Adi Sideman

Adi Sideman, Founder/CEO, YouNow

YouNow founder and CEO Adi Sideman is a pioneer in participatory media, with more than 20 years of experience creating apps and companies in the user-generated video space.

Sideman founded YouNow in 2011 to provide a live social platform for people to connect, interact, and express themselves. YouNow grew to be a global social network with more than 100 million user sessions a month, and creators now produce 150,000 unique live broadcasts each day

YouNow has been named one of the most innovative companies of 2016 by Fast Company and was a finalist for Fastest Rising Startup of 2016 at the Crunchies Awards.

As a developer, Sideman produced the first animated ads on AOL and founded Squeeze, a web development venture that provided services to Fortune 500 companies like Starbucks and Con Edison. He also produced more than 30 online games for major-studio film and TV franchises. In 1999, he founded the interactive marketing firm Oddcast, which continues to develop such groundbreaking apps as “Elf Yourself.” In 2005 he co-founded KSolo, the first online karaoke service (acquired by Fox Interactive/MySpace) and, in 2006, co-founded audio ad network TargetSpot, a joint venture with CBS (acquired by Radionomy).

Sideman is a member of the Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences and was named one of 2015’s top 100 most influential and inspiring people in NYC tech by Business Insider. He holds an MPS degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an undergraduate degree from NYU Film School.