What didn’t kill Colin Hodge made him stronger

Colin Hodge, Down, Comeback, Failure, Legal, Mobile Apps, PR / Media Marketing, Sell Your Business

In 2013 Colin Hodge was one of the most written about startup founders, because of his company’s suggestive name, Bang with Friends, and because of his masterful use of PR.

Then Zynga sued him. Apple banned his app. And he had to lay off everyone on his team.

This is the story of how he bunkered down in South America, worked by himself and rebuilt his company — and himself. The result was Down, a revenue generating dating app that he sold to Paktor.

Colin Hodge

Down

Colin Hodge is the Founder of of Down (formerly Bang With Friends) which is a dating app that he sold to Paktor.

Andrew: Hey, everyone. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy.com, the place where I interview entrepreneurs and get deep about how they built their businesses. And I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I can tell you that I see the progress of these entrepreneurs over time.

In fact, about four years ago, in fact almost to the day four years ago, I interviewed today’s guest, Colin Hodge, about his company, which at the time was called Bang With Friends. Yeah, just like you imagine, that’s what it did. He seemed to have it all at the time. His business was big news. He was getting a lot of attention for creating an app that allowed people to sleep with their friends. It enabled people to have a good time. And it also got him massive downloads. And he seemed, as I said, to be on top of the world.

But after the interview, Colin was in for a world of pain. He got sued. He got kicked out of the Apple App Store. Apple threatened...

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