Newnew

NewNew is a consumer social application that lets audiences pay to influence decisions made by "creators" — writers, painters, musicians, fashion designers and bloggers. The company describes itself as "a human stock market where you buy shares in the lives of real people, in order to control their decisions and watch the outcome." A creator posts a question with two possible answers, typically via a video clip, and followers pay to cast votes; followers may vote as many times as they wish and are not refunded regardless of the outcome. Beyond polls, followers can pay from $20 upward to request that a creator do something specific, such as naming a book character after them; creators may reject these "bids," in which case the follower is not charged.

The app launched in beta roughly two months before May 2021 and at that point had fewer than 100 creators on the platform. Reported uses included choosing a creator's takeaway meal, daily outfit, and fiction writing decisions such as genre, character names and plot developments. A third-party company profile lists the company as founded in 2020 and headquartered in Los Angeles, California, in the social media/networking and consumer categories, and describes it as a decision-making marketplace where users bid and vote on the outcomes of other people's lives.

Founding story

NewNew was created by Los Angeles-based entrepreneur Courtne Smith, a Canadian who spent two years developing the concept. The idea grew out of a prior app she founded, Suprize, which asked the public to vote on the prizes given away to game-playing contestants. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Smith worked more than a decade for Canadian rapper Drake, first as his assistant and later as part of his management team; the two were friends growing up in Toronto.

Business model

Creators receive the money paid by followers for each vote, minus an undisclosed commission retained by NewNew; paid bids for specific creator actions start at $20 and are charged only if the creator accepts.

Commission taken on paid votes cast by followers, at an undisclosed rate.

Traction

As of May 2021 the beta app had fewer than 100 creators; one user, writer Brandon Wong of Edmonton, Canada, reported more than 1,700 total votes on his polls after joining in March 2021 and posting three or four polls a week. As of June 2023, 15 people had bids showing as "ended" on the company homepage.

Latest developments

As of June 2023, a company profile recorded 15 bids marked "ended" on the NewNew homepage.