This is episode number three of the Cult of Startup podcast, today's guest, social media influencer, and ghost codes founder, Frank Donna. I'd like to welcome Frank Donna, other the co-founders of Ghost Codes, to the Cult of Startup podcast. How are you doing, Frank? I'm doing great, Luke, great to be here.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me this evening. I am super excited to get into this interview, and super excited to talk about your entrepreneurial journey so far. So before we actually jump into the details about Ghost Codes, which some of you've already heard of, give us a little bit of taste of what your day-to-day life is like. Well, my short-form content agency was acquired by a digital technology agency in Houston called Softway, and that agency was acquired in mid-2014, and a lot of that was built around actual content creation for brands.
And so, I'm still doing that pretty frequently. A brand will contact myself and the co-founder of Parabox, Hunter Harrison, and they will typically ask us to help with campaigns regarding Snapchat or Vine, Instagram, or Twitter, and creating content on those platforms. So, my day-to-day typically looks like us working through potential creative, some ideas that we could bring to the table for different brands. We're also brainstorming, we're actually executing and creating content.
This year has been, there's been a lot of travel, so I've been creating content in different places for the Final Four in Houston and the College of All-Championships in Arizona, where brands will come in and say, hey, we want you to create content on Snapchat or Instagram or Vine or Twitter or all of those. And so, on a day-to-day basis, it's bouncing around between quite a few different things, running social plus, creating content plus ideating, and then obviously running and growing Ghost Codes. So, there's a whole lot that goes into a typical day in my book. I love that.
So, you mentioned Vine, and you have a relatively long history with Vine. Give us an update on where you came from with Vine, your introduction to it, and where it actually took you today, basically. I do. Vine changed my life.
And that's weird to say for some people that are like, what is Vine? And then when I tell them, it's a video platform where you can record six and a half second looping video, and they're like, you can't tell a story in six and a half seconds. That's ridiculous. Get out of here, little man.
And I'm like, well, first of all, I'm six-three, so I'm not little. But second of all, you can tell a story in six and a half seconds. And so, I downloaded it a few hours after it went live, like literally Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Square, whenever he talks about something, I choose to listen to it. So, the day that he said, go take a look at Vine, I was like downloading today.
And I did, and I fell in love with it because the limitations of the platform inspired me to create. Like, YouTube has a 10 minute limit. I can't create for 10 minutes. I will make the most boring content.
It will not have a through line. It won't have a beginning middle, and it'll just go on forever. And it felt like that was in eternity. So, when I looked at Vine, and I was like, maybe I could create in a six and a half second window, and it actually helps elevate my capabilities as a creative, but I didn't really even know that I had.
So, I started making stop-motion videos, and I stayed up till two, three in the morning, four in the morning, every single night, just making stuff. I rated our craft closet. My wife had orange just one night, the next night, she had no oranges, and I was like, she's like, where did our bananas and oranges go? And I was like, did you see my Vine?
And she's like, what's Vine? Like, she was so confused. But the first few months after I started creating, just for myself, I started getting recognized. And that was a little weird.
So, CNN, Huffington Post, Mashable, they all start featuring my Vines, and then try back a film festival. And I'm like a runner up on try back a film festival for an animation category. And then brands are starting to email me and ask me if I could create stuff for them, for their Vine channels and for their Twitter feeds. And I don't know what to do, you know?
So, I'm looking at it going, this was a exciting hobby. Could it potentially become a career? And I bet on it becoming a career. So, the first five or six months was pure engagement.
Pure, just fun. Getting my hands dirty, building a community with people on Vine, who I'm still very close with. That was early 2013. And I started working for brands, and creating Vines and short videos for brands.
And so, I started with Chevrolet, and then moving to Samsung, and I was working with Jennifer Lopez's digital street team to launch her Barbie dolls on Instagram, which was just insane. And what ended up happening was, I met another guy on Vine, his name's Hunter, and him and I became co-founders of an agency that we established in late 2013. And the reason why we did that was because we were going to all these brands as freelancers. And, you know, as a freelancer, going to an agency or a brand, a brand like Bank of America or Samsung Mobile, you know, there's not a lot of, it doesn't give you the ability to kind of step up and have a lot to stand on.
And so, we realized that we needed to legitimize ourselves, and that came through building an actual company. Now, the crazy thing is this space was super hot. And so, within a matter of four months, our company was fully acquired by software. And we were in the, so we were in the running to be acquired by a different company at the same time as well.
And software swooped in and said, here, we've got this amazing team of artists and storyboarders and creatives, and even on the dev side, which I have a dev background from mobile app development in my past, and they said, if you come and join our company, if you buy your company and then acquire you, and if you stay on with us essentially, you will have access to these people, which will then elevate what you're doing. So, vine changed my life. And that ushered me into an era of sort of like happenstance influencership, I guess, and it allowed me to have credibility enough to be able to create and to connect and to start being followed, which was a really weird new thing for me that I didn't necessarily ask for, but it's helped obviously propel myself and also our agency forward, and that's been beneficial for everyone. I love that.
I love how it sounds like you were sort of propelled into being an influencer, and it wasn't something that you exactly requested. And I think a very interesting thing that you mentioned is that this, I think you sort of subtly mentioned it, but that all these social media platforms enable people to become somebody different than maybe who they are at their average Joe job, right? So sort of levels the playing field for everybody to become someone. Yeah, exactly, so for me, I mean, I wasn't making stop-motion content badly, by the way, at the very beginning, I look back now and I'm like, that was the worst, right?
But I'm not making stop-motion content. Hunter was a banker. He was a banker for 10 years. And then him and I found an agency and it gets acquired and now we're influencers, like in the social space.
We've legitimized ourselves through creating content that we had absolutely no idea we could even do a few months beforehand. So as these platforms start coming out, what's interesting is, it's almost like, have you ever listened to new music that a friend of yours recommends? And when you listen to that music, you've never, that you've never heard before, you suddenly can't get enough of it. It's like the first time somebody recommends band X to you and then you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I've never listened to this band before.
And you just feel something different in this sense of just, it's like you have this connection to it that you never realized you could have. And when platforms like Snapchat or Anchor, these things are starting to emerge. What's great about these new platforms is when you look at them, they may not be right for everyone, but there may be a few people that feel this incredible sense of belonging and that basically say to themselves, I can do something really powerful on this platform that I never knew I could even think about creating at a day job. That's where social's going and that's why I'm passionate about it.
I love that. And I love your enthusiasm towards these products and that it gives you that opportunity to do something, you guys' backgrounds were not, ideally lined up, I mean, like your two vine influencer, what? Yeah, it's a natural what? It doesn't, there's no through line there.
There's no connection there. It's just, he was a creative person that it was in a creative rut. It was getting, but it absolutely needed a creative output. And Vine provided that channel of creativity.
And people picked up on it. People picked up on the fact that Hunter was creating content that was really good. It was funny. It was well crafted.
It was thought through. And they were doing the same for my stuff. Outside of our typical day-to-day jobs that come home at five, six, my wife and daughter would go to sleep and then I would make stuff for myself. I believe that's a big thing, making something for yourself and understanding that it has value to you can actually contribute to value for others.
I think that that's actually the key here is the moment that you as an individual think that you have to create for everyone else around you is the moment that you lose what's special about making stuff in the first place. Because if you start tailoring the content you're making to appease other people, you've taken the secret sauce out of what makes what you do great. And that's why when people jump on a platform, because they see these famous individuals that have made it, quote unquote, and they're like, I'm not going to be myself because I don't trust that I'm really good at whatever I need to do. I'm going to try to be just like this person or my end goal is a movie deal because Brittany Ferling got a movie deal or Marcus John's got a movie deal or King Bash got a movie deal or whatever, or these massive youtubers are pewdie pewdie pewdie.
You know, I can do that. So if you don't go into the platform saying, I just want to tell really good stories that I would be interested in or I want to make stuff that I would like, you're kind of setting yourself up for failure because you're letting other people dictate the type of content you're creating and you lose what's so great about it in the first place. I 100% agree with that. And I would like to maybe play a little bit of devil's advocate right now with this.
So first, is there a, do you believe that there is any specific advantage of being a first mover on a platform and having that sort of segue to becoming an influencer or do you think it's purely based off the talent of that person? I think that there is a lot to being first. You obviously have an advantage of your first platform. You obviously do.
And that can be seen through individuals that started on YouTube a decade ago that are still on the platform. That for me is kind of a primary example. Like I don't have 100,000 to a million to multiple millions of followers on Vine, yet I was there first and I was creating content that was different. And as a result of that, I was able to elevate myself and connect to people faster than individuals who jump on now and are having a hard time connecting.
So being first to a platform is actually very important, but it's not the most important thing. If you're not first, you can also be best and different. And so there's three components. There's a book there's written a few years ago called first best and different.
And really the notion is if you're not first, which very few people are first to any platform or anything, you have to be best and different. And that's how you sort of take all the leverage that could have been there for when you got there at the beginning and start elevating your content. So if you're not first to a platform, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't try. So the problem is a lot of people are like, well, YouTube's been around forever though.
Like how can I make a dent? Or Snapchat's already been around, there's always like, look at Shonduras, like I can't do what Shonduras does. And then you've already given up and you've already basically said for yourself, I can't do anything better because they've already done it. And if that's the case, we would have no innovation and we'd have no through line two new technologies and we'd have no advancement in humanity and civilization.
If we all look at other people and said, that's the best that can be done. So it's difficult if you're not first, but it's not impossible to be best or different. Yeah, I love that. It reminds me a lot of the book called the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, where it talks about how do you differentiate yourself from the competitors that are currently in the market?
And I love those terminologies, that terminology first, best and different. Those are the three things that you can do to be different and actually execute being the top person in that category, whatever it may be. So maybe moving a little bit further, I know that you recently released an application called Ghost Codes. And I would like to sort of maybe touch on, okay, what is the background of Ghost Codes and where did that come from?
And maybe sort of move into, how does Ghost Codes possibly level the playing field for Snapchatters? Because Snapchat does not have a good search filter. You can't really find who's top for anything like that, like you can on Instagram or Facebook or some other social media platform where everything is very obvious. There are definitely a lot of constraints.
We'll definitely get into detail about social media constraints later. But first, tell us about Ghost Codes and then we'll move on to any of those other questions. So picture this, it's August of 2015. And Hunter and I and another colleague of ours are sitting in my office and we're all complaining.
We're complaining about the fact that Snapchat has no stink and discovery feature and it's super frustrating. And this is really when we're trying to, again, pivot into the Snapchat space. We see where things are going. We see where influence is going.
We've already worked with a few campaigns. We launched a UNICEF's campaign or UNICEF's brand on Snapchat earlier that year. We worked with InStyle Magazine. So we've already done some pretty significant work on Snapchat, but we hadn't established ourselves as influencers.
So we're sitting there going, how do you do this? It's so difficult outside of literally just asking everyone for shout outs and looking like the most annoying human being on the planet. How do we do this? So what makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur?
The simplest definition in my book is someone who says someone should do that and then they do that thing. If a person rattles off, it would be really good if somebody did this and then the next day they actually do that thing and they're like, well, you know, nobody else would do this. I just went and did it. That's the definition entrepreneur.
And what we did was we were sitting around in the room and we're like, well, why don't we create it? And this is right after the Boo R codes came out. But the Boo R codes weren't public, right? So you had to actually go and find them or you had to ask people for them.
They weren't available if you search for someone and you could just kind of screenshot and find it. So in less than 24 hours, we created a website called snapchat.codes. And without the domain, it was like 60 bucks for snapchat.codes, which was mind blowing. So we're like, Snapchat didn't think about it, whatever.
And we started curating codes on snapchat.codes. And we built out a bunch of different categories and we dropped in individuals that we knew were high quality people. So there was a curation component to it, but it was limited. Meaning no one could upload their own content to it.
They all had to submit their codes in order to be added to the website. So already we're setting up, we're making it way more difficult than it should have been. So we built that website and after a few months, things went nuts. It spiraled up faster than we could have possibly imagined.
So to give you a kind of perspective, in mid September, when we kind of had everything off the ground, like early mid September, we were getting 300 to 500 page views a week. And a couple hundred page views a day. It was pretty cool. In March of this year, in April, getting, I don't know, 250,000 page views a day.
So the growth of the platform, and so now we're into the millions of page views a week on the Snapchat.codes website. And it just started spiraling up so fast, we started getting thousands of submissions of Snap Codes because people are searching, how do I find people on Snapchat? Snapchat user names, Snapchat celebrities, how do I connect with these people? We saw, avoid, and we innovated, but we created a website, right?
Like it's not hugely innovative, it's just something that kind of fits a need, but we're looking at the metrics, 85% of the traffic is coming from mobile devices. So the thing about software, the agency that acquired our agency was, it's a technology, it has a technology backbone, which means that the team there is equipped to produce products like iPhone and Android apps. And so I brought to our CEO and I was like, hey, we made this thing. He's like, yeah, I mean, it's doing pretty good, right?
And I said, yeah, cool. Can we just go ahead and build it into a product? Like can we build a mobile app where people can upload their own Snap Codes and they can categorize themselves and we can start building in these other features that give it what it needs to be? And instead of going to a VC, or instead of going and getting rounds of investment or seed funding, we actually built the teams within our agency, which is completely different model than most people do, and we started building the product in early January, 2016.
And so that's sort of the origin story of how Ghost Codes came to fruition. I believe listening to another thing from Joel Kong, he said, or the underside on the blab that Joel Kong did was that you guys actually went to a bar and drew something on napkin in true startup fashion. We actually did that on purpose just because we wanted to do it. So it was mid November, we were drawing wireframes for the what was to become the Ghost Codes app.
And we were drawing them on paper. We had like the wireframes like printed, you know, like the here's an iPhone, like print out like design and we're like, no, we're going to Starbucks, we're gonna rip out a bunch of napkins, we're gonna throw them on a table, we're just gonna scribble. And it was so much more, I would recommend anybody do that versus just, you know, take a ruler and be like, let's just make sure that it's 5.5 inches. Oh, no, don't do just go to Starbucks, grab some napkins, you're done.
Like go do this, it's actually really invigorating, but that makes sense. It makes sense, real. It does, it connects you to this, you know, to this notion of like, all these amazing companies were starting on the backs of napkins, right? And we had a really good time.
We had a really good time sitting and going, maybe we can do this. Like maybe we could actually answer this question that so many people have in a way that actually benefits users, actually benefits people that care deeply about Snapchat and about connecting with quality Snappers. So that's what we did. All right, so now let's go and move forward in time and let's talk about the launch of ghost codes.
So you developed all this stuff about, okay, we need to, we need to wait to search people. You figure out that your site worked. Now you launch the app. What happens next?
So here's what we did. I'm gonna tell you the real story, okay? I'm gonna tell you the real story. So not that the, like the thing that we like to be like hoity toity about is this is what happens.
So we, it was days before South by Southwest, we had already ordered a bunch of t-shirts and we had started talking about how we were going to give the app to some of the biggest Snappers on the planet that were gonna be their friends of ours, that were gonna be a South bike. And we didn't really have the stickiness factor because we were going to actually launch the app through test flight and have them go through the process of downloading via test flight. But that's really annoying to anyone who has downloaded apps before and been on like beta app side of things where they have to go and like create a profile through test flight and then kind of be available for it. And then every time the version comes out that's downloaded again and it becomes a big hassle.
It's more than a handful times I hate it. It's a frustrating thing. I mean, it's cool like VIP access, but then we thought VIP access, that's a good idea. And so we were like, okay, we have like less than 24 hours.
What if we drop in a VIP access page and we give everybody cards with a ghost code on them, like literally a name of a ghost like Boo or Casper or Beetlejuice or Slimer. And that's their code because we're really witty. Their ghost code is access through this VIP gate. So our team built it.
We got cards ordered quickly. And then we went and launched it a South bike. What we did was we gave all of these influencers, these really prominent snapshots, some of the biggest snapshots on the planet, early access to our platform and then we gave them these codes. And what we didn't really expect was that the word got out.
Like we were hoping that would happen because exclusivity kind of pushes people to want to be part of it, but it got out a little faster than we intended. And while beta was happening, we still hadn't included pagination into our platform. And so like the app was taking a long time to load and it was still like it was causing lots of issues because there were so many more people using the platform. It was a great success for the beta.
And we launched on April 15th with the official version, which fixed all of those issues and brought out a whole slew of other things. But our goal for the beta was give people VIP access, connect them to it, let them feel like they're part of something special, which essentially they work because it was early access. And then once the app goes live, everybody else will flow the platform. That's awesome.
And I love the fact that you actually created that sort of gateway to going in. So nobody had the access code. They couldn't actually do anything with the app. And that reminds me a lot of the story of what happened with mailbox.
You know, they're technically gone now, but mailbox, if you signed up to use it, you were put into a queue and you had to wait to actually get the app. And it would have a countdown of your number 5000 until you actually get access to the app. And I think that actually helps promote an application and create virality. Did you feel like you had some virality with that?
Absolutely did, absolutely did. Because people were using it. And I mean, for a few days and probably a week, maybe we can have everyone on Snapchat was talking about ghost codes. I mean, I was like scrolling through and people that I hadn't even met before talked to before, they were showing off Purple Heart, saying, give me kudos and download the app.
And here's your boo is your code to download it. There was this this fervor around it like, guys, this is something big, this is something crazy and I had access to it. So I would recommend to anyone that is thinking about developing a product like this or a product that needs a substantial user base, go exclusive for the beta. Yeah.
Absolutely just go exclusive. And that'll definitely help it. And I love that I've worked in mobile apps before and doing sort of a soft launch in a different country rather than the US. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, create that sort of wall and then maybe it creates more promotion for you. I think it's a brilliant strategy and probably more effective to do that. It absolutely was. I don't think we would be where we are right now if it wasn't for us throwing an idea against the wall saying, and then the crazy part was that we got that like done in a few hours.
So we built a page and built up the gate in front of the registration process. And then we submitted the app a day before we drove to South by. So we were really concerned because we're like, okay, it's the first version of the app is beta. Apple can take up to a week to review these apps.
So we send it as an expedited review because we said we put a significant amount of money into developing it and marketing it for South by our project manager, Austin. He like, he kills the game with expedited review excuses and he always gets it. It's really great. And we need that guy.
We need, I don't like to, can you just like eloquently portray our struggles? And he's like, yes, I can. I'll do this for you. And so 18 hours later, the app was approved.
Wow, that's actually really impressive. So we're like, we're driving to South by and the app is already approved. And we're sitting there, we're like, what just happened? You know, like this is crazy.
So it was something where we had anticipated not being able to even promote it until the last three days of South by Southwest interactive. We got a chance to do it all the way through the entire time and it elevated our abilities to connect with the influencer group and that demo. So it was, it was really cool, man. It's like luck on luck on luck, but it worked out.
Yeah. And some startups are just like that. It's you kind of roll from punch to punch and eventually you go, it worked. It worked, oh my God, it worked.
Exactly, exactly. So our live version went out April 15th for the iOS platform. We're really happy with this version that's live now. And we just launched today, which I know this podcast will be a few weeks after today's date, but we just launched Android a few hours ago.
So, you know, less than a month after we launched iPhone, Android's out. Wow. And may you tell me how has the Android launch gone so far today? It's gone extremely well.
So we did, we did a periscope just because, and it had like 2,800 viewers on it, which was crazy, just pushing out the information about the fact that Android was coming for the past week. We've been promoting content around the notion of it launching at looming and then at landing. So we did this thing with the designs from some of our, if you go and look at our Twitter feed, or if you look at our Instagram or our Facebook pages, you'll see these really high quality R pieces or our media pages. And those are all examples of the caliber of artists that we have at our agency, where they go and just blow our minds with the incredible skill sets and incredible content they're producing.
But for the past week, seven to 10 days or so, we've been creating each individual asset to kind of tell a different story about the process of where Android is. So, the first image we launched was, or first image we posted was of like an Android with a skeleton, like a purple Android with a skeleton. And that was the idea of Android launching. And then we had another image of the ghost that we use, his name is Spooks Skeleton the third by the way.
I don't know if you know that. He is sort of looming over in Android. And then today, we actually had our ghost landing on planet Android. And so we wanted to tell this through line in the story and be as consistent as possible with it.
I know some people may be like, why are you talking about this? But for us, it's very important to create a very polished feel to the brand. However, it's also really fun. Like our goal is to make people smile, to be unorthodox and help people feel like it's a person versus just a brand.
And so we're going as high polish as possible in terms of the way we're approaching our launches, no we're approaching the quality of the concept we're creating. But if you look at our replies on Twitter, if you look at the content we built into the app, it's all very playful and whimsical. And it's sort of joyful, which I think an optimistic, which I think people really enjoy. People really gravitate towards.
So that's a really long way of saying, Android's going really well. Yeah. And I think there's definitely something to the tongue and cheek approach to content that people maybe are so used to reading maybe really dry content. But you sort of throwing, hey, this has a personality that this brand is actually somebody behind it that's creative means a lot.
And I'll be honest, in my personal experience, I've actually read every single update that you've done two ghost codes. And it's funny. You guys have some punch lines. It's well written.
It's good copy you. I don't know if that's the right term I'm using. But you're interesting. It's very interesting.
And me, maybe one out of every 30 people who do that, that matters to me. Awesome. And I feel like for people that care about the little details, like the stupid ghost puns, like in the spirit of transparency, and then you just kind of pause and you're like, I used spirit and transparency because we're ghosts, nevermind. And so it's things like that that when people truly care about the meticulous nature of how things are crafted and the way things are done, they enjoy it that much more because you can tell that someone's putting their heart and putting their soul and their identity into a product.
And that's what we want to do with this. So we don't think of it as like, this is just a thing that we want to do. This is just a cash grab or this is just an opportunity to take advantage of a situation. This is our hearts and souls.
Like this is something that we're really passionate about, that the entire Snapchat user base is also passionate about. So we want people to feel like when they come to it, it's almost like, this is what I've wanted, but I didn't know I needed, you know? Or this is something that's better than what I expected it to be. It didn't have to be as good as this.
It didn't have to be as easy to use or as free flowing or as connected as this, but it is. And that's why I enjoy it. I love that line. And it reminds me the first time I got an iPhone, I said, how did I live without this?
I needed this all along, but I know what I needed. Exactly. And so that's our goal. I mean, I think everyone in startup land and startup mode, you have to take that much care about the things you're producing and the things you're creating.
I mean, it harkens back to the early days of content creation on blind for me. I'm creating a stop-motion piece. That takes three to 15 hours to produce, where I'm moving M&Ms or I'm moving a toy car, you know, a fraction of an inch just to get the movement right in the way that the thing animates correctly and how that can potentially drive a motion of a story. And so in everything that we do, we should always do our best to refine and polish and connect ourselves into it because then people will notice and will realize and it will affect them.
I love it. I think that's great. And I feel like that sincerity in a startup brand is going to communicate significantly more to the end customer than if you're like, hey, it's my product. You should actually use it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got personality. It's got feeling it. I associate ghost codes as being another person.
Yes. And that's the goal. And really brands should be people. And brands should use social platforms as people and not as marketing machines, where they're a robot walking into a party handing out business cards.
And then you're like, listen, dear robot friend, please stop handing me business cards. Let's have a conversation. They're like, hello, how may I help you today? And you're like, calm it down.
So it really does come to the notion that a brand should be a person. And it should have personality. I mean, you're on social media. Yeah, you should have a social side, right?
Exactly, exactly. And that's where a lot of our relationships have been built, mostly on Twitter and through Facebook and Instagram. All right. So I'd like to move into a couple of questions from listeners of the Cultistart podcast.
First one is, what is the overall vision for Ghost Codes? So part of it is a secret. And I know that we are very transparent in terms of what we like to talk about and kind of where we're going. But part of our roadmap is, in the future, in the next few months, is something that we're working towards.
And we want to share it with you as soon as the time is right. But what I can tell you about right now is what Ghost Codes is becoming is its own very unique platform to connect and engage with people on Snapchat. And our goal over the next few months is to add additional components within the platform that make it easier for people to discover how talented people are on this platform on Snapchat. And be able to quickly engage with individuals without having to leave the platform per se and also engage with content they've created without having to leave the platform.
So we want to make it where somebody comes to Ghost Codes. They will get a holistic view of the type of thing they can expect from you, Luke or myself or Hunter or any other of the individuals that are on the platform. They will be able to get that without having to leave the experience of Ghost Codes. So our end goal is ultimately to make discovery more about the quality of the content.
And to do that, we've got some really exciting features coming down the pipeline that'll make that a reality. I love that. And maybe a sort of a segue question with that would be, how are you planning to revolutionize the Snapchat industry or product itself? See, I think the struggle with Snapchat, the struggle that Snapchat even may have, and I am projecting, right?
I'm not having this legal, but I'm projecting as to what's our frustration to be. And the issue is how do you actually build a discovery component into Snapchat? Like how would that even work? It's all built around anonymity.
The only, and I don't even know how that would even look within the platform because everything is locked down and it's very focused on friends. Ultimately what we're trying to do is build communities. And I think that's where the revolution comes from. The ability for people to build communities that they weren't able to build in the past.
So the ability to actually create interests on ghost codes is a really powerful tool that we're gonna be exploring in the future and kind of how that can even grow and stem into something even bigger. But I think the revolutionary component is something that's already been around on many other social platforms. And it's really just a sense of belonging and a sense of community and a sense of connectedness that will happen with more people than just a one-on-one conversation on Snapchat. I completely agree.
So one quote that I would like to sort of give to you, I recently got to sit down with Evan with a group of people from San Luis Obispo here, from Evan Spiegel from Snapchat. And he said one of the unique values of Snapchat compared to other social media platforms is that you're able to tell a story in chronological order where other social media platforms tend to display the current thing and then go backwards in history. What are your thoughts on that? See, I love that.
And I think that that type of storytelling method is so refreshing for the space, which is why I love creating stories in Snapchat, because you can actually tell a real story. And even platforms like Anchor, for instance, I love Anchor and I'm really excited about the future of it. I've been thinking a lot about how I could tell stories on the platform and one of my ideas here in the future and maybe I'll already be out on time as podcast comes out, but I'm gonna create a season of micro podcasts each two minutes or shorter. There's fully self-contained stories, fully self-contained narrative with a beginning, middle, and end.
And they're gonna be in the kind of realm of like Twilight Zone. So I'm thinking about calling it twisted or something like that where every story is a little bit weird or there's something creepy or something odd or something off. But that's still told in reverse chronological, or in chronological order rather than reverse chronological order. So I'm even trying to figure out how do I do a start with six and then go to one or do I start with one and then go to six?
If I'm gonna do six of these episodes. So I'm actually having to change my goal of how I want these to be released because the platform limits the way the content is structured. And that's the same for Vine or for Twitter, for any of these other platforms, you're not able to tell a story properly. And I think that feature is a game changer because you don't have to get a headache to try to figure out how you want to project or tell a really captivating story.
It's already done for you. And your audience gets to view it in that order right away. It was made with a table of social media platform, you have kind of a one shot to tell the full story on that single post. Right.
Or if you wanted to do a multi-part, like you have to start with the end and then go to the beginning. And you know, if you're posting every other day or you're trying to create something like that, you're already giving away the punchline. You know, like there's no way to do it unless you're like, okay, go into my profile and then change the sort order. And then you're like, no, nobody's gonna do that.
You know, so again, it's a great, very, very organic way of telling a real comprehensive story. And I love it. Yeah, and Snapchat, I think it lends itself to the like real day conversation. It's quick back and forth.
There's no length to it that's long. It's just quick. It's real conversation. And Luke, I mean, here's an example.
I, you and I had a conversation about doing this podcast through Snapchat. And so I shot you an email earlier today and then I thought, you know what? It's probably gonna be faster to communicate with him through Snapchat than other mediums. So, you know, when we had to, we had to connect and kind of figure out what our timeline was gonna be for this episode.
The first thing I did was I went to Snapchat because I knew that you would see it and you're engaging on the platform. And that is true for so many people. Like I use Snapchat to connect with more people faster than any other platform on the planet. Isn't that amazing?
It's crazy. I mean, I'm assuming that you feel the same way. Oh yeah. The people that I've connected to through Snapchat, it's blowing my mind.
If it wasn't for using those codes and hustling my way through that and trying to actually communicate these people, I wouldn't know the certain people I'd have in my lineup for this podcast. There's a lot of people I met just through that. It's amazing. And I think that, and again, that's why, you know, the whole notion of discovery, I think it's okay not to be on Snapchat, but there needs to be something.
There needs to be a place where people can go and connect with people and actually build that sense of community. Even if it's, you know, not natively built into the Snapchat platform or the Snapchat ecosystem. For sure. So I think this is a great question to sort of lead into is how do you guys on ghost codes determine who will be featured?
That's an awesome question. And that's something we definitely wanna help people know. And so what we do is we ask people to submit a piece of content that they're really proud of to our website. So there's actually a section on ghost codes.com where you can submit to the get featured area.
So essentially, you can go there, talk a little bit about yourself. We don't care about opens, opens don't matter to us because opens don't really matter, period. It's a quality of the story. So if you've got four opens and you're the funniest person on Snapchat, then you deserve to be featured.
It's not about how many opens you have or the popularity side of things. The curation is not about popularity, it's about quality. So we actually review it with a team of people inside of ghost codes and then we essentially rate how we feel these individuals would do based on the quality of content they submit to us. So we review everything they create and then we actually go and watch content for about two or three days on their Snapchat account to make sure that the quality is consistent with what they sent us and then we determine whether or not they're a good fit.
I love that approach and I think it's very sincere if you guys to do that as a company. Some of the thoughts I've sort of heard on the side of how they determine the feature person to go, oh, they just throw you into a queue and it's all automated and I was like, I don't know if it's completely automated. No, no, it's definitely not. I mean, we're reviewing, we're going through, we're talking about things, we're talking about feedback and I mean, there's a lot that goes into that on a day to day basis and I mean, I'm watching them.
You know, I'm connecting with these people and watching their content and we've got a team of people and what's interesting is in the very near future, like the next, I mean, there's an update that's coming out here in the next few days, it will already be live by the time this podcast comes out, but the update that's coming out in early June is all about curation. We're redesigning the entire homepage, the entire search page, the entire interests page with very visual dynamic content that's gonna be built around elevating curation to an even bigger level and elevating discovery to an even bigger level. And so that's gonna require our team to delve even further into watching and reviewing and determining what is quality. And I believe that's sort of the natural progression of a social media platform is that you have the first movers who possibly take advantage of those loopholes that occur and then the platform sort of smooth itself out so that it's actually more logical to the beginning user.
Exactly and so like for right now, the way that someone gets found is through our kudos and that's essentially a popularity ranking system where the more kudos you have, the higher you rank. And that's typically what happens with most social media platforms when they first emerge. There's something and you can call it like a vanity metric or a way that individuals can essentially propel themselves forward. But again, I think of any metrics actually fair because it doesn't necessarily mean that that content is really high quality.
It could just potentially mean that they're really getting marketing themselves or like you said, hustling and getting people to connect with them and giving a bunch of kudos. As the platform progresses, like the most immediate update in the future, the next one is coming out in about a week addresses that by building in sort options. So sort options allow users to sort and then change the sort across the entire app. So technically, if you don't want to see most kudos, you can change your sort option to popular and then popular is an algorithm that we defined that is sort of a secret sauce.
It takes into consideration like five different components and popular is gonna show you actual trending users that are getting connected with in very unique and organic ways that is a little bit of a better metric. And so essentially, as these sort options start emerging and as these other curation components start emerging, the notion of the ranking system will start diminishing and won't be as prevalent because there will be much better ways to find and follow and connect. And ultimately, it does and will smooth itself out. And honestly, we've only been out for about a month or so.
So I think in the next two months, a month and a half, we will see a dramatic shift towards that curated feature and then the quality content feature that we're envisioning. Yeah, and that brings more sincerity to the actual app itself. I'll admit my first download in the app, I said, well, this is a land grab right now. And I wanted to kudos many people and with the hope of them honestly giving me kudos back.
And I joined groups that people recommended based off of interest and there's all these little strategies sort of that other influencers came up with. But as we spoke about earlier, being sort of maybe the first to doing this, I felt like for myself and you maybe felt similar with Vine is that this is an opportunity to take it back. And that's completely fun. And it's something that we understood would happen and it's not something we're really upset about.
We knew that being first meant, you're going to get a significant number of kudos and connections with people. And I can already tell you that there are quite a few people that we know that have been reached out to by brands that have never communicated with them in the past, asking them to work with them as influencers from ghost codes. That's incredible. That's incredible.
So you're talking about the actual opportunity of revenue for an individual because they're looking at it and saying, well, I mean, if this person has 4,000 kudos, they probably had a significant number of downloads and connections with these other individuals. So that may be a lot of Bibles on their content. And so like my wife is a good example, she's in the fitness side of things. And she was contacted by, I think it's like Kettle & Fire, which is this bone broth company.
They reached out to her because they found her on ghost codes and they thought she would be a good fit based on the quality of content she made. And so they said, can we send you some Kettle & Fire to promote and to share if you like the product? And so she started a relationship with these individuals based solely on the fact that she was on ghost codes. She was one of the top 18 in fitness and they felt like she was a good fit.
That's awesome. I mean, that really sort of, as you say, levels of playing field, she doesn't need an agent. Nope. No agent needed to connect to the brand and say, oh, you guys line up well, done all despite what currently people are liking the most.
Well, it's like in the most brand A is gonna approach her for that. And the cool thing is, there are a few features that I can talk about. And one of those that we're really excited about bring, well, so I talked about curation, curation is gonna be really big thing. The other feature that's gonna come out in that version also is an intro video.
So users are gonna be able to record a 30 second intro video, a vertical video that they can actually add to their profile. So you're going to be able to connect very seamlessly with a person's personality and the actual content that they wanna showcase that they would be creating on Snapchat. So that feature alone is gonna change the game because you're easily gonna be able to see is this person worth a follow or not based on the video that they create. From a community perspective, we're gonna be building in a recommendation engine and we're calling it like-minded, where based on the nuances of different people's interests, we're gonna be able to recommend other users that are like-minded on the platform.
So it will kind of help people understand that, if they're in the like the hard for hard or follow for follow communities or in those interests, it's not going to actually provide them a real benefit when they're only being recommended to all of the other people in that space. It will help people realize that interests should be nuanced and should be specific to what they actually enjoy so they can find other like-minded people. So we're talking about building in algorithms and specific engines that are gonna help people discover individuals that they may be able to really connect with on a deeper basis based on interest in a couple of factors. And I feel like people have maybe an adverse approach to what algorithms can do, but from your design point, you feel like you guys, that this is a huge benefit to the end user, right?
I think so because it answers a fundamental UX question, which is how far do you have to go to find someone who's similar to you? And from user experience, perspective, you don't want people drilling down for days to try to find really interesting, relevant individuals that may share similar things. So let's say you go to the app and you're able to sort by like-minded and you notice that the person at the very top has eight of the same interests you do. Okay, that's pretty cool.
I'm gonna connect with that person. You know what I'm saying? And the interests are weighted by lack of popularity. So there's a different waiting system that we're building into it as well.
That's not just, oh well, 3000 people like this interest and you also like that. So there's a more nuanced way of approaching the waiting system because it'll help people get to people faster. And that's really the end goal. And again, that's another, that'll be another sort option.
So people can always change it and go back to, you know, randomize or new users or popular or even most kudos and be able to kind of play in that space and find people based on whatever they prefer, however they'd like to. Yeah, I know as soon as Instagram released, they're featured being on the very top end or one of their search things or the home space. I really like that. I was able to sort of access different content that I wouldn't normally found on my own searching.
Oh, recommending this. And I think it's the appropriate thing for a social media platform to do. And I feel like it's the natural evolution of where we're taking the product and where we plan on moving it forward in the future. And that aligns specifically with our end goal, which is getting people to find and follow the best nappers.
For sure. I definitely have come in contact with a lot of people that I wouldn't have known before if I didn't download the Ghost to Go's app. I know there's one lady that I follow that lives in the Philippines. And she drops amazing marketing tips all the time and I watch all of her snaps.
She's very entertaining. She was at the top of the business category, I believe. So I could have seen you guys for being able to provide that value to your end users. And we've heard that story time again, which is super awesome.
Like for us to be able to hear people saying, you actually brought me value. I'm following people that are really cool. And I think ultimately when I first came out, there were a lot of people that were downloading, like hoarding snack codes. You know, they're like, well, I added 150 people and now I have to slog through all of these people.
And what am I supposed to do with my day? I'm supposed to get to work on time now. I can't, because it goes code. You ruined my, you know?
So there was this sort of like through line of like, well, hold on a second. You kind of got to like, we know we sort of opened the flood gates, right? Like it's a fire hose, but you have to sort of dial it back a little bit and realize that Snapchat itself is about the nuance of like, I'm gonna maybe follow two or three new people and then see if I like their content, maybe engage with them and talk to them and get to know them. And if it's not a good fit, if it's not somebody that I'd be willing to connect with, then maybe I remove them as a friend.
I mean, that may sound bad, but if you're gonna skip over their content anyway, that's when you can then maybe head back to those codes and see if there are other people that you can connect with. So I feel like for the first few weeks, everybody was sort of like attacking, like I'm just gonna download every, oh my gosh, all the codes are getting here. Now, people are starting to realize that it is something where maybe once every few days they'll be able to kind of maybe follow one or two more people and just kind of see what that looks like and then be surprised instead of be overwhelmed. In my personal experience, I've had to take it in doses as well.
Exactly. I'll have 200 new followers or something like that, but I'll add five of them. I'll add 10 of them and I'll go, okay, I'll watch you guys' stories for the next few days. See if I like it or not.
If I do, I'll continue following it. If I don't, maybe I'll unfollow them. Cause I would like my discovery fee to be those that I'm very interested in. Exactly.
And the chat communication component can be people, like within Snapchat, can be people that you may not be following but are able to communicate with you. And you don't have to necessarily follow those people in that space, but the discovery of the stories area is really about who you deeply care about. And anybody who actually messages me, just follow them back because it took the time to say hello or interact with me. Very true.
I mean, there's definitely a one-way communication that happens on Snapchat where just people view it and they don't say anything. Yeah. Case in point today, I posted, Hey, I'm going to be talking to Frank from Ghost Codes. Please send me your questions.
And out of maybe the 130 views that I had, 10 people responded. So I mean, it wasn't a huge outpouring, but a lot of them. Yeah, that's still a good image. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of views, but not everybody was interested in it. I even got a handful of, well, let me know when it comes out. Well, if you have any questions. No, no, no, no questions.
Everyone comes out. All right, cool. And you know, it's funny is like, I think this kind of brings up the other thing is not everyone is a creator. Yeah.
And so there are quite a few people that are using Ghost Codes. And I would honestly say, just like the internet, let's just say the internet, okay? 99.9% of the people on the internet are not creators, they are consumers. And then that 0.1% are the creators of the content.
And so for every single platform, the rule still applies. The percentage is still apply. On Instagram, you're going to have, everyone has an account but very few are high quality creators in that perspective. With Vine, it's the same concept with Twitter, it's the same concept with Snapchat.
It's extremely similar in that you're going to have 130 million daily active users but a very small percentage of those individuals are actually creating content. So we understand that and we were thinking, what is the next feature that we really need to drop into this platform? So just solve the issue of people not feeling comfortable about putting themselves out there. So next week, the next version, alongside of the sort order, we're going to be dropping a feature called Ghost Mode.
And Ghost Mode allows people to jump between being visible so when you register for the app, the third registration page, before you even get to adding your Snapcode and adding interests and adding categories or selecting a category, is you get to choose. Do you want to be invisible? Which means that no one can find you, no one can search for you, you don't have to worry about adding interests or adding a category. You can do that later if you want.
You don't even have to upload a Snapcode. You can literally just hit invisible and now you're able to browse the product, download codes, give kudos, and use it as you would any other platformer as you would on Snapchat. And then if you wanted to actually follow through and add that person on Snapchat, you can and that's where you can engage. But we felt that adding that option in gives people that don't necessarily care about their profile, getting ranked or getting up in the top X, Y, and Z or trying to figure out a way to get seen more for all of those people that don't care about that or building that feature up front.
So that's something we're not thinking about six months down the road. That's like a week away. I think that's totally appropriate for everybody who's going to be downloading this anew. I have a good friend who downloaded the app because I asked her, I said, hey, I would appreciate it if you download this app and gave me a kudos.
I'm trying to move up in the ranks and she goes, okay, and every now and then she updates me. She's like, I got 50 kudos now. I got 90 kudos now. I haven't done did at least what.
But I think part of it, she would like to be invisible because she doesn't like people downloading your snapcode and attempting to add her. And we've heard that a lot. And it's in some friends of mine are like, I mean, I post stuff with my cat and I'm not even in pets, I'm like in random. And so I'm like, well, maybe invisible is good.
And honestly, that's sort of how we feel about it. If 99% of the users on Snapchat are just chatting and communicating with each other and they're not actually creating stories but they're following along, then maybe it means that we need to kind of build in the same type of process to emulate the relationships that people have on Snapchat in a very similar fashion on ghost codes to let people feel more comfortable with using the products and not feeling like, well, now I have to make good stuff because I'm being followed by people and then they get stressed out, then they blame us for quitting their jobs. Yeah, I'd have time to do this as another one. Mainly your fault, lady, or whatever it may be.
It's not our fault. Like you honestly do though. And I feel like people that listen to be like, you know what? I have started feeling that pressure.
It's been ramping up because you're like, well, people are actually down there. My code like they're following me. I feel like I have to, I feel like I have to produce. And now I have the stressor that I didn't have before and it's making it's freaking me out.
And so I think adding the ability for you to be like, hey, you can go invisible. Now if you go back to visible, everything that you have done, all the kudos you've given and all the downloads becomes visible to those people. So essentially when you're invisible, it just says like a ghost gives you kudos or a ghost downloaded your thing. But if you go back to visible, you can't just like troll it and be like, well, I'm gonna go to the sexy page and just download every single sexy code and no one's gonna know that I'm gonna go back to visible and then everybody, then they all know, you know.
So the truth will come out and so we built that in a way that's kind of like, it's, you know, it's this way or this way. Like do you wanna be visible? Or do you not? And we'll give you that option and if you wanna switch between them here, not necessarily consequences, but here's just how it's formatted to help deter people from abusing it.
That's awesome. And I feel like that's the most appropriate thing for you guys to do right now for the current users and it's natural to any other social media platform. I can make my Facebook invisible. Why not make my ghost go to count invisible as well?
Exactly. And I said the ghost jokes but the invisible part ties into it perfectly. Yeah, yeah, we definitely thought through that. Again, like every, there's so much fun.
I mean, Halloween's gonna be crazy. Like that's all I'm gonna say, you cannot imagine like we're already planning our Halloween party like right now. Everything's spooky. Come on now.
Haunted house is gonna be crazy. Oh, it better be, it better be. I better get invited or something like that. Oh yeah, no, it's gonna be, it's gonna be incredible.
So we're stoked about the future and kind of where we're going. And it's cool to see the outpouring of support and the people that are really just like, this is pretty neat, y'all. Like we're excited about this. And we're like, we haven't even gotten started yet.
And they're like, I don't know what that means. Cause I'm pretty happy with where it is right now. And I'm like, I'm glad you are. But wait.
But wait, there's more. But wait, there's more. But there's more. And I can, I've seen this happen with ghost codes and it's not happened with anger actually too, that as consumers, we're used to the social media platforms deploying and then hopping on them and working with them.
And that I've seen that the feedback on ghost codes and on anger has been very high compared to Facebook or Twitter cause it's not our first radio. They've kind of get the feedback already. And we know that the makers of it are actually going to listen to us. Yeah.
And that's, and that's essentially like, Mike over at Anchor, the co-founder of Anchor. He has become a friend of mine and it's been really cool because I'm like having conversations with them. And I feel like a star star like Mike just tweeted me back like my body hurt. I don't like Kristen sent me an email just now.
And it makes me feel really special, you know, cause I'm like, I just, Mike from Anchor, liked my way. You know, and I think it is breaking down those walls and it's ultimately creating the future of social media. And the future of social media is one where relationships with the brand are almost as integral as relationships with the community on the platform. And it very much feels like the iteration and the response and the connectedness and the relationships and the trust is not just built around the product works and it doesn't break.
It's also built around the community engages and the team behind the sync and product actually says what you said is worthwhile and viable. And we're going to make this because we trust you as a user because you know how to use the product and you know how to use Snapchat or you know how to use these other platforms. And so I think there's a lot more trust that goes into it between the users and the creators of the platforms. And it's an exciting journey to be on to see how the evolution of social is starting to change and morph and merge.
Oh yeah. And in my personal experience, I know recently I've snapped chatted Chris Saka a handful of times. Chris Saka's cool man. He's rad.
And he's one of those guys that I eventually want to interview and actually talk to and at least know on some level. But I messaged him on Snapchat saying L.A.'s awesome. I can't wait to move back there. And his response was just smart move.
And I'm like really brief, of course. And you know, maybe he gives me a thumbs up. He doesn't really tight much. It was the first time maybe he used 15 characters to respond to me.
Wow, he actually got a lot of time. But that was personal. That costs like $8 million this time. Right.
Well, he's flying in his jet from Los Angeles to a truckie or something like that. That's it, that's it. But that breaking down that barrier and going, I feel like I have a direct line to Chris Saka. I don't.
But it's personal. Exactly. And these new, like the new wave, like these new waves, no pun intended for anchor users. But the new approach, I can't even say waving marks.
I'm like, that's anchor coined it. Yeah. I can't use it. But the new generation of social platforms and the barriers being broken down, I mean, it's the same in the mid 2000s, the early 2000s, when blogs first appeared.
The same thing started happening. Now suddenly, a company could actually present a perspective on a blog. And it was not corporate speak. It was more personal.
It was more inviting. It was more involved. And when a brand loosens up and acts more authentic and connects in a relevant way, that immediately engages because it feels more person. And as these new social platforms start to connect to that same type of personality, really cool things happen.
And barriers are broken down. Relationships are derived out of the notion that the platform should give way to relationships. And that's really sinking cool. It's incredible to see.
And you have a personal connection to ex-influencer now. Or I feel like I'm more likely to go watch their snaps or their YouTube, whatever it may be, just because they said something to me, or they contributed something to me. So speaking of some of the stuff, I want to sort of move to a different topic. I know you have a lot of experience in social media marketing.
And to start off, I would like to maybe collect some tips for our audience about social media marketing. But to begin this topic, what are your thoughts on social media and a product having certain constraints, such as the 10 seconds on Snapchat, the X number of characters on Twitter, yada, yada, yada. How does that create quality content in the long run? So limitations create creativity.
Limitations build creativity. And the reason why is because you have a box to play with, and you have a predefined sandbox, and it's up to you to make something work in that space. And so for me, limitations actually derive and compel me to make something powerful. And it actually helps me realize that I can fill the time slot.
Like with YouTube, it's like 10 minutes or even longer. Like there's no way I could create something in 10 minutes, or up to 10 minutes that truly would captivate. It feels so daunting and so difficult to achieve that I'm not going to do it. And so sort of the advent of these micro-content platforms that allow people to create content in ways that doesn't scare them off.
So essentially, Vine is a micro-video platform to YouTube, right? So it's six and a half seconds to 10 plus minutes. Anchor is a micro-podcasting platform to podcasting. So anchor's up to two minutes of the one minute reply and podcasting as long as it needs to be.
Twitter is the micro-blog to medium or to blogger. And so you've got the emergence of these platforms that are helping people become more creative by imposing barriers and restrictions. And those are actually very helpful to people because it basically says you've only got 140 characters. You can probably write 140 characters.
And so if you can get yourself to the point where you say, I can probably write 140 characters, then you can go, can I write it well? Can I elevate it in some way? And so it gives you the ability to say, like it breaks the barrier down. I can actually maybe make something here because there are limitations and because it doesn't have to be a feature film.
And so that's essentially why I think it does inspire people to create. I love that. And I think the production value that goes into some of these vines that I've seen, they're taking a lot of time to create that. Hours and hours and hours and hours, unbelievable.
Exactly. So I think on vine is extremely difficult to master. And it's a lot of fun. And it's very tedious.
And my back's alerts from just bending over and tapping on the screen a thousand times. Yeah, you've been doing it as well. So with that, could you maybe walk us through your creative process that you use to, let's say, release content on vine or Snapchat, whatever it may be? So I try to understand where a brand is coming from and then completely ignore that.
Because typically a brand is thinking about is not necessarily thinking about the value to the user. They're thinking about the way a product can engage and how they can sell a product. And so what I typically try to do is take the kernel of a story, the kernel of a desire and then elevate it to something that would be either humorous or emotional or creating the connective tissue that isn't just a blatant advertisement. It's got to be something that catches people's attention, something that distracts them, something that takes them away from their finger swiping up through a feed.
And so essentially, I start with the premise of how can I make something relevant to someone? How can I catch their attention or draw their attention to what I'm making? And then how can I loop in the individual who's watching this content, how can I make them care about the product or service that I'm presenting? And one of the things that I think is interesting, when I speak to a lot of my friends who are in influencer space as well, they have the same thoughts about this.
And that is that the brands that really get marketing or get the internet or get how to connect with people are not trying to sell products. They're trying to connect with people through their values. And values are far more buyer-friendly than necessarily focusing on a product. Like, you should buy this perfume.
That's not something that I'm going, if a brand says, the end goal here is to make people want to buy this perfume. I usually ask the brand, OK, what do you believe in? Like, what do you stand for? And they're like, well, I mean, we believe that luxury should be affordable.
I'm like, OK, well, that's a value. Now I can take that value of luxury should be affordable with a perception of luxury should be affordable. So how can I take that value and relate it back to a product or service that you have that can actually perpetuate the notion of somebody having the intent to purchase your products? So I try to take them out of the notion that everything needs to be sales focused and move them over to let's actually tell a compelling story.
Let's give people reasons to connect, reasons to engage, reasons to communicate with you. And then we'll build something special in that space. That's quality advice right there. And anybody who's listening, a saying that I've heard numerous times is that value cell not features.
Absolutely. Absolutely the value of the product, absolutely the value of the brand is sales. And if we're talking to brands right now, like what a brand should do is not care about the amount of reach that an influencer has. Because that doesn't necessitate quality.