Habits and Hustle - Episode 194: Harry Gestetner and Simon Pompan - Founders & Co-CEO’s of FanFix

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Pre-order Jen’s New Book: Bigger, Better, Bolder Today: https://amzn.to/3hvtqYp Harry Gestetner and Simon Pompan are the Founders & Co-CEO’s of Fanfix. Both in their early 20's starting a company in college and selling it almost 10 months after launch for tens of millions! How could you not listen to this one? From Harry starting a clothing company out of his parent's house at 10 years old to finishing college while relying on Simon to keep their new business afloat by dropping out. The two went into terrible debt, tried to lie about being students, and hustled and lucked their way into investors and capital to keep things going until it caught. Fanfix now has millions of users and some of the most popular content creators in the World making 6 figures through it! Was it all luck? Or was it an understanding of a generation other businesses have only claimed to understand without really ever getting it? Give it a listen and find out? Youtube Link to This Episode FanFix’s Website - https://www.fanfix.io/ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts.  📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal.   ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website - http://habitshustle.com 📚Habit Nest Website - http://habitshustle.com 📱Follow Jennifer - Instagram - https://instagram.com/therealjencohen - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/therealjencohen - Twitter - https://twitter.com/therealjencohen - Jennifer’s Website - https://jennifercohen.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hustle20 until December 31st, 2022. So definitely run, don't walk to scoop them up today. Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins, you're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. All right. Today on Habits and Hustle, we have two young guys. One of them is Harry Gastetner and the other one is Simon Pompan, who were basically, not basically who are kids, who after only a few days out of high school decided to start a company called FanFix and have gone on to sell it for tens of millions of dollars and the kids are barely 21, 22 years old. Which I thought is for me why I wanted to have them on the podcast was their story and

what they did and how they did it is nothing if not hustle and entrepreneurship at its finest at such a young age. See, you could be any age, it doesn't matter. What I love about this is fanfics is basically a clean only fans. It's a content platform where content creators create content on this platform and monetize it and it's kind of like a patreon as well. And like I said, they have now

thousands upon thousands of the top influencers, content creators on their platform. And they're just like killing it. And like I said, they sold the platform to a beauty company for tens of millions of dollars at the ripe old age of 21. So let's hear their story. And those of you who're thinking that you're too young or too old, age is just a number.

Enjoy. This is an extra special podcast today because I have the youngest ever entrepreneurs I've had on the show before and also near and dear to my heart. One of them is the oldest child of my dearer's friend. So it's Harry Gisgetner and Simon, Simon, what is your last name? Pompan. Pompan. Simon Pompan.

Simon Pompan, who I just found out is like his mom is like a huge Hollywood baller. I had no idea, but I just learned something new today. And these guys, I have to say, they started a company two years ago, but really launched it 10 months ago, called FanFix, and already sold it for tens of millions of dollars in it 10 months ago called fanfix and already sold it for tens of millions of dollars in like 10 months. It is unbelievable. It's a great story. I am so thrilled to have you guys on the podcast and I'm so happy for you Harry. Thank you very much. We're thrilled to be here. Thanks for having us. Absolutely. Absolutely. I want to say I am just your mother's

thrilled that you're here. I've gotten a bunch of messages from her. This is a big deal. Okay, so you're 22. You just turned 22. Yeah, correct. Yeah, about a month ago. Yeah, it's 21 when we sold the company.

Right. 21 when you sold the company. And how old are you, Simon? I just turned 23. I'm the one who looks after this one. Yeah, you babysit her. Yeah. Okay. Did you guys went to one. Yeah, you babysit her. Yeah. Okay.

Did you guys went to high school together, right? I did. Yeah, so we both went to Harbour West Lake together. Harry moved from one din and we have been good friends ever since. And yeah. Well, it's interesting because you've been here, your family's been in the US for what, six years? Seven years. Seven years now. Yeah. What a good been in the US for what, six years? Seven years? Seven years?

Seven years? Yeah, yeah. What a good move this has been for you, huh? I know, been very fortunate. Yeah, it's funny. It feels like a lot shorter, but it also feels like forever. Well, you know, it's funny because you've moved in a really weird time for kids, right? Yeah. Or for teenagers, right?

Like, that's the hardest time to move from what you know, right? Yeah, I think, I mean, I was very lucky very lucky because I was 15 so and sophomore year of high school and I know that's the perfect age because I was old enough to wear, I was old enough to wear, I feel properly English, you know, I had a solid properly English. Properly English? You get to retain his accent. Yeah, I got the accent, you know, got solid friends and back in the UK but also, you know, had a good amount of time to make friends I think if you have less than three years at high school, it's kind of tough to make friends So I'd just the perfect amount to make great friends here and also have good background in the UK

Right, so then you guys met the first I guess the first year that you were here, right? Yeah, yeah I saw him was cheating off me in my math class. Is that what happened? No, no, no, no, don't don't don't explode. You know, you know, you know, cheats of me. He's too small to know. I don't know. I don't know. Do you have good grades? I don't even know. Really? What kind of marks did you have? Like we call it marks and I'm Canadians, we call it marks. I mean, uh, personally I was a very, very average student. Uh, average to a below average, but so what was your like average? Mark. I mean, my first semester in the US, I had a two, three GPA. Yeah.

Harry, Harry struggled with, uh, history class. Yeah. The US history class, that you taught. Of course. Yeah. But my, my Dean, I did pick it up a lot from,, three thankfully, but my Dean sat me down with my parents for semester and said, it's not where he's going to college as if he's going to college.

And my parents were crazy and made sure I knew that I had to turn it around. So it's how I did, yeah. Well, this goes to show you, by the way. I talk about this a lot all the time that being academically smart is just one type of smart. It's way more, I personally think it's way more important

to have street smart and emotional intelligence and have being bold as my big message, right? And going after things, you know, I mean, and asking for what you want. Schools, like a lot of times I meet people who were just academic geniuses and total doles in real life and like don't make anything of themselves right and then you meet people who drop out and at 14 and they're you know living like the highlight right so it's good to have

it's a good time both I don't want to say I'm saying it's good to have both but doesn't necessarily it doesn't make doesn't mean that you're you're, if you're a bad student, obviously, that it's going to like, it's going to basically tell you your future. Touch it. Yeah. A lot of the times, you know, a lot of successful entrepreneurs weren't successful students growing up. A lot of times.

A lot of times. And the translation really isn't there from, you know, getting good grades in high school to, you know, being a world-class problem solver and being a successful entrepreneur. Absolutely. What kind of grades did you have? I was a little bit higher than Harry. He dropped down, so it wasn't counted. So in high school, I was like three, three, five. Okay. And I would just say Harvard West, like where they went to school,

is very difficult for people who don't live. Like it's a private school. And it's known to be like the curriculum and the workloads like higher than probably 99% of the schools, right? And by the way, we had an amazing time there. Oh, I'm sure. way we had an amazing time that made me sure awesome friends obviously we met Fanfix wouldn't have happened if we hadn't met well that hundred percent we're gonna get all to the panfix But I want to know about so wait, so tell me just finish about your school then your yeah, so I I was an athlete in high school

I played basketball in the cross at Harvard West Lake So I was on a little bit of a different track than Harry You know at Harvard West Lake. So I was on a little bit of a different track than Harry. At Harvard West Lake, they treat sports like jobs, I would say, a lot of the times, especially with basketball, baseball, their core sports. So I do have a state championship at Harvard West Lake and play very competitive basketball there. But struggling, it's always a struggle

to balance sports, school, especially at hard-westerly and making friends and being social, but was able to figure it out along the way. Right, so then did you guys become fast friends, though, when you moved here? Yeah, pretty quickly. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And so by the way, did you always have a entrepreneurial spirit? Yeah, my first business, I was 11. I was a company called Leedry Clothing. What's it called? Legionary Clothing. Not is called what's called, definitely not around anymore. Okay. But it was a clothing company and I remember I had a, around anymore. But it was a clothing company and I remember I had a, I was dealing with this, this, I can't say or whatever, it was over email. And then I got on the phone after months of talking over email and they heard my like pre-pubescent, I live in your

own boy voice. You were literally a lover? I was I was a kid. Wow. I know it was that. But yeah, I had like, per 10 businesses now. What did you do for the business? What happened? You were going to get what you were going to say. That one failed. I did not lost any lead. I had a leaven, really.

Like most of the business. But what was the premise of the business? To say. I mean, it was just a clothing brand. But then I had a few others. I had a storage facility company, but the storage facility was my parents garage. But that didn't work because I wasn't on my own schedule. When the company had this local scuba shot, we talked to it.

If they wanted their stuff over Christmas, and I was on holiday with my parents and couldn't deliver it. Yeah, that'd be a problem. Yeah, so that also failed. But yeah, I had kind of a ton. You always had these ideas and then you tried to kind of exit you because you know, your parents are entrepreneurial, your dad's like super entrepreneurial. Yeah, he helped you with these ideas back then. Yeah, a ton definitely, definitely. They're very entrepreneurial. Yeah, he helped you with these ideas back then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

They're very supportive. Yeah, always, always. So then were you also Simon that way or? I was always interested in entrepreneurship. I was very busy with athletics growing up. Right. So was the kind of, that wasn't like your thing, right? Yeah.

So, so I got really pulled into entrepreneurship. I would say in high school. So Harbor, West Lake had multiple classes centered around entrepreneurship, brainstorming ideas, walking you through, setting up a proper business plan, go to market strategy, and we would always have entrepreneurs, a lot of the times alumni from our high school come in and speak to the class.

Who are the biggest ones you guys remember having? I mean the biggest, the biggest that I dealt with was not actually in a great way, I was trying to start a fund for the school. My thesis was, if you look at the Harvard West like alumni, they significantly outperform any other day to set. And these are people like Spencer Raskoff, who founded Hotwire, and then went on to find Zillow, and now Picasso.

And there's a multitude of different alumni that we could point to. Yeah, I want to hear who they are. I mean, founder of Clutter, Brandon Beck, Lee of Legends, and tons of... Wow, that's it. But then, so, try to start a fund, and then,

partly with actually one of our kind of closest advisor investors, Ari Angleberg, who's the founder of Stamps.com, who was also a teacher at our school, amazing guy, and then we were trying to start, and then it went to the... Hold on, hold on, you try to start a fund. Yeah.

This was like, wait, when at like high school? High school, using the high school and down. Using the high school and down, then okay, okay. For, you know, to back kind of students or alumni to go and start businesses, and I mean, you know, to back kind of students to alumni, to go and start businesses. And I mean, it would have, you know, they would have had fanfics,

which would have been good for them. As well as a ton of other businesses. But it got the border trustees and got shut down actually by Charlie Munger, who's Warren Buffett's business partner. And really? Yeah, yeah, so that was unfortunate. Yeah, that's crazy. That's a good story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that was unfortunate. Yeah, that's crazy.

That's a good story. Yeah, yeah. So then what happened because that didn't ever happen? Nothing. Or just nothing else come from it. I'm starting, trying to start it at least. I had another business I started actually, which was kind of connecting students as in college student businesses with investors. We helped one company

pitch itself by Southwest but Port from that kind of didn't have huge amount of success but yeah that was that was kind of so you were trying to connect call like funds with ideas from call it from from yeah from so college students There's a massive, you know, ton of massive businesses were founded by students. Absolutely. If USC has a program like that Yeah, yeah, there are a lot of student funds that have popped up You know where students actually serve as the investors and network at their college campuses And I think there's a big trend Yeah, it's a lot trend with these larger VCs

to try to attract more college students. Because that's smart though. There's so many great innovative ideas and disruptors. Because in a different, like, it's a different mindset, right? When you're young, you see things completely different, you have different ideas. Like, even with fanfics, you know, it's like, the technology of whatics, you know, it's like,

the technology of what it is, like, it's gonna be started, I would think, by someone of your age, right? Like, you're not gonna have something like me, like, think about, right? So, I find like, it would be a smart move for those companies to do that, right? Yeah. This episode is brought to you by NerdsCandy,

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like USAA, who has helped guide the military community for the past 100 years. USAA, get a quote today. So then walk so basically, then walk us through how this happened. So if you guys are your friends, you're doing mostly sports, not really paying attention. You start all these little businesses at 11 and 12

and store units and clothing companies, and you try to do this thing where Charles Charlie, what was he known by Charlie? Charlie Munger, Charlie Munger. Yeah. Says, you know, no. So how did this evolve into what you have now, which is now sold? Who do I sell it to, by the way? Super ordinary. Super ordinary. By the way, so super ordinary, well, you tell us, like, who are they? And it's an interesting, it's an interesting exit too, right? Because it's not by someone that you would normally think to buy a technology or would you guys say like a tech company? Yeah. Yeah. Like it's a beauty company. Yeah. The whole thing is very unusual. So start from the beginning, how did this

whole thing come to be? So I, I, I, what will we even get into how we got to starting fanfics and before that, we started a charity called Fewer Heroes. Okay. So as soon as college campuses closed for COVID and all the students were sent home, we were at home looking for things to do and we saw. Where'd you go to college? I went to Vanderbilt. You went to Vanderbilt? I ended up dropping out, so I still have one year left. No. Yes. Stop.

Yes, still got, I think six credits left. So I'm going to try to finish that up at some point. Harry found a way to graduate. Barely, no, I'm just kidding. They are really dumb, Jimmy. While I was handling the company. Yeah, but I didn't do much to like. So you went to Tulane. I went to Tulane, yeah. Yeah, yeah, thanks.

I love that time. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so go on. So you're like Vanderbilt. Did you come, so you came home? So we came home, school's got shut down. Classes were canceled, we didn't know what to do. And we saw all of these college students

who wanted to get involved in the fight against COVID, raising money for healthcare heroes. So Harry and I, with two of our friends from high school, started a charity called Few Our Heroes, where we partnered with over 18 hospital networks nationwide and in Canada. And we mobilized local community organizations, whether that's college students raising money on their college campuses or high schoolers raising from their friends and family. And we were able to raise over just around $500,000 from $5,000 donations from college students. So had 140 student volunteers and we're really in the

nonprofit space throughout COVID and went on to advise the I'm a voter campaign, youth voting rights and really became the experts in engaging Gen Z audiences. US congressman, US congressman, US congressman as well. Who's idea was that? Well, that was all collective. But one person usually is the catalyst for that, right? Yeah, definitely, but we can't like to... Yeah, for that, that was a collective effort of all of us sitting around wanting to do that. I mean, got back, you know, it was March 2020, softening of college, so you're absolute, you know, prime,

prime, prime time, and then, you know, bam, COVID hits, you go from high as high to low as low, and it was, I mean, pretty, pretty miserable for us, but we were some of the luckiest people in the world. There were, you know, healthcare workers who were working 24-7 and then, you know, having to, like, come home and sleep in their garages, because they didn't want to go inside

and infect their families. And, you know, there were nurses having to kind of make their own PPE out of bed sheets, and it was really horrendous. So we thought we're just sitting here doing nothing. We already did something, and all these college students they got time on their hands and Yeah, they also so they can volunteer and they also, you know, want to want to donate money and But I think the the one of the coolest things that that showed us is the power of social media

so the all these you know half million bucks is amazing, but it'd be a lot less cool if it was 500K donation from one old rich guy. It's a lot cooler than it's 5-10 dollar donations from college students, and that was all through social media. So, we came up with these viral marketing challenges. We had one called the CMMMery, Send-A-Memory Challenge, where we thought, okay, so kids are home from college now. You know, we can get them to do maybe one post to fuel our heroes to, you know, to get a donation just from ask of them,

but they're not gonna be too happy doing that. And they're not gonna post it again and again and again. So what can we get them to repeatedly post? So, you know, we figured everyone misses their their colleges. Everyone, you know, is terrified at, you know, these weird times where they're in their bedroom alone and wishes they were out with their friends. So we did this challenge called, see a memory, send a memory. So you post a tag five friends donate five dollars. So, you know, kind of post a throwback,

a memory of your time at college. And you, you know, tag five friends to challenge them to do the same and they donate five dollars to people on the nose. And that went completely viral. It did? Yeah. It was amazing. That's amazing. So then what happened? So then I mean, you know, the charity grew and pretty crazy and then eventually that wound down and we wanted to find something to do. And then around the same time, kind of end of 2020, my cousin had a TikTok video, go complete viral, blew up on TikTok,

you got tens of millions of views, woke up with tons of followers and couldn't make a single penny and we were pretty shocked. What kind of video was it? It was a walk on water. Walk your water, it was like a magic trick and then he did a couple of magic tricks on that. I have a views to it yet. I think you got I think tens of millions I can't it's funny because we always used to joke like every every every pitch we

tell the story and the number goes up like in a few million views I can't remember what the real number was. I ended up like three billion. Yeah exactly ten billion views right. Three billion impressions. I think it's like I think I want to like three billion views. Yeah exactly, 10 billion views, right. Three billion impressions. I think it was like, I think you, I wanna say 20 million views. Wow. So it's a lot. A lot.

Didn't make a single penny though, and that shocked us. This is before the creator, the TikTok creator fund, but you don't have the less the creator fund pays out to an half cents, but that's not a pays out nothing. Right. So we thought, you know, there must, and meanwhile, we've seen some of that.

We was with you guys together thinking like, how we're gonna like, Hey, Rina. Yeah. So we were actually sitting around the fire at Harry's house one night, about two years ago, right? Not 18 months ago. Sitting around the fire and we saw, and we saw the rise of Patreon.

And what they were doing with membership communities with creators. And we saw that there are a lot of Gen Z creators out there that want to build a recurring revenue stream and want some stability in their life, as well as building a membership community where they can engage with all their fans and really monetize their following in a new way without requiring much time out of their day. And there weren't really many options out there for Gen Z creators.

On one hand, you have Patreon, which is desktop first targets at an older demographic then. Who does it talk more parents our parents. Yeah, it's it's faith I don't want to say that It's it's more it's it's we see patreon as a kid to Facebook You know to platform that our parents would use it's very difficult as a platform Yeah, no, of course. But it's very difficult as a platform to win with every

generation and every demographic. So I mean, there's a reason why, you know, my generation's on TikTok and my parents' generation's on Facebook. Why is that? I mean, you know, we don't want to be on Facebook because our parents are there. Right, so second you see your parents on there

and you see you can go somewhere else. Exactly. Yeah, it's like Harry doesn't invite his parents to all the parties he throws. Yeah, same thing. Anyways, they get the invite. But yeah, so we've seen, so my cousin blew up and. How was your cousin by the way? He is 20.

Okay. And he blew up and around the same time we saw a statistic that 75% of Gen Z wants to be a creator when they grow up. Not doctors or lawyers. Creators, content creators, and we were absolutely shocked. So we thought, hold on a second. So the majority of our generation wants to be a creator.

But even if they achieve the pinnacle of being a creator, which is what my cousin had, getting 10 minutes of use, they're still not going to make a single penny. There's some ex-off there, so that's kind of what led us to get into space and see a gap in the market of fanfics. I mean, so wait, so I got so much to ask about that. Okay, so I'm still on the fact that, if people now old people by the way are on TikTok that me, but people like even much older than me, so but they're still young, young people on there. Yeah. They all migrating off there now, like slowly but surely. On TikTok. Yeah.

Now, TikTok is really the, you know, the ideal discovery platform. Yeah, like it's become a search engine. It is. And if you look at Gen Z, where they're actually searching online, it's on TikTok. It's not on Google. It's not on. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it.

I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it.

I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. to make those searches. They're going on Instagram to find those accounts. They're not opening up Google and searching for these products. So what's the difference between Google, sorry, Instagram and TikTok now. Do you find there's a different on? Is TikTok still a little bit younger, skewed, or is it much more of a search engine? Yeah, I mean TikTok's much younger skewed. And TikTok's also the cool platform. Now there were numbers that came out, you know, Instagram's trying to copy that with their reels, but the numbers, yeah, it really numbers came out, it's failing. When did that come out? I think a couple of weeks ago, the majority of reels get no views and no likes and comments. There's very little engagement

on reels. And I can't, yeah, I can't with the exact statistic. I want to say over a third of Reels, I just reposted from TikTok. So that's a, you know, if you're on Instagram, you're seriously concerned about that. But then you look at what YouTube just announced today with YouTube shorts, where they're actually splitting ad revenue

with the creators. So they're going to give, I believe it's 45 actually splitting ad revenue with the creators. So they're gonna give, I believe it's 45% of ad revenue to the short's creators, which is a big step for short form content on YouTube. Totally. That's amazing. I mean, that's interesting. I do feel like people are relying their business on,

so show me, like an Instagram, and that's like a bore road platform. Any minute you can be banned. Look at like so many people, it's fair to terrifying. Like you can be banned in a second for if you don't agree or say something that's out of mind for and TikTok and YouTube, by the way, and YouTube. And we've actually even seen what's very interesting is we have seen a few startups pop up

Who are offering insurance to creators in case they're really? They're TikTok's get banned and they lose that revenue stream where their Instagram get gets banned So there are solutions out there where you actually will, you know buy insurance for your social platform. That's so interesting. So So before we get more and I and this is very curious to me. So like why TikTok then? Because to your point, it's just once people, like on Facebook, once your parents show up, you leave, right? That's why Instagram happened. That's what people then left TikTok. Why aren't people leaving TikTok to a different platform that's happening that. So that will happen. That will happen. It hasn't evolved to that.

Yeah, the cycle hasn't made it there yet. But there's also a thriller and all those other ones. They're not, they're failing, right? Yeah, Triller has some issues right now in terms of lawsuits and creators not getting paid. But what's very interesting with, I think, not just Gen Z creators, but you're saying everyone's on TikTok now is the power of that algorithm. So, you know,

what we see amongst Gen Z creators and all different types of creators like yourself is they're using TikTok as that discovery platform to really grow their audience and reach new audiences. And then from there, it's how you convert your TikTok following across all your social channels. So how do you convert your TikTok onto Instagram? How do you get your community to follow you onto YouTube converting on long form content or onto Spotify converting on a podcast

into Discord communities? So we're seeing. Explain that, because I've just been hearing a lot about that. To tell us what Discord is. Yeah, so Discord is essentially, you know, a platform that allows people to build group chats and, you know, be able to, I guess, tear those group chats. So it can handle much larger communities. So I guess think of Discord as

Slack if you're familiar with Slack, but instead of for businesses, it's you know for gamers or for NFT communities or Friend groups, but what we're actually seeing with a lot of these platforms that were Created for that inner circle your close friends and family, which is Discord, even Snapchat, when you could just take a photo and send it to one or two people. They are leaning completely into discovery now. They're kind of following TikTok's path of who's discovery, what is that? You know, the algorithm being able to grow your audience. Finding people, research new audiences. Yeah.

Okay, there's another single. Yeah. What's so cool, you know, what's incredible about TikTok and what's so cool about TikTok, they have completely democratized celebrities. So you can, you know, in the 90s, who are the celebrities?

The celebrities, you know, the very few movie stars who got picked by the massive studios and they got picked by the massive studios and they got represented by the massive agents. And went through this whole process of these old men and suits who kind of organized this person getting a massive deal to get the massive reach. And now they're famous.

TikTok, you had people like my cousin who downloaded an app and they're bedroom in the middle of I-O-O- you are you you know post a video on your phone and you wake up and you got more reach than the you know the Timothy Shalamey or whoever the biggest movie star is. It's amazing actually and the algorithm well but isn't that wasn't that also the case with Instagram? Isn't it the case I want to I feel what's happened now. what's happened though, is to grow on Instagram has become incredibly difficult. Very difficult.

I'm also too possible. And you're also only reaching, every time you post, you're only reaching a small percentage of your audience. So small. You know that my close, close friends who I'm very close with, they tell me that they never see my stories. Yeah. They never comes up.

My post never come up. my reels never come up. So like, the audience is like so small. And I feel like with TikTok, I started TikTok, maybe what, five months ago, maybe. Yeah. I had a few of my own videos got to a million, which was shocking. Mm-hmm. And I grew much faster. And then whenever I post, like I have two, I have two of, I have it's in hustle one. And I also have faster. And then whenever I post,

like I have two of the habits and hustle one, and I also have my Jennifer one. And I've had like a bunch of videos that like not, like you know what I mean, within reason, like maybe 10, that's hit over a million. Never would happen on Instagram. Oh, Instagram, yeah. So that's why everyone's going to TikTok right now, whether you're a brand

Brand or I mean that's what brands are breaking it brands are like breaking it like if you're big on an Instagram You're gonna like that's how BLK that you know they broke they broke on on TikTok. Yeah, girl that saw their videos was a buyer for Walmart and you know that's how they got into Walmart. Amazing. But beyond that, they're like, a cool, they're known to be like a super cool brand because all these young influencers are like, drinking the black water and it ended up,

and it's become like a thing. And I feel like you don't have that, cash-a on Instagram or Facebook at all. And look at like even the music industry. Yeah, absolutely. Where are the record label spending money right now? Yeah. Spending money on TikTok for, you know,

their artists to get, for creators to use their artists music to make TikToks. Music promotions are a massive thing in the management world, agency world, label world, and those all take place on TikTok. Yeah, well, it's so crazy about TikTok as well, it's, you know, that, like, I'm 22, so I'm on that kind of uppercusp of Gen Z,

where, you know, young and off that I'm an insider, but also old enough to wear, kind of an outsider as well. You're hardly an outsider. Yeah. What's the story point for it, like that? Eight to 24 is the age range? It's 8 to 24. It's age range. Oh, 8 to 20.

I'm really right at the cost. You are. You're basically like, you're basically like a dinosaur like me. So join me on Facebook. He doesn't remember the 90s. No, you don't remember the 90s. No, it wasn't born. You were a baby.

Yeah, you're not even a 90s person, of course. So Patreon comes and that's how I want to like, so Patreon not even a nine. He's a person, of course. But like, so then, so Patreon comes, and that's how I want to like, so Patreon then is a paid subscription model where people were like where creators or someone have influenced it, whatever, they can give private content or like, like, yeah.

So the two big platforms the two big platforms in, you know, in the direct monetization space were Patreon and only fans, only fans being much bigger. And it was pretty clear, you know, Patreon, it's a fan membership platform where you post pay-walled content, same as FanFix, but it's for a much older demographic. It's, you know, as we said, like a parent,

a platform where a parent should use. It's akin to Facebook more YouTube first And then it's also more of a it's more of a crowd fun for struggling artists Yeah, being a patron donating to support that creator That's how I view it. Yeah, and it was created by Jack Conti who you know built the platform essentially around his himself and how much do they charge? They charge eight to kind of five to 12.5%. But, is it? Oh no, do you mean the creative?

The creative, the creative shoes go to the real price. So because I know we say up like your parent age, but like, I mean, there are a lot of young people. Like how would it be age range for a patron? We, like really? I think kind of it's, you know, Cena's kind of 30s to 50s. 30s to 50s, okay.

But then, you know, on the other hand, you had only fans, which only fans are porn sight. I think it's like, you know, and it's a porn sight. You could say whatever you'd like it is. It's a porn sight. It's porn, maybe. Do they have any restri-

I mean, I thought for a while there, they restricted. So, they did for like a five-minute story. They tried to move out of that category and more into the Patreon and our world, a brand-friendly content. But they got a lot of backlash from women communities, from the creators on their platform who were monetizing through pornographic content.

So only fans allows porn on their platform as well. Like full on porn. And then Patreon allows nudity on their platform. They do? Yes, they do. You could create your page to be 18 plus on Patreon. And you could post new content uh in all different types of nudity, but you can't uh, you can't go that as far as on on only fans. So fanfics is

strictly family friendly 13 plus you know the most PG um exclusive content. So fanfics is family friendly. 13 plus instead. Yeah. And what was the other thing? The most family, the most PG exclusive content platform on the internet. And we're tick tock first, mobile first, and built by and for Gen Z, essentially.

So is it kind of also, it seems we didn't talk about Cameo. Is it similar to Cameo? No, not really. So Cameo is more, I'm gonna buy a birthday video for my wife. And you know, find that B-list or C-list actor on Cameo to create a birthday video for my wife and then That's pretty much it and the payment frequency on Cameo is very very low. So people buy maybe one cameo a year If that if that and cameo has tested other products like

fan clubs or They have like an NFT they launched called the cameo pass, but really cameo isn't one of our competitors. No, no, no, but I thought the same type of idea. Same type of idea in. You can spend money direct monetization. Yeah, direct monetization. Direct monetization.

Yeah, absolutely. Same space. Direct monetization. Yeah. At the beginning, I thought they were doing really well Do I want to say a straight monocity? Yeah. At the beginning, I thought they were doing really well. I don't know how they are. No numbers now. I think not so hot recently.

They had some big layoffs. But I think it's a tough business with very low payment frequency. You do, as someone said, you do one purchase for your friends birthday for a couple of hundred bucks. And then you come back. It's a novelty. Yeah, a novelty fanfixes, our fans are back there every day,

supporting their favorite creators, constantly messaging, paying to message their favorite creators, doing, obviously, monthly subscriptions. But I mean, Camille is awesome. We support any business that supports creators. A lot of the creators on our platform also use, you know, cameo, but it hasn't become their main revenue stream. So with fanfics, with the creators we work with, we often become their main source of revenue. Wow, really?

And this is recurring revenue. So once a subscription is made, you know, and creators grow their subscriber base, they then renew those subscriptions the following month and continue to grow their subscriber base, they then renew those subscriptions the following month and continue to grow their subscriber base. So really, what we want FanFix to be is a hub for creator monetization, and we always like to think about how can we allow creators to earn as passively as possible

because we understand they have busy lives, they're always creating content, traveling, working, whatever it may be. And we want to create passive income streams for them. So my, I guess my question would be, it's very, so basically it's very similar to a Patreon, but it caters to a younger audience. Yeah.

And then how about in terms of the money, like how much do people, like what's your price, like what do you, what's your cut that you give to people versus like I'm just using Patreon, could just another example of another direct monetizing. Create your keep net of fanfix fees, fanfix fees and parent pricing fees create a keep 80%.

And they charge, they set their own subscription price we don't cap it they charge whatever they want and they also consider price for fans to message them so we you know see prices as low as five bucks a subscription a month or you know three bucks a message all the way up to 50 bucks a month for subscription of 500 bucks a message so you, there's really a big variety. And, but we, the one thing that we couldn't anticipate going into this and that a lot of investors and people disagree with us on

is how willing people, especially Gen Z, you know, was to support their favorite creators and to support them financially. We were completely shocked. And also to pay for content. So that's something we got pushed back on when we first started. We have seen a large shift into now

where Gen Z spends a ton of money on Twitch live streams, for example, or Fortnite skins, for example. Yeah, that's big. You see a lot of these high schoolers or elementary school students taking their parents' credit card and spending thousands of dollars on FIFA ultimate team or Madden Mobile or Fortnite skins, as I mentioned. And what we saw with Twitch was something that really surprised us.

So, you know. We haven't talked about Twitch at all. First Snapchat. I thought Snapchat also was another one that's emerging as big again. Snapchat and Twitch have emerged over the last... well they've been big for quite some time but over the last few months they've really picked up with Gen Z creators. Why? Partially Snapchat has offered new monetization features for creators to earn consistent revenue with uploading a ton of Snapchat stories and then them embedding ads

into those Snapchat stories and doing a rev share with the creators who are creating that content. But with Twitch, what's very exciting for us is how much these Twitch streamers, these Twitch streamers, are earning off tips alone. You know, their fans are tipping them when they're playing, you know, video games and streaming that or just streaming in their bedroom. And there's no added benefit to tipping. You see thousands of dollars of tips going to creators through live dreams, but if Harry tips a thousand dollars and I tip zero dollars, we have access to the same content. So there's really no added benefit there. So that's

where you know, fanfics to come in really being a part of that creator's community, being able to engage with the community with the creator directly and also being able to support that creator. This episode is brought to you by GlobalX ETFs. Start your investing journey by exploring exchange-traded funds. Exchange-traded funds, more commonly known as ETFs, create baskets of stocks, bonds, and other assets that you can buy in a single trade. At GlobalX, they specialize in ETFs that track emerging technologies,

like the taste of raspberry and dark chocolate for the all-warm, all fuzzy, all self-care, zero self-doubt you. Grab a with love today. Vitamin water, zero sugar, nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass O. So why did you think initially that charging would be a problem if Patreon was doing it? People were already doing it. So why did you think that you would have an issue?

The answer is we didn't. This was really investors and people who might not have understood Gen Z as well as they thought they did. Right. Because you probably, your investors were old and you know. It's definitely, it's a valid concern in that, TikTok is obviously completely free. Instagram is completely free.

YouTube is completely free. And it's endless content at your fingertips for these Gen Z fans. But Arthur was with content becoming just completely endless exclusive content and kind of behind thescenes stuff is all the more valuable. So R3 was that they would pay for content, but a lot of investors and people disagree with us and said, why the hell would you pay when you can go and see stuff for free. But we've definitely seen, we've been very, very surprised.

We knew it was gonna happen and people were willing, but we were shocked at just how many they were. I wonder if it's because I think people are wanting to be warriors, right? They want to know what's happening behind this, even though it's still content that people will make, but it's like, it's like the fear of missing out, right? What am I missing? So you'll pay the extra like $5 ten, twenty dollars a month. All right, the time has almost come. My book, bigger, better, bolder, is hitting the shelves, launching, debuting on December the 27th. And I am so excited. I'm thrilled that I get to share this book with you guys. I took me two years to write it, and it really is a culmination of all the different tactics

and traits that I used to build my life that I've used on tons of clients from the last 20 years, from athletes to entrepreneurs, and it's all about building your bold, you know, making boldness a skill that you can learn to really get what you want, chase what you want and not just take what you can get. My entire philosophy is about living the life you want and not the life you get and really, it's really about taking actionable steps that anybody can do and anybody can learn.

Unfortunately, a lot of us get stuck in the self-doubt syndrome, right? And the fear of failure, which then holds us back from going after things or asking for things that really is much more aligned with who we are in the life we want to live. So that's why I'm so thrilled that I have this book now to share with people about helping people, teaching people how they can make these bold moves and become bolder and asking for what they want and finding the courage within them to live the life they want. Like I said, I'm so excited. It's on preorder right now. You can pre-order it anywhere. Amazon, what burns a noble target and really start living true to who you are and can't wait to see

your response once you get it. Thanks. Whose idea was it? Be honest. Again, we count with things together. Yeah, Harry and I were sitting around a fire as I met in the house. And then another fire? Same fire, actually. Same fire? Harry's backyard.

Wow. That's really our incubator. It's been a great incubator. Having a couple of drinks. And, having a couple of drinks. And I'm not going to say who said it first. Who brought it up first, you have to. Well, I don't know. I mean, for people watching, I know we crack the same joke

at the same time outside. So we think the same. We do think the same. But who went, I have to say, I have an idea first. Who said that? I think it's not like a live-o went off and an idea, happened and the conversation, or I think always contributing factors.

Think about this for, before you turn, try to wiggle yourself out of this question, we'll be very good politicians. Yeah, think about, yeah, that's right. Or not so great. Now, I'm talking about Facebook, right? Like it wasn't Mark Zuckerberg, who had the actual idea.

It was those other people, you don't even know their names. Those are twin. Yeah. But it was Mark that actually like executed and made it what it was. So it doesn't really matter who the idea, like, Ideas are cheap. The ideas are super cheap.

It's like 99% is execution or perspiration, inspiration to one. So I'm not going to hold you to like, oh, that means this. I'm just curious. So who's idea was it? Just say one or what are the other? You didn't say the same time. So I'll give Simon for credit as a gentleman.

Yeah. But I think, but I mean, it's a lot of time on that. So we were at Harry's house. Harry, we were talking about the recent news in the creator economy with Patreon's earnings came out and they paid out like at the time they were paying out like they paid out like five billion creators. How much did only fans pay out at the time? Also billions very amount and there was really no Gen Z creators

making money on the platform. And at that time, I was living in apartment building right in Century City where a lot of the tick tockers were living. Was it a tick tock house? So it was, it was the 10,000 apartment building. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't live there anymore. I'm gonna say that's probably the same. it was it was the 10,000 apartment building. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and they actually weren't even of the legal age to join only fans at the time.

So how old is she now? Honestly, 20, 21, 21. So she could have been on. Well, the Demelios also lived in that building. They, what you did, oh, the, like Charlie was, you know, under 18. Yeah, so, and they would never join an only platform like only fans because

When creators do that they lose out on a lot of high paying brand deals and especially for the D'Amilios who have it ruined your entire Powerster. Yeah, first of all. Yeah, so it's so cheesy and I feel like it's like when you have no well. I shouldn't say that It's not cheesy if you like that sort of thing Yeah, so this all kind of transpired to being at Harry's house. I did bring up the idea. Thanks for letting me have this one. And no, we really sat there for hours just talking through it, really breaking it down, trying to figure out every aspect of the business competitors out there.

And I think we literally stayed there all night. And we knew this was the one and ended up going into debt, signing on developers that we couldn't afford, and just getting started. Yeah, but I really, really, I think it was an absolute execution play. And there were a ton of people who... It's always the extra. It's not like we had something that was patented and trademarked and had a massive differentiation. A lot of people have tried to do what we did and a lot of people still try.

It just was all down to execution. And when we're kind of hearing other founders try and pitch us now for investment, et cetera, or just for advice, I almost kind of don't really care what the idea is. It's just these things are just execution plays. Yeah. Yes. I agree. And I think it's up, you read on the people more than anything 100% especially at early stage. Yeah, I think so I mean

I think well It's important that the idea is good Yeah, there's like but I think it's super important idea is good It can't be some like silly silly idea, but it comes down to like who's gonna be doing it He said his fair share of silly ideas. I'm sure if it's the storage unit in the company. No, there's more. We'll have to talk off camera. Oh my God, I'm sure.

But listen, that's how things happen. Like you have to, all you need is one good one. Yeah. One good idea. But so then, how much money did you initially raise then? So we in total raised about 1.3 million, which really is not very much in the space and not very much compared to any of our competitors.

And we raised that actually just for like our college dorm rooms. Really? Yeah, we couldn't go out there and raise $20 million like some of our competitors. No, no, no, no, no, money so angel investors and then we did have a couple of VCs in there But the first million. Yeah, well the first check the first the first kind of thing is a funny story because we so You know, as we were saying early like I've had Ten businesses 15 business. Maybe I don't know God knows how many and 10 businesses, 15 businesses, maybe I don't know, God knows how many. And stretching the numbers.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm gonna say that's the video. I'm gonna say that's the video. I'm gonna say that's the video. One billion views. You're just ruining your success rate. Yeah. But none of them had been successful. I hadn't, you know, had made a penny out of any of them until this one.

And the thing that I thought really was holding it back was I'd never taken on any risk. So for this one, we decided, okay, we're gonna go bulls or we're gonna take on, so we, you know, managed to find a development shop, kind of blags that we had the money when we didn't have the money, you know, got them signed like a seven month contract, well, we owe them a ton of money

that we just didn't have. So we knew we could cover the first two payments ourselves. So we knew we were good for two months and then after two months we were pretty screwed. So you know month one, I paid month two, Simon paid and then we were out of money and then how much was it month one and months like 20,000 20 grand a month some of that by month three we're like okay, we're you know we're getting down to the wire here and then we match a fine two kids at USC that we knew who like I guess we kind of convinced we were a proper business and they gave us the money They ended up doing extremely well of their Investors, how much did they give you? They gave us it was enough to cover the the that that month's payments

It was like I think it was Enough to enough to where we were fine for that month It was who are these kids that's really good friends of ours now. I didn't know them when I talked about that. Troy Bondy and Winston, for area. Yeah, really, really small guys. I know that guy who are, how do you know? You won't know them.

How do you know them? Or how do you buy some of them? I was actually interning with Troy at an investment bank the summer before American Discovery Capital in Westwood. And we had friends who went to college with them, got to know them over the years. And now we're very close with them. We co-invest alongside them in a ton of startups. And they actually have a cool post-probiotic post-a-sauce company called SAUS that they're're launching in AirOne in the next few weeks. Are you going to lend them 15, 20,000?

I think we're going to invest. We are definitely back in the skies. Exactly. You got to owe those two, right? Yeah, they did very well at the end. So month three, we got them, we were fine. Month four, but we were late on that payment and the development show was not happy. Month four, we just didn't have the money. And then I think half we spoke to all these, you know, VCs, all these investors. No one was backing to part-time founders

raising out of their dorm rooms. Zero backgrounds. Did you drop out by this point? No. Not at this point, yeah. But so, and then, you know, we were really, really not, not in a good place and then we met, you know, but whenever it's a big name, you see, you know, we prepare, you know, big pitch, whatever. And then a friend of mine at Tulane heard, said to me, he's like, oh, I was on an email chain with this guy who I think might, I think you might be an investor. I'm not entirely sure.

I haven't actually met him, but I'll just email him. This was, I think this was like 6pm on a Thursday night. He emails the guy, the guy responds within a minute. It's like Len Anderson and didn't know any background on him, kind of didn't really take the call very seriously. He responds to them in a minute. One of our partners was taking the call on our new ski slope. Yeah, so we had no background. I don't really know who this guy is. I think it's just like a networking cool probably, but we took the cool 9 AM. My partner's on the slopes camera off like you know, occasionally taking his mic off and then at the end, the guy's like, yeah, you know, I honestly don't fully understand

it, but like I like you guys and you know, it sounds really cool, so just let me know how much you want and if you let me know by 1pm I'll weigh you the money today and so Why why do he write we let him know and why not some money within 24 hours How much do you give you so he wanted to give us? Any literally any amount initially we were thinking like five Yeah, but we were raising We needed to raise we told him we were thinking like five or thousand. Yeah, but we were raising, we needed to raise, we told him we were raising 200K.

He told us he'd give us whatever we want. But we thought, well, it looks needy if we tell him 200K, but we'd really like 200K. So we just told him 150, and then he gave us 150, which, you know, wait, and this guy, like who is this guy? Oh, this guy is Anderson he's amazing up in San Francisco has About 50 active in Vage angel investments out currently has had multiple successful ones. He was one of

He was the head of the Google brain team at Google so he led a Division for about ten years at Google at Google, so he led a division for about 10 years at Google, where he was actually training the future leaders of artificial intelligence and machine learning. And this was a person at your school, a Tulane? Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I know this one guy who might be interested. Yeah, a friend of mine, too. He didn't even know the guy. They'd been on email chain together. But they'd Glenn, I mean. Why did he think he would be a good person? Why was he on email?

He was on this person. He was on the angel investor, he knew. But also this is a tie where we're extremely desperate. And when you were an entrepreneur, you have to just hustle with. It's a great one, amazing. Oh, 100%. And you had to, but when you're an entrepreneur,

you have to just hustle, scratch scratch and claw for anything you can possibly get lucky again. So lucky. Like I feel like all the stars lined up like randomly some person turns out this is a great guy from who like started Google Brain team and then we have. So so why are you whatever you want? I think yeah, but I think you can mind number on. He actually gave us more funding later on as well. He's had so much conviction in what we were doing.

But the guy, you know, and, you know, amazing, really amazing guy, and he, you know, he's done obviously very well off his fanfics investment and other investments as well. But, but I think it really shows that you've got to, you've got to, you know, things, things are very, you've got to really, it's like pushing a baller up a hill. And you know, once you get to the top of that hill, the baller, you know, falls and it looks pretty easy, but I mean, it was really bloody difficult. Hundreds of kind of

nose and that we spoke to 200 investors, some of that, to get there. And, you know, he was amazing. And then also, we, you also, we, we were students again in our dorm rooms. As we said, and we were trying to do everything we possibly could to pretend we weren't students. And he completely ran away. He didn't cry. He was like, we sent him an email the following week. He's like, yeah, I know you guys got finals coming up.

Oh my God, that's so funny. To make sure you get your work done. You can set some, yeah, don't worry if you go dark for a couple of weeks, I don't mind. You're like, what a guy. This guy sounds incredible. Amazing. He's amazing. He was, yeah, mana from heaven. That's totally exactly. Yeah. So then what happens? So then, then we, so that was, we spent you spending the money on? Just to put all the money in. So we, and we'll pair ourselves a single dollar until we sold to the XA. Oh yeah, well, I mean, so, so your soul's been 10 months.

I mean, it's like, your soul's been, you're 22 in 10 months. I mean, oh, how terrible for you. So did you live okay? Did you have like, we lived out there for the last 10 months. Our parents had to provide for that. Yeah, so I know I'm so tough. Yeah, so that was, I think that was, you know, kind of April, May, April May of 2021.

And then we second semester by junior of college. And then we launched, we say we launched a platform in August. We actually launched in June, but we were the only customers for two months. So, you know, we launched really, we kind of made these, you know, made these projections, we thought we were just going to go crazy in our first day, got zero traction for two months, and then I think it was big, big celebration when we got our first customer that wasn't off. How did you get it? Like, what did you do for not. How did you get it?

Like what did you do for marketing? How did you get the word out? So we actually have spent zero dollars on marketing to this day. So our whole platform is built on network effects. So we acquire creators through a variety of different ways. One, just personal relationships, managers, agents, creators for product creators. Yeah. So yeah, no, we just brought relationships, managers, agents, creators, creators.

So yeah, no, we just brought on a few creators in, like, who we were meeting in the creator economy, going to these events while we were building the platform. And we launched with a handful of creators. And as Harry said, no customers coming to the platform. So we relaunched too much later and brought a whole bunch of creators on the platform. And they started converting their followers into paid subscribers. So that was very exciting. And then from there, we ended up going out and raising again, because we were out of money. You know, we spent all of the money we raised to get to launch.

Right. And then we had no more to continue. So that's when we went to venture funds and brought on antler ventures who believed in us when most VCs wouldn't, you know, to still in college at this time, still taking classes. And yeah, we were able to build a really solid team. Harry and I didn't have much experience in the creator economy before. So we brought on Tanner Kessel, who's one of one of our partners who was working in the creator space for years, both prior and then Cameron Dallas. So Cameron is our co-founder

as well. He is one of the largest creators in the space and was one of the first creators. So he was a creator 10 years ago when you couldn't monetize as a creator. He was one of the first creators to sign a brand deal, one of the first creators to really pursue being a content creator as a full-time job. So he has seen the ebbs and flows of the creator economy when creators can make a penny to now where brands are paying top dollar for creators and diverting their marketing budget. So he saw fanfics as the new way for creators to monetize and something he wished he had when he was creating content every day.

So was he the one who really kind of helped spearhead that getting people on the platform? Yeah, totally. So I mean, the approach we took, which was completely different to our competitors, was we thought, we thought, okay, right, we're gonna build this business around, and build the team out, around access the team out around access to creators,

getting access to creators. And so when it would have all the competitors, we're kind of spending their money, hiring engineers and CTOs and et cetera, we thought we're just gonna bring creators on to our team. And we kind of had the ethos creator as God, we're gonna put the creators first. And so brought Cameron on and you know against

all odds and I think I think we had like under a hundred customers at that point Convinced him to join and he was really he has 70 million followers across platforms and 70 70 70 He's got 25. I saw a million on Instagram. Yeah. And how many does he have on? I think he's got like 15 15 million on Twitter, like 10 million on YouTube, like 18 million on TikTok. What kind of content is he? So he was huge in he was at one point the second most followed person on Instagram and start their Instagram and then kind of went to Vine and You know was posting jokes, etc. And then he went into then he

Saw the you know he was getting millions of likes and you know views on these things on Vine But no one there was no such thing as a social media influencer. So he No one was taking it seriously. And one day he posted a picture outside a building and said, I'm going to be here 4pm tomorrow. Come and see me expecting no one to show up. And like 600 teenage girls showed up to come and see more than that. So serious. How old is a guy, by the way? He's 28, just 1028. So he's out of Gen Z too. too out of Gen Z was but he was the first social media influencer You know he saw okay, he thought there's if all these people are coming to see me when I just post this yesterday

This stuff has power so he started he created magcon Which you know, it's kind of a touring company where where they do these basically concerts slash meetups Around the world, which is massively successful. When he pioneered the first brand deals, was one of the first creators, I think the first digital creator represented by a large agency. And then eventually, when we met him, it was perfect timing because we needed access to creators

and some legitimization, right? You know, two schmucks in college, trying to sell the stuff and he really provided it at the same time for him. He had, you know, he'd been an influencer for 10 years, was, you know, 20, 26th of the time, I think 27th of the time, and, you know, really thought, he doesn't want to be posting on tick talk Totally and so so he wanted to get into business world full time and

So he joined us as a co-founder and really has been amazing. So how did you find it? Like how did you get connected to him? Yeah, so we we got connected to him through a mutual friend So when we first started there are all these content houses in LA How did you get connected to him? Yeah, so we got connected to him through a mutual friend. So when we first started, there are all these content houses in LA. I'm sure you guys have heard of the Allo House or the Wish House, Hype House, whatever it may be. I think it was the Wish House.

Yeah, so we used that as a go-to-market, so we would partner with various content houses and host content days where creators could come and create content together, collaborate, grow each other's following. And one of the content house managers connected us to Cameron. Because Cameron saw what we were doing

and he realized this is actually something that he could get behind. Because he's approached by brands all the time, by startups all the time to join their teams. And really, he can't feel like he could really get behind those projects. But with this, his network of creators, allowing them to monetize in new ways was something that he wanted to get involved with. What was the equity that you had to give him to be involved?

Well, we can't already say what we gave him. But, you know, I think as, it was like, as an entrepreneur, you really have to be able to pull rabbits out of hats. Yeah. I think that you're smiling over. Pull rabbits out of hats. Yeah, I like that phrase.

You really have to be able to pull rabbits out of hats. And, you know, that, there's an element of that. Yeah, I like that phrase. I like that phrase. You really have to be able to pull rabbit out of hats. And, you know, that there's an element of luck. There's an element of, you know, being in the right place. Sure, how much equity do you have to give him? So, I can't, I really can't say how much. Very, how much? Yeah, just let it split. We took, you know, we took care of him.

Is it in double digits or is it like nine points below or is it ten above? Can you do that at least? I think that's fair. Harry and I are the main shareholders. Yeah, we owned the last majority company, but that's what we could say. Which pretty red, Harry. I think that's the light. Is that the light? The sunlight's really nice. Yeah, the sun just hit. I think that's the light. Is that the light?

Oh, okay. Yeah, that one is it. That one is it. I think that's what it is. Is there like a contract and not allowed to talk about these things? Yeah, we can't talk about these. But one thing I will say that

really I think sets us apart from a lot of the competition out there or other platforms is really we are Gen Z. I know Cam's 28, but still a lot of our team is Gen Z. We have multiple creators on our team who are going out there and onboarding creators, bringing their friends on. How do people do you have on the platform now? We have 8.2 million. 8.2 million. You have that many on that platform? Yes, six. Yeah, we have 8.2 million people on the platform.

How many are like... Monthly? Monthly. Yeah. Monthly, just 1.6 million last month. That's incredible. Was it... It can't be all cam, right?

No. No. Have you guys done a lot of like... What are some other strategies you use to build out, you know, marketing and to get, I know you said you'd just spend money on marketing, but was it much, you said it was much more referral like people were bringing up friends, but to get to that level of people

that was just simple referrals or was there any other tactics that you used that were basically for free that you couldn't talk about? Yeah, so I think something that, as I spoke prior and mentioned prior, is being built on network effects. So creators are the ones actually promoting their fanfics profiles across all their social channels.

So they are converting their followers into paid subscribers on fanfics, but they're also driving new creator signups. So if you're a creator and you're seeing four or five of your friends posting about their fanfics profiles every week, you're going to sign up or you're going to ask them about it. So it really was organic in that creators are driving other creators to the platform and also driving users to the platform. So one thing we like to do is we don't overly promote fanfics and market fanfics the platform because we understand

that users aren't coming to fanfics to find new creators to subscribe to. They're being dragged here by their favorite. By their favorite creators. So one thing we do is we actually like to promote the creators on our platform and allow them to grow their followings across all their social channels. So putting marketing spend behind these creators to grow on other channels and aligning the creator

with the fanfix brand to build that brand affinity with their following. So we always like to put creators first. We like to highlight the creators on our platform and help them in growing their following across all their social channels. I'm just curious because Camer is, I know he doesn't want to be an influencer, does he do fanfix? He's making six figures a year on fanfics alone, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's amazing. I think yeah, it's I mean, it's a really cool. It's really cool. And one of the founders of the company is, you know, making Consider on amounts on his own platform. It's amazing. How name other people that are on your platform that maybe are well known to other people? Yeah, I don't know if you, Anna Shume, Anna Bonanon, TikTok, one of the largest TikTokers out there, kind of Gen Z icon. What does she do? Anna treats her fanfics almost as like a Finsta. So she'll post, you know, Q&As with her fan,

she'll post unedited content or. What's Finsta? so show post, you know, Q&As with her fan, show post, unedited content or... What's Finsta? Should I be knowing? I think I know. Finsta is, you know, a lot of creators out there will create like, we'll create like a fake Instagram where they only let their fans see the content and it's like these free content. It's like closest friends. Yeah, the closest friends. So really, she gives her fanfix subscribers access into her daily lives, which they can't find on other platforms. So you look at her TikTok or her Instagram. A lot of it will be highly edited content.

That isn't very authentic. So fanfix is really the platform for that authentic content, non-edited content, bloopers. So we have podcasters who will put their last 10 minutes of their podcast behind a paywall on fanfics. Who, what podcas? Like Jumpers Jump Podcast, one of the largest Gen Z podcasts out there.

What's it called? Jumpers Jump. Like the Jumpers Jump Podcast puts exclusive episodes or extended cuts or bloopers or, you know, special segments. And how much did they charge for subscription? They charge $6.92 for monthly subscription. But then we have, you know, fitness influencers

who drop their meal plans or their fitness plans. Maybe a couple of fitness people all know them, maybe. A couple of fitness. Abby Burner is a new fitness creator who started this week. I don't know why. Who else? I don't know.

I'm not sure I'm on the spot, but yeah, massive massive amount. Yeah, like Mad Demon Row is another big creator, big Gen Z icon, who's on fanfics. But yeah, it's become their number one kind of form of monetization. So our highest earner I think is earning six million dollars a year on fanfics. I think Oh, I can't say I can't say I can say Honestly, honestly, honestly, this is You know, so it's kind of like private We can't try try to do that.

This is one of those things that can do. I am now what I get. That what I get because it's not you. It's not you. But also this is what happens when your startup is acquired by a much larger company that is. There's a lot of things you can't talk about, which is a great segue into talk about who bought you because it's so unique.

It's not someone that you would imagine, right? It's kind of tech company. Yeah, so. Judy Brand, you said super ordinary. Super ordinary then. You know, they've been absolutely amazing. It was completely. And I love their brands.

By the way, the brands are, I'm not, and I literally, I'm not saying this because you're sitting here. I didn't realize they own, like, not just ordinary, but earn a laslo, Stray Vectin, I saw in there, they have like, olaplex, they have like, huge brands. Yeah, so we have our portfolio brands that we own, and then we also have, you know, a ton of brand partners, which we handle all their distribution,

all their e-commerce, whether that's on Amazon or through creators or Alibaba or LaZada and Thailand, wherever it is in India and Europe. Why them? Like, what do they, I mean, what was their reason for purchasing you? So right now they really are the global growth partner for high-end beauty brands and cosmetic brands worldwide. They take a lot of the big U.S. beauty brands and they launch them into new markets, into

China, into Southeast Asia, into other massive beauty markets. They really are this growth partner. They use these marketplaces as a distribution channel for their products. So creators really are the new distribution channels for beauty products especially. So really allowing creators to be able to sell their products, being able to create brands with creators, as we've seen with Chamberlain coffee and Emma Chamberlain, or Prime beverage with KSI and Logan Paul.

So being able to create custom lines for creators, being able to white label their portfolio of products with creators, really opening up new distribution outlets for their products and trying to create a seamless experience between creators, brands, and marketplaces worldwide. So it's not like Olaplex just given that using as an example. They're not going to be, they're not allowed, I guess, to use one of your creators and just do a free collaboration. They totally could. They totally could.

And also another big aspect. On the actual person, let's say I was on there Yeah, and because all the plexus owned by super ordinary who owned you does that mean I'm Does that mean I have to do a collaboration? So so a lot of our brands are arm length away. Yeah, there's some brands that we You know fully operate in those are like Joanne of our guests is one of our brands that You know, it's a hundred percent acquired by super ordinary and you know, that's an in-house brand Okay, so say whatever just yeah, what I have to do a club as it if I was a creator

So where does the can they can they just like pepper in and an inner, like an add on the site somewhere else? No, no, so we haven't done any of that yet. We are going to be doing social commerce currently. The way we're doing it is kind of helping creators, white label products and co-create brands with creators. So we get hit up the whole time that creators saying, oh, I want to, you know, I want to create a, a, a, a tannin oil. Um, okay. So, you know, we can now help them do that, you know. Um, I want to, I want to create a merge brand so we can help them

do that. So that's the main way right now. And then the other big aspect of why, you know, why they bought us is there's massive, massive opportunity for the platform in Asia. And a lot of the US, creative economy companies and platforms neglect the international reach. And the superonories, bread and butter is Asia, they have a massive base there. So they're going to take us there and we'll dominate the creative economy in Asia as well. Yeah, as well as being able to facilitate brand deals between our portfolio of brands with our creator network. So right now, there are a lot of middlemen

between a brand and a creator at Superordinary, we can remove a whole middleman completely. So, but when they bought you at the 10 month mark, right? And how many users did you have already? And were you making money? Like what were you making at point? Yeah, we had millions of users at that point, and we're making kind of seven figures in, in annualized revenue.

So there was a ton of traction with the platform, which is probably the main reason they brought us. Right. And also it's like a place, it's a great space for them to be developing because they have an audience of what that is. It makes sense to me. And if you were tracking, and you're just doing that now, what are you going to do in

two years or three years? They bought you early. And what's your deal now? You have to still work with them, right? Like you're still doing that now, what are you gonna do in two years or three years? They bought you early. Yeah. And what's your deal now? You have to still work with them, right? Like you're still involved in the company. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. We're still CEOs of FanFix. And then, Oh, so you're still operating?

Yeah, we're still CEO FanFix. We're also SVPs at Superordinary. So we are launching, I'm sorry. So we are launching a suite of new tools for creators in the coming months that will help them with monetizing off of brand deals as well as launching new products and highlighting brands that they want to work with. So stay tuned. We'll have a product. Please for my hair. Yeah, and some Arnold Laszlo. I have a whole lot of ribbons. That's not going to be giving you.

Totally awesome. I love those brands. Like I'm very there's some by the way, the ordinary brand, I'm not just like I said, I'm not saying that I heard that like their products are so cost a fat like they're like very very high margin. You know they're very like they're they're not cheap. I hate to word cheap. Yeah, value. Very value. Great value.

Great value. And very good quality. Yeah. That's why I thought that they have a huge name. People love them. So I mean, this is amazing. Did I did I forget anything in this interview with you, Harry? I don't think so, not that I can,

you definitely didn't forget anything that I can remember. How about you Simon, is there anything else you want to talk about? Thank you, I think you covered it all. I think Harry had a few questions for you actually. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, okay, go ahead. I think the final thing, Simon, you know, prepared a dance for the podcast.

It took her, it took her, it took her, it took her, it took her, it took her, it took her, it took her, it took her, Harry, Harry, Simon, you know, prepared a dance for the podcast. It's tick tock dance, didn't like the show. Harry, I, you know, we always have, we've got three jokes that we were saying. Yeah, we've been looking at the same jokes that we tell all the time now. He always brings up some tick talk dance I created in the middle of meetings and everyone's always very confused. And did you ever, did you ever know?

No, never, never created the TikTok dance, but when I say I didn't create it, they usually don't believe me. And until now they think that you did they go searching wildly for it. Yeah, they think I'm like embarrassed to show it, but really, that's very fun. No, really, Harry's the one who created the dances.

Yeah. Okay, so you guys are very young. Now you guys are very rich. Do you guys have girlfriends? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no like it's much more casual. That's true. Definitely. Yeah, I think, you know, Harry has spent a lot of time on the dating apps, whether that's, you know, hinged, bumble, even Facebook, he uses Facebook for the old ladies. Okay. Yeah, that's a style. for the old ladies, okay. Yeah, yeah, that's a style. That's a style. That I think you are right, that long-term relationships,

especially amongst high school students, is very different than it was 10 years ago. Very different. But I'm saying college, I mean college students, it's like I feel like it's like, there's very few more, like, well, it's not that, it's not an anomaly. Yeah.

Actually, maybe it isn't an anomaly. I just find it's not very common. It's just in LA or everywhere. Most of my friends, I mean, most of my friends don't have girlfriends. That's just what we like to tell ourselves. Yeah, exactly. So, I think it all comes back to TikTok, honestly.

Like, TikTok ruined everyone's social media ruined it for everyone. A tension span, as well as- 100%. What you help some of these creators portray themselves on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, that I think it has really impacted the dating world. Yeah.

I mean, also because nothing is real anymore. Yeah. And so when you see people in real life versus like online, it's very jarring sometimes, right? Yeah. Yeah. All the different at-a-filled deals and stuff like that. But also the it's like the volume of people. So like why people have told me many times that they've gone on a date with somebody, whoever, they actually have like a nice time. Nothing like, or yeah, or that like, but their brains now, the neuroplasticity has changed so much. Like their brains now are just going to like, okay, now I gotta go back on my, like it's not, there's no like, there's's no like you said There's no attention span to even like take that longer than like an hour. Yeah, what I think we are seeing is

We are seeing you know movement back to authenticity, especially amongst Gen Z and I think You know be real if you have heard of be real or Seen that app blowing up really always, always. What's going on? What's that? Be Reol is an app right now kind of taking the world by storm. What is it? Essentially is, imagine Facebook.

I mean, imagine Instagram, but back to its basics. No filters whatsoever. And you really only follow your close friends and family on Be Reol. And the thing about Be-Real is- And this is an app? Yeah, it's an app. Okay.

Every day at the same time, at random times, but with all of its users, it shoots out for you to post on B-Real. And what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to take your phone out and take a photo. And the difference between B-Rail and Snapchadder Instagram is B-Rail is a dual-facing camera. So when you take a photo, if I were to take a B-Rail right now, you would see my face and you at the same time. So you can't see your friends be reels until you post your own B-Rail. So it's kind of a gamified, authentic platform.

It's a great idea. That's been blowing up recently. And Instagram and Snapchat copied that feature. So now on Instagram or on Snapchat, you could take a dual photo where you could see yourself and who you're taking a photo of. Yeah, yeah, it's a new feature. That's a badge of honor in the social media space

once Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok try and copy what you're doing. They've done that already with the author of the subscription. And that would be real, with ask for the subscription. And now be real. That's a big. So where would it be on the. Yeah, it's launched like last few weeks. Yeah. Are people using it? Yeah. Oh, they're crushing it.

They're crushing it. I think people, you know, people, it's like what we were saying with, you know, with content being endless, it, you know, makes kind of exclusive pay world content all the more valuable. I think it's the same thing with authenticity with everything so filtered and edited and inorganic. It makes authenticity. People really just crave authenticity. I was in your preaching to the converted. I agree with you, but I do think that like people are now just like, even like everyone just automatically goes to a filter because it's like what to do.

Yeah. Like it just completely alters everything. And that's why plastic surgery is out, but all these problem people are like, so it's a cure for themselves. And they think that they're so like, that all their imperfections are so highlighted in real life because you see this artificial view of the 100% and there are all those apps out there like Facetune being a big popular one amongst Gen Z creators. Yeah, top of so popular. Yeah, and it's pretty crazy what you can do with these filters nowadays.

So then what's your reason? What's your excuses for not having, you know, girlfriends? The filters aren't good enough. The filters aren't good enough. Maybe like 10 years. Yeah, 10 years, we'll... But we used to say, you don't want the filters, you want these B-real authenticity, authenticity. So... B-real, you just said it.

Yeah, I don't say no, so now why don't you find real girls that have no filters and doing all this. Girls with no filters. Yeah. That's what we're looking for. Yeah. You guys can spot who's using a filter. Yeah. Yeah.

You can definitely tell. I mean, more or less. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. But you're still not going to go and have a relationship. Are you boys? But either one of you.

No, we will. Keep it casual for the future. But at some point. No, we will. Keep it casual for the future. Now, at some point, Harry's just struggling. If there's anyone out there who, uh, you know, wants to take a shot, you know, Simon, that English accent, I'm sure just is a deterrent for most girls. Oh, yeah, I hate it.

It's, it's like eating beans on toast for every exactly who wants to do that. No, exactly. It's like eating beans on toast for every now and then. Exactly. Who wants that? No. Exactly. Gosh. Well, okay. So for the, okay, how do people find you guys to go fanfics?

I give us some details for people who want to be a creator on fanfics or. Yes. Are curious. If you are a spying creator, go to fanfics.io and apply to be a creator. So that apply. Yeah. So that's actually one thing we didn't touch. But on fanfix we are exclusive with who we allow to be a content creator. So you actually have to apply to be a creator on our platform. Okay. You have to go through our approval process. We verify your identity. We check that you actually have built a community and engage community.

And then once you are accepted, we hand hold you through the process of launching your page, creating content to begin with, and really be able to build your community. So that's something that no other platform does. I like that. On Patreon, on OnlyFans, whatever it may be, you can become a creator today and start creating content. And there's no control over that content being posted. So on FanFix, coming back to it, FanFix.io applied to be a creator,

Harry will personally review your application. Absolutely. And yeah, and then once you're accepted, you essentially connect your bank account. You set your subscription price, your message price, and you start making money. That's simple. I love it. Thank you. Okay, so this has been, I don't know how long it's been. I'm very, how long has been like an hour and a half? Yeah, I was, I was 45, I was in a half one. I was worried I'd have been a savior. I guess I was wrong. So there's going to be four minutes.

I know, right? Four minutes. I want worried I'd end up in a save you. I guess I was wrong. Killer's gonna be four minutes. I know, right? Four minutes. I'm not sure you want to show you guys, whether? Yeah, sure. I don't have a Twitter. I don't have a Twitter. I don't have a Twitter.

Well, thank you, boys. And thank you. I'm very proud of you. And I'm very proud of you, too. Of course. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you, bro. Thank you for being here.

This was excellent. Of course. Thank you for being here. This was excellent. Thank you guys We're having that, the habits and hustle podcasts, power by happiness. Hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. Okay, so I want to tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about elevating your confidence to its highest level ever

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