Growing the new LinkedIn for creatives with Remi & Bella from Ponnd
Growth signals beyond going viral, why climbing cringe mountain is worth it, and building digi spaces inspired by third spaces
Hello! You’re reading Growing XYZ, an interview series from Broken Growth spotlighting founders and makers building brands beyond capitalist and patriarchal blueprints.
I’m hyped to share this convo with Bella Cipolla and Remi Dooley, founders of Ponnd, and internet friends of mine thanks to Substack.
Ponnd is a new professional network built to “un-fuck professional networking” currently moving from MVP to V.1. Their approach to community building and co-creating the app with huge input from their first users stands out for being transparent, interesting, and fun. An excellent recipe for growth in my books.
If you don’t already know Ponnd I’m excited for you to get to know.
Enjoy!
Matilda
Hello! Please give us a short intro to you and Ponnd.
Hello! Bella and Remi here from Ponnd. The one-liner would be we’re building Ponnd to un-f*** professional networking. If we were to double click the answer would be we’re creating a platform to ensure that the truest, deepest sense of who the professional is comes to life. For too long the careerist has been reduced to (what we call) The 3 T’s - Titles, Text and Timelines. Professional Networks have failed to meet the modern professional where they are - complex, rich and experimental. And we’re fixing that.
What was the moment you realised the current model of professional social networking (hey LinkedIn) was broken and that you wanted to do something about it?
Bella: I don’t think there was a single moment of realisation. The truth is that I never fit the LinkedIn mold. I am a ‘creative’ to the core. I have tread a very non-linear career path - leaving school at 15, moving to NYC at 17 to train and work as a Ballerina, pivoting during covid to then scale 2x creative ventures, most recently a graphic design studio. I have never stepped foot in a corporate setting, never experienced office culture so the whole idea of entering into a blue-and-grey world created to digitise the CV made me… sheepish. And yet, I wholeheartedly believed that I had so much to offer in terms of experience and perspective.
So, when this, albeit very blurry, idea of a better way to express and connect professionally started forming last September, there was only one person I wanted to share it with: Remi.
On paper, we couldn’t be more different. Rem comes from a corporate marketing & PR background. But despite her 500+ connections (and the ability to talk to a brick wall), she was hitting the same roadblocks. Miraculously, she got it. She intimately understood the limitations placed by current networks and how they flatten identity, favouring noise and inflated ego. And so, we decided to fix that. In June of this year we both went all in, left our jobs and are now navigating the world of startups.
You’re preparing to take Ponnd from MVP to V1. What does “successful growth” look like for you at this stage?
Bella: Our MVP, like most, was an exercise in validation. It enabled us to understand our users' painpoints and needs. It opened the floor to feedback and deep discussion. We made sure to be on the frontline welcoming the good, the bad and the ugly. And through this open dialogue we were able to piece together a picture of V.1. A very different image of what our MVP looks like today.
Growth at this stage is everything.
Evolving Ponnd from MVP -> V.1.
Growing our current team of 2
Expanding our reach and unlocking new audiences.
To ensure real success, we're weaving our core values into every growth effort: authenticity, intention, collaboration, and humanity over ego. These aren't just words on a wall—they're the foundation of how we build, how we hire, and how we connect with our community.
I loved your recent TikTok where you said you're "translating the intelligence of physical spaces into digital architecture." Can you talk more about what physical spaces have taught you and how that translates into what you’re building with Ponnd?
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Bella: Spaces that evoke emotion don't discriminate, they create collective feelings, a quiet shared understanding that informs how we should behave within them. I'm drawn to spaces of gathering: concert halls, libraries, churches, galleries, speakeasies. While none of these are necessarily alike in structure, they share similar traits that make a person sit, reflect, absorb, and simply be. They invite permission to pause.
Coming from a design background, it would be remiss not to inject the same level of care into Ponnd's digital space. We're building something different here, with the intention to evoke more vulnerable, authentic responses, and that demands a different perspective and approach.
Digital too often = rigidity. Most platforms tend to feel chaotic and transactional. Ponnd had to feel different: clear, calm, energising. We needed to create space for members to explore, open up, ask, and seek with clarity.
The intelligence of physical spaces lies in their ability to shape behavior through feeling. That's exactly what we're translating into Ponnd's digital architecture, inviting deeper connection rather than surface-level engagement.
What do you think most social platforms get wrong about how people actually want to connect and interact online?
Remi: I read something recently that resonated deeply: Facebook, LinkedIn, and others started as social networks built for connecting people, but eventually morphed into social media for broadcasting. There's a true turn happening back toward social networks where people are craving real connection. People want deeper, more meaningful interactions online, and while in-person connection is obviously ideal, that's not always achievable. So how do we make the online experience better?
We believe people want direct, meaningful engagement. Personally, I have zero interest in commenting "SaaS" to unlock your sales pitch template. I want to know about someone completely pivoting their career at a scary age and hear from others who've done the same. I want to know about the deeply rewarding project you just finished and all the messiness behind it. Your recommended resources for tapping into creativity that aren't business books. The conversations that matter.
The word authenticity gets thrown around constantly, but I think we genuinely crave stripped-back communication. Most platforms reward performance over presence, broadcasting over connecting. They've optimised for engagement metrics rather than meaningful exchange. The result? We're more connected than ever but somehow lonelier in our digital interactions.
What signals are you looking at to measure depth over volume of connection within the Ponnd community?
Remi: There’s a few key signals that we are measuring and that are important to us at this MVP stage. This will change over time, but we are really looking at:
Community-generated outcomes
Repeat engagement
Session times
For now, we’re prioritising qualitative data over quantitative. We want to understand how people are actually engaging on the platform and what feedback we can gather to reduce friction in those interactions. Are members following up with each other after initial connections? Are they returning not because of notifications or gamification, but because they found something genuinely valuable? How long are they staying in conversations, and more importantly, what's the quality of those exchanges?
Volume metrics like total users or daily active users don't tell us if we're succeeding at our core mission. Right now a smaller community having deeper, more meaningful interactions is infinitely more valuable to us than thousands of surface-level engagements.
You’re building Ponnd in public and sharing the journey. What’s that process been like so far? Has it changed anything about how you view community-building even at this early stage?
Remi: Building in public has been a real journey for both of us, but we've unexpectedly loved it. We heard early on that you have to "climb cringe mountain" when putting yourself out there, and we've definitely encountered that. But as we mentioned in our recent newsletter, it's brought us closer to the community we're building for.
The unexpected outcome has been the community of women it's connected us with as founders. Matilda, we'd call you an internet friend, and Substack and TikTok have been integral in helping us connect with this fantastic group of mostly women who genuinely support each other. Being women in tech can be isolating, but building in public has created this support system we never anticipated.
It's shown us that community-building isn't just about your product's users. There are concentric circles of community that form naturally when you're authentic about your journey.
What’s been harder than expected in building this new kind of space and what’s been unexpectedly energising?
Bella: Early on, our advisors would say, "You can write me a 15-page thesis on what Ponnd is, but you can't give it to me in one clear sentence." They were right. This distillation process was HARD! Especially when the vision is so BIG.
As a result the conversations with people who didn’t ‘get it’ were brutal… How could we have communicated that differently? What’s not landing? We get it, why isn’t anyone else?
On the flip side the conversations with those who do? They're incredible. What's been unexpectedly energising is that as we've refined our story, those "they get it" conversations are becoming more frequent.
Are there any traditional growth strategies you’re actively avoiding in pursuit of building a new kind of social network?
Remi: Virality is a dirty word here at Ponnd. It just doesn't make sense for what we're building. Viral growth is about rapid, wide distribution. But, that's often at odds with creating meaningful connections.
We're actively avoiding the typical playbook: referral programs that incentivise quantity over quality, gamification, and growth hacking tactics that prioritise metrics over member experience. Instead, we're focused on organic, intentional growth.
You’ve talked about building ‘a new kind of digital space’. Who or what is inspiring your thinking right now?
Bella: We're studying Ray Oldenburg's "third space" theory - how places like libraries, community centers, and local cafes create neutral ground where people naturally gather and connect. These spaces solve something most digital platforms miss: they make strangers comfortable coexisting and engaging organically.
Stanley Kunitz's poem "The Layers" has been a touchstone during this process. It touches on themes of ageing, change, and loss, but for me it's always been about transition and redirection - shedding old skins while carrying forward what matters. The tension between transformation and continuity applies to what we're trying to create: a space that honors how people actually evolve and change, rather than reducing them to static professional identities (aka, the CV).
Our early users are inspiring our thinking in ways we never expected. They're showing us gaps between what people say they want and what actually changes their behavior.
Thanks for reading! Connect with
on Substack, TikTok, or their website.Would love to know what direction of travel you’d like to see professional network taking. Lmk in the comments/ reply to the email. It makes my day to hear from you :)
Broken Growth is written by London based freelance strategist Matilda Lucy.
Yes Ponnd, love it - "Personally, I have zero interest in commenting "SaaS" to unlock your sales pitch template." Same girl, same.
Wait this is so exciting for so many reasons! Cool founders doing things THEIR way - organically, intentionally, values-led, with care - building something that's truly in service to others who don't fit molds. Awesome to learn about Ponnd, thank you for sharing!