Check Out Elevate Social’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elevate Social.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
After graduating from Duke University (Edem, @soundsbykofi) and Claremont McKenna College (Ayinde, @cryptocastro), we moved to San Francisco in the summer of 2021. Although we were excited to be in a new city, we quickly realized that it was hard to find people who looked like us, especially given the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After a year of living in the Bay Area, our co-founder Ayinde decided to move back to NYC. To commemorate new beginnings, we hosted a going-away party to bring together people whom we had met in the area. Our initial guest list of 150 people snowballed into a rooftop event with over 400 attendees. After the event, people raved about how it was the first time they had met so many people who not only looked like them but also shared similar professional and creative interests. From that moment on, we knew we had started something special, which led to the official formation of Elevate Social, a movement focused on curating events for professionals, creatives, and visionaries alike.

Since founding Elevate Social, we’ve hosted a number of successful events, ranging from rooftop socials to networking happy hours, supper clubs, and nightclub experiences. While things began in San Francisco, we have since expanded to New York, Washington D.C., Oakland, Los Angeles, Austin, and Accra, Ghana, bringing together thousands of people in less than a year.

Elevate Social is more than having the right music, drinks, and venue. Our community thrives because there are diverse, engaging people at every function. In the future, we hope to expand our community to even more cities and keep connecting with others along the way.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Elevate Social has had a great deal of success in the last year, but even with that, we’ve faced challenges, chief among them being expanding to new cities across the U.S. What we’ve learned is that, musically, what works in one market may not work in another. For example, hip-hop in the Bay Area is different from hip-hop in D.C., so we have to be very intentional about which DJs we collaborate with. We’ve also noticed that as Afrobeats and Soca artists continue to establish their dominance in the States, each city responds to the genres differently.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
At its essence, Elevate Social is an extension of our personal networks and interests. At any given event, you can have a conversation with a founder, musician, and designer all without hearing about what they do from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. To this point, Elevate Social events are special because they allow people to connect on a more human level and decompress after a long work week. Although the events have scaled tremendously, we still know many of our attendees on a personal level and feel that this is crucial to the success of each event.

We’ve also seen how people have formed strong relationships with one another after initially meeting at an Elevate Social event. These organic connections have been invaluable to us in expanding to new cities. Since we don’t promote our parties via paid social media ads, we attract people who have heard about us and/or genuinely appreciate the brand. This support for what we have built is the foundation of our brand. We hope to keep the same experience and tight-knit community as we build out to new cities.

What were you like growing up?
Ayinde Castro (@cryptocastro): Growing up, I found myself always trying to create something new and monetize it. Even when I was in Kindergarten, I’d make paintings after school and sell them to my mom’s friends when they came to visit the house. This drive for creating translated into my love for the arts and music throughout the years. I became passionate about photography in high school and was able to have my work showcased in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the MET) and the Whitney Museum. Also in high school, I became a musician and played in two bands as a saxophonist. With time, I realized that my art was connecting people, and I found joy in that. The culmination of my experiences has led to me connecting people at scale through Elevate Social as our co-founder and resident DJ.

Edem Asamoa (@soundsbykofi): As a kid, those who didn’t know me well would say that I was quiet but hard-working. My time was often split between athletics, academics, music, and part-time jobs. As a child of Ghanaian immigrants, I witnessed and learned that discipline was the key to success in all my endeavors. With this in mind, I developed a love for music through freestyling at lunch tables, playing saxophone, and delving into the art of music production. Athletically, I played football and represented my HS in track & field at the state and national level. During college, I was lucky to build upon my music experience as a signed recording artist for Small Town Records. At points during my upbringing where I felt lapses in direction and motivation, I found discipline to be the enduring flame in my activities. I have now grown to a point where I feel motivated, disciplined, and supported. Specifically, as a co-founder and resident DJ for Elevate Social, I can uniquely apply my creative, professional, and social skills to connect people in my community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.elevatesocial.club/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/elevatesocial/
• Linkedin: AYINDE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayindecastro1
  EDEM: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edem-asamoa
• Other: AYINDE IG: https://www.instagram.com/cryptocastro/
  EDEM IG: https://www.instagram.com/soundsbykofi/

Image Credits
Elevate Social