Community Highlights: Meet Ashley Darling of Four Mile River Technologies

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Darling

Hi Ashley, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
This journey really begins with my short-lived career as an influencer. During the earlier TikTok days, I garnered an audience on TikTok as “Auntie”- the character I had created who was this badass mafia boss. I created little sketches, connected with my audience, had a couple stalkers, and fundraised thousands of dollars for people struggling during 2020. I could write a whole article just about that experience! Ultimately due to some massive personal changes I was making, I stepped away from all social media (yes I deleted the account) and started an influencer brand consulting business for content creators who needed to harness their personal brands online. I worked specifically with creators in the film and TV industry, I got to meet some incredible folks there. As I worked with these influencers, I began to see the holes and cracks that had formed in the social media platforms I was working on. The biases, the algorithms that only prioritized trending content and changed every other week, the lack of transparency and the “bait & switch” feeling about compensation from creator programs. I felt like there had to be a better way. We had to be able to give creators and users more control- what if they could control their own data? Their profile appearance (a la MySpace) and what if they could toggle a switch that would change their algorithm at-will in real time? At the same time, I’m watching the fall of Hollywood happen to and around my consulting clients…and I’m thinking, “Hollywood is dying…what’s going to take it’s place? User generated media- independent artists who know who they are, what they stand for and have a passion to share it. Like YouTube,…but better. And they’d need to monetize it.” This was all getting very overwhelming to think about by myself and I had no idea what it would even take to do this. So one day, I posted to my Threads account asking if any developers would be willing to talk to me about building something like this…a platform that gave autonomy and control back to the creators. I had several developers reach out to me and one of them was Chris Jones. He said he had years of experience as a developer and had actually begun working on a “feed” for a platform simply because he was curious about how TikTok’s feed worked. He built something very basic, that scrolled and populated with videos…it was a copy of TikTok, but he needed someone with vision who could fully flesh this out conceptually. We met and (poor guy) I info dumped on him for ages about my passion for social media, the future of the entertainment industry, and how I had gotten a front row seat to social media both from the content creator and the content consumer sides of things. He said he liked me because I wasn’t “one of those Silicon Valley Types.” I think outside the box because I have no concept of what the bounds of the box are in tech…I’ve since learned a ton, but gosh- I dream it up, and I ask Chris…and he says, “Let’s do it.” It’s pretty great. So we started meeting once a week to start the wheels moving on this project. I was so excited, I started talking about it on my small TikTok account and someone popped into my DMs and said, “So I’m a project manager in your field…I think I can help!” We set up a Zoom call…and again…(poor Annie) I info dumped on her…her eyes lit up and she nodded so much I thought she may break her neck. We were both so excited about this…about building something better, something good. She said, “I’m so in!” and I could have cried. Seeing people catch the vision of what was in my head and understand the concepts behind it was something I could never have imagined. So now we had a project manager. A few weeks later, we brought on Nick- a talented artist and musician who created insanely good user experiences and design work. He iterated the final version of our mascot “Moody”, and has taken our platform from looking stripped down and beta…to beautiful and engaging. It blew me away getting to see the screens he designed, the concepts I dreamed up…literally leaping off the page at me. I still get chills every time we roll out a new piece of the platform. Annie has owned this project from the get-go and has kept us moving at an unprecedented pace. In 6 months working part time, our team has managed to go from concept to beta, we’ve brought on another engineer: Loc who is just stellar at building and tightening all the loose screws.. And we have something NO other social media platform has- a user-customizable algorithm control panel that updates in real time. No more guessing or trying to figure out a vague and ever-changing algorithm. The user is in control. Our Beta Release happens in just a couple weeks, and we are slated to release our beta version on the Apple App Store in Jan/Feb of 2025. We have bootstrapped this whole thing, no help or outside funding yet, and we are so excited to bring this much needed platform to market. We are just everyday people. We run on punk rock and pancakes. We’re not wealthy, we’re not techies with impressive pedigrees, we’re no one remarkable…we’re just the misfits who have built something to change social and entertainment media forever.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road has been astonishingly smooth so far…we now have a team of 5 individuals, 4 of us are founders and of those 4, I am the CEO. We work well together because we believe in our cause…to bring creators back to the center of social media and help them create income while being in control of their experience. We are positioned to usher in the future of entertainment and social media. We call it “Socialtainment.” The biggest struggle we have had is getting the word out…believe it or not, existing platforms aren’t a huge fan of you talking about starting a new one. We just began our pre-seed round of fundraising and are hoping to connect with investors who also believe in our cause.

We’ve been impressed with Four Mile River Technologies, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Four Mile River Technologies is the tech company that the founders of Neptune started together. The idea here is to have this tech company that builds apps, software etc. that will revolutionize the industries we build for. The flagship project is Neptune. Four Mile River Technologies is female-led (by me) and is one of the few to hold that distinction. Our values are user autonomy, equity, enterprise and community. So all of the projects we plan to do will be centered around bringing those value to market in various forms. The common threads of our founders: we all have been involved in music, have a fondness for punk rock, we are all weirdos who believe in innovation, consumer-centric technology. Our team meetings are all recorded and I can’t wait to see the behind-the-scenes footage that comes out detailing all of the side conversations about the most random things and all the lore from the team. One thing I can say about us…we have all LIVED. We are very interested in incorporating blockchain technology into Neptune in the coming iterations, and into future projects as well!

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
My team at Four Mile River deserves the credit for getting us here. They have supported every “blue sky” vision I’ve had, every wild idea, every pivot…they’ve been there to strategize, build, envision and produce this with me. I couldn’t ask for a better group of folks to build incredible things with. My team of founders are: Chris Jones, Annie Pressman and Nick Robinson. In my personal life, the ones who have been there for me cheering me on every single day are my kids. Everything I do is for them, and they are my inspiration. My partner Costello has also been there with me in the trenches, grabbing my face when I’m scared and overwhelmed and reminding me of why I’m doing this. She truly makes me believe that I’m capable of anything. You can’t buy that.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theneptuneapp.com
• Instagram: @theneptuneapp
• Twitter: @theneptuneapp
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCypXvNajJrLvQxruwDpJEqw

Image Credits
Portrait: Jam Sani