# Social Strata (Crowdstack)

> Social Strata is a bootstrapped South Carolina software company that has been building hosted online-community software since 1998. Its current product, Crowdstack (formerly Hoop.la), lets brands, associations, non-profits and creators run their own branded communities - forums, feeds, chat, events, member directories, gamification and automated moderation - on infrastructure they don't own but fully control. Founded by Ted and Rosemary O'Neill, the company has powered communities for names like HGTV, Discovery Channel, Mattel, Military.com and Kids With Food Allergies, positioning itself as an independent, owned-audience alternative to Facebook Groups and Slack.

- **Founded:** 1998
- **Headquarters:** Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, USA
- **Founders:** Ted O'Neill (Co-Founder & CEO), Rosemary O'Neill (Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer)
- **Team size:** Small (privately held; teams in Charleston, SC and Seattle, WA)
- **Products:** Crowdstack Pro, Automation Rules, Groups, Hoop.la
- **Notable:** Built and sustained an online-community software business continuously since 1998, through multiple 'forums are dead' cycles., Powered communities for major brands including HGTV, Discovery Channel, Mattel and Military.com., Grew profitably without venture capital.

## Products & services

- **Crowdstack Pro** — Hosted, white-label community and membership platform with forums, content feeds, chat, events, calendar, member directory, media sharing, private messaging, gamification, premium memberships and role-based permissions.
- **Automation Rules** — Automated admin actions for new-member onboarding, member and content screening, inactive-member outreach and moderation, reducing manual community management.
- **Groups** — Public, private or hidden sub-communities that let teams run an unlimited number of spaces inside one community.
- **Hoop.la** — The company's earlier flagship online community platform, later rebranded and evolved into Crowdstack.

## Achievements

- Built and sustained an online-community software business continuously since 1998, through multiple 'forums are dead' cycles.
- Powered communities for major brands including HGTV, Discovery Channel, Mattel and Military.com.
- Grew profitably without venture capital.
- Recognized as an HR innovator for an unlimited paid-leave policy featured on NPR.
- Co-founder Rosemary O'Neill established as a writer and speaker in the online community space.

## Latest updates

- **2020-06** — Positioned and marketed Crowdstack as an independent alternative to Facebook Groups, combining group and Slack-style functionality.
- **2019-01** — Moved to an unlimited-usage pricing model (unlimited members, admins and page views) to align cost with customer growth.

## Links

- Website: https://crowdstack.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/social-strata-inc.
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/getcrowdstack
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crowdstack/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/social-strata
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-08