"No likes, no followers, no ads" promised Alexis Barreyat when he founded his network two years ago. A lot is different than on Instagram and Co. The success and a high three-digit company rating show: The app hits a nerve. But does the model have a future?
Alexis Barreyat eventually got fed up with all the "bullshit on social media". Out of frustration with superficial content, the Frenchman founded his own social network called Bereal in early 2020 - in English "be real". At the launch of the app, he made a radical promise: "No likes, no followers, no ads." You will only see content from your friends there, and "as authentically as possible".
Two years later, Bereal is the app of the moment: it has been number one in the Apple download charts in the USA for weeks. According to estimates by the analysis service Apptopia, it was downloaded 43.3 million times worldwide by August. That arouses desires. Investors reportedly value the "anti-Instagram" at $600 million.
But does an app like Bereal, which apparently defies all the rules of the social media economy, even have a chance on the market? And what could the business model look like?
At least the Bereal founders leave no doubt that they want to stand out clearly from the established competition. "If you want to become an influencer, you can stay on Tiktok and Instagram," the app description reads. Bereal will not make anyone famous. Instead, it's about real insights into the lives of friends.
The logic of the app is quickly explained: once a day at an unpredictable time, users receive a push notification asking them to be "realW". You then have two minutes to take a photo and post it. The special thing about it: The app takes the photo at the same time as the selfie view and the front camera. So you can also see "behind the scenes". Furthermore, there is no option for image editing. The element of a personal timeline is also missing, because the posts are deleted after one day. If you want to see the "Bereals" of your friends, you first have to post something yourself.
The concept is exciting in two ways. On the one hand, it forces users to actively participate. This drives up the daily number of users - and makes the app economically interesting. "Investors look primarily to the daily active users," says Said Haschemi, investment manager at the German start-up financier HV Capital. The higher the activity, the more money you can ultimately make from advertising (although Bereal apparently has other plans).
The French startup also seems to be in tune with a zeitgeist that the other major platforms have not yet catered to. "The timing of Bereal is perfect," says Adil Sbai, founder of the Hamburg social media agency Wecreate, "Capital". The success of the short video app Tiktok has already shown that many people are apparently longing for an alternative to the glossy world of Instagram. Without the pressure of always looking perfect and generating as many likes as possible.
The US social media analyst Casey Newton makes a similar observation. "It's remarkable that the app is on the rise at a time when I'm seeing more and more viral fears about Instagram's development," he writes in his newsletter Platformer. Newton alludes to the revolt of some social media stars who protested the rise of videos and third-party content in July. At the forefront of criticism were Kim Kardashian and her half-sister Kylie Jenner, who together have almost 700 million followers.
Bereal plays on the nostalgia and intimacy of the early days of social media, when the feed only played content from friends. And that apparently makes it extremely successful. According to the startup, the number of daily users has risen from almost 10,000 to currently ten million since March 2021. A remarkable growth trajectory, even if the startup is still a dwarf compared to Facebook's nearly two billion daily actives.
For sustainable growth, however, Bereal also needs a viable business model in the medium term that finances the app. How the makers want to translate the attention into sales has so far been left completely open. Alexis Barreyat and his co-founder Kévin Perreau, who both know each other from a Paris programming school, have not yet given any interviews. There was no public comment even on the first and second rounds of financing, in which, according to media reports, well-known investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Accel and DST Global got involved.
They only make one thing clear: Apparently there should be no advertising at Bereal. According to the terms and conditions, it is even forbidden. "For advertising agencies and creators, the app is not exciting enough anyway," says social media expert Adil Sbai. By design alone, it is almost impossible to build up a large range overnight. Virality is not intended for Bereal, it's more about an intimate circle of friends. Native advertising is about as effective as if it were printed out and hung up in the hallway.
However, there are other monetization options. "A subscription model would be innovative and bold," says Sbai. As with Twitch or YouTube Premium, users could then pay a monthly fee for their account. A blog post by star investor Andrew Chen, who invested in Bereal early on with venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz, also speaks in favor of this variant. In it, Chen describes "the next social generation" that is characterized by "real connections between people". This new generation will primarily monetize with subscriptions and NFTs. He does not refer directly to Bereal, although the connection is obvious.
However, the promise of authenticity is not really new. The former hype apps Snapchat and Vero also performed with similar values - their star then quickly faded again. After a few days on Bereal, one problem in particular becomes apparent:
Real life for most people just isn't that exciting. At some point you know all of your friends' living rooms, offices and gyms. And is bored by the recurring photos of keyboards, car steering wheels and ceiling lights.
As social media watcher Casey Newton puts it, "The novelty of the two-minute timer will pass, and faster than Bereal would like to believe." A single feature does not make a social network. Barreyat and company now need to innovate to stay relevant. And quickly, because otherwise they will face the fate that many newcomers have already experienced: a new update from Instagram that brazenly copies the functions and makes their own app superfluous.
The article first appeared on Capital.de.
