Sima Sistani, sound familiar? Probably not. Yet this woman in technology is the CEO of the startup that has been ranked No. 1 in the “social network” category of the US App store since March 20; higher than Facebook, Messenger or WhatsApp!
Sima Sistani is co-founder and CEO of Houseparty, a social network that connects people via an app, enabling group video calls. It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for Houseparty! In the midst of the lock-in, over 50 million new users have joined the platform, representing a 70% increase on the usual figures. Houseparty, which until now has been especially popular with teenagers, has integrated a series of new features designed to encourage interaction, including the ability to play games remotely or jump into ongoing conversations that your friends are already having. Houseparty’s rise may seem to have come out of nowhere, but the startup has been around for almost four years and, in June 2019, was acquired by Epic Games Inc, the makers of the video game Fortnite.
To adapt to these exceptional changes, Sima Sistani was appointed CEO of the company, having previously been COO. Ben Rubin, the startup’s co-founder, who had run the company since its inception -and when it was still called Meerkat-, has joined the board and continues to advise the teams. But the woman in technology is far from being a beginner in the industry. Before launching the app, Sima Sistani worked at Tumblr as head of media and at Yahoo! as director of mobile growth and director of business development and strategy.
In recent years, she has been publicly committed to changing maternity leave in Silicon Valley. In 2013, she succeeded in changing Yahoo’s policies by urging management to consider more generous policies for all employees than the California statutory paid leave that was taking place. At first she was told no, then following strong internal pulls and an employee uprising, management agreed to implement an additional eight weeks for mothers who had just given birth. In 2019, she launched a campaign for paid leave in Silicon Valley. Only six founders agreed to commit.
Her mission with Houseparty: to bring empathy online. In 2016, she said, “We created Houseparty because we are convinced that people are looking to move beyond the popularity contests that take place on social media.”
Given the various privacy controversies associated with the Zoom app, and its limited usefulness once people are able to meet up again, we might expect to see Zoom’s numbers return to lower levels. But Houseparty could be different, as the startup already held significant audience levels beforehand. When it launched in 2016, the company had quickly reached 20 million users. It’s likely to be the same afterwards, with restrictions only strengthening its use case and value, according to Social Media Today.
