Whether it’s a corporate community, sports fans, charities, social gatherings, or just a bunch of friends/neighbors hanging out, sometimes you want your own little corner of the Internet where you can do and share whatever it is that you want to do and/or share.

Follr makes it easy to connect with people who share your passions/interests/workplace or neighborhood with tools you need to keep everyone informed and engaged. With a focus on the human side of communities.

It’s also great for brands that are looking for their perfect market, rather than to advertise/market roughshod. Nothing like focus!

Founder and CEO Steve Fells is here to give us the details, and how community is being taken to the next level.

Tell us about the product.

At Follr, we believe that communities will play a foundational role in successful brand engagement.  Websites are informational and generally lack the ability to effectively connect with an audience around a shared passion or interest. Social media can be an effective, conversational tool to create awareness, but the transient nature of content means it’s only a partial solution.

Follr Communities provides a focused, social environment for fans, friends, clubs or social groups to engage around a subject they care deeply about. We centralize all existing social and traditional media content into one place for ease of consumer consumption. Additionally, we enable a conversational environment, encouraging engagement with each other, with content and with the real people behind their favorite brands, clubs, organizations or shared passions. A human connection.

If you are already an online community builder or aspire to be one, our goal at Follr is to make the experience as simple and fun as possible. As we continue our series on building a solid foundation for success with online communities we will focus on creating the community identity. – See more at: http://blog.follr.com/#sthash.EUeQkfcb.dpuf

All of the current community providers offer an outdated product with very limited functionality. At Follr, we set out to build a simple, intuitive product with rich features and a highly customizable look that anyone can set up and manage without IT experience.

We aim to socialize the typical website experience and, rather than compete with the many social networks, we want to highlight and better distribute their content to the audience. We do this by integrating with the most networks and pulling their content into an easy-to-digest feed on the community. This keeps the audience engaged around the brand or subject, and offers the very best experience without ever leaving the web property.

We are also putting significant development efforts on creating the very best customer analytics in the market. This will help our community customers to know how to better service their customers and understand what to serve up and how to boost product sales, engagement and retention. 

What market are you attacking and how big is it?

We are attacking a broad market that encompasses everyday people who want to set up an outing with friends or get more organized with their soccer club, right through to fortune 500 brands who want to socialize their web experience, capture customer information and sell subscriptions online. The potential is millions of monthly active users engaging around their favorite brands, clubs, organizations or shared passions.

What is the business model?

Follr Communities enables anyone to create a vibrant, customized social community in minutes.  The Follr platform is used by individuals, companies and groups to communicate more effectively, heighten branding and awareness, and improve customer service, product sales, event promotion and organization. Follr can also be used to simply arrange a get together for a group of people.

Follr generates revenue through software adoption and sales, commissions on customers’ product sales on the platform, and memberships and ad unit sales.

What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within 6 months?

Generate substantial monthly revenue followed closely by signing on a million active users.

If you could be put in touch with one investor in the New York community who would it be and why?

Gary Vaynerchuk – Because of his direct knowledge of and key expertise in social media and the ever-growing number of tech start-ups. Our product aligns exceptionally well with the philosophies conveyed in his books, online content and investing strategies.

Why did you launch in New York?

New York has such a vibrant start up community, with lots of great events, people and inspirations with which to leverage ideas and strength.  Also, having direct access to capital sources, key contacts and other resources are all great catalysts when growing a tech start up.

Where’s the best happy hour in New York?

Seafire Grill!