Damon Way, DC Shoes Co-founder, Joins Ello Board of Directors

BOULDER, Colo., June 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ello PBC has added DC Shoes co-founder and serial entrepreneur Damon Way to its Board of Directors. Way's appointment coincides with Ello's ever-deepening commitment to creators, and its strategy to help them monetize their work and ideas through a suite of e-commerce tools and professional services that maximize the value of their following, their audience, their organic reach.

CEO Todd Berger says of the move, "Damon is one of Ello's earliest investors. He understands Ello's core mission to support creators everywhere. His brand building and commerce experience will help Ello take its next steps into e-commerce and other creator empowered revenue opportunities. His deep knowledge and background in skate, street, art, music and cultures align perfectly with Ello's values."

Unlike mainstream advertising platforms that farm as much human data as possible, and sell and serve as many ads as tolerable against other's work and followings, Ello values its community members' work, ideas and privacy, and the relationships they create with their followings. Creators, and creative brands and publishers are increasingly wary of monopoly platforms, and how they nickel and dime them to reach the audiences they have built.

"Ello embodies the spirit that drives creative subculture, fostering a DIY ethic and strong sense of individuality and personal expression. It provides a framework and community that seamlessly aligns with artists and creators alike," says Way. "The traditional social media model has been solely built on scale - more people, more data, more ads sold and more revenue. There is a total disregard to community values and substance in relation to this. Ello in contrast is committed to building an environment where these two attributes are the primary drivers."

Ello's values include legal commitments to never sell ads or community member data to third parties and are codified in the company's PublicBenefitCorporationcharter. Ello offers a true alternative for creators, brands and publications to maintain organic reach with the followings they build.

"When we founded Ello," says Berger, "we set out to create an online community that we wanted to be part of ourselves. We had seen the promise of the internet devolve into public pillory, surface over substance, and the sale of individual, personal data. We know there is a better way, and we are more committed than ever to leading that change."

About Ello: Launched in Fall 2014, Ello is the only network designed and built for creators, by creators. A robust and growing community of artists, designers, musicians, skaters, illustrators, photographers, architects, GIF makers - creators, Ello understands that the process, practice, values and passions of the world's tastemakers can move the world forward in a better direction. Ello is available on the web and via the ElloApp, available in the Apple App store.

About Damon Way: Over the past 20 years Damon has founded and invested in a variety of brands. He co-founded and sold DC Shoes, served Chief Brand Officer at Incase, an Apple-focused mobile accessories brand, and is currently building FACT, a brand that makes products expressed through the nuance of skateboarding, music and art.

Contact:
Mark Gelband
mark@ello.co 
+1 303-522-1192

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SOURCE Ello