult demographic age 14-18. This age group is dealing with increased pressure from social networks as well as school, time management and social pressures. We want to give these young adults a safe place to meet and discuss these issues to help them grow and have a happier life. We are in final QA and anticipate a similar launch time as BoomerangBoard India, end of Q2 ’19.
Q: How did you fund this project and are you looking for investors?
A: Majority of BoomerangBoard is self-funded by the co-founders. We had a minor investment from an angel investor last year. We will start our capital raise efforts as soon as we are ready to deploy the full suite of offerings: BoomerangBoard, BoomerangBoard India, and BoomerangBoard JR. We would welcome the opportunity to speak with any investors that are looking for more information.
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