David Dobrik (who I shall refer to as Dave Dobby in this article) is an American YouTube sensation. He documents various adventures with his posse known as The Vlog Squad.
Over time Dave Dobby and his team of simpletons have gained billions of views, and to their credit they created some very entertaining content.
Diversifying to create Dispo 📸
So how does Mr Dobby decide to use his millions of followers and reach of even more beyond them? By launching a social media app, of course!
And a perfume… but let’s ignore that part.
Dave Dobby first launched his app as David’s Disposable. The social media platform has a simple concept: take a photo and you can’t see it until the following day, replicating the experience of using a disposable camera.
The app was downloaded over 1 million times upon launch.
Later he chose to rename the app Dispo, giving it more scalability.
The app secured a $4m seed investment round, later followed by another $20m of funding valuing the app at a colossal $200m valuation.
How do you burn $200,000,000 in one month? By having shit friends 🍾
Dave Dobby looked like he was on the brink of becoming a billionaire as Dispo was about to be the next Instagram.
Then something awful happened… Well, it had happened a while ago, but the victims finally gained the courage to come forward to share what this something was. To cut a miserable story short; his friend allegedly sexually assaulted or raped someone which was indirectly filmed on one of Dave’s videos.
Despite knowing that this potentially happened, Mr Dobby continued to be friends with this individual.
Coincidentally this was in the same month that Dave Dobby’s app went from being invite only to public.
Unsurprisingly, having your app’s founder facilitating a very serious crime by accident isn’t good PR, and I guess the app simply wasn’t good enough to outgrow his fame.
Also, his incompetence killed it 🚜
Additionally, not that long afterwards, it came out that Dave also accidentally cracked his friends skull open with a digger arm after hiring one to use like a giant toy.
Him and his friends tried to keep the incident under wraps, but eventually the truth did come out.
So not only did Dave Dobby hide his friend committing a serious crime, but he also hid a serious injury happening on the set of his video.
It raised three big concerns:
- That he’s a moron.
- That he surrounds himself with not very bright people.
- That he’s comfortable hiding issues from the public, and potentially could be hiding more.
Where is Dispo now? 📟
Dispo is still alive, but without the social media powerhouse that is Dave Dobby promoting the app on YouTube it’s not centre stage.
Dispo could still flourish but its original trajectory is all but a fever dream.
Dispo is a classic example of why having brands so closely tied to an influencer is a risky game.
SIR THORNEY 