DOWN Dating & Social Apps

President, Founder, Owner

MakeLoveNotPorn Academy

Investor

PEF Community

Member: Post-Exit Founders

Snowball: Make an Impact for Human Rights & Freedoms

Co-Founder & Volunteer

Colin Hodge: The Global Growth Expert

Partnering with startups on strategies & tactics for marketing & product growth

Advisor, Consultant, Investor

SOSV MOX (Mobile Only Accelerator)

Mentor

True Digital Group

Mentor-in-Residence at Startup Camp Accelerator

M17 Entertainment

Chief Growth Officer

CEO of 17Live USA

VP of Growth & Marketing

Paktor

As part of Paktor's Management team, I'm leading the high-growth division of Paktor, including incubated projects and acquisitions. Leaning on my expertise in organic growth / growth-hacking, we're building strong, sustainable social apps for Paktor and Paktor Labs.

VP of Paktor Labs / Head of Growth @ Paktor

CEO & Founder

17+ years in the industry and 100M+ users across the businesses I’ve worked with.

But that’s not my story.

Those are the results of years of learning, but my story is way more complicated.

My story is one of perseverance, honesty, and adaptation.
I’ve scaled startups organically to a 9-figure user base in a short time.

I believe marketing is not vague; it’s an honest conversation.
And how you “hack” growth is through understanding user psychology.
That leads to disruptive marketing and successful products.
That’s what I love to do.

Here’s a quick rundown of my journey into marketing & product growth:

Remember a dating app that blew up with a crazy name?
Bang with Friends!

I co-founded it and organically grew it to over 6M+ users before selling it.
(Trust me, I could fill a book with the wild stories from starting that app)

I’ve served on the board of a Silicon Valley social media company,
pulling in $200M+ in annual revenue, advising their marketing & product strategies.

As Chief Growth Officer, I led data-driven growth initiatives for 17Live,
Asia’s top live-streaming app, and launched its U.S. platform as LiveAF’s CEO.

Then, I bought back my dating app, now named DOWN, raised it from the dead, and grew it to the top 5 in the U.S.

I’m all about sharing my lessons and growing - both myself and others.
Whether it’s through writing, speaking at events, or working with startups,
I love passing on insights and learning from the amazing people I meet.

When I’m not working, you can usually find me exploring new cultures
and practicing new languages. I believe every conversation has the potential to spark something big.

If you’re into entrepreneurship, disruptive marketing, or growth hacking and want to connect, hit me up.
Let’s create something awesome together.

here was one moment in my career when I realized empathy is not about relating. 

It is about understanding.

I only learned this after failing over and over again.

When I took on the challenge of launching a streaming app in the US, I had to recruit and motivate a very specific group. 

Young, mostly female, twenty something creators in Los Angeles.
Models. 
Influencers. 
Aspiring actresses.
People whose world looked nothing like mine.

And here is the truth I don’t love admitting:
I had no idea how to connect with them.

I was a 33 year old minimalist entrepreneur who barely knew how to use Instagram. 

They lived in a world of brand deals, aesthetics, follower counts, and dreams I could not instinctively feel. 

Every conversation felt like I was speaking through a fog.

At first I tried to relate.
But you cannot relate to a life you have never lived.

So I shifted to something else.
Curiosity.

I stopped trying to find similarities and started asking better questions.
What motivates you?
What scares you?
What gives you confidence?
What makes this platform exciting for you?

Slowly, the fog lifted. 
I began to see their world through their eyes, not mine. 
And everything changed. 
Our conversations got real. 
Our strategy became clearer. 
Our results improved.

Here is the loop from the start, closed:

Empathy becomes the most powerful when you have the least in common.

Because the moment you stop trying to connect through similarity and start connecting through curiosity, you finally understand the people you serve.

Colin Hodge

I Help Entrepreneurs & Startup Founders Boost Growth: 100M+ Users | Founder @ DOWN (15M+ Users) | Creator of The Outrageous Growth Method | Follow me for Growth Marketing Insights

There is a moment in every founder’s journey that forces you to ask yourself one simple question: how far am I willing to go for what I believe in?

For me, that moment happened in Cupertino.

Back when Down was still called Bang With Friends, we were riding the biggest wave of momentum I had ever experienced. Press interviews, viral growth, user numbers climbing every hour. Then one afternoon, out of nowhere, Apple called to let me know they were removing the app from the App Store.

No explanation. 
No guidelines. 
No specifics about what we had violated.

Just a simple message: it’s gone.

I tried every channel. Emails, calls, investors. Nobody could get an answer. 

So I made a decision that felt completely reasonable to a younger version of me. 
I got in my car, drove to Apple’s campus, and asked to meet the policy team in person.

Fifteen minutes later, security approached me with a line I will never forget.

If you do not leave, we will have you arrested.

That was the moment I realized something important.

You cannot control the systems your product depends on. You can only control how you respond when the ground suddenly disappears beneath you.

We drove back to San Francisco, regrouped, experimented, and figured out what Apple actually wanted. 
A few months later, we were back on the store.

Same mission. Same persistence. Much thicker skin.

Sometimes the test is not whether the product works.
It is whether you get back up when it suddenly does not.

In my early startup days, I spent countless nights at pitch events and networking meetups, trying to find the elusive “perfect co founder.”

I imagined late night whiteboards, shared risk, shared vision, building something from scratch together.

Reality looked very different.

The more people I met, the clearer it became.
Most weren’t actually searching for a partner.
They were searching for someone to slot into their idea.

I’d sit down with a founder, excited to jam on high level vision, explore directions, question assumptions. Within minutes, the energy shifted.

They wanted me to code.
They wanted me to execute.
They didn’t want collaboration.
They wanted control.

One conversation was so obvious that I remember thinking: this feels less like dating and more like interviewing for a job I never applied for.

It took me a while to understand the lesson hiding underneath.

A real co founder relationship isn’t built on matching skills.
It’s built on shared willingness to experiment in directions neither person can predict.

And here is the part I only realized later.
Sometimes I was also too attached to my own vision, too eager to steer things my way, too focused on building what I saw in my head instead of leaving space for what could emerge with the right partner.

If someone is already married to their idea, there is no room for yours.
And when you are married to yours, there is no room for theirs.

That insight shaped everything I built afterward.
Including the decision to strike out alone, which eventually led to the spark that became Bang With Friends.

Here is the quiet truth I wish someone had told me earlier.

A startup needs flexibility long before it needs a co-founder.
And the right partner is the one who wants to explore with you, not contain you.

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