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Question 1

Welcome! You’ve built something really interesting in this space. Start us off by telling our readers what your business is all about and how you fit into the OF world.

Response 1 - Use a conversational tone, as though we are sitting and having a conversation.

So, what is Havven all about? Look, for years, our communities—the kink world, the BDSM scene, the entire LGBTQ+ family—we've all been living on digital scraps. We've had to make this impossible choice: either hang out on the big, shiny social media sites that will censor you if you breathe too spicy, or retreat to these niche websites that look and feel like they were built in 2005 on a dial-up modem. It's been exhausting.

Havven is the answer to that exhaustion. It's the home we've all been waiting for. It's one single, beautiful, modern platform where you can find your people, organize your events, share your art, and actually be your full, authentic self without having a panic attack every time you post.

And that's where the whole OnlyFans question comes in, because it's a huge piece of the puzzle, but it's not the whole picture.

First off, let's give credit where it's due. OnlyFans proved one incredibly important thing: people are desperate to support creators they love, and creators can make a real living doing what they do. They kicked the door down, and that's awesome. But let's be real—OnlyFans is a payment processor with a timeline attached. It's a transaction. It's not a community. There's no soul there.

We don't just fit into the OnlyFans world; we're building the entire city around their convenience store. On Havven, a creator doesn't just have "fans"; they have a genuine community. They can chat with them, host live events for them, and sell their products, all in the same place where that community actually lives, breathes, and connects with each other. We’re turning a simple transaction into a real, lasting relationship.

So yeah, we're in the same universe as OnlyFans, but we're playing a much, much bigger game.

Question 2

We’re always curious—was your business a planned venture, or did it evolve naturally over time?

Response 2 - Use a conversational tone, as though we are sitting and having a conversation.

That's a great question. The honest answer is both, and that’s exactly why I think we’re going to win.

The frustration that led to Havven evolved naturally over years. It was like a constant, low-grade fever. As a long-time member of the kink and LGBTQ+ communities, I just got so tired of the options we had. It was this background hum of dissatisfaction—seeing friends get their art censored, trying to organize an event on a website that felt like a relic from the dial-up era, watching our communities get scattered across a dozen different apps that didn't care about us. It wasn't a single "aha!" moment; it was the result of a thousand little paper cuts over a decade.

Then, one day, the 20-year UX designer part of my brain just sort of snapped.

And that’s when the venture became incredibly planned and deliberate. The frustration was no longer just a personal complaint; it became a design problem that I knew, professionally, I could solve. I switched from being a user who was complaining to a founder who was architecting a solution. We didn't just stumble into this. We obsessively researched the problem—I’m talking over 150 deep interviews with users and analyzing thousands of public complaints. We deliberately assembled a veteran team of experts. We architected a business model that was built for long-term success.

So, the "why" we're doing this? That evolved over a lifetime. But the "how" we're doing it is the most planned, focused, and deliberate thing I've ever been a part of.

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Question 3

What drives you to keep pushing and building in this space?

Response 3 - Use a conversational tone, as though we are sitting and having a conversation.

Honestly? What drives me—what drives all of us on the team—is that we are fundamentally tired of watching our community suffer with crap tech.

Our team has decades of combined experience building world-class, modern, beautiful software. So when we look at the digital tools our community—a community full of artists, innovators, and creators—is forced to use, it's not just frustrating; it's professionally offensive. It’s like watching master chefs being forced to cook in a condemned kitchen. We know what great technology looks and feels like, and we know our community deserves so much better than the unsafe, clunky, outdated options they've been given.

And this is deeply personal for us because we're not outsiders. I'm a long-time member of this community. Our CTO, our UX Director—so many of us come from this world. We're building this for our friends, for the event organizers we know, for the creators we admire. Every single product decision we make comes from a place of asking, "Is this something we would be proud to give our people?"

So that's the drive. It’s this intense combination of professional pride and a deep-seated responsibility to our own community. We have the skills and the authentic insight to finally build the modern, safe, and powerful home our people have been demanding for a decade. The fact that we get to be the team that finally delivers it is what gets us through the long nights

Question 4

Can you share a behind-the-scenes detail that fans or clients might be surprised to learn?

Response 4 - Use a conversational tone, as though we are sitting and having a conversation.

Oh, that's a good one. Okay, here’s something people probably wouldn't guess. For a company that’s all about building a better future, we've spent an almost obsessive amount of time digging through the past.

Before we wrote a single line of code or even designed a logo, one of the most important foundational projects we did was create this massive, sprawling spreadsheet. We called it "The Book of Sins" internally. For weeks, we scoured the internet and cataloged over 5,000 documented user complaints about our competitors, pulled from years of Reddit threads, forums, and social media rants.

It was like an archaeological dig of user frustration. We read every single one—every story about a clunky feature, a safety concern that was ignored, or an account that was unjustly banned. It was a visceral, painful reminder of every single mistake we could not afford to make.

So, when people ask what makes Havven’s design so different, the surprising, behind-the-scenes truth is that our initial product roadmap wasn't really written by us. It was written, complaint by complaint, by the thousands of users who have been ignored for far too long. We just finally decided to listen.

Question 5

In your opinion, what’s next for creators, agencies, and businesses working in this space?

Response 5 - Use a conversational tone, as though we are sitting and having a conversation.

That's the big question, isn't it? I think we're at the very beginning of a massive, and frankly long-overdue, shift in this space. It’s a move away from fragmentation and towards integration, and a move from simple transactions to true community.

For the last few years, everyone—creators, agencies, businesses—has been in survival mode. They've been forced to operate a scattered digital empire: using Instagram for discovery, a Discord for chat, a transactional site like OnlyFans for revenue, and maybe a clunky forum for actual community discussion. It’s exhausting, inefficient, and incredibly risky.

What's next is the end of that.

The smartest creators and businesses are realizing that just having "fans" or "subscribers" isn't a defensible business. The future is in owning your own space and building a real, multi-faceted community that you can engage with directly. They are evolving from being just "content creators" into being true community leaders and brand owners. They don't just want to sell subscriptions anymore; they want to sell merchandise, host ticketed workshops, and build a brand that lasts, all from a single, stable home base.

And that leads to the biggest shift: the flight to safety. The existential risk of building your entire livelihood on a mainstream platform that could de-platform you tomorrow for a single, misunderstood post is becoming untenable. The next five years will be defined by a mass migration away from these hostile environments and towards purpose-built, independent platforms that are designed to protect and serve them.

So, what's next is a smarter, more resilient, and more profitable way of doing business that’s built on the foundation of a real community. And selfishly, I believe Havven is the platform that is going to power that entire transition.

Question 6

We’ve learned so much—let’s wrap with how people can find you, follow you, or reach out if they want to connect.

Response 6 - Use a conversational tone, as though we are sitting and having a conversation.

Absolutely, and thank you again for such a great conversation. The best part of this whole journey is connecting with the community, so I'd love for everyone to get involved.

The main hub for all the high-level info is our website, havven.app.

But honestly, if you really want to get in on the ground floor and be a part of this, the most important place to join us is our Discord server. The invite link is discord.gg/5h3f2BBqwV. That's not just a chat room; it's our open-door workshop where we're actively building Havven in public. We're running polls on new features, getting direct feedback on designs, and bringing our community directly into the development process every single day.

For the day-to-day updates, behind-the-scenes content, and to follow the journey, you can find us on social media. We are @havvenapp on Instagram, and @Havven_xoxo on X.

Everything is building towards our public beta launch on October 5th. So please, come hang out on the Discord, follow us, tell us what you want to see, and help us build the home our community has been waiting for. We're in this together.

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Bio:

Derek Hanjora is a 20-year veteran of the technology industry, where he has spent his career as a senior user experience (UX) designer and product leader, architecting complex digital products for a wide range of global companies. As a long-time, active member of the kink, alternative, and LGBTQ+ communities, he grew increasingly frustrated by the profound gap between the sophisticated, user-centric technology he built professionally and the unsafe, outdated, and fragmented digital tools his own community was forced to endure.

In 2025, he founded Havven to close that gap.

Havven is a unified social and commerce ecosystem—a digital sanctuary built from the ground up to provide a safe, modern, and economically empowering home for these underserved communities. It is the culmination of Derek's career, combining his deep expertise in product design with his authentic, lived understanding of the community's needs.

Derek’s mission is to prove that a company built on a foundation of trust, safety, and respect can be both a powerful force for good and a tremendous success. He is based in Urbana, Maryland.

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