Speaker 1: Ye. Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, Varieties podcast
Speaker 1: featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media
Speaker 1: and entertainment. I'm Todd Spangler with Variety Today. Our guest
Speaker 1: is Stephen Galanis, co founder and CEO of Cameo, which
Speaker 1: has made a booming business of selling personalized video shout
Speaker 1: outs from celebrities. The company is just shy of four
Speaker 1: years old and last year they pulled in gross revenue
Speaker 1: of a hundred million dollars, four and a half times
Speaker 1: from the previous year. It's coming up today on Strictly Business.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned, Welcome back to Strictly Business. Here's Cameo CEO
Speaker 1: Stephen galanis so seven maybe you can start, uh, just
Speaker 1: tell us sing your own words. What what is Cameo?
Speaker 1: What's what's the mission? The mission of Cameo is to
Speaker 1: create the most personalized and authentic fan connections on Earth today.
Speaker 1: We primarily do this by selling personalized video shoutouts from
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of different athletes, actors or celebrities. And
Speaker 1: that's not the That's not the end of the business model, right,
Speaker 1: we hope it's just the beginning. We believe we're in
Speaker 1: the top of the second ending with cameo and the
Speaker 1: larger vision of cameos to build the marketplace for people's
Speaker 1: time for x amount of money you as a fan
Speaker 1: should be able to pay to do. Why activity was
Speaker 1: the person that you love? And UM right now we're
Speaker 1: focused primarily on one y activity, the personalized video shout out,
Speaker 1: the core cameo, which you know, I think we become
Speaker 1: synonymous with. But again, this is just the first of
Speaker 1: many things that we hope to delight fans with. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll get some more of that later, I think. But
Speaker 1: so far to date you've delivered how many cameos to date,
Speaker 1: it's a it's more than a million now. I think
Speaker 1: we've done one point six million now since we started. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, last year we crossed the millionth mark at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the summer, which was a really exciting
Speaker 1: milestone for the company and UH and we ended up
Speaker 1: doing one point three million just in which was four
Speaker 1: times more than we've ever done in a year. So
Speaker 1: most cameos that have ever been done have happened in
Speaker 1: the last twelve months. UM, and we're excited to just
Speaker 1: continue to accelerate and create more magical moments for fans
Speaker 1: around the world. So what what made you hit the
Speaker 1: hockey stick? Was it the coronavirus pandemic really gave you
Speaker 1: guys a lift? Or what happened? Cameo was the fastest
Speaker 1: growing consumer marketplace on Earth coming into so the business
Speaker 1: had been growing very rapidly. Um. But again, you know,
Speaker 1: I think very relevant to your listeners. I don't have
Speaker 1: to tell any of them that all live sports, all
Speaker 1: live entertainment, all live music shut down for a big
Speaker 1: part of and um, you know, artists were suddenly finding
Speaker 1: themselves without any of their normal income streams. They're missing
Speaker 1: the hell out of their fans. And you know, a
Speaker 1: CAMEO we provided, UH during a really tough time for them,
Speaker 1: an opportunity for talent to connect with the people that
Speaker 1: keep them going, their their die hard fans and UH
Speaker 1: and and make money at a time where nothing was
Speaker 1: coming in. And if you think about, you know, or
Speaker 1: or prior to the number one and number two reasons
Speaker 1: that talent wouldn't join Cameo were you know, I'm making
Speaker 1: too much money doing everything else that I do, or
Speaker 1: I don't have time. So in a year where people
Speaker 1: suddenly weren't making money, and they had more time than ever.
Speaker 1: They gave us a shot. And the thing that's been
Speaker 1: really awesome to see is, you know, everything's come back
Speaker 1: really at this point except for live music. You know,
Speaker 1: movies are filming again, televisions filming again, sports, you know,
Speaker 1: the super Bowl just happened, so everybody's back to work.
Speaker 1: And the thing that was really cool to see is
Speaker 1: that they came on. They gave us a shop during
Speaker 1: a time where nothing else was going on. But now
Speaker 1: that life has returned to normal, cameos and interacting with
Speaker 1: their fans this way has become part of their their
Speaker 1: stack as creators. It's it's become just as important to
Speaker 1: them as their Instagram, their Twitter. There there anything else
Speaker 1: well for for some of them. I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: it takes a special kind of or a special kind
Speaker 1: of interest in this, right, I mean to open up
Speaker 1: to two individual fans like that. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: some people who are unwilling to do this. I'm assuming
Speaker 1: there's some people unwilling to be on Instagram or Twitter, right,
Speaker 1: So there are people that don't like interacting with their fans.
Speaker 1: We haven't found black market for those people in general.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've learned in the last
Speaker 1: four years is that talent, no matter if they're musicians
Speaker 1: or actors or athletes, are primarily driven by three main things. Uh,
Speaker 1: they want to make more money, they want to become
Speaker 1: more famous, and they want to become more beloved. So money, fame,
Speaker 1: love is a framework that we think about. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right if you're If you're somebody who doesn't need
Speaker 1: more fame or doesn't need more money, or doesn't need
Speaker 1: more love, Kenyo is not a great place for you,
Speaker 1: and that's fine, um, But fortunately for us, most people
Speaker 1: in the entertainment industry are looking to increase all three
Speaker 1: of those things. And you know, the core value prop
Speaker 1: for cameo is that in cameo, we're paying the talent
Speaker 1: to become more famous and more beloved, and we helped
Speaker 1: them turn their casual fans into super fans by creating
Speaker 1: magical moments for them. So what is the price range
Speaker 1: of an individual cameo and who sets that pricing? Is
Speaker 1: that a negotiation with the talent. The talent have always
Speaker 1: controlled their price. Is always important to us that nobody
Speaker 1: ever felt that this wasn't worth their time. So by definition,
Speaker 1: if they're setting their own price, like they're saying that
Speaker 1: this is worth my time. As we've matured as a business,
Speaker 1: we've been able to use our proprietary data to show,
Speaker 1: you know, talent at different price points. Here's how you're
Speaker 1: converting at fifty dollars versus seventy five vere. Here's how
Speaker 1: you're you're doing in comparison to other people who are similar,
Speaker 1: maybe other characters on the same show, or you know,
Speaker 1: if you're the star quarterback in one city, here's how
Speaker 1: the star quarterbacks in another city is doing. So in
Speaker 1: many ways, like our marketplace is starting to mature, and
Speaker 1: it's it's almost becoming like a zillo, right, It's almost
Speaker 1: becoming a place where people are coming on and looking
Speaker 1: for relative value. So they'll they'll they'll look for a
Speaker 1: group of people and they'll find the one that they
Speaker 1: perceive has the best value as opposed to you're just
Speaker 1: going for one person. So like I'm worth more in
Speaker 1: Lindsay Lohan or something, a really good example. I'm a
Speaker 1: I'm a die hard Chicago Bears fan and two of
Speaker 1: my favorite all time Bears players or Lance Spriggs and
Speaker 1: Brian or Lacker, they were almost equal players. They're both
Speaker 1: you know, star star linebackers for the Bears one War
Speaker 1: number fifty five, one War War number fifty four. Lance
Speaker 1: Spriggs is fifty five dollars. Brian or Lacker is five dollars.
Speaker 1: You must really love Brian er Lacker to justify thing
Speaker 1: ten x uh, you know, for his for his rate.
Speaker 1: But but that just gives you a sense of of
Speaker 1: how our consumers shop and what the psychology is behind it. Interesting. Okay,
Speaker 1: So this range is from maybe five to ten bucks
Speaker 1: for some people, all the way up to couple of
Speaker 1: thousand or what is the range exactly? Yeah, the at
Speaker 1: the low and people are free, I mean there there
Speaker 1: are some people on cameo that are zero dollars um.
Speaker 1: At the high end, the most expensive can be you know,
Speaker 1: multiple thousands of dollars um. Today, the average price of
Speaker 1: cameos is seventy dollars. So it's actually a lot more
Speaker 1: affordable than most people would expect. And that's and that
Speaker 1: increased last year by about I think yeah, And and frankly,
Speaker 1: we've seen it increase, you know, year over year by
Speaker 1: a similar range. Since we started in seventeen, which is
Speaker 1: our first year in business. The average price was twenty bucks,
Speaker 1: it was forty bucks and eighteen, it was sixty bucks
Speaker 1: in nineteen and you know, in an increase to seventy
Speaker 1: bucks last year. Part of it, again, this was a
Speaker 1: completely new marketplace, so nobody knew what something like this
Speaker 1: should cost. When we launched, we were selling videos for
Speaker 1: one dollar or two dollars, three dollars, and at that price,
Speaker 1: people are saying, this was the best dollar I've I've
Speaker 1: ever spent, and this was the best two dollars I've
Speaker 1: ever spent. And then as you know, Cameo has become
Speaker 1: you know, more widely known, and you know, more talent
Speaker 1: er on it of a higher caliber that the price
Speaker 1: has naturally gone up because consumers understand what they're getting
Speaker 1: and have a good idea of what the value is.
Speaker 1: Fees to be some other things that they could get
Speaker 1: from talent. Okay, so how do you look at the
Speaker 1: competitive landscape here, Stephen? I mean, there's nobody that quite
Speaker 1: does what you do. But I mean, are you competing
Speaker 1: with you know, Twitter, Instagram? Are you competing with only fans?
Speaker 1: I'm kind of joking about that, but how do you
Speaker 1: see other people responding to you know, your audio marketplace.
Speaker 1: One of the things that um I've been thinking a
Speaker 1: lot about over the past four years is this widening
Speaker 1: gap that's happening in all forms of the entertainment world
Speaker 1: between fame and monetization. So today there are more famous
Speaker 1: people on Earth now than there ever had been because
Speaker 1: of social media, because Netflix is putting twenty billion dollars
Speaker 1: in content a year. And you know, if we had
Speaker 1: had this interview a week a year ago, none of
Speaker 1: us would have known who Carol Baskin is andresotic and
Speaker 1: now you know, everyone on Earth knows who they are. Right.
Speaker 1: There's Carol bask and was like the sixth most popular
Speaker 1: talent on Cameo last year, right, Right, So again we
Speaker 1: have tens of thousands of talent and a year ago
Speaker 1: nobody knew who she was, and today you know, she's
Speaker 1: a top ten person in the world on Cameo. Right.
Speaker 1: So the whole point is that the amount of fame
Speaker 1: on Earth is exponentially increasing, but the business model supporting
Speaker 1: fame is growing linearly. So what's happening is for the
Speaker 1: average talent, there's a widening gap between fame and monetization,
Speaker 1: and the underlying business models are only working for the
Speaker 1: top like you know, point zero zero one percent, you know,
Speaker 1: the true A plus listers. So if you look at YouTube,
Speaker 1: the top three percent of creators make percent of all
Speaker 1: the ad revenue. There's people with tens of millions of
Speaker 1: followers who you know, your kids love or your nephews
Speaker 1: love that, uh that you know you've never heard of,
Speaker 1: but like, they make no money on YouTube. Essentially they
Speaker 1: have to monetize otherwise. Uh. If you're talking about sports,
Speaker 1: the top two percent athletes make of all the endorsement
Speaker 1: the new And there was a documentary ESPN did a
Speaker 1: couple of years called Broke that said of NFL players
Speaker 1: go broke five years after playing their last game. For Spotify,
Speaker 1: the top one percent of artists make of all the
Speaker 1: streaming revenues. So artists are having to sell merch, they're
Speaker 1: having to do meeting greets when they're touring, they're having
Speaker 1: to go on tour um and you know, in in
Speaker 1: the Screen Actors Guild in the best of times, one
Speaker 1: of the oldest memes of Hollywood is the outer work
Speaker 1: actress or actor who's bartending or waiting tables between getting
Speaker 1: casted in something. But those people can now go on YouTube,
Speaker 1: they can go on TikTok, and you know, those that
Speaker 1: have great talent can actually go and find ways to
Speaker 1: blow up without being cast in anything. So when you're
Speaker 1: looking at this, there's now fifty million people on Earth
Speaker 1: who consider themselves creators and the pipeline is big. One
Speaker 1: third of American teens hope to be an influencer when
Speaker 1: they grow up. So there's continued stress on this. And
Speaker 1: when you look at the legacy business models and music
Speaker 1: and entertainment, the solution here is not coming from the
Speaker 1: record labels. It's not coming from the movie studios. Everybody
Speaker 1: is under siege. You think about sports um, you know
Speaker 1: ESPN struggling because people are cutting cable and when you
Speaker 1: when you think about all these things, the only solution
Speaker 1: to fixing this long term, a world where there's more
Speaker 1: famous people, people are more famous than they are rich,
Speaker 1: is by going direct to fan for monetization. So I
Speaker 1: think Cameo is the leader in direct to fan monetization. Uh,
Speaker 1: this space is white hot, it's a huge space. There
Speaker 1: will be many big companies Cameo included, that are built
Speaker 1: out of this um. And you know, you you talked
Speaker 1: about business like only fans that's helping go direct to
Speaker 1: fan monetization for the adult sector. Uh, there's businesses like
Speaker 1: Patreon who are doing direct to fan monetization for artists
Speaker 1: and podcasters. Sub Stack is doing this for journalists. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's a variety of companies in this space and
Speaker 1: it's extreme, really interesting and we've never looked at Twitter
Speaker 1: or Instagram or snapchatter or clubhouse or anything is competitive
Speaker 1: because ultimately talent get famous on those platforms and it's
Speaker 1: on Cameo that they come to get paid to become
Speaker 1: more famous and more beloved. So in many ways, the
Speaker 1: other platforms are the farm system for Cameo. And you
Speaker 1: know we you know we benefit from a system where
Speaker 1: more people, more famous people are being created every day.
Speaker 1: So what share? What is the revenue share that you
Speaker 1: provide with the talent? Does it depend? Is it arrange?
Speaker 1: Every single talent is on the exact same financial split.
Speaker 1: It's a split talents way. Um, every person is on
Speaker 1: the same deal. We've never deviated for anybody. Um, we've
Speaker 1: never given a minimum guarantee, we've never paid anyone to
Speaker 1: come on Cameo, and we've never given equity for anyone
Speaker 1: to join the platform. So everyone's on the same deal.
Speaker 1: And we think that's uh, that was a huge part
Speaker 1: of building a fair ubiquitous platform. Oah uh, So let's
Speaker 1: talk about who are the successful people on cameo really
Speaker 1: making making a mid here, you know, and I've got
Speaker 1: the top ten list of top performing talent of number
Speaker 1: one Brian Brian bowmen Garten, sorry, Brian bowen Gardner, who
Speaker 1: was Kevin from the Office, right, Yeah, then you've bred Farve,
Speaker 1: uh Snoop Doug, Gilbert Gottfried, Chris Harrison of The Bachelor, um,
Speaker 1: and the aforementioned Carol Baskin from Tiger King. What's common
Speaker 1: among the people who perform really well? Besides you know,
Speaker 1: they're hard working and put in put in the elbow grease. Here.
Speaker 1: The the thing that characterizes talent who are really successful
Speaker 1: on cameo, I think is a couple of things. Number One,
Speaker 1: they have to have a big, authentic personality. So if
Speaker 1: you're looking at someone like uh, you know, Big Ed
Speaker 1: from ninety Day Fiance, who is one of the top
Speaker 1: ten cameo talent this year, or um, someone like Gilbert
Speaker 1: God for your Snoop dog like, these are big personalities
Speaker 1: who um you know, tend to be really funny. We
Speaker 1: find that people that are funny tend to be the
Speaker 1: best people who are great at ad living um. And
Speaker 1: the thing that's interesting, if you look at our top
Speaker 1: ten most you know booked people on cameo, it is
Speaker 1: not a representation of the top ten most famous people
Speaker 1: on cameo. So it's interesting. Just like Snapchat, you know,
Speaker 1: made DJ Khalid kind of this huge star, but you know,
Speaker 1: he's not the biggest person in the world on Instagram
Speaker 1: or on Instagram. You know, Kylie Jenner and and Kim
Speaker 1: Kardashian are like the biggest people on earth, but they're
Speaker 1: not the biggest people on Twitter. That was Ashton Kutcher
Speaker 1: and shocked back in the day. Every platform has their
Speaker 1: stars that are become emerge and breakout stars. They're all famous,
Speaker 1: but it takes something special, uh, you know, for them
Speaker 1: and and and for us, it's people who are authentic,
Speaker 1: people who really love their fans, people who make pretty
Speaker 1: funny videos. That that's that tends to be what we
Speaker 1: found makes people most successful in CanYa. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: probably have some whales that you'd like to get here, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, Taylor Swift, I don't know um, Frank Ocean
Speaker 1: people like that. Right, There are five million people on
Speaker 1: Earth we think can be on this, and we have
Speaker 1: tens of thousands, so you know, we we could spend
Speaker 1: like the entire UH podcast talking about all the people
Speaker 1: we want to get on Cameo, and it's really not
Speaker 1: even that we want them. We want to make our
Speaker 1: fans happy. So we know every day who people are
Speaker 1: searching for, and our team, you know, has been working
Speaker 1: hard over the last four years to take a look
Speaker 1: at the aggregate search results and get people on that
Speaker 1: UM that the fans are demanding. And that's that's that's
Speaker 1: why we exist to to do, you know, to get
Speaker 1: these people on the platform so we can make people smile,
Speaker 1: laugh and cry. We need to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: but we'll have more with Stephen right after this, and
Speaker 1: we're back with CAMEO CEO Stephen Glennis, let's back up
Speaker 1: a second. Let's go back if if you will, Stephen
Speaker 1: and give us kind of the short version of the
Speaker 1: origin story. How did this start? So? UM? My co
Speaker 1: founder Martin Uh, someone I've known for a while. We
Speaker 1: were producing movies and television shows together and UH and
Speaker 1: then I went to go work at LinkedIn um he
Speaker 1: went to go and be an NFL agent. We didn't
Speaker 1: see each other for a couple of years. He then
Speaker 1: flew into Chicago for my grandmother's funeral, and as I
Speaker 1: was driving him back to the airport, he was telling
Speaker 1: me about a problem he was having as an NFL
Speaker 1: agent who was wrapping one person who was in a
Speaker 1: superstar the player his name was Cassius Marsha the Seattle Seahawks.
Speaker 1: Martin had high conviction because the guy had a big personality,
Speaker 1: that maybe this guy could become the next rock, you know,
Speaker 1: Let's get him in television shows, Let's get him in movies,
Speaker 1: Let's get him endorsement deals. And I had never heard
Speaker 1: of him, and I asked Martin, like, show me who
Speaker 1: he is. And he pulled out his phone and he
Speaker 1: played a video that today we called the first Cameo.
Speaker 1: And in the video, Martin had Cassius marsh congratulate his
Speaker 1: good buddy Brandon, who at the time was working at
Speaker 1: Nike with a lot of big famous athletes, but loves
Speaker 1: the Seattle Seahawks. And he congratulated Brandon. I'm becoming a father,
Speaker 1: so he hits play. Cassius is not wearing a shirt.
Speaker 1: He's in southern California. He's all tatted up, he's got
Speaker 1: a flat brimmed tat on and he's making the video
Speaker 1: while driving and he goes, you know, he goes, hey, Brandon,
Speaker 1: it's Cassius marsh from the Seahawks. Heard about your son, Maverick. Congratulations.
Speaker 1: If he gets your athletic ability, he'll be playing for
Speaker 1: the Seahawks one day. Go Hawks. It was like a
Speaker 1: five you know, I have six second video, but it
Speaker 1: was so striking and immediately as he showed it to me,
Speaker 1: the lightbulb moment, you know, hit and and I was like, Martin,
Speaker 1: we need we need to sell that, Like I feel
Speaker 1: like people would want that. So immediately we had pretty
Speaker 1: high conviction that people would want this if talent were
Speaker 1: willing to do them at scale. And that was the
Speaker 1: big question. And as we started to talk to you know,
Speaker 1: pro athletes we knew, or actors we knew, we kept
Speaker 1: hearing that like, oh, yeah, I did one of these
Speaker 1: for my agents. You know son's bar Mitzvah right, or uh,
Speaker 1: you know I did one of these for to pump
Speaker 1: up my the football team in my old high school.
Speaker 1: So we are for people who were kind of in
Speaker 1: the inner circle. And we really felt like if we
Speaker 1: created a marketplace that was lifting the red velvet rope
Speaker 1: and and bringing people in, talent would be able to
Speaker 1: engage with way more of their fans than they do today.
Speaker 1: Because you know, in many worlds, like in this world
Speaker 1: of social uh, everyone wants to engage with their fans more,
Speaker 1: but you know, it can be really dangerous letting you know,
Speaker 1: people into closely. So this gave talent the opportunity to
Speaker 1: come and, you know, and delight their fans on their
Speaker 1: own schedule. And for the fans side, I mean, you've
Speaker 1: seen many famous people, I'm sure with your job, and
Speaker 1: how often are you in a restaurant and you see
Speaker 1: someone you really admire and you're like nervous to go
Speaker 1: up to them, right and and if you do, they
Speaker 1: might be mean to you. So like this actually or
Speaker 1: or when you do talk to them, a lot of
Speaker 1: times people get starstruck, they fumble their words. So this actually,
Speaker 1: on the fans side, is a more safe and enjoyable
Speaker 1: way to interact with the talent because that nervous factors
Speaker 1: out as well. So we just found it worked really
Speaker 1: well on both sides. That's an interesting psychological sort of
Speaker 1: human nature porn. UM. I have to ask you this, right.
Speaker 1: You recently had a story Lindsay Lohan asked UH, a
Speaker 1: fan who had ordered a video from her to take
Speaker 1: it down, UM from social media? How does that happen?
Speaker 1: And UM, you know, is this just a UM, you know,
Speaker 1: an attribute of UM you know, people getting used to
Speaker 1: this whole concept or I mean again, we've done one
Speaker 1: point six million cameos since we started. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't even think I could count on one hand the
Speaker 1: amount of times that we've you know, we've seen that
Speaker 1: typically it's not because the video is inappropriate, like in
Speaker 1: this case, it wasn't. UM. I I believe in this case,
Speaker 1: Lindsay was giving this this girl motivation to come out
Speaker 1: to her parents. UM. And you know, then she made
Speaker 1: a TikTok compilation of it, and you know, and it
Speaker 1: went viral. It was a great moment. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: in Lindsay's mind this was something that was probably like
Speaker 1: best for the person that it was intended to, and
Speaker 1: and and people in the immediate factor. But you know,
Speaker 1: it went on TikTok, it went hyper viral, which look
Speaker 1: percent of the time, like the talent love when the
Speaker 1: videos go viral, UM, and and the fans love it too.
Speaker 1: So this was just a case where I think she
Speaker 1: felt this was like a very personal moment and UM
Speaker 1: and it went out. But this has not been a
Speaker 1: problem at any type of scale for us. Okay, UM,
Speaker 1: now you you mentioned, uh were you alluded to some
Speaker 1: newer products that are coming in. You've got something called
Speaker 1: Cameo Direct let's you chat directly with UM your favorite celebrity. UM.
Speaker 1: And you've got Cameo Live, which is like a fifteen
Speaker 1: minute zoom call. What what's been the traction there and
Speaker 1: what do you need UM to do on that front
Speaker 1: too to get that into you know, the mainstream product pipeline. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so both of these were new products that we launched
Speaker 1: last year. UM. You know, messaging is something that we
Speaker 1: think is really important to the future of Cameo when
Speaker 1: you look at other social networks, whether it's Instagram or
Speaker 1: Twitter or LinkedIn, where I used to work, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: in mail with such a big part of LinkedIn, So
Speaker 1: in many ways, UH, Cameo Director is kind of like
Speaker 1: in mail for celebrities, you can shoot a direct message
Speaker 1: to them and on Instagram or Twitter. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you get a lot of d MS yourself,
Speaker 1: and if you don't follow the person, it goes into
Speaker 1: a different box than a lot of times you don't
Speaker 1: even see those d M s. The cool thing about
Speaker 1: Cameo d M is that you know, you can pay
Speaker 1: and get into their inbox and they actually see it.
Speaker 1: So in many ways, this is taking a concept that
Speaker 1: we learned that payment is a necessary friction which enables fulfillment,
Speaker 1: and we've just taken it to the next level in
Speaker 1: the d M experience on Cameo Live. This was you know,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned at the beginning, we're building the marketplace
Speaker 1: where for X amount of money you can do why
Speaker 1: activity was the person This was the second why activity
Speaker 1: that we I thought was interesting. People have always asked me, Stephen,
Speaker 1: are one day will I be able to meet the
Speaker 1: stars in real life? Like would you ever do you know?
Speaker 1: Real life bookings. It's something we've thought about from the beginning,
Speaker 1: but it's logistically difficult because of COVID. Everybody's using Zoom.
Speaker 1: I think zooms daily active users went from like ten
Speaker 1: million to million basically overnight. And you know, I know,
Speaker 1: if I had told my mom, you know, to get
Speaker 1: on a Zoom call. Uh, twelve months ago, she would
Speaker 1: have known what I was talking about. But now today
Speaker 1: it's become so easy. But and it's the same for
Speaker 1: talent to write, like a lot of talent had never
Speaker 1: been on zoom. Uh. They started doing it, and they
Speaker 1: found that this was a great way to interact with
Speaker 1: their fans. It allowed us to test out synchronous video
Speaker 1: chat for the first time and uh, and we took
Speaker 1: a lot of learnings there and you know, now we're
Speaker 1: starting to think about different formats for synchronous So that
Speaker 1: was a big experiment. People enjoyed it a lot. And
Speaker 1: at this point, we're taking the learnings that we made
Speaker 1: from doing it in a low code way over Zoom
Speaker 1: and we're actually building it into the core product. So
Speaker 1: you know, I would I would really watch our Cando
Speaker 1: Calls product, which would be coming out later this year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And as opposed to in person meet and greets, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more scalable, right, and it um, you know,
Speaker 1: more cost efficient. Yeah. I'll tell you a story. Um.
Speaker 1: One of my early mentors is a guy named Matt Maloney,
Speaker 1: who is the CEO of grub Hub. And one thing
Speaker 1: Matt told me in the early days of Cameo was, Stephen,
Speaker 1: I built the largest marketplace business that's ever come out
Speaker 1: of Chicago, my hometown, his hometown. Uh. And you you've
Speaker 1: built a business that has the opportunity to be way
Speaker 1: bigger than the one that I built. Because you're selling bits.
Speaker 1: I'm selling atoms. Now what does that mean? Nobody in
Speaker 1: Chicago cares about how many restaurants are in on grub
Speaker 1: hub in l A because you need to build localized
Speaker 1: supply and match with localized demand. But on Cameo, a
Speaker 1: talent could be in Mumbai and make and make a
Speaker 1: video for someone in Miami. And because we've removed location
Speaker 1: is a barrier, the amount of connections that we're able
Speaker 1: to facilitate every day has gone up drastically. UM. So
Speaker 1: that's why I think, like, well, in person meetups would
Speaker 1: be really cool that anything synchronous video is way more
Speaker 1: scalable because don't actually have to think about the logistics
Speaker 1: of where people are. Yeah, or as you mentioned before,
Speaker 1: security issues, UM, things like that. UM. One other new
Speaker 1: area of business that you recently did. UM, you did
Speaker 1: your first partnership with a movie studio. You worked with
Speaker 1: MGMs American International Pictures and a collaboration for breaking news
Speaker 1: in Yuberg County. Um, and so what how did this
Speaker 1: come together? And so essentially correct me if I'm wrong here,
Speaker 1: but Alison Janny and Bridget Everett are giving special Valentine's
Speaker 1: Day messages for ten bucks each and the proceeds are
Speaker 1: benefiting the Trevor Project and COVID nineteen relief. Um, how
Speaker 1: did this come about? And where do you see this
Speaker 1: type of thing going? Yeah, it's an every one. We're
Speaker 1: really excited about it. For the last three years, we've
Speaker 1: had numerous studios come to us to talk about, Hey,
Speaker 1: here's a way that we think we can work with
Speaker 1: Canyo too, you know, build fomo and excitement around to launch. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, for a long time we found ourselves getting
Speaker 1: in these conversations and then nothing would end up happening.
Speaker 1: But I think that from the studio's perspective, movie theaters
Speaker 1: are still closed. Uh, you're you're You're having a lot
Speaker 1: of these films released direct to consumer now, and everybody's
Speaker 1: looking for ways to to um, you know, to stand
Speaker 1: out from the crowd and the advertising budgets of of
Speaker 1: all the main studios have been cut in a big way.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, at the Super Bowl, one thing
Speaker 1: that stood out. I don't think I saw a single
Speaker 1: preview for a movie that was coming out, which like
Speaker 1: that's probably a third of the commercials out of normal
Speaker 1: Super Bowl. And there were there were a couple, but yeah,
Speaker 1: not a lot. But I'm saying like pales in comparison
Speaker 1: to what you know, we normally would see. So from
Speaker 1: from that side, UM, this was a thing that materialized
Speaker 1: through hardware gone MGM side and on our partnership side,
Speaker 1: we're really excited to test this and so far the
Speaker 1: results have been really exciting on both sides. UM, and
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully this is something we do more over
Speaker 1: and over again. I think it's I think in two
Speaker 1: years or a year from now, every single movie, every
Speaker 1: show coming out, we'll have a camera strategy. This is
Speaker 1: you know, in many ways, we're piloting it out and
Speaker 1: we're grateful that MGM gave us the opportunity to to
Speaker 1: help be part of such an exciting new project. Yeah interesting, Okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: just a couple other things while we while we have ton,
Speaker 1: you brought on a whole bunch of new senior executives. UM.
Speaker 1: In the last couple of months, UM Rob Post who
Speaker 1: was previously at Quimby. UM he was CTO there, he's
Speaker 1: now your CTO. UM. You have a CFO dep Swarts
Speaker 1: who was with Bustle previously. UM melst Einbach who was
Speaker 1: previously at McDonald's. She's your chief people officer. And your
Speaker 1: CEO Brian Frank who you do I think from Lincoln
Speaker 1: what UM? I mean this is this is the next
Speaker 1: stage of the company. Then building out that that c
Speaker 1: suite for you absolutely, UM. Like our our goal is
Speaker 1: to become one of the most important companies in entertainment
Speaker 1: and we think that we're building something great that will
Speaker 1: be an enduring, last thing publicly traded company. And you know,
Speaker 1: the next phase for Cameo was finding people who have
Speaker 1: been there, done that. UM. We're all first time founders
Speaker 1: and most of the founding executive team. Every single day
Speaker 1: we hired more people that everyone was in the biggest
Speaker 1: job they've ever had. UM. We've you know, in dead
Speaker 1: we found a CFO that can take a public at
Speaker 1: in mal we have UM a chief people officer who's
Speaker 1: operated at one of the largest employers in the world.
Speaker 1: Um in our CEO, Brian Frank We've found someone uh
Speaker 1: join LinkedIn as the second person in revenue when they're
Speaker 1: doing seventy million in business and was there until they
Speaker 1: were doing six billion and sold to Microsoft. And in
Speaker 1: rob Post. We think we have one of the best
Speaker 1: uh you know, technologists in the world helping lead our
Speaker 1: our efforts to just build an incredible platform. So we
Speaker 1: love the new leaders that we've had. Uh They've messed
Speaker 1: seamlessly so far with the existing people that have been
Speaker 1: the reason why we've gotten there, and they've been additive
Speaker 1: to our culture. So we're excited on that. It's my
Speaker 1: job to make sure the CEO that I'm the worst
Speaker 1: person in the executive room. So I'm trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: surround myself with people that I can learn from and
Speaker 1: that know their subject area way better than I do.
Speaker 1: And that's really the way that I CEO can continue
Speaker 1: to grow quicker than the pace of the business, which
Speaker 1: has been really fast. Now now or is your company
Speaker 1: still working remotely given pandemic conditions, Not only are we
Speaker 1: working remotely today, but we will be working remotely forever.
Speaker 1: We actually made the decision this summer to become a
Speaker 1: fully distributed company. Historically, we were headquartered in Chicago with
Speaker 1: our hey, we had people in London, with people in Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 1: We have people in Argentina. Uh. Since mid June, we've
Speaker 1: decided that we're gonna get rid of all of our offices.
Speaker 1: We do not care where people live anymore, as long
Speaker 1: as they have internet access. And and you know, this
Speaker 1: is an exciting new face for us. Those executives that
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, they're not in l A and Chicago.
Speaker 1: Rob posts in Tampa Bay Depth Shorts is in New
Speaker 1: York City. Uh, the Bran Frank is in the Bay Area.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's allowed us to hunt and find
Speaker 1: the best people no matter where they are. And in fact,
Speaker 1: today twenty six are are are are employees living states.
Speaker 1: So this is a huge difference from before everyone was
Speaker 1: in Illinois California. Uh. You mentioned um in I P
Speaker 1: have you have a time learn on that? Look, we um,
Speaker 1: that's our goal, right. I think like as a as
Speaker 1: a CEO, it's my job at some point to exit
Speaker 1: the business, either through I P O or acquisition. Um.
Speaker 1: You know that's my number one fiduciary responsibility to my
Speaker 1: employees to the talent on the platform to all the
Speaker 1: people who invested in US and had faith in us. UM.
Speaker 1: So you know, for me, that's been a dream, a
Speaker 1: lifelong dream to run a publicly traded company. We'll do
Speaker 1: when we're ready. We're not going to do it before
Speaker 1: we're ready. Um. And and I think, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we have a very ambitious roadmap. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: of things to accomplish before we're ready for it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And frankly, a lot of team building right the infrastructure
Speaker 1: and accounting and legal and finance, like, there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of things that a lot of bustle that needs
Speaker 1: to be built, and frankly, a lot more hiring we
Speaker 1: need to do to be able to function as a
Speaker 1: publicly traded company. Um. But look, we're well on our way.
Speaker 1: And if we continue to execute the way we have
Speaker 1: in the past four years for the next four I
Speaker 1: think that, um, you know, this would be a company
Speaker 1: that is beloved in the public markets. So now you're
Speaker 1: you're privately held, But are you break even? Are you
Speaker 1: cash flow positive at this point? Are you close to
Speaker 1: that or what? It's not a goal for us to
Speaker 1: be cash flow positive or break even right now. We're
Speaker 1: you know, seeing huge growth opportunities ahead of us who
Speaker 1: were investing, you know, very aggressively into growth. Last year,
Speaker 1: we grew four and a half ax from the year
Speaker 1: before UM, and you know, we we believe that there's
Speaker 1: great opportunities not just in the US but all around
Speaker 1: the world to continue to put the pedal to the
Speaker 1: metal and grow faster. So that's what we're focused on
Speaker 1: right now. So what areas are you investing and are
Speaker 1: you is it products? Is it engineering, is it support, marketing? Everything? Yeah? Four,
Speaker 1: I would say four man things. Number one, we're constantly
Speaker 1: investing in our team that acquires and then works with
Speaker 1: the talent on the platform. So talent acquisition is a
Speaker 1: really big part, and we're scaling that game up, especially
Speaker 1: with more vertical specialists now. So we're not just that
Speaker 1: even a year ago, people were just hired and they
Speaker 1: might one day talk to an athlete, the next day,
Speaker 1: talked to an actor, the next day, talk to a musician.
Speaker 1: We're starting to hire people that are experts in different fields,
Speaker 1: that have really good networks, and and we're excited to
Speaker 1: build that team out. UM, you know, hiring all across
Speaker 1: the board. We're we're doing right now. We're investing deeply
Speaker 1: in research and development, you know, with rob post Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we think we can unlock some unbelievable engineers
Speaker 1: that have worked on video at scale and money other platforms. UM.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I would say the last thing
Speaker 1: is marketing is something we haven't really done at all.
Speaker 1: We've spent very little money on marketing, but now we're
Speaker 1: we're really looking to start telling more people our story.
Speaker 1: Only four percent of the US population in our core
Speaker 1: demographic know who we are today, so thank you for
Speaker 1: helping tell our story. UM, But it's still early days.
Speaker 1: Right on the on the talent manager side of things,
Speaker 1: are you uh finding it? Are you hiring people from
Speaker 1: traditional Hollywood agencies? We've hired people from a variety of backgrounds,
Speaker 1: some from traditional Hollywood backgrounds, but many from B two
Speaker 1: B sas companies like in tech and frankly, we've also
Speaker 1: hired a lot of people that we're doing other things
Speaker 1: but are just really passionate about pop culture celebrities and
Speaker 1: had never worked with talent before. Especially a lot of
Speaker 1: the people we hired in Chicago, which is where the
Speaker 1: majority of our employees are, you know, C. A and
Speaker 1: W m E and you know Sony and MGM. They
Speaker 1: don't have like big offices. They're super rare if you're
Speaker 1: working with talent in a city like Chicago. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of demand to do it, and we found
Speaker 1: just hiring smart people that are really passionate about what
Speaker 1: they're doing. Um, it didn't matter so much the experience,
Speaker 1: especially in the early days, right. Uh, well, Stephen, were
Speaker 1: almost at a time. My last question for you is, uh,
Speaker 1: what cameos have you personally ordered and had event some
Speaker 1: of your favorite? Uh favorite ones? I've ordered hundreds over
Speaker 1: the last few years. But the best one I did
Speaker 1: recently it was a cameo I got for my mom
Speaker 1: for her birthday from Kenny Gime, favorite musician. He played
Speaker 1: a song for her. He talked about how, you know,
Speaker 1: special of a woman she must have been to to
Speaker 1: create a son that created cameo. That's helped people become, um,
Speaker 1: you know, so much closer to the people that they
Speaker 1: loved the most. So that was special And my mom
Speaker 1: posted it on Facebook. It got six ninety two likes,
Speaker 1: which I think is the most like she's ever got.
Speaker 1: So she was with that. That is that is awesome.
Speaker 1: Stephen Glanis. Thank you so much, great to have you
Speaker 1: on the podcast, Thanks for having me, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Be sure to tune in next week for another episode
Speaker 1: of Strictly Business, and feel free to leave us a
Speaker 1: review on ample podcasts We love to hear h