Project Overview
I joined Amino at Series A. The platform was already home to thousands of niche Gen Z fandoms — anime, K-pop, gaming, art — but had no monetization layer and limited real-time engagement tools.
Over my tenure the user base grew to 1.2M DAU, the company raised through Series C, and Amino was acquired by MediaLab AI Inc in January 2021. I built the two systems that drove that trajectory: Amino Live and the monetization engine.
What I Did
I owned two product lines end-to-end: Amino Live (voice-based real-time interaction) and the monetization engine (memberships, virtual goods, creator commerce).
- Built Amino Live — live voice and screening rooms that became the primary engagement driver, lifting average session time 40% to 72 minutes.
- Launched the monetization engine from zero — hit $130K+ monthly revenue within 2 months.
- Rebuilt community discovery and recommendation algorithms, growing DAU 15% by surfacing the right communities to the right users.
Business Value
Amino taught me that monetization in community products is a design problem, not just a business one. The features that generated revenue gave users more ways to express identity and status — not the ones that interrupted them.
The journey from Series A to acquisition validated the approach: community-native monetization and live interaction can scale together.
