Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Colin Kaepernick he made headlines back in twenty sixteen for
Speaker 2: his political views and activism both on and off the
Speaker 2: football field. Today, the former NFL quarterback making headlines once again,
Speaker 2: but this time for dipping his toes into the vast
Speaker 2: lake that is artificial intelligence. Kaepernick launching a new company
Speaker 2: that uses AI tools to help create us navigate some
Speaker 2: of the barriers to come with producing, marketing, and distributing content,
Speaker 2: and he's got the backing to do it. Four million
Speaker 2: dollars raise in seed funding led by VC firms seven
Speaker 2: seven six. Without further ado, we're happy to be joined
Speaker 2: exclusively by Colin Kaepernick, founder and CEO of the AI
Speaker 2: company Loomy. All right, Colin, let's get right to it here.
Speaker 2: I mean, give us the idea, the genesis of this idea,
Speaker 2: because I'm told it had something to do with the
Speaker 2: media company that you had started prior to this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, the media company I had started prior to low
Speaker 4: me as well as the publishing company prior. We faced
Speaker 4: a lot of barriers there and helping creators both create
Speaker 4: the expense distribution and also the gatekeeping within the industries.
Speaker 4: So we looked at those barriers and found a solution
Speaker 4: to be able to help create or solve that and
Speaker 4: to be able to do that at scale, and I
Speaker 4: think that's really important. And the last piece that's important
Speaker 4: there is creators also own all of the work that
Speaker 4: they create, so they no longer have to be commissioned hires.
Speaker 4: They no longer have to create for somebody else. They
Speaker 4: have freedom to create what they want and have that independence.
Speaker 2: This sounds like one of those opportunities when we talk
Speaker 2: about kind of whether you want to use the word
Speaker 2: democratization or kind of removing those barriers. And we've seen
Speaker 2: this already. Of course, social media has a lot of
Speaker 2: people who wouldn't otherwise have had opportunities to become stars
Speaker 2: or make a ton of money, but to do so
Speaker 2: in a way that bypass those traditional avenues. Here, how
Speaker 2: will Loomi help to do that using some of these
Speaker 2: AI tools.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the interesting part is sometimes creators have gaps
Speaker 4: in their skills. So sometimes illustrators they need help with writing,
Speaker 4: or writer writers they need help with generating images. And
Speaker 4: if you're a creator like me who doesn't have either
Speaker 4: of those skill sets, we'll help you with both of
Speaker 4: those to get to a final product from an original idea,
Speaker 4: and then once you have that final product, we'll help
Speaker 4: you publish it, distribute it, and then also merchandise your stories.
Speaker 4: And one of the goals here is we want to
Speaker 4: create economic and financial stability for creators. So many creators
Speaker 4: we've talked to our living paycheck to paycheck, project to
Speaker 4: project and they have massive followings and there's something fundamentally
Speaker 4: wrong about that in our perspective that they should be
Speaker 4: the primary beneficiaries and we want to be the ones
Speaker 4: to an able.
Speaker 1: So I got to ask you about the investment four
Speaker 1: million dollars in seed funding led by seven seven six,
Speaker 1: and of course Alexis o'hanian involved as well.
Speaker 3: How did that come together?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so interesting, we did. We did the full road
Speaker 4: show going out in fundraising. Had talked to a lot
Speaker 4: of people and Alexis seven seventy six. They have been
Speaker 4: phenomenal to work with, are very aligned on the vision,
Speaker 4: and they share the perspective that very similar to how
Speaker 4: putting a camera on an iPhone turned everybody into a photographer,
Speaker 4: that AI tools can help democratize storytelling and turn everybody
Speaker 4: into a creator and that's what we believe the future
Speaker 4: looks like. They've been phenomenal in helping us bring that
Speaker 4: vision to life. And we also have some other phenomenal
Speaker 4: investors from Kopor Capital Impellent as well as tech executives
Speaker 4: from Anthropic, Nike, Meta that are on board with us.
Speaker 4: So we've been able to get a lot of support
Speaker 4: and have great people on this journey with us.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the day, Loomy is a
Speaker 1: tech company when it comes down to it, And you
Speaker 1: named a couple of luminaries from the tech world. Did
Speaker 1: you tach contacts made during your playing career in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area where you did have access to a lot
Speaker 1: of these guys.
Speaker 4: There have been a lot of people that have helped
Speaker 4: me on this journey to get to this point. It
Speaker 4: has been years of development, years of building relationships, and
Speaker 4: also years of understanding the impact of AI, how it
Speaker 4: can actually be utilized and how it can benefit creators,
Speaker 4: and all of that has finally come together into what
Speaker 4: is Loomy now?
Speaker 2: What do you what are you talking about right now, Colin?
Speaker 2: When it comes to building up this company in terms
Speaker 2: of hiring as well as greater investments here, what's in
Speaker 2: the pipeline right now.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: So we're currently the process of expanding our team. We're
Speaker 4: hiring for both software software and mL engineers and also
Speaker 4: looking at the product and design piece to make sure
Speaker 4: that we're giving creators the best experience. So we're focused
Speaker 4: on that, but also very focused on talking with creators,
Speaker 4: building with creators, getting them on the platform, to make
Speaker 4: sure that we're building the best experience for them.
Speaker 3: Without creators, none of this works.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you think when we talk about content creators
Speaker 2: and kind of the financial mechanisms that, oh, how they
Speaker 2: make money? Obviously a lot of that is still tethered
Speaker 2: to ads or sponsorships with corporations in some way. Do
Speaker 2: you ever see that evolving to something broader? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I have no idea what that would be, whether it
Speaker 2: be a subscription model, but some way to diversify that
Speaker 2: revenue stream so those creators aren't reliant just on one
Speaker 2: sort of stream of revenue and if that drives up,
Speaker 2: they're basically out of business.
Speaker 3: Yes, very much aligned, and that's phenomenal point.
Speaker 4: Our vision of the future is individual creat will look
Speaker 4: like Disney. They'll be able to go from an idea
Speaker 4: to a final story, they'll be able to publish that,
Speaker 4: they'll be able to merchandise it, they'll be able to
Speaker 4: do it across the franchises and stories they create, and
Speaker 4: to be able to collaborate with other creators and do
Speaker 4: that all on one platform. So that's what we're focused
Speaker 4: on building and the experience we're focused on building that
Speaker 4: Loomy for creators.
Speaker 1: Your goal here is definitely to solve problems for creators.
Speaker 1: For storytellers, talk a little bit about how that connects
Speaker 1: with your own story, because obviously you had a story
Speaker 1: to tell and it was something that you wanted to
Speaker 1: have control over, and in some ways it kind of
Speaker 1: got out of your control.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's so many opportunities that so many opportunities and
Speaker 4: so many stories that people want to tell, and myself included,
Speaker 4: and it's very difficult to get that done. Oftentimes, once
Speaker 4: you get a green light, it can take eighteen to
Speaker 4: twenty four months before that story comes to life, which
Speaker 4: we want to drastically reduce that time period for creators.
Speaker 4: But the other part is in going traditional paths, oftentimes
Speaker 4: you don't have control over the story. You have input
Speaker 4: on it, but you don't have control and That's something
Speaker 4: that as we've talked to creators, they really want control
Speaker 4: over their stories. So they're authentic, they're genuine, they believe
Speaker 4: in them, and it comes across to readers and viewers
Speaker 4: as they're engaging with the stories as well. So it's
Speaker 4: a great opportunity for creators to be able to pull
Speaker 4: back that control.
Speaker 1: So speaking of stories, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk politics, but let's just say twenty twenty four is
Speaker 1: vastly different than twenty sixteen when you began your protest
Speaker 1: for civil rights during the national Anthem. I'm curious as
Speaker 1: to how you would characterize the climate for activism in
Speaker 1: sports for professional athletes today versus eight years ago.
Speaker 3: I look at it very similar. It is a extreme importance.
Speaker 4: We know and we see the political landscape and the
Speaker 4: political climate. It's very important that we're active. It's very
Speaker 4: important that we're pushing forward. And you know, on my end,
Speaker 4: as we're doing that, I'm also focused on building a
Speaker 4: phenomenal company and platform with Loomy.
Speaker 3: So it's a very unique time that we're in.
Speaker 2: Are you done with sports calling?
Speaker 3: I'm never done with sports.
Speaker 4: I'm a competitor at heart. It will always compete, and
Speaker 4: this is another opportunity for me to compete.
Speaker 3: It's one of the things that I look at is.
Speaker 4: Any chance I have to be in a space to
Speaker 4: be able to compete, to be able to try to
Speaker 4: be better, to try to be greater.
Speaker 3: I'm always going to do that.
Speaker 4: So I still get up, I do all my training
Speaker 4: four point thirty in the morning, and then I spend
Speaker 4: the rest of my day building loomy and very focused
Speaker 4: on how we create that experience for creators.
Speaker 1: You know, just a quick followup question, Colin, what skills
Speaker 1: from sports, from your training carry over into launching and
Speaker 1: running these different startups? I mean, what's the single most
Speaker 1: important transferable skill? You find?
Speaker 3: People?
Speaker 4: People are the most valuable thing that you'll ever have
Speaker 4: as a company. And we have a phenomenal team. It's
Speaker 4: something I learned playing football. And also you get the
Speaker 4: leadership qualities of playing from playing football, and specifically quarterback.
Speaker 4: How do you get the best out of people? How
Speaker 4: do you put them in positions to be successful and
Speaker 4: to win at what they're doing? And if you don't
Speaker 4: have that, it doesn't work. It doesn't matter how good
Speaker 4: your game plan is. It doesn't matter how good your
Speaker 4: strategy is if you don't have the right people, it
Speaker 4: doesn't work. So we have phenomenal people on our team already,
Speaker 4: we have phenomenal investors that are supporting us, and we're
Speaker 4: looking to expand that team.
Speaker 1: Now, All right, good stuff, Colin, Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Colin Kaepernick's CEO and founder of Loomy
Speaker 1: Story AI, and of course, the former quarterback for the
Speaker 1: San Francisco forty nine ers