Secret

Secret (secret.ly) was an anonymous social networking application for iOS and Android that operated from 2013 to 2015. The company was established in San Francisco by co-founders David Byttow, a former engineer at Google and Square, and Chrys Bader-Wechseler, a former product manager at Google. Byttow's background was in software engineering, having taught himself to program at a young age and worked on major social products like Google+ and Google Wave before joining Square. Bader-Wechseler also had a background in product management at Google, working on Google+, Photovine, and YouTube. The company successfully raised a total of $35 million from prominent investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Index Ventures, and Google Ventures.

The core service of the platform was to allow users to share messages and content anonymously with their circle of friends and friends of friends. The app distinguished itself by linking anonymity to a user's existing social graph, sourcing contacts from their phone's address book to create a feed of secrets from people they knew, without revealing who specifically posted what. This created a compelling environment for sharing confessions and insider information, particularly within the Silicon Valley tech community, where it was used to spread both rumors and legitimate news. The business model was predicated on user growth and engagement, typical of social media platforms of its time, with the intention to monetize later, although the company shut down before any significant revenue model was implemented.

Despite a period of rapid growth and a valuation that reached $100 million, the platform's trajectory was short-lived. The anonymity that drew users also facilitated widespread cyberbullying, harassment, and the spread of malicious rumors. The company struggled to moderate the flood of negative content, leading to a decline in user engagement and negative media attention. In January 2015, co-founder Chrys Bader-Wechseler departed the company amid creative differences. By April 2015, just 16 months after its launch, CEO David Byttow announced the company was shutting down, stating that the product no longer represented the original vision. A significant portion of the remaining capital was returned to investors, a decision Byttow framed as a belief in "failing fast."

Keywords: anonymous social media, mobile application, social networking, user-generated content, Silicon Valley, venture capital, social graph, content moderation, tech bubble, startup failure