Three Companies, One Brand: Building Offline Over 13 Years with David Shaner

NC Tweener Talks · Feb 5, 2026 · 45m

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. In this episode, we focus on Offline’s origin story and business evolution, not AI (yet).

Highlights from Part 1

Offline has effectively been three different companies under one brand

Early versions tried to reinvent Meetup, and failed

A city-guide app reached ~3M people/month but couldn’t monetize

Consumer businesses can look successful while quietly breaking

Subscription was the first model that truly worked

Restaurants don’t want “deal seekers”, they want incremental revenue

Offline works because it optimizes excess capacity, not discounts

COVID…