Founder Fridays: Launch where your users scroll with Lillie Sun, Ditto and Lauryn Motamedi, Notion

Ditto’s rise traces back to a simple bet: if people will share personal, list-based stories publicly—after seeing them on TikTok—then a social network built around that behavior can grow. Lily Sun started by posting “green screen” videos of lists made in her notes app, then set a concrete threshold: when the first video hit a million views and a thousand people signed up for a Google Doc, she would build. That milestone arrived within three weeks, and the early viral hit (a list about why “situationships” aren’t worth it) quickly drove demand for an app where people could create and share more lists.

The first version wasn’t even Ditto. It launched as a web app called Breezy, designed to test only one question: would users post lists publicly? The MVP intentionally skipped the usual growth crutches—no focus on followers, search, or discovery. Users could create a title and list, press post, and land in their account. What mattered was whether the content would feel as personal as it did in private notes. Early users did share, and the lists looked like the same kind of intimate, niche material—advice, regrets, and personal stories—rather than generic topics like restaurants or books. That response became the foundation for building network effects and shifting from “sharing lists” to “social sharing.”

A key theme throughout the conversation is building in public, but with a purpose. Sun argues that posting openly can be a practical advantage when a product asks users for something unusual: to volunteer chaotic, unfiltered stories. By bringing the community along while iterating, the company makes later “asks” easier. She also frames a common fear—someone else copying the product—as less threatening than copying the community’s willingness to share in the same way. The brand itself evolved through user feedback: Breezy’s early Pinterest-like inspiration didn’t resonate with power users, who described what they wanted as closer to “girl Twitter” and the feeling of belonging to a community. That insight helped drive the rename to Ditto, meant to signal a collective experience.

Sun’s founder strategy also leans heavily on personal branding. She initially treated her role as “customer acquisition,” deciding that if she couldn’t build the product herself, she would do everything else to get it off the ground—showing up as the face of the company. Over time, she pivoted her content to embody the kind of user Ditto aims to attract: someone who overshares, champions oversharing, and shares personal lessons rather than only fundraising or product updates.

Looking ahead, the biggest challenge is network effects—especially for a text-based platform where interests are broad (food, travel, relationships, college, city life) but the team is small. Digital marketing can drive fast downloads, yet social networks depend on friend-driven content consumption. To solve that, Ditto is pursuing college campus growth as a repeatable way to seed “weak networks” with enough connected users that sub-communities form naturally. The company is also setting boundaries around AI: it won’t use AI-generated lists or titles, while exploring AI’s role in reasoning and interpreting what lists mean through users’ language over time.

The advice at the end is less technical and more emotional: trust the “13th hour.” After long stretches of rejection, a breakthrough often arrives late—sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t—but the mindset is to keep faith through the grind.