Who eventually won the Southeast Asian social commerce market that Multiply attempted?

Tokopedia in Indonesia, Lazada across the region and later TikTok Shop captured the social commerce opportunity in Southeast Asia. All three had either the logistics infrastructure, the incumbent marketplace position or the social platform native integration that Multiply lacked.

Was the trusted-circles privacy model genuinely innovative?

Yes — Multiply's privacy model was more nuanced than early Facebook. The concept anticipated Google+ Circles (2011) by several years. The problem was execution: when a dominant platform copies a differentiation, the smaller platform loses its reason to exist. Facebook's privacy controls, even if less sophisticated, were "good enough" for most users.

← All autopsies

// HALL OF FLAME · STARTUP AUTOPSY

Founded	2003
Closed	2013
Country	USA
Sector	Social
Total raised	10
Collapse type	Market Exit
Founder	Peter Pezaris

Multiply

"The social network that pivoted to Asian e-commerce — and failed at both"

$10M

RAISED

—

EMPLOYEES

120

MONTHS

marketfitMarket Exit

// Fatal mistake: Shutting down active social network to pivot to e-commerce abandoned user base — users migrated to Facebook, not the new product

Key Events Timeline

2003-01

FOUNDING

Multiply founded as a social network with trusted circles privacy model

2004

PRODUCT LAUNCH

Multiply launches social network, reaches 11 million users primarily in Philippines and Indonesia

2009

DOWN ROUND

Facebook introduces trusted circles privacy controls, eliminating Multiply's core differentiation

2012

PIVOT

Multiply shuts down social network and pivots to social commerce platform for small businesses in Southeast Asia

2012-06

PIVOT

User exodus following pivot - most users migrate to Facebook rather than adopting commerce platform

2013-06

SHUTDOWN

Market Exit: Multiply ceases operations after e-commerce business fails to reach sustainable scale

🔥 Hall of Flame 30%🏆 Hall of Fame 32%

Multiply launched in 2004 as a social network with a distinctive "trusted circles" privacy model — users could share content selectively with different groups.

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More Social →More from USA →More marketfit failures →Raised: 10

// YOUR STARTUP DOESN'T HAVE TO END LIKE THIS

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// THE SOCIAL GRAVEYARD DOESN'T END HERE

Multiply followed a documented pattern. Identify the same signals in any company before they reach the point of no return.

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