Speaker 1: Welcome to Behind the influence a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and TDC Media. There's probably some times where we
Speaker 1: were like, this is our last the last month, and
Speaker 1: then we get a phone call and a project will
Speaker 1: kind of come through, and we went from essentially selling
Speaker 1: twenty thousand units and we shift almost like eight hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: But we were able to kind of adjust, We adapted,
Speaker 1: and we just kept going and kind of kept pushing
Speaker 1: every ten knowes we gotta yes. All those yes is
Speaker 1: kind of kept fueling us and kept fueling the company
Speaker 1: to the next level. Chris's company is a small, little
Speaker 1: company you may have heard of, called fan Joy. When
Speaker 1: I say small, I'm lying. It's basically the leading merch brand.
Speaker 1: That's what I would say. I say it's number one, Chris.
Speaker 1: We couldn't say anything less. No, it's something that's definitely
Speaker 1: number one. It didn't just become number one overnight. And
Speaker 1: you also the path to getting to where you are
Speaker 1: today interesting story, and we want to dive into that.
Speaker 1: With a lot of tech influencers and start up up
Speaker 1: phenomenons like yourself, we really like to get the backstory
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of people that are gonna be
Speaker 1: listening to this that want to start their own companies,
Speaker 1: they may be overwhelmed, intimidated and kind of hearing your
Speaker 1: journey and maybe the places you may have failed and
Speaker 1: then overcome those failures might inspire somebody to kind of
Speaker 1: take the leap like you did. So let's take your
Speaker 1: way back. I don't think you went to school thinking
Speaker 1: I'm going to make T shirts for David Dobrick one
Speaker 1: day and be super successful at it. So what was
Speaker 1: the path? Yeah? I mean the path was. I think
Speaker 1: I've always had something kind of like an it or
Speaker 1: like a burn to like build something, and like want
Speaker 1: to build something big. I don't think I ever had
Speaker 1: the right concept or idea in the very beginning. My
Speaker 1: my mom actually was an entrepreneur. She's always you know,
Speaker 1: started her own businesses, and I've kind of got that
Speaker 1: drive from from her and just seeing kind of her
Speaker 1: being persistent with the businesses that she had, mainly like
Speaker 1: the restaurant space. I don't know. I think I think
Speaker 1: for that, you know, being a CEO or a founder,
Speaker 1: you kind of have freedom to do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: And I think I was really attracted to that, you know,
Speaker 1: growing up by I was like it was in like
Speaker 1: the hospitality restaurant industry, and then after college, you know,
Speaker 1: I really wanted to focus something that was outside of
Speaker 1: outside of that, and not knowing what I wanted to
Speaker 1: want to do, I moved to San Francisco with my
Speaker 1: girlfriend at the time, who's not my wife, who's about
Speaker 1: to have our our child any minute now, and we
Speaker 1: moved to San Francisco. I took a sales job at
Speaker 1: just a random, random company, and during that time, my
Speaker 1: brother's band, A Great Big World. They had a hit
Speaker 1: song called say Something with Christina Aguilera that kind of
Speaker 1: blew up, and from there, my brother was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we need to go on tour. Do you want to
Speaker 1: come with us? And for me, I think that was
Speaker 1: kind of like a once in a lifetime opportunity just
Speaker 1: to say yes and do something different and kind of
Speaker 1: from there, you know, touring the US for six months
Speaker 1: selling merchandise on the road, I just I just saw,
Speaker 1: you know, the magic and like the fans eyes every
Speaker 1: single night when they saw them perform, and I was like,
Speaker 1: how can I capture this experience or even connect them
Speaker 1: in a more meaningful way outside of the venue, because
Speaker 1: at the venue, everyone is super energetic, super positive, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want that to die after the venue experience,
Speaker 1: you know, ended. I wanted to keep keep living on
Speaker 1: in some kind of former fashion. So I was trying
Speaker 1: to brainstorm different ways to kind of connect musicians with
Speaker 1: their fans. You know, there are a bunch of subscription
Speaker 1: box companies out there, and I was like, can I
Speaker 1: build a subscription box company for musicians to their fans
Speaker 1: and would people buy it? So we actually launched in
Speaker 1: twenty woteen. We launched with a subscription box from a
Speaker 1: great big World to their fans, and we had about
Speaker 1: two hundred fifty people signed up. And we we actually
Speaker 1: almost made like a care package from musicians to their fans.
Speaker 1: So we had five to seven different items in each
Speaker 1: package and every three months they receive a package in
Speaker 1: the mail. So we launched in January two subscribers. We
Speaker 1: launched the second package in April two subscribe. Not that's
Speaker 1: pretty decent for no marketing or right, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we use their social channels, right, their YouTube channel to
Speaker 1: kind of get the word out there people are signing
Speaker 1: up for a subscription. Yeah. It was good, it was great,
Speaker 1: It was awesome. It was great. It was kind of
Speaker 1: like you know, once you saw kind of like money
Speaker 1: come in, like okay, this this could work, this is working.
Speaker 1: How do we you know, grow it from there? You know,
Speaker 1: for me, I wanted to kind of just get more
Speaker 1: musicians signed up, and I would talk to all of
Speaker 1: these you know, managers or agencies, and nobody wanted to
Speaker 1: do a subscription box. It was like the one thing
Speaker 1: that people didn't want to do. But I did connect
Speaker 1: with Hillary duffs manager at the time, and she had
Speaker 1: a new album coming out and I think it was
Speaker 1: her first album in eight years, and he was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do subscription box, but I do
Speaker 1: want to do an album box. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's do that. So that actually, you know, when
Speaker 1: we watched that one, she sold thousands of units. And
Speaker 1: from from that moment on, we kind of just started
Speaker 1: doing more one off based packages, so around album releases
Speaker 1: or book releases, and we worked with you know, the
Speaker 1: Maria Maria Kerrey, the Elvis Estate, We worked with Pentatonics
Speaker 1: all time, low a bunch of different musicians, and you know,
Speaker 1: it went well. First year, I think we we did
Speaker 1: ten thousand packages shipped, and then the second year, we
Speaker 1: did about twenty packages ships. So is this just you
Speaker 1: at the time or yeah, just beformer team. Did you
Speaker 1: call it a company? Was it a company? It was
Speaker 1: a company. Yeah. We actually had the paperwork filed, so
Speaker 1: we were actually company. You weren't just in your house
Speaker 1: like the first the first package together was actually in
Speaker 1: my house and then after that experience, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to do that again. But it was really good to
Speaker 1: just kind of get hands on boxes everywhere. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: when you have seven different items that go into package,
Speaker 1: it's just a lot of work that has to be
Speaker 1: kind of coordinated and figured out. It's so curated exactly
Speaker 1: how are you finding the what was going into the box?
Speaker 1: Who was coming up with the creative for that? So
Speaker 1: a lot of it, a lot of it was kind
Speaker 1: of me giving suggestions to the to the talent, but
Speaker 1: really we're trying to use their life experiences and their
Speaker 1: interests in you know, what they liked and what they
Speaker 1: you know, wanted to share with their fans. Talk us
Speaker 1: through a box. I'm trying to wrap box. So it
Speaker 1: was like exclusive merchandise and then products from brands that
Speaker 1: she loved. So we had that because we had brands
Speaker 1: kind of integrated into the packages that it maybe have
Speaker 1: like a strong message behind the product or just something
Speaker 1: that she used in it on a daily basis. I
Speaker 1: think that that's genius. It was awesome. Yeah, fans really
Speaker 1: loved it. It was just so personal and curated. I
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah, okay, yeah. We applied that to the
Speaker 1: different musicians that we kind of worked with, and a
Speaker 1: great idea of Chris, thank you, thank you. I was trying.
Speaker 1: I was trying to make something work, right. I was
Speaker 1: like this, there's something here that is connecting with fans
Speaker 1: when they received the package, and you know, people love
Speaker 1: getting packages in the mail. I mean the surprise element.
Speaker 1: I think totally super fun and like this limited edition
Speaker 1: it's exclusive. Sometimes we had like signed albums in the
Speaker 1: box or just signed items, one off items, polaroids, so
Speaker 1: we try to get really that custom with it. I
Speaker 1: guess for twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen years, you know,
Speaker 1: we we really just went and tried to scale this business.
Speaker 1: But it was just me in the company. So it's
Speaker 1: hard to just do it as yourself and do it
Speaker 1: by yourself. You know. We tried to raise money from BCS.
Speaker 1: We tried to get into accelerated programs, and every time
Speaker 1: they would just be like, it's not a scalable business,
Speaker 1: something that's not for us. We even had a meeting
Speaker 1: with a big music company and we were pitching this
Speaker 1: idea for one of their artists, something that they weren't
Speaker 1: doing at the time, and they actually like blew up
Speaker 1: the meeting. Like as we were talking and describing what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do, they just had a massive, massive, you
Speaker 1: know argument in front of us, with half the team
Speaker 1: wanting to do it with us, the other half saying
Speaker 1: they can do it in the house. And it was
Speaker 1: just like it was just like a big wake up call,
Speaker 1: being like we don't need you guys. Kind of kind
Speaker 1: of moment for it was. Yeah, even though there were,
Speaker 1: you know, people on their team that were like, this
Speaker 1: is a good idea, we should use fan Joy, you know,
Speaker 1: they kind of have the mentality we can do it ourselves.
Speaker 1: So it was fan Joy at that time. Totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: same same name name. Yeah. I mean there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ups and downs. In the very beginning. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't raise any money, so a lot of it
Speaker 1: was just credit cards using one project to kind of
Speaker 1: fuel the next and some lucky breaks. There's probably some
Speaker 1: times where we were like, this is our last the
Speaker 1: last month, and then we get a phone call and
Speaker 1: a project will kind of come through, and we kind
Speaker 1: of they were one off projects. One off projects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people would want to do a subscription and the economics
Speaker 1: just weren't there. I mean, a box that you everyone
Speaker 1: wants to deal, everyone wants you know that the price
Speaker 1: point has to be a certain certain price for people
Speaker 1: to stay subscribed, and it was just it was just challenging. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was hard. It was hard to kind of keep
Speaker 1: that going. But we did. We did test in just
Speaker 1: doing like one off merchandise pieces, so selling just T
Speaker 1: shirts and hoodies. And this was still for musicians, so
Speaker 1: still for um well you were branching out, yeah, just
Speaker 1: random people that would reach out to us, you know,
Speaker 1: people who we did packages for, you know, box sets
Speaker 1: for They were like, hey, can you make a T
Speaker 1: shirt for us? And it was just me in the
Speaker 1: company at the time, so I was trying to design
Speaker 1: the shirt to myself. I'm in no way a graphic designer,
Speaker 1: but I kind of got start. I opened up Photoshop
Speaker 1: and kind of learned a little bit and try to
Speaker 1: figure things out. It was always kind of just feeling
Speaker 1: like you you have a challenge that you can't overcome,
Speaker 1: and that was like kind of like what that time
Speaker 1: of my life felt like. But it was also rewarding
Speaker 1: knowing that, you know, once we did make it and
Speaker 1: we kept going, that there could be light at the
Speaker 1: end of the tunnel if I just keep trying. So yeah,
Speaker 1: for so we you know, started working with just different influencers.
Speaker 1: I started seeing on Instagram just random teenagers with you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of likes on pictures and I think
Speaker 1: even at the time when someone got like ten tho likes,
Speaker 1: I was like, whoa, this is big, Like this is
Speaker 1: this is big, and I would like keep researching on
Speaker 1: Instagram just seeing you know, sixteen year olds like twenty
Speaker 1: year old just getting massive, massive engagement online um and
Speaker 1: on their their social channels. So for us and for me,
Speaker 1: that was kind of like an opportunity to see can
Speaker 1: these kids sell anything? Do they have the power too?
Speaker 1: Because they weren't selling it at the time, Like no
Speaker 1: one was really pushing merchandise or products or their own
Speaker 1: products at the time. Mostly brand deals, yeah, exactly, mostly
Speaker 1: brand deals, but no no, no, No one really had
Speaker 1: the aspirations to like build their own brand, or if
Speaker 1: they did, they just weren't doing it, or at least
Speaker 1: not through T shirts and hoodies. Right. So I actually
Speaker 1: got a couple of influencers just via emailing them from
Speaker 1: their email listening their Instagram profile, saying, hey, my company's
Speaker 1: fan joy. We basically do all the work to create merchandise,
Speaker 1: packages and experiences. Do you want to work together? And
Speaker 1: this is still just Chris Chris. Yeah. And I had
Speaker 1: a couple of responses from from two people, one being
Speaker 1: Jake Paul him, Yeah, you've heard of him. He's actually
Speaker 1: on this series. Nice, awesome, And and Jake actually responded
Speaker 1: to two of the Team ten members that I reached
Speaker 1: out to saying, hey, you know, I'm I'm working with
Speaker 1: these guys. We can we can chat. This is the
Speaker 1: end of okay, that makes perfect sense. And this is
Speaker 1: when he Team ten and Jake Paul were literally the
Speaker 1: top of the game. Yeah, just like started it. They
Speaker 1: just started putting out a ton of content and Jake
Speaker 1: wasn't doing merchandise at the time. I think after about
Speaker 1: three months we kind of went back and forth and
Speaker 1: he was like, I want to do a subscription box
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, I think you want to
Speaker 1: launch a hoodie. I was like, it's probably a lot
Speaker 1: easier for us to just get started and just get
Speaker 1: a product sold and into the hands of your fans
Speaker 1: and them kind of you know, repping the community that
Speaker 1: you're you're building. Did you know at that time how
Speaker 1: big Jake Paul was going to be or did did
Speaker 1: you see the trajectory, because obviously around that time his
Speaker 1: following was growing rapidly. Did you have any idea? I
Speaker 1: don't think I knew the kind of scale. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you saw all the the team members that he had
Speaker 1: there following, the views they were getting on YouTube, they
Speaker 1: engagement they were getting on their social channels, and I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody really knew what was what was kind
Speaker 1: of coming during that time or if it was just
Speaker 1: a trend right exactly trendy. And we launched at the
Speaker 1: end of sixteen going into the holidays a hoodie and
Speaker 1: it did really well. I still remember the first Jake
Speaker 1: Paul hoodie. Yeah, it was just a Team ten hoodie.
Speaker 1: Was it just like a plane black hoodie with Team
Speaker 1: ten logo on it? Simple didn't have twelve different items
Speaker 1: in a box. It was just one hoodie that was
Speaker 1: being produced and then shipped to fans. And that process
Speaker 1: seems scalable, Like once we started selling thousands of them,
Speaker 1: it became a much like feasible task for us to
Speaker 1: kind of scale this business. But you didn't sell thousands
Speaker 1: right away? Was it right away? It was almost immediate?
Speaker 1: So he puts out I guess a photo or whatever
Speaker 1: saying my marches available, or in his YouTube videos he
Speaker 1: often points to merch that people could buy. How are
Speaker 1: you able to even come up with a price point
Speaker 1: because they're not cheap. The march is not cheap, I think.
Speaker 1: We mean, in the very beginning, we kind of base
Speaker 1: it off of other like clothing brands and kind of
Speaker 1: what they were selling hoodies and T shirt tour. You know,
Speaker 1: at the time, we weren't selling a ton of merchandise,
Speaker 1: so we really didn't have a good concept or grasp
Speaker 1: of what price people would pay for it. And especially
Speaker 1: the demo, for example, Jake's demo. It's a little younger,
Speaker 1: so where are they getting their money from? Obviously parents
Speaker 1: give their kids whatever they want nowadays assholes. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you have to consider that too. Right, so totally. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we priced it I think at forty dollars for
Speaker 1: a hoodie, just pretty reasonable. Now reasonable I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: that as a price point. It's great thinking about an
Speaker 1: eight year old. Yeah, for children's clothing is probably way
Speaker 1: way too expensive, which we kind of adjusted kind of
Speaker 1: as we started launching youth youth sizes. And but you know,
Speaker 1: the very beginning, we just we just sold adult unisex
Speaker 1: you know, hoodies, and you know, it did, it did
Speaker 1: really well. And from that moment on, I was I
Speaker 1: was still in San Francisco at the time, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I need to build a team around this
Speaker 1: because as we continue to sell more and more products,
Speaker 1: I can't do it alone. So I actually hired two
Speaker 1: people January, and one was a graphic designer, one was
Speaker 1: a project manager, and we just kind of hit the
Speaker 1: ground running. We would essentially launch products almost weekly with
Speaker 1: with Team ten, and then we would just basically on
Speaker 1: board new talent, new clients. Almost every other week we
Speaker 1: would get a referral, or we would get an incoming message,
Speaker 1: or I would reach out to them, and we just
Speaker 1: started on boarding more and more clients. In seventeen and
Speaker 1: we went from essentially selling twenty thousand units then seen
Speaker 1: we shifted almost like eight hundred thousand items. So with
Speaker 1: the strategy behind I always under this when Jake was
Speaker 1: promoting his merch it was constantly changing. Was that a
Speaker 1: part of the strategy into making it feel limited release?
Speaker 1: And did you notice that that helped? Because immediately things
Speaker 1: were sold out and then there's this like you were
Speaker 1: left out feeling, so the next time you're going to
Speaker 1: jump on it quicker. What was the strategy behind that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit of everything, right. I think at the
Speaker 1: very beginning, we didn't know what would work, what wouldn't work,
Speaker 1: so we tried everything that you can possibly think of
Speaker 1: to see what would basically convert to sales. And for us,
Speaker 1: I think we're now looking ourselves as we're an e
Speaker 1: commerce company, so we had to kind of optimize and
Speaker 1: figure out what strategies would work for for our clients
Speaker 1: to make the most amount of money as possible. So
Speaker 1: for us, you know, we would we would push that
Speaker 1: limit edition message message as well as making sure that
Speaker 1: you know, fans just also just felt part of the
Speaker 1: community when receiving that product. So whether it's an insert
Speaker 1: with a note from their favorite creator or winning I
Speaker 1: don't know, a FaceTime after they purchased the product, whatever
Speaker 1: it was. We just wanted to see what would work
Speaker 1: and what kind of what didn't As we kind of
Speaker 1: moved on and and onboard more clients and try to
Speaker 1: apply these same strategies to you know, their brands. So
Speaker 1: the supply and demand theory definitely works. It's you know,
Speaker 1: human nature to want something you can't have, so that
Speaker 1: was obvious and then changing it up making it more personal.
Speaker 1: How is that process working with influencers because were they
Speaker 1: a part of the creative process, Because now you have
Speaker 1: a graphic designer chrisism In Potot, which is great cots
Speaker 1: on that. So how hands on were the influencers with
Speaker 1: the creative process? They're very hands on. You know, all
Speaker 1: of them have kind of their own They're all creatives
Speaker 1: in their own way, so they all have their own
Speaker 1: you know, thoughts and ideas, and for us, it's kind
Speaker 1: of just taking their design direction and aesthetic and kind
Speaker 1: of running with it and hopefully creating something that they love.
Speaker 1: But ultimately they would have you know, final approval, and
Speaker 1: you know, they would give us most of the direction
Speaker 1: of what we were actually creating. So if they didn't
Speaker 1: love the product that we made, we weren't going to
Speaker 1: sell it because they have to love the product and
Speaker 1: wear the product for to sell. You know, people watching,
Speaker 1: you know, consumers can tell if something is just kind
Speaker 1: of being plugged and not you know, and that and
Speaker 1: not like an organic or genuine way. So if they
Speaker 1: actually wore it in their videos, if they if they
Speaker 1: forgot was going to say. So. A perfect example I
Speaker 1: think of what you're trying to say is when I
Speaker 1: first met Jake this is like three or four years ago,
Speaker 1: when he first moved to l A. He came to
Speaker 1: some set and he was wearing a tight eye shirt. Right.
Speaker 1: His merch includes tight eye hoodies. So basically, I think
Speaker 1: you're trying to say the people, the people creating the merch,
Speaker 1: it's stuff that they would wear basically, right, So we're
Speaker 1: taking trends that they might wear elsewhere and kind of
Speaker 1: a plan to their own brands. They're making apparel that
Speaker 1: they would wear. Are you guys a part of the
Speaker 1: direction and kind of guiding trends as well? Absolutely? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what we have a creative director kind of leads
Speaker 1: that charge and just helps them find a unique direction
Speaker 1: that can take inspiration from others, but kind of be
Speaker 1: their own. We don't want to copy be a copycat.
Speaker 1: We don't want to you know, step on any one
Speaker 1: other other brands toes. We want to make sure they're
Speaker 1: unique in their own way. So so totally were involved
Speaker 1: in that whole design process, but for us, we also
Speaker 1: take care of basically everything else. So on Fanjoy side
Speaker 1: and helping build their brand, we look to the talent
Speaker 1: and our creators to promote the product and kind of
Speaker 1: give design direction and then FANJROI takes care of the rest.
Speaker 1: So Fanjoy will take on any all the design, production, fulfillment,
Speaker 1: all the customer support, everything regarding e commerce, so website development,
Speaker 1: website management, we do email marketing, Facebook, Instagram advertising, everything
Speaker 1: that it takes to build a brand is what Fanjoy
Speaker 1: takes on. So we try to make it as turnkey
Speaker 1: as possible for anyone with the following to kind of
Speaker 1: build a brand and not have any headaches doing So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was you kind of answered what I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask next, was it's obvious why you would want to
Speaker 1: work with influencers, why would they want to work with you?
Speaker 1: But if it's so turn key. It sounds like a
Speaker 1: no brainer. And then from a business standpoint, are the
Speaker 1: influencers almost partners in the project with you? Are they
Speaker 1: getting Obviously they're getting a cut or I don't even
Speaker 1: know how to call it's not commission per se, but
Speaker 1: it's their likeliness, right, So yeah, I mean they're they're
Speaker 1: making it definitely is like a partnership model. You know,
Speaker 1: they're making revenue on every item sold. Obviously we take
Speaker 1: a small fee you know, of course per item sold,
Speaker 1: but that kind of covers everything else that we kind
Speaker 1: of handle in the back end. So really with them
Speaker 1: the ones who are making pretty decent money with merchandise,
Speaker 1: the ones who are doing at scale and selling dollands
Speaker 1: of units kind of per month. And how many partners
Speaker 1: do you have right now that are in that category? Um,
Speaker 1: we have a we have a good amount. You have
Speaker 1: a good amount of good amount that do that that much.
Speaker 1: In sales, it definitely varies by creator and the amount
Speaker 1: of kind of effort they put into it. So all
Speaker 1: of their fans are kind of watching their platforms, so
Speaker 1: if they're not pushing it or promoting it, it's really
Speaker 1: hard for them to generate sales. But when they do,
Speaker 1: you know, promoted on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook wherever
Speaker 1: they'll see kind of return in sales. And then as
Speaker 1: far as expectations when you do and turn to these
Speaker 1: partnerships with influencers, is there on your end an expectation
Speaker 1: from them to produce a certain amount of merch per quarter,
Speaker 1: per or these all this is just like from a
Speaker 1: business standpoint, do they are they obligated first, because you
Speaker 1: have a business to run. At the end of the way, well,
Speaker 1: we have, you know, we have standards and expectations that
Speaker 1: we hope they hit. But I think for us kind
Speaker 1: of something that we've learned along the way is that
Speaker 1: even with somebody with six million followers doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: they're going to be able to sell a ton of
Speaker 1: merchandise and products. Who are the people who are selling
Speaker 1: not not names, but who what's the type of influencer
Speaker 1: who's selling the most. It's a good question. I think
Speaker 1: the ones who are super genuine and good at their craft.
Speaker 1: So somebody who is a really good storyteller, Somebody who
Speaker 1: can who has created a community instead of just a
Speaker 1: following based on their looks, Somebody who's actually you know,
Speaker 1: having influence over their fans by developing a deeper connection
Speaker 1: that I don't know rises rises above just kind of
Speaker 1: what you see scrolling through Instagram. Somebody who can connect
Speaker 1: on a deeper level. It's not just the look at
Speaker 1: me influencer, it's the we're in this together influencer. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to differentiate as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think as many as people that you can look
Speaker 1: on Instagram and YouTube and see, you know, views or numbers,
Speaker 1: it's hard to see who's actually gonna be able to
Speaker 1: sell products. So that's interesting because you're behind the scenes, right,
Speaker 1: so you're seeing the inner workings and actually who has influence?
Speaker 1: In our trailer we say people of influence, the real
Speaker 1: kind because nowadays everyone is an influencer or a self
Speaker 1: dubbed influencer. And I think your business model is like
Speaker 1: very black and white as to who actually has influence
Speaker 1: because if they're if they're driving sales, they have influence.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, we are influenced every
Speaker 1: single day for what we buy, what we listen to,
Speaker 1: how we think, even without even knowing it half the time.
Speaker 1: Has there been anything that has surprised you in working
Speaker 1: with influencers or their lack of influence or their power. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the lack of influences the surprising part, just
Speaker 1: because you see, you can see the engagement, and then
Speaker 1: when they tell someone to do a swipe up or
Speaker 1: click the link in my bio and they can't generate traffic.
Speaker 1: You just started a question kind of who's following them?
Speaker 1: Are they real people? Are they just way too young
Speaker 1: to buy anything? Almost like is is all this real? Like?
Speaker 1: What's real about this? That you can't get people to
Speaker 1: click on a link and buy something? But obviously so
Speaker 1: much of it is real because you're your company has
Speaker 1: blown up in the last two years, right, like substantially
Speaker 1: blown up. It's it's always been successful and the things
Speaker 1: that you've tried, you know, but influencers kind of took
Speaker 1: it to the next level. So there there is some
Speaker 1: power to it. I guess it's just a matter of who, Yeah,
Speaker 1: who has that power. But it's also I mean, on
Speaker 1: the other side, it's also very surprising of who who
Speaker 1: has that power and the people who do just the
Speaker 1: amount of influence they do have over there over the
Speaker 1: people who are supporting them. And I mean obviously, like
Speaker 1: I don't want to say numbers, but they're they're just
Speaker 1: being they're able to know. We want to know numbers.
Speaker 1: You don't have to say names, but like because because
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think people really understand how much
Speaker 1: money there is in merch which is why I thought
Speaker 1: this interview would be fantas stick. And I was saying
Speaker 1: before we went on air that a lot of these
Speaker 1: influencers are making most of their money from merch sales,
Speaker 1: not from YouTube views, right, I mean, for the ones
Speaker 1: who are doing really well with with merchandise and an apparel,
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of their merchandise sales
Speaker 1: have surpassed any other stream of revenue they have, So
Speaker 1: some of them are making hundreds of thousand dollars per month,
Speaker 1: and you know, that kind of goes to tell you
Speaker 1: that they do have power, they do have um influence,
Speaker 1: and they are like starting especially with the apparel, they're
Speaker 1: starting their own trends right that they're able to kind
Speaker 1: of use they're they're um, you know, they're kind of
Speaker 1: they're able to use you know, what they like in
Speaker 1: their personal life and what they would wear and translate
Speaker 1: that into their own products. And that's kind of when
Speaker 1: they when they start wearing their own products and the
Speaker 1: videos when they're always wearing it on Instagram. That's kind
Speaker 1: of when fans are like, this is more than just
Speaker 1: a piece of merchandise. I want to be part part
Speaker 1: of this community that they're building. I think that piece
Speaker 1: of merchandise to other people could be a T shirt,
Speaker 1: but to some it's just it's a It kind of
Speaker 1: gets them closer to the ones that they admired the most,
Speaker 1: and they're able to to feel a deeper connection by
Speaker 1: just owning a piece of their brand or something that
Speaker 1: says something that relates to their favorite creators, and that's special.
Speaker 1: And we see, you know, we see unpackaging, like unboxing
Speaker 1: videos all the time of just fans, you know, crying
Speaker 1: when they receive a T shirt, and some of us
Speaker 1: are just like, why are they crying? But it's just
Speaker 1: much more than that, Like they're they're they're impacting lives
Speaker 1: on a daily basis that that we kind of can't
Speaker 1: relate to because well, one they're probably younger than us
Speaker 1: and they just have um they're almost seen as like
Speaker 1: their best friend, and they might be to us might
Speaker 1: be people who are just making YouTube videos, but to others,
Speaker 1: they actually have this like friendship connection with something that
Speaker 1: they watched, you know, constantly and consistently. What was the
Speaker 1: because obviously you've worked with musicians and now you've moved
Speaker 1: into this influencers base. Has that been the major difference
Speaker 1: that because I know, when we think of rock stars
Speaker 1: and they're on this, it's almost like they're on a
Speaker 1: pedestal above us. With influencers, like you said, it's almost
Speaker 1: like they're in the living room with you. So now
Speaker 1: they want to support and buy. And did you notice
Speaker 1: a direct correlation in sales between the two. Yes, so
Speaker 1: I think, which is shocking because you look at musicians
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh my god, Drake, But then I
Speaker 1: wonder how much of his tour March sold versus David Dobrick,
Speaker 1: for example. I mean, I think with musicians they can
Speaker 1: sell the issue, and the kind of challenge there is
Speaker 1: that they're not always putting out content to be able
Speaker 1: to promote products. So if they are only pushing merchandise
Speaker 1: or products on tour or on their socials because they
Speaker 1: know they're not putting out other things in between, it
Speaker 1: might just be seen as kind of like a money grab.
Speaker 1: Whereas like these creators and YouTubers. You know, they're constantly
Speaker 1: now content and they're not afraid to plug the merchandise,
Speaker 1: whereas someone like, you know, a famous musician might be
Speaker 1: be seen as like that's that's tacky, that's cheesy, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna push my own products, whereas this is kind
Speaker 1: of the livelihood of a lot of our clients. So
Speaker 1: like this generates most of the revenue for them on
Speaker 1: a monthly basis, So they're gonna promote it and they
Speaker 1: are going to push it, which yeah, musicians kind of
Speaker 1: have there's they'll promote two times, whereas like a creator
Speaker 1: will promote twenty times, and that's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's all about traffic and click throughs and people who
Speaker 1: see the product pages to eventually buy. So it's just
Speaker 1: more much more consistent and constant with the influencers. So
Speaker 1: when influencers partner with you, is this something that are
Speaker 1: you actively seeking out partnerships with people that you think
Speaker 1: are good for the brand or is has it been
Speaker 1: an organic thing? Because I'm sure a lot of people
Speaker 1: just make introductions and they're like, hey, you should meet
Speaker 1: with this person, they'd be great for it. And what's
Speaker 1: the process like for you now now that it's super
Speaker 1: successful and you don't have to introduce yourself when you
Speaker 1: walk into a room. They know what FANJOI is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean now we have a lot of incoming kind
Speaker 1: of client client outreach to us. For us, I think
Speaker 1: we're at the point where, in the very beginning, we
Speaker 1: were saying yes to literally everyone, which it's probably a
Speaker 1: very bad thing to do, but I think it kind
Speaker 1: of we learned along the way of not onto the
Speaker 1: traps of onboarding somebody who's not able to sell something,
Speaker 1: and now we're much more selective of who we who
Speaker 1: we bring on and mainly looking for the top tier
Speaker 1: talent that can that can build a brand and not
Speaker 1: just put out merchandise, because I think the creators that
Speaker 1: we work with have the ability to build a brand
Speaker 1: that kind of lives far beyond their face on a
Speaker 1: T shirt. And yeah, I mean for us on the
Speaker 1: outreach side, Yeah, I'm constantly d m in top talent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to you have to be you kind of
Speaker 1: have to. You know, it's either their manager or their
Speaker 1: agent or them. And I don't think it's bad to
Speaker 1: go after all three and see who responds. In the
Speaker 1: very beginning, I was only getting responses because I was
Speaker 1: cold emailing or cold calling. So it works. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to do it, and it's probably a little easier
Speaker 1: now that you have the roster that you do yeah,
Speaker 1: and you have Yeah, we have the case studies in
Speaker 1: place to show that we have the know how and
Speaker 1: the process is to help scale a company. And they're
Speaker 1: making they're making money. It's like who's going to turn
Speaker 1: down revenue stream? That is basically you guys are taking
Speaker 1: all the work out of So you got into the
Speaker 1: influencer space and you have all these wonderful people working
Speaker 1: for you. Jake is kind of what spear headed, I
Speaker 1: would say, is that pretty true? Spear headed the huge
Speaker 1: surge and now you have this incredible roster of people
Speaker 1: that you're working with. Can you name some of the
Speaker 1: partners on Fanjoy totally? So right now we are supporting
Speaker 1: around sixty different content creators um with building their brands,
Speaker 1: some like David Dobrick. We have Sam and Colby, We
Speaker 1: have the Try guys. We have Adelaide Morin, we have
Speaker 1: l Mills, we have oh Man, we have a lot,
Speaker 1: we have a lot. We have Tanna. We can't forget Tanna.
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to pull out, pull out
Speaker 1: my roster. But yeah, we have a good amount, and
Speaker 1: you know, all of them are kind of unique in
Speaker 1: their own way, and they're able to connect with their
Speaker 1: audience on a much deeper level and have continue to
Speaker 1: do it for years now, and I've kind of built
Speaker 1: up that community that supports them no matter what. And
Speaker 1: a lot of them have, you know, strong messages behind
Speaker 1: what they do. And I don't know if I mentioned
Speaker 1: Adelaide Morn, but she has a huge, you know, girls
Speaker 1: supporting Girls campaign that she's done the last two years
Speaker 1: where every month she basically donates proceeds to a new charity.
Speaker 1: You know, people are really doing good in the world
Speaker 1: with the products that they're making, which we can totally
Speaker 1: support and give. I love that, so you do a
Speaker 1: give back. They can do percentages based on and is
Speaker 1: that through fanjoy or they do it through their own Yes,
Speaker 1: it's do the FANJROI merchandise that they sell totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, at the end of the day, it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of their messages whatever they wanted to be
Speaker 1: and if they're able to use it for good, then
Speaker 1: you know, we support. This is an unfair question to ask,
Speaker 1: but I'm just gonna ask it. It's like asking who
Speaker 1: your favorite child is to a mother, is there a
Speaker 1: certain partner that you just have really enjoyed working with.
Speaker 1: It's no shade to anybody else. It's just, hey, I've
Speaker 1: really enjoyed working with this person. It's okay to have favorites.
Speaker 1: We have favorite ice cream flavors. Nobody gets no I know,
Speaker 1: I I really love David Dobrick. You know, David has
Speaker 1: you know, created an incredible community with his his fan base,
Speaker 1: and it's all via four minutes and two videos. Everybody
Speaker 1: loves David. He's just he's just the golden child. Do
Speaker 1: you know why he's the golden child. He's very likable.
Speaker 1: David's very likable. If you don't know, if you ever
Speaker 1: met David, but he has a very strong personality and
Speaker 1: passion about his filmmaking, so that every time you see him,
Speaker 1: the only thing really on his mind is what can
Speaker 1: I film for the for the next video I'm making.
Speaker 1: So he's very determined and very driven and being able
Speaker 1: to see the scale at which his merchandise has kind
Speaker 1: of reached. The brand has has grown that you know,
Speaker 1: the clickbait brand is kind of taking on its own
Speaker 1: its own best, so it's very it's very inspired to
Speaker 1: see kind of where he was two years ago to
Speaker 1: kind of what he's doing now and kind of that
Speaker 1: growth along the way. And he's on tour doing with
Speaker 1: Jason Nash. They have that views podcast tour they've done,
Speaker 1: which also is very you know, it's very successful. I
Speaker 1: think it's the top five top ten podcast. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, he has a lot of things in the
Speaker 1: works at the moment, and it's interesting to see kind
Speaker 1: of where our clients will be in a couple of
Speaker 1: years from now, because a lot of them are you know,
Speaker 1: when we started working for them, they were nineteen. Now
Speaker 1: they're twenty three, which sounds I mean, it's still very young,
Speaker 1: and they still have kind of a long ways to
Speaker 1: go in their career. And you know, the ones who
Speaker 1: will succeed will do great things for hopefully hopefully for
Speaker 1: the world and kind of make a big impact. That's
Speaker 1: so cool. Is there somebody is there a certain brand
Speaker 1: or a certain influencer that you can't keep product because
Speaker 1: it just always flies off the shelf. Would be David
Speaker 1: at this point. David is one of them. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: also work with the Try Guys, who are amazing group
Speaker 1: of guys who make amazing videos and you know, they
Speaker 1: really have built you know, their brand of the last
Speaker 1: two years using their YouTube channel and using their their
Speaker 1: comedy and their wit, and I've just been able to
Speaker 1: generate a really strong bond with you know, all the
Speaker 1: people who watch their videos. So people like the Try Guys,
Speaker 1: people like David Dobrick, people like Sam and Colby, they're
Speaker 1: just doing really well right now, and they're kind of
Speaker 1: paving the way with a lot of like the more
Speaker 1: custom pieces that we're doing as well. So for us,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all about evolving the product. So if
Speaker 1: we're able to create a much stronger product and a
Speaker 1: much higher AUDI product, then the fans are going to
Speaker 1: kind of see that and you know, want more of it.
Speaker 1: So for us, it's always evolving and always testing what works,
Speaker 1: what their fans want, what they don't want, and then
Speaker 1: kind of going from there. So our show, we have
Speaker 1: influencers on all the time, so I'll keep my eye
Speaker 1: out and see who's a good fit for fan Joy
Speaker 1: got to be top notch, top notch talent, authentic connect
Speaker 1: with their fans will I'll have them slide directly into
Speaker 1: your d I'll be there. Where do you see fan
Speaker 1: Joy evolving, because obviously things change constantly. Is it the
Speaker 1: company evolves or is it the type of people you
Speaker 1: are reaching out to and partnering with? Does that evolve
Speaker 1: take a little bit of both. I think I think
Speaker 1: for us, you know, we kind of have the YouTube segment.
Speaker 1: You know, talent tapped in, tapped in, you have the
Speaker 1: case that he's there. I think, you know, obviously, beauty
Speaker 1: is a big space, professional athletes is a big space.
Speaker 1: Music is a big space. So we have these areas
Speaker 1: that we can kind of grow out and continue to
Speaker 1: do merchandise with our merchandise four. But I also think
Speaker 1: there's a the ability to kind of work with our
Speaker 1: top tier talent and just build upon the brands that
Speaker 1: they have and see what other categories we can get into,
Speaker 1: or what other products we can make outside of apparel,
Speaker 1: outside of apparel, and trying to trying to follow what
Speaker 1: Kylie did with Kylie Cosmetics, using her we all want
Speaker 1: to follow. Yeah, yeah, we all just want to building
Speaker 1: the company. So it's kind of taking learnings from that
Speaker 1: and seeing like who else we can kind of partner
Speaker 1: with and build something at a bigger scale. That's incredible,
Speaker 1: that's really cool. So to advice to somebody who wants
Speaker 1: to follow in the footsteps not necessarily exactly what you did,
Speaker 1: but obviously you heard a lot of nose in the beginning,
Speaker 1: and it had to have been a little bit depressing, right,
Speaker 1: but you just kept going and now you have this
Speaker 1: uber six deskbul company. So what do you say to
Speaker 1: a young entrepreneur who wants to do his own thing
Speaker 1: or her own thing. The first thing to do is
Speaker 1: just start. Start, Like I know, it's it's always you know,
Speaker 1: you're always trying to look for like the right idea,
Speaker 1: the right passion project. But if you don't start and
Speaker 1: just continue to try and evolve, you're never gonna get anywhere.
Speaker 1: I also think making sure that you're able to adapt
Speaker 1: and adjust when you see kind of the market shifting
Speaker 1: is super powerful. And you know, how do we never
Speaker 1: have moved over to merchandise in apparel after everyone was like, no,
Speaker 1: the markets too saturated. We probably would be in the
Speaker 1: same position that we were in, but we were able
Speaker 1: to kind of adjust, We adapted, and we just kept
Speaker 1: going and kind of kept pushing and you know, all
Speaker 1: those nose it hurts. But I think we kind of
Speaker 1: just we would take the note like every ten knows
Speaker 1: we gotta yes, and we all those yes. Is kind
Speaker 1: of kept fueling us and kept fueling the company to
Speaker 1: the next level. And once you kind of find your
Speaker 1: footing and find your your passion and it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like work anymore, that's kind of the ultimate goal. But
Speaker 1: I never said out to kind of just chase money.
Speaker 1: It was kind of that's a good benefit of it.
Speaker 1: But my whole thing was I wanted to build something
Speaker 1: that connected people, and I wanted to find a way
Speaker 1: to do that at scale. So with that kind of
Speaker 1: being the foundation of the company is kind of what
Speaker 1: helped get us to where we are today. The other
Speaker 1: thing that really stuck out for me as we were
Speaker 1: talking is you did not have an ego along the way.
Speaker 1: It seems like you were, like I just said, in
Speaker 1: the trenches and you didn't have a problem. D m NG.
Speaker 1: People are learning how to use photoshop, and I think
Speaker 1: that that's something that I'm noticing. Anytime I am I'm
Speaker 1: afraid to try something. It's the thing that holds me back.
Speaker 1: So it's like just getting in there and not and
Speaker 1: just doing it. It was just you for so much
Speaker 1: of this journey. Yeah, it's really inspiring. It's also it's
Speaker 1: I mean, it's gonna be tough, but I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of what builds character, that builds you into a leader.
Speaker 1: And then eventually when you're ready to hire people, you
Speaker 1: just hire the best people that you think are good
Speaker 1: for the job. But also remember that you have the
Speaker 1: fire fast. Never forget fire fast. Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: did forget. Thanks for reminding me. Now I can go
Speaker 1: cry under my bed. It was so nice talking to you, Chris.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for stopping in. We are going
Speaker 1: to be doing a giveaway with some cool fanjoy product,
Speaker 1: so make sure you guys check us out on our
Speaker 1: Instagram so you can win some cool ship. You know,
Speaker 1: you just so much and I'm excited to see where
Speaker 1: Android is going to go. So we will be keeping
Speaker 1: tabs on you and I'm sure you will be surpassing Kylie.
Speaker 1: I like that you got to put things out in
Speaker 1: the universe, and I just put that out there, so
Speaker 1: give me a cut. I got you behind the influence
Speaker 1: of the production of I Heart Radio and t DC
Speaker 1: Media