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

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Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins.

You're listening to Habits and Hustle.

Grush it.

All right, today on Habits and Hustle, we have two young guys.

One of them is Harry Gessetner, and the other one is Simon Pompan,

who were basically, not basically, who are kids, who after only a few days out of high school decided to start a company called Fan Fix

and have gone on to sell it for tens of millions of dollars.

And the kids are barely 21, 22 years old, which I thought is, for me, why I wanted to have them on the podcast, was their story and what they did and how they did it is nothing if not hustle and entrepreneurship at its finest at such a young age.

See?

You could be any age.

It doesn't matter.

What I love about this is FanFix is basically a clean only fans.

It's a content platform where content creators create content on this platform and monetize it.

And it's kind of like a Patreon as well.

And like I said, they have now thousands upon thousands of the top influencers, content creators on their platform.

And they're just like killing it.

And like I said, they sold the platform to a beauty company for tens of millions of dollars at the ripe old age of 21.

So let's hear their story.

And those of you who are thinking that you're too young or too old, age is just a number.

Enjoy.

This is an extra special podcast today because I have the youngest ever entrepreneurs I've had on the show before.

And

also, near and dear to my heart,

one of them is the oldest child of my dearest friend.

So it's Harry Gestetner and Simon.

Simon, what is your last name?

Pompan.

Pompan.

Simon Pompan.

Simon Pompan.

Who I just found out is like his mom is like a huge Hollywood baller.

I had no idea, but I just learned something new today.

And these guys, I have to say,

they started a company two years ago, but really launched it 10 months ago called Fan Fix and already sold it for tens of millions of dollars in like 10 months.

It is unbelievable.

It's a great story.

I am so thrilled to have you guys on the podcast.

And I'm so happy for you, Harry.

Thank you very much.

We're thrilled to be here.

Thanks for having us.

Absolutely.

Very esteemed background.

Absolutely.

Well, listen.

Listen,

I want to say I am just,

your mother's thrilled that you're here.

I've gotten a bunch of like messages from her.

Yeah, this is a big deal.

Now, you are okay, so you're 22, but you just turned 22.

Yeah, correct, yeah, yeah, uh, about a month ago, yeah.

I was 21 when we sold the company, right?

21 when you sold the company.

And how old are you, Simon?

I just turned 23, so I'm the one who looks after this one.

Yeah, you babysit him, yeah, okay.

Uh, did you, you guys went to high school together, right?

I did, yeah.

So, we uh, we both went to Harbor West Lake together.

Harry moved from London, and we have been uh good friends ever since.

Um, And yeah.

Well, it's interesting because you've been here, your family's been in the US for what, six years?

Seven years.

Seven years now.

Yep.

Yep.

What a good move this has been for you, huh?

I know.

It's been very fortunate.

Yeah, it's funny.

It feels like a lot shorter, but it also feels like forever.

Well, you know, it's funny because you've moved in a really weird time for kids, right?

Or for teenagers, right?

Like, that's the hardest time to move.

Yeah.

From what you know, right?

Yeah, I think, I mean, I was very lucky because I was 15, so so and sophomore year of high school and I think that's the perfect age because I was old enough to wear I was old enough to wear I feel properly English You know, I had a solid properly English properly English

accent.

Yeah, got the accent, you know got solid friends and back in the UK but also you know had a good amount of time to make friends.

I think if you have less than three years at high school it's kind of tough to make friends.

So I just the perfect amount to make great friends there and also have good background in the UK.

Right.

So then you guys met the first year, I guess, the first year that you were here, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Simon was cheating off me in my math class.

Is that what happened?

No, no, no, no.

Don't expose me.

Don't expose me.

He would never cheat off me.

He's too smart enough.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Do you have good grades?

I don't even know.

Really?

What kind of marks did you have?

Like, we call it marksing.

I'm Canadians.

We call it marks.

I mean, personally, I was a very, very average student.

Average to below average.

So, what was your like average average mark?

I mean, my first semester in the US, I had a 2-3 GPA.

Yeah, Harry, Harry struggled with history class.

Yeah, the US history class is actually tough.

Of course.

Yeah, but my dean, I did pick it up a lot from 2-3, thankfully.

But my dean sat me down with my parents first semester and said

it's not where he's going to college, it's if he's going to college.

And my parents went crazy and made sure I knew that I had to turn it around.

Get out.

So I did.

Yeah.

Well, this goes to show you, by the way, I'm a big, I talk about this a lot, like all the time that, you know, being academically smart is just one type of smart.

It's way more, I personally think it's way more important to have street smart and emotional intelligence and have being bold is my big message, right?

And going after things, you know, I mean, and asking for what you want.

Schools, like a lot of times I meet people who are just academic geniuses and total dolts in real life and like don't make anything of themselves right and then you meet people who drop out and at 14 and they're you know living like the high life right so it's good to have it's good to have both I don't want to say I mean I'm saying it's good to have both but doesn't necessarily doesn't make doesn't mean that you're if you're if you're a bad student obviously that it's gonna like it's gonna basically tell you your future

yeah a lot of the times you know six a lot of successful entrepreneurs weren't successful students growing up.

A lot of times.

And

the translation really isn't there from, you know, getting good grades in high school to,

you know, being a world-class problem solver and

being a successful entrepreneur.

Absolutely not.

Wait,

what kind of grades did you have?

A plus?

I was a little bit higher than Harry.

Well, he dropped down, so it doesn't count.

Oh, you did.

Wait, so wait, what kind of grades did you have?

So in high school, I was

like 3, 3, 5.

Okay.

And we should say, Harvard West, like where they went to school, is very difficult for people who don't live.

Like, it's a private school.

Um, and they, it's known to be like the curriculum and the work workloads like higher than probably 99% of the schools, right?

And by the way, we had an amazing time there.

Oh, I'm sure.

Awesome friends.

Obviously, we met.

Fanfix wouldn't have happened if we hadn't met.

Well, that's 100%.

We're going to get all to the fanfics, but I want to know about.

So, wait, so tell me, just finish about your school then.

Yeah, so I was an athlete in high school.

I played basketball and lacrosse at Harvard West Lake.

So I was on a little bit of a different track than Harry.

You know, at Harvard West Lake, they treat sports like jobs, I would say, a lot of the times, especially with basketball, baseball,

you know, their core sports.

So I do.

have a state championship at Harvard West Lake and

very competitive basketball there.

But struggling, you know, it's always a struggle to balance sports, school, especially at Harbor West Lake, and making friends and being social.

But I was able to figure it out along the way.

Right.

So then,

did you guys become fast friends, though, when you moved here?

Yeah, pretty quickly.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

And so, by the way, were you always, did you always have like an entrepreneurial spirit?

Yeah, my first business, I was 11.

It was a company called Legionary Clothing.

What's it called?

Legionary Clothing.

Not is called, was called, definitely not around anymore.

Okay.

But it was a clothing company.

And I remember I had a,

I was dealing with this,

this, I can't remember, Holstein or whatever it was, over email.

And then I got on the phone after, you know, months of talking over email, and they heard my like pre-pubescent

11-year-old boy voice.

You were literally 11?

I was a kid.

Wow.

That was that.

But yeah, I had like like probably 10 businesses now.

What did you do for the business?

What happened?

You would have finished what you were going to say.

I mean, that one failed.

Not last year.

At 11, really?

Yeah.

But what was the premise of the business?

I mean, it was just a clothing brand.

But then I had a few others.

I had

a storage facility.

company but the storage facility was my get my parents garage um but that didn't work because i wasn't on my own schedule.

So when the company wanted, we had this local scuba shop we were talking to, and if they wanted their stuff over Christmas and I was on holiday with my parents, I couldn't deliver it.

Yeah, that'd be a problem.

Yeah, so that also failed.

But yeah, that had kind of a ton.

So you always had these ideas and then you tried to kind of execute.

Because

your parents are entrepreneurial.

Your dad's like super entrepreneurial.

Did he help you with these ideas back then?

Yeah.

A ton.

Definitely, definitely.

They're very supportive.

Yeah.

always always so then were you also signed that way or uh i was always interested in entrepreneurship i was very busy with um athletics growing up right so it wasn't kind of took a bat that wasn't like your thing right

yeah so so i i got really pulled into entrepreneurship i would say in high school so um harvard westlake had multiple classes centered around entrepreneurship brainstorming ideas walking you through um you know setting up a proper business plan uh go-to-market strategy and we would always have um you know entrepreneurs a lot of the times alumni from our high school uh come in and speak to the class so who are the biggest ones you guys remember having i mean the biggest the biggest that we that i dealt with um

was uh it was not actually in a in a great way it was i was trying to start a fund um

uh for the school my thesis was if you look at the harvard west sick alumni you know they significantly outperform

kind of any other data sets.

And these are people like Spencer Raskoff, who founded Hotwire and then went on to find Zillow

and now Picasso.

And there's a, you know, a multitude of different alumni that we could point to.

Yeah, I want to hear who they are.

I mean, founder of Clutter.

Brandon Beck, League of Legends,

tons of.

Wow.

Okay.

But then, so try to start a fund.

And then

uh i partnered with actually one of who's one of our kind of closest advisors and investors ari engelberg who's the founder of stamps.com who was also a teacher at our school um amazing guy and then we're trying to start and then it went to the hold on hold on you try to start a fund yeah this was like wait when like high school user using the high school endowment

using the huge okay high school endowment okay okay okay um for you know to back kind of students or alumni uh to go and start businesses and I mean, it would have, you know, they would have had fanfics, which would have been good for them, as well as a ton of other businesses.

But it got to the board of trustees and got shut down actually by Charlie Munger, who's Warren Buffett's business partner.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

So that was unfortunate.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

That's a good story.

Yeah, yeah.

So

then what happened?

Because that never happened.

Nothing?

Or did something else come from it?

From starting, trying to start it at least.

I had another business I started actually, actually,

which was kind of connecting

students, as in college student businesses with investors.

We helped one company pitch at South by Southwest, but apart from that, kind of didn't have a huge amount of success.

But

yeah, that was that was kind of.

So you were trying to connect call like

funds with ideas from call like from from yeah from so college students uh there's a massive you know ton of massive businesses were founded by students absolutely if usc has a program like that it's great yeah there are a lot of student funds that have popped up um you know where students actually serve as the investors um and network at their college campuses and i think there's a big trend um yeah with these larger vcs to try to attract more college students totally because that's smart though there's like so many great innovative ideas and disruptors yeah because in a different like it's a different mindset right when you're young you see things completely different you have different ideas like even with fanfics

you know it's like

the technology of what it is like it's not it's gonna be started I would think by someone of your age group right yeah like you're not gonna have some like me like think of that right so I find like it would be a smart move for those companies to do that right yeah so then walk So basically then like walk us through like how this happens.

So here you guys, you got your friends, you're like doing mostly sports, not really paying attention.

You start all these little businesses at 11 and 12 and you know storage units and clothing companies and you try to do this thing where Charles, Charlie, what is he known by?

Charlie?

Charlie Munga.

Charlie Munger.

Yeah.

Says, you know, no.

So how did this evolve into what you have now, which is, you know, now sold to who do I sell it to, by the way?

Superordinary.

Super ordinary.

By the way, so super ordinary, well, you tell us, like, who are they?

And it's an interesting, it's an

interesting exit, too, right?

Because it's not by someone that you would normally think of to buy a technology or would you guys say like a tech company?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, it's a beauty company, unusual.

Yeah, the whole thing is very unusual.

So, start from the beginning.

How did this whole thing come to be?

So, the idea first.

We'll even get into

how we got to starting FanFix.

And before that, we

started a charity called Feel Our Heroes.

Okay.

So, as soon as college campuses closed for COVID and all the students were sent home,

we were at home looking for things to do.

And we saw.

Where did you go to college, Bob?

I went to Vanderbilt.

You went to Vanderbilt?

I went to Vanderbilt.

I ended up dropping out.

So I still have one year left.

No.

Yes.

Stopped.

Yes.

Still got, I think, six credits left.

So going to try to finish that up at some point.

Harry.

found a way to graduate.

Barely, no, I'm just saying.

While I was handling the company.

Yeah.

Exactly.

So, you went to Tulane?

I went to Tulane, yeah, yeah, graduate.

I know, I was just telling you what else.

Okay, so go on.

So, you're like now a Vanderbilt.

Did you come?

So, you came home?

So, we came home, schools got shut down,

classes were canceled, we didn't know what to do.

And we saw all of these college students who wanted to get involved in the fight against COVID, raising money for healthcare heroes.

So, Harry and I, with two of our friends from high school, started a charity called Feel Our Heroes, where we partnered with over 18 hospital networks nationwide and in Canada.

And we mobilized local community organizations, whether that's college students raising money on their college campuses or high schoolers raising from their friends and family.

And we were able to raise over just around $500,000 from five $10 donations from college students.

So we had 140 student volunteers and were really in the non-profit space

throughout COVID and went on to advise the I'm a voter campaign, youth voting rights, and really became the experts in engaging Gen Z audiences.

U.S.

Congressman, advising congressmen, U.S.

Congressmen as well.

Whose idea was that?

Well, that was all collective.

But we, I mean, but one person usually is like, kind of like, is the catalyst for that, right?

Yeah, I mean, yes, yeah, definitely.

But we kind of like to, you know.

Yeah, we were for that,

that was a collective effort of all of us kind of sitting around wanting to do something about it.

I mean, we got back, you know, it was March 2020, sophomore year of college, it's your absolute, you know, prime,

prime, prime time, and then, you know, bam, COVID hits.

You go from highest high to lowest low.

And it was, I mean, pretty miserable for us, but we were some of the luckiest people in the world.

There were, you know, healthcare workers who were working 24-7 and then having to come home and sleep in their garages because they didn't want to go inside and infect their families.

And there were nurses having to make their own PPE out of bed sheets.

And it was really horrendous.

So we thought we're just sitting here doing nothing.

We've got to do something.

And all these college students, they got time on their hands.

And

they also, so they can volunteer and they also

want to donate money.

But I think

one of the coolest things that that showed us is the power of social media.

So

all these

half million bucks

is amazing, but it'd be a lot less cool if it was a 500K donation from one old rich guy.

It's a lot cooler that it's $50, $10 donations from college students.

That was all

through social media.

So we came up with these viral marketing challenges.

We had one called the See a Memory, Send a Memory Challenge, where we thought, okay, so kids are home from college now.

You know, we can get them to do maybe one post to Fuel Our Heroes, to, you know, to get a donation just from asking them, but they're not going to be too happy doing that.

And they're not going to post it again and again and again.

So what can we get them to repeatedly post?

So, you know, we figured everyone misses their...

their colleges.

Everyone, you know, is terrified at these weird times where they're in their bedroom alone and wishes they were out with their friends.

So we did this challenge challenge called See a Memory, Send a Memory.

So you poster and tag five friends, donate $5.

So you, you know,

kind of post a throwback, a memory of your time at college.

And you,

you know, tag five friends to challenge them to do the same and they donate five dollars to Tier La Heroes.

And that went completely viral.

And, you know, it did?

Yeah.

It was amazing.

That's amazing.

So then what happened?

So then, I mean, you know, the charity grew, went pretty crazy.

And then eventually that wound down.

And we wanted to

find something to do.

And then around the same time, kind of end of 2020, my cousin had a TikTok video go completely viral, blew up on TikTok.

You know, he got tens of millions of views, woke up with tons of followers.

and couldn't make a single penny and we were pretty shocked.

What kind of video was it?

It was all

Walking on Water.

It was like a magic trick.

And then he did a couple of kind of magic tricks following that.

And how many views did it get?

I think he got, I think, tens of millions.

It's funny because we always used to joke, like every

pitch we tell the story in, the number goes up, like another 3 million views.

So I can't remember what the real number was.

Right.

Like hundreds of millions.

It ended up for like 3 billion.

Yeah, exactly.

10 billion views.

Right.

3 billion impressions.

I think it was like, I think think he, I want to say 20 million views.

Wow.

So it's a lot.

A lot.

Didn't make a single penny, though.

And that shocked us.

This is before the creator, the TikTok creator fund, but you know, nevertheless, the creative fund pays out two and a half cents per thousand.

It pays out nothing.

Right.

So we thought, you know, there must.

And meanwhile, we've seen something.

Was we, you guys together thinking like how we're going to like Harry and I.

Yeah.

So

we were actually sitting around the fire at Harry's house

one night about two years ago, right?

18 months ago, sitting around a fire and we saw

the rise of Patreon

and what they were doing with membership communities, with creators.

And we saw that

there are a lot of Gen Z creators out there that want to build a recurring revenue stream and want some stability in their life, as well as building a membership community where they can engage with all their fans and really monetize their following in a new way without requiring much time out of their day.

And there weren't really many options out there for Gen Z creators.

On one hand, you have Patreon, which

is desktop first, targets

an older demographic, then

our parents.

Our parents.

I didn't want to say that.

Give me the age bracket.

It's more,

we see Patreon as akin to Facebook.

You know, it's a platform that our parents would use.

It's very difficult as a platform.

I don't use Facebook quite a bit.

Yeah, no, no, of course.

But it's very difficult as a platform to win with every generation and every demographic.

So, I mean, there's a reason why, you know, my generation's on TikTok and my parents' generation's on Facebook.

Why is that?

I mean, you know, we don't want to be on Facebook because our parents are there.

Right.

So the second you see your parents on there, you flee and go somewhere else.

Exactly.

Yeah, it's like Harry doesn't invite his parents to all the parties he throws.

Yeah, no, no.

Always, they get the invite.

But yeah, so we'd seen, so my cousin blew up.

How old's your cousin, by the way?

He is 20.

And he blew up.

And, you know, around the same time, we saw a statistic that 75% of Gen Z wants to be a creator when they grow up.

Not doctors or lawyers.

Creators,

content creators.

And we were absolutely shocked.

So we thought, hold on a second.

So

the majority of our generation wants to be a creator, but even if they achieve the pinnacle of being a creator, which is what my cousin had, getting tens of millions of views, they're still not going to make a single penny.

Something's off there.

So, that's kind of what led us to get into space and see a gap in the market for fanfics.

So, wait, so I got so much to ask about that.

Okay, so I'm still on the fact that so if people now old people, by the way, are on TikTok, like me.

yeah um but people like even much older than me so but they're still young young people on there are they all migrating off there now like slowly but surely

tick tock yeah no

tick tock is really the

you know the ideal discovery platform yeah i feel like it's become a search engine like it is and if you look at gen z where they're actually searching online it's on tick tock it's not on google it's not on i saw a whole thing on this today uh you know when people search for products or product reviews, whatever it is, they're going on TikTok to make those searches.

They're going on

Instagram to find those accounts.

They're not opening up Google and searching for these products.

So what's the difference between

Instagram and TikTok now?

Do you find there's a different audience?

Is TikTok still a little bit younger skewed or is it much more of a search engine?

Yeah, I mean, TikTok's much younger skewed.

And, you know, TikTok's also

the

cool platform now.

There were numbers that came out.

Instagram's trying to copy that with their reels,

but the numbers.

Yeah,

numbers came out.

It's failing.

When did that come out?

I think a couple of weeks ago,

the majority of reels get no views and no likes and comments.

There's very little engagement on reels.

And I can't remember the exact statistic.

I want to say over a third of reels are just reposted from TikTok.

So that's a, you know, if you're Instagram, you're seriously concerned about that.

And then you look at what YouTube just announced today with YouTube Shorts, where they're actually splitting ad revenue with the creators.

So they're going to give, I believe it's 45% of ad revenue to the shorts creators, which is a big step for,

you know, short form content on YouTube.

Totally.

That's amazing.

I mean, that's interesting.

I do feel like people are relying their business on.

on social media, on like an like us like an Instagram, and that's like a borrowed platform, right?

any minute you can be banned look like so many people it's very terrifying like you can be banned in a second for if you don't agree or say something that's out of out of line

and tick tock and YouTube by the way all of them and YouTube and we've actually even seen

what's very interesting is we have seen a few startups pop up uh who are offering insurance to creators uh in case their really their tick tocks get banned and they're they lose that revenue stream or their Instagram get gets banned so there are solutions out there where you actually will, you know, buy insurance for your social platform.

That's so interesting.

So,

so

before we get more, and I am, this is very curious to me.

So, like, why TikTok then?

Because what, to your point, it's true.

Once people, like on Facebook, once your parents show up, you leave, right?

That's why Instagram happened.

That's when people then left TikTok.

Why aren't people leaving TikTok to a different platform that's

happening?

That's

that will happen.

That will happen.

That will happen.

It hasn't evolved to that.

Yeah, the cycle hasn't made it there yet.

But there's also

Triller and all those other ones, but they're failing, right?

Yeah, Triller has some issues right now in terms of lawsuits and creators not getting paid.

But what's very interesting with, I think, not just Gen Z creators, but you're saying everyone's on TikTok now.

Right.

Is the power of that algorithm.

So,

you know, what we see amongst Gen Z creators and all different types of creators like yourself is they're using TikTok as that discovery platform to really grow their audience

and reach new audiences.

And then from there, it's how you convert your TikTok following across all your social channels.

So how do you convert your TikTok onto Instagram?

How do you get your community to follow you onto YouTube converting on long-form content or onto Spotify converting on a podcast into Discord communities?

So we're seeing.

Explain that because I've just been hearing a lot about that.

Can you tell us what Discord is?

Yeah, so Discord Discord is essentially

a platform that allows people to build

group chats and

be able to,

I guess, tier those group chats so it can handle much larger communities.

So I guess think of Discord as

Slack, if you're familiar with Slack,

but instead of for businesses, it's

for gamers or for

NFT communities or friend groups.

But what we're actually seeing with a lot of these platforms that were created for that inner circle, your close friends and family, which is Discord, even Snapchat, when you could just take a photo and send it to one or two people,

they are leaning completely into discovery now.

They're kind of following TikTok's path of.

What's discovery?

What is that?

you know the algorithm being able to grow your audience

finding finding people reaching new audiences

what's so cool you know what's incredible about tick tock and what's so cool about tick tock they have completely democratized celebrities so you can you know in in in the 90s who are the celebrities the celebrities are you know the the very few movie stars who got picked by the massive studios and then got represented by the massive agents and you know went through this whole process of you know these old men in suits who kind of organized this person getting a massive deal to to get the massive reach reach and now they're famous.

TikTok, you had people like my cousin who download an app in their bedroom in the middle of Iowa or wherever you are.

You post a video on your phone and you wake up and you got more reach than

Timothy Chalamet or whoever the biggest movie star is.

It's amazing actually.

And the algorithm.

Well, but wasn't that also the case with Instagram?

Isn't it the case with Instagram?

With democracy.

I feel what's happened, though, is

to grow on on Instagram has become incredibly difficult.

Very difficult.

And you're almost impossible.

And you're also only reaching

every time you post, you're only reaching a small percentage of your audience.

So small.

You know, that my close, close friends who I'm very close with, they tell me that they never see my stories.

Yeah, it never comes up.

My posts never come up.

My reels never come up.

So, like, the audience is like so small.

And I feel like with TikTok, I started TikTok maybe, what,

five months ago, maybe?

Yeah, I had a few of my own videos got to a million, which was shocking.

And I grew much faster.

And then, whenever I post, like I have two, I have two.

I have a habits and hustle one, and I also have my Jennifer one.

And I've had like a bunch of videos, like not a like, you know what I mean, within reason, like maybe 10 that's hit over a million.

Never would happen on

Instagram.

Never.

So that, that, that's why everyone's going to TikTok right now, whether you're a brand,

brands are, I mean, that's how brands are breaking in.

Brands are like breaking it.

Like if you're big on an Instagram, you're going to like, that's how BLK, you know, they broke, they broke on TikTok.

A girl that saw their videos was a buyer for Walmart.

And, you know, that's how they got into Walmart.

Amazing.

But beyond that, they're like a cool, they're known to be like a super cool brand because all these young influencers are like drinking the black water and da-da-da-da.

And it's become like a thing.

And I feel like you don't have that cachet on Instagram or Facebook at all.

And look at like even the music industry.

Yeah, absolutely.

Where are the record labels spending money right now?

They're spending money on TikTok for their artists to get

for creators to use their artists' music to make TikToks.

Music promotions are a massive thing in the management world, agency world, label world, and those all take place on TikTok.

Yeah, what's so crazy about TikTok as well is, you know,

like i'm 22 so i'm on that kind of upper cusp of gen z where i'm you know young enough that i'm an insider but also old enough to where um

i you know kind of an outsider as well you're hardly an outsider

what's the starting point for like that eight to 24 is the age range oh eight to 24 i'm really right at the cusp you are you're like you're basically you're basically like a dinosaur like me so join me on facebook

he doesn't remember the 90s like i do you don't remember the 90s.

Oh, my God.

I wasn't born.

You're a baby.

Yeah, you're not even a 90s person, of course.

But like, so then, so Patreon comes, and that's how I want to, like, so Patreon then is a

paid subscription model where people then were like, where

creators or someone of influence or whatever, they can give private content or like

yeah.

So

the two big platforms in you know in the direct monetization space were Patreon and OnlyFans, OnlyFans being much bigger.

And it was pretty clear, Patreon, it's a fan membership platform where you post paywalled content, same as fanfics, but it's for a much older demographic.

It's, you know, as we said, like

a platform where parents would use.

It's akin to Facebook, more YouTube first.

It's also

more of a crowdfund for struggling artists, you know, being a patron, donating to support that creator.

That's how I view it.

Yeah, and it was created by Jack Conte, who built the platform essentially around himself.

And how much do they charge?

They charge eight to kind of 5% to 12.5%.

But

the creators choose

to be your own price.

I know we say your parents' age, but like...

I mean, there are a lot of young people.

What is the age range for Patreon?

Like, really?

I think kind of it's seen as kind of 30s to 50s to 50s okay then you know on the other hand you are only fans which only fans are porn site it is it's like basically it is a porn

you can say whatever you'd like it is

it's a porn site soft porn maybe do they have any restrictions I mean I thought for a while there they restricted so

yeah they did for like a five minute

class they they they they tried to move out of that that category uh and more into the Patreon and and our

world uh of brand friendly content But they got a lot of backlash from

women communities, from the creators on their platform who were monetizing

through pornographic content.

So OnlyFans allows

porn on their platform.

Like full-on porn.

And then Patreon allows nudity on their platform.

They do?

Yes, they do.

You could create your page to be 18 plus on Patreon and you could post nude content and all different types of nudity, but

you can't go that as far as on OnlyFans.

So fanfix is strictly family friendly, 13 plus, you know, the most PG

exclusive pl content platform.

So fanfix is family friendly.

Yes.

13 plus you said?

Yeah.

And what was the other thing?

The most family fr uh the the most PG

exclusive content platform, you know, on the internet.

Um and uh and we're tick-tock first, mobile first, and built by and for Gen Z, essentially.

So, is it kind of also?

I, it seems very, we didn't talk about cameo.

Isn't it similar to Cameo?

No, uh, not really.

So, Cameo

is more,

you know, I'm gonna buy a birthday video

for my wife, and

you know,

find that B-list or C-list actor on Cameo to create a birthday video for my wife.

And then that's pretty much it.

And the payment frequency on Cameo is very, very low.

So people buy maybe one Cameo a year.

If that.

If that.

And Cameo has tested other products like fan clubs or they have like an NFT they launched called the Cameo Pass.

But really, Cameo isn't one of our competitors.

No, no, no.

But I thought the same type of idea.

Same type of idea.

you can spend money direct monetization, direct monetization, direct monetization, yeah, absolutely, same space, yeah, direct monetizing.

Yeah, at the beginning, I thought they were doing really well.

I don't know how they are, the numbers now, but I think not so hot recently.

They, you know, had some big layoffs, but um, yeah, you know, I think the pay it's it's a tough business with very low uh payment frequency.

You do, you know, as Simon said, you do one purchase for you know, your friend's birthday for a couple of hundred bucks, and then you kind of don't go back.

Yeah,

fan fixes, you know, our fans are, you know, back there every day supporting their favorite creators, constantly messaging, you know, paying to message their favorite creators, doing obviously monthly subscriptions.

But I mean, Cameo is awesome.

We like we support any business that supports creators.

So a lot of the creators on our platform also use Cameo.

But it's not, it hasn't become their main revenue stream.

So with FanFix, with the creators we work with, we often become their main source of revenue.

Wow, really?

And this is recurring revenue.

So once a subscription is made,

you know, and creators grow their subscriber base, they then renew those subscriptions the following month and continue to grow their subscriber base.

So, really, what we want FanFix to be is a hub for creator monetization.

And we always like to think about how we can allow creators to earn as passively as possible because we understand they have busy lives, they're always creating content,

traveling, working, whatever it may be.

And we want to create passive income streams for them.

So

I guess my question would be:

so basically, it's very similar to a Patreon, but it caters to a younger audience.

And then, how about in terms of the money?

Like, how much do people, like, what's what's your price?

Like, what do you, what's your cut that you give to people versus like, I'm just using Patreon because it's another example of another direct monetization.

Could we just keep net of fanfix fee, fanfic, fanfix fees and

payment processing fees.

Creators keep 80%.

And they charge, they set their own subscription price.

We don't cap it.

They charge whatever they want.

And they also consider price for fans to message them.

So we

see prices as low as $5

a subscription a month or three bucks a message all the way up to 50 bucks a month for subscription and 500 bucks a message.

So there's really a big variety.

And, but we, the one thing that we couldn't anticipate going into this, and that a lot of investors and people disagree with us on, is how willing people, especially Gen Z, you know, was to support their favorite creators and to support them financially.

We were completely shocked.

Yeah, and also to pay for content.

So that's that's something we got pushed back on when we first started.

We have seen a large shift into

now, where Gen Z spends a ton of money on Twitch live streams, for example, or Fortnite skins, for example.

Yeah, that's big.

You know, you see

a lot of these high schoolers or elementary school students taking their parents' credit card and spending thousands of dollars on FIFA Ultimate Team or Madden Mobile or

Fortnite skins, as I mentioned.

And what we saw with Twitch was something that really surprised us.

So, you know, we haven't talked about Twitch at all or Snapchat.

I thought Snapchat also is another one that's emerging as big again.

Snapchat,

Snapchat and Twitch have emerged

over the last,

well, they've been big for quite some time, but over the last few months, they've really picked up with Gen Z creators.

Why?

Partially, Snapchat has offered new monetization features for creators to earn consistent revenue with uploading a ton of Snapchat stories and then them embedding ads into those Snapchat stories and doing a rev share with the creators

who are creating that content.

But with Twitch, what's very exciting for us is how much

these Twitch streamers are earning off tips alone.

Their fans are tipping them when they're playing

video games and streaming that or just streaming in their bedroom.

And there's no added benefit to tipping.

You see, thousands of dollars of tips going to creators through live streams, but if Harry tips $1,000 and I tip $0,

we have access to the same content.

So there's really no added benefit there.

So that's where fanfics could come in.

Really being a part of that creator's community, being able to engage with

the creator directly, and also being able to support that creator.

So why did you think initially that charging would be a problem if Patreon was doing it and

people were already doing it.

So why did you think that you would have an issue?

The answer is we didn't.

This was really investors and people who might not have understood Gen Z as well as they thought they did.

Right.

Because why your investors were older than that?

But

it's definitely a valid concern in that.

you know, TikTok is obviously completely free.

Instagram is completely free.

YouTube's completely free.

And it's

endless content at your fingertips for these Gen Z fans.

But our theory was with

content becoming just completely endless yeah you know exclusive content and kind of behind the scenes stuff is all the more valuable and so our theory was that they they would pay for content

but you know a lot of investors and and people disagree with us and said you know why the hell would you pay when you can go and see stuff for free but um you know we've definitely definitely seen we've been very very surprised we knew it was going to happen and and people were willing but we were shocked at just how willing they were.

I wonder if it's because it's like people are wanting to be voyeurs, right?

They want to know what's happening behind this, even though it's still content that people make, but it's like

the fear of missing out, right?

Like, what am I missing?

So you'll pay the extra like five, ten, twenty dollars a month.

All right, the time has almost come.

My book, Bigger, Better, Bolder, is hitting the shelves, launching, debuting on December the 27th.

And I am so excited.

I'm thrilled that I get to share this this book with you guys.

It took me two years to write it and it really is a culmination of all the different tactics and traits that I used to build my life that I've used on tons of clients from the last 20 years from athletes to entrepreneurs and it's it's all about building your bold, you know, making boldness a skill that you can learn to really get what you want, chase what you want, and not just take what you can get.

My entire philosophy is about living the life you want and not the life you get.

And really, it's really about taking actionable steps that anybody can do and anybody can learn.

Unfortunately, a lot of us get stuck in the self-doubt syndrome, right?

And the fear of failure, which then holds us back from going after things or asking for things that really is much more aligned with who we are and the life we want to live.

So that's why I'm so thrilled that I have this book now to share with people about helping people, teaching people how they can make these bold moves and become bolder and asking for what they want and finding the courage within them to live the life they want.

Like I said, I'm so excited.

It's on pre-order right now.

You can pre-order it anywhere: Amazon, Barnes Noble, Target, and really start living true to who you are.

And I can't wait to see your response once you get it.

Thanks.

Whose idea was it?

Be honest.

Again, we come up with things together.

Yeah, Harry and I were

sitting around a fire, as I mentioned.

And then another fire?

Same fire, actually.

Same fire?

In Harry's backyard.

And that's really our incubator.

It's been a great incubator.

Having a couple of drinks.

And I'm not going to say who said it first.

Who brought it up first?

You have to.

Well, I don't know.

I mean, for people watching, I know we crack the same joke at the same time outside.

So

we think the same.

We do think the same, but who went?

I have something to say.

I have an idea first.

Who said that?

I think it's not like a light bulb went off and an idea happened.

The conversation,

I think, all these contributing factors.

Make it put this for, hold before you start to try to wiggle yourself out of this question,

be very good politicians, yeah.

Think about yes, right, or or not so great

on Facebook, right?

Like, it wasn't Mark Zuckerberg who had the actual idea, it was those other people, you don't even know their names, those two twins, yeah, but it was Mark that actually like executed and made it what it was.

So, it doesn't really matter who the idea ideas are cheap, the ideas are super cheap, it's like 99% is execution or perspiration, inspiration is one.

So I'm not going to hold you to like, oh, that means this.

I'm just curious.

So whose idea was it?

Just say one or one or the other.

You didn't say at the same time.

So I'll give Simon full credit as a gentleman.

But I think, but I, I mean, so let's expand on that.

So

Harry, we were at Harry's house.

Harry, we were talking about the recent news in the creator economy with Patreon's earnings came out.

How were they doing?

And they paid out like at the time they were paying out like they paid out like 5 billion to creators.

How much?

They paid out 5 billion to creators.

How much did OnlyFans pay out at the time?

Also billions.

Billions.

And there was really no Gen Z creators making money on the platform.

And at that time, I was living in an apartment building

right in Century City where a lot of the TikTokers were living.

It was like a TikTok house.

So it was

the 10,000 apartment building.

Oh, yeah.

I don't live there anymore.

I was going to say, that's probably

a good idea.

Yeah, so there were a ton of TikTokers there, and we would see

Addison Ray walking down the street and so forth.

And none of them were on Patreon.

And they would never want to tarnish their brand reputation.

And they actually weren't even of the legal age to join OnlyFans at the time.

How old is she now?

Addison Ray, I think 20, 21.

21.

So she could have been on.

The D'Amelios also lived in that building.

Which you did?

Oh, the.

Like Charlie was

under 18?

Yeah.

So, so, and they would never join an OnlyFans platform like OnlyFans because when creators do that, they lose out on a lot of high-paying brand deals.

And especially for the D'Amelios who have

their personal.

Yeah.

It's like so cheesy.

And I feel like it's like when you have no, well, I shouldn't say that.

It's not cheesy if you like that sort of thing.

Yeah.

So this all kind of transpired to being at Harry's house.

I did bring up the idea.

Thanks for letting me have this one.

And no, we really sat there for hours just talking through it, really breaking it down, trying to figure out every aspect of the business, competitors out there.

I think we literally stayed there all night.

And we knew this was the one and

ended up going into debt, signing on developers that we couldn't afford and just getting started.

Yeah, but it really, really, you know, I think, I think it was an absolute execution play.

And these, you know, there are a ton of people who

it's not, I mean, it's not like we had, you know, it's not like we had something that was, you know, patented and trademarked and, you know, had a, had a massive differentiation.

A lot of people have tried to do what we did and, you know, a lot of people still try.

It just was all down to execution.

And when, when, you know, when we're kind of hearing other founders try and pitch us now for investment, et cetera, or just for advice,

I almost kind of don't really care what the idea is.

It's just, you know, it's these things are just execution plays.

Yeah.

Yes.

I agree.

And I think it's a, you bet on the people more than anything else.

100%.

Especially at early stage.

Yeah.

I think so.

I mean,

I think, well, it's important that the idea is good, right?

And there's like, but I think it's super important the idea is good.

It can't be some like silly, silly idea, but it comes down to like who's going to be doing he's had his fair share of silly ideas.

Sure, you put the storage unit in the garage.

No, there's more.

We'll have to talk off camera.

Oh my god, I'm sure.

But listen, that's how things happen.

Like, you have to, all you need is one good one.

Yeah.

One good idea.

But so then, how much money did you initially raise then?

So we,

in in total, raised about 1.3 million, which

really is not very much in the space and not very much compared to any of our competitors.

And

we raised that actually just from our college dorm rooms.

Really?

Yeah.

So yeah, we couldn't go out there and raise $20 million.

Like some of our people.

But you raised $1.3 through who?

Like, who was the people who gave you the money?

So angel investors.

And then we did have a couple of VCs in there.

But the first.

The first million?

Yeah.

well, the first check, the first, the first kind of thing is a funny story because we, so, um,

you know, as we were saying earlier, like, I've had 10 businesses, 15 businesses, maybe, I don't know, God knows how many, and just stretching the numbers, yeah.

I was gonna say,

1000 visits, 1 billion views, you're just ruining your success rate.

Um, but none of them had been successful.

I hadn't, you know, yeah, hadn't made a penny out of any of them until this one.

And

the the thing that I thought

really was holding it back was I'd never taken on any risk.

So for this one, we decided, okay, we're going to go ball to the wall.

We're going to take on, so we, you know,

managed to find a development shop, kind of blagged that we had the money when we didn't have the money, you know, got them signed like a seven-month contract

where we owed them a ton of money that we just didn't have.

So we knew we could cover the first the first two payments ourselves.

So we knew we were good for two months.

And then after two months, we were pretty screwed.

So,

you know, month one,

I paid, month two, Simon paid.

And then we were out of money.

And then how much was it month one and month two?

It's like

20 grand a month, something like that.

By month three,

we're like, okay, we, you know, we're getting down to the wire here.

And then we managed to find two kids at USC that we knew

who like, I guess we kind of convinced we were a proper business, and they gave us the money.

They ended up doing extremely well of their investment.

How much did they give you?

They gave us,

it was enough to cover

that month's payment.

20,000?

It was like, it was, I think it was

50, something like that.

Enough to where we were fine for that month.

Who are these kids?

That's really good friends of ours now.

I didn't know them at the time.

Troy Bondi and Winston.

Yeah.

Alferary.

Yeah.

Really, really, really smart guys.

How do you know that guy?

Who are they?

You won't know them.

How do you know them?

So I was actually interning with Troy at an investment bank the summer before

American Discovery Capital in Westwood.

And we had friends who went to college with them,

got to know them over the years.

And now we're very close with them.

We co-invest alongside them

in a ton of startups.

And they actually have a cool

probiotic pasta sauce company called Saws that they're launching in Erewhon in the next few weeks.

Are you going to lend them $15,20,000?

I think we're going to invest.

Definitely.

We definitely back to them.

Exactly.

You owe those two, right?

Yeah.

They did very well at the end.

So month three, you know, we got them.

We were fine.

Month, you know, month four, but we were late on that payment and the development shop was not happy.

Month four, we just didn't have the money.

And then I think half, we spoke to all these, you know, VCs, all these investors.

No one was backing to

part-time founders raising out of their dorm rooms.

Zero background.

Did you drop up by this point?

No.

No, you're not.

Not at this point.

But so, and then, you know, we were really, really not in a good place.

And then we met.

You know, but whenever it's a big name VC, you know, we prepare, you know, we do a big pitch, whatever.

And then a friend of mine at Tulane had said to me, he's like, oh, I was on an email chain with this guy who

I think he might be an investor.

I'm not entirely sure.

I haven't actually met him, but I'll just email him.

And this was, I think this was

like

6 p.m.

on a Thursday night.

He emails the guy.

The guy responds within a minute.

This guy, Glenn Anderson, and didn't know any background on him, kind of didn't, you know, didn't really take the call very seriously.

He responds within a minute.

One of our partners was taking the call on

Spee Slaughter.

So we no background.

We said, I don't really know who this guy is.

I think it's just like a networking call probably.

But

we took the call 9 a.m.

My partner's on the slopes, camera off, like, you know, occasionally taking his mic off,

and then

at the end, the guy's like, yeah, you know,

I honestly don't fully understand it, but like, I like you guys and, you know, it sounds really cool.

So just let me know how much you want.

And if you let me know by 1 p.m., I'll wear you the money today.

And so, uh, we

wired him, he wrote, we let him know and wired us the money within 24 hours.

How much did he give you?

So, he wanted to give us

any literally any amount.

Um, initially, we were thinking like five.

I think we were raising, yeah, but we were, we were raising, uh, we needed to raise, we told him we were raising 200k.

He told us he'd give us whatever we want.

But we thought, well, it looks needy if we tell him 200K,

but we'd really like 200K.

So we just told him 150 and then he gave us 150, which, you know,

wait.

And this guy, like, who is this guy?

This guy is Gwen Anderson.

He's amazing up in San Francisco, has

about 50 active angel investments out currently, has had multiple successful ones.

He was one of,

he was the head of the Google Brain team at Google.

So he led led a division for about 10 years at Google.

Wow.

Where he was actually training the future leaders of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

And this was a person at your school, a Tulane.

Yeah, yeah.

No, no, no, no.

He was, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, Glenn.

I'm saying the person who's like, I think I know this one guy who might be interested.

Yeah, a friend of mine, Tulane, he didn't even know the guy.

They'd been on an email chain together.

But then Glenn, I mean...

Why did he think he would be a good person?

Why was he on an email?

He was the only

angel investor he knew, but also, this is this is this is a time where we were extremely desperate.

And when you were an entrepreneur, you have to just hustle, it's a great one, amazing.

Oh, 100%.

And you have to, but you know, when you're an entrepreneur, you have to just hustle, scratch, and claw for anything you can possibly get.

Right, but you got lucky again.

So, like, I feel like all the stars lined up.

Like,

randomly, some person turns out this is a great guy from who like started the Google Brain team.

And then, what happened?

Well, so, so hires you whatever you want.

I think, yeah, but i think

can you give my number i can give my number

more funding yeah later on as well he had so much conviction in what we were doing but but the guy you know the and and you know

really amazing guy and he did you know he's done obviously very well off his fanfix investment and other investments as well but but i think it really shows that you gotta um you gotta you know things things are very you've gotta really it's like pushing a boulder up a hill yeah and you know once once you get to the top of that hill the boulder you know falls, and it looks pretty easy.

But I mean, it was really bloody difficult.

Hundreds of kind of no's, and I think we spoke to 200 investors, something like that, um, to get there.

And

um, you know, he was amazing.

And then also, we, you also, we, we were students again in our dorm rooms, as we said, and we would try and do everything we possibly could to pretend we weren't students.

And he

completely,

we sent him an email the following week.

He's like, Yeah, I know you guys got finals coming up.

Um, oh my god, God.

So funny.

Make sure you, you know, get your work done.

You can

send, you know, don't worry if you go dark for a couple of weeks.

I don't mind.

We're like,

what a guy.

This guy sounds incredible.

Amazing.

He's amazing.

He was, yeah, mana from heaven.

That's totally, exactly.

Yeah.

So then what happens?

So then

we, so then what were you spending the money on?

Just developers.

All the guy was going in.

We didn't pay ourselves a single dollar until we sold.

To the XA.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I mean, until you sold.

It's been 10 months.

I mean, it's like until you sold.

It's been you're 22 in 10 months.

I mean, oh, how terrible for you.

Did you live okay?

Did you have like bread and water for the last 10 months?

My parents had to provide.

Yes, I know.

It's so tough.

Yeah, so that was, I think that was, you know, kind of

April,

April, May of 2021.

And then we, second semester of our junior year of college.

And then we launched.

We say we launched the platform in August.

We we actually launched in June but we were the only customers for two months

so you know we launched really did not we we kind of made these you know made these projections were thought we were just gonna go crazy in our first day

got zero traction for two months and then I think it was big big celebration when we got our first customer that wasn't us.

How did you get it?

Like what did you do for marketing?

How did you get the word out?

So we actually have spent zero dollars on marketing to this day.

Zero.

So our whole platform is built on network effects.

Right.

So

we acquire creators through a variety of different ways.

One, just personal relationships, managers, agents, creators.

We're talking about our creators.

So yeah, no, we just brought on a few creators and like who we were meeting in the creator economy going to these events while we were building the platform.

Right.

And we launched with a handful of creators.

And as Harry said, no customers coming to the platform.

So, we relaunched two months later and brought a whole bunch of creators on the platform.

And they started converting

their followers into paid subscribers.

So, that was very exciting.

And then, from there, we ended up going out and raising again

because we were out of money.

We spent all of the money we raised to get to launch

and then we had no more to continue.

So, that's when we went to venture funds uh and brought on antler ventures who uh believed in us um when most vcs wouldn't you know to still in college at this time still taking classes right um

and yeah we were able to build a really solid team um harry and i didn't have much experience in the creator economy before so we brought on uh tanner kessel who's one of one of our partners uh who was working in the creator space uh for years prior.

And then Cameron Dallas.

So Cameron is our co-founder as well.

He is one of the largest creators in the space and was one of the first creators.

So he was a creator 10 years ago when

you couldn't monetize as a creator.

He was one of the first creators to sign a brand deal.

One of the first creators to really pursue being a content creator as a full-time job.

So he has seen the ebbs and flows of the creator economy when creators couldn't make a penny to now where brands are paying top dollar for creators and diverting their marketing budget.

So he sees he saw fan fixes as the new way for creators to monetize and something he wished he had when he was creating content every day.

So was he the one who really kind of helped spearhead

getting people on the platform?

Yeah, totally.

So I mean the approach we took, which was completely different to our competitors, was we thought, okay, right, we're going to build this business around and build the team out around access to creators, getting access to creators.

And so, when all of our competitors were kind of spending their money hiring engineers and CTOs and etc.,

we thought we're just going to bring creators onto our team.

And you know, we kind of had the

ethos: creator is God, we're going to put the creators first.

And so, brought Cameron on and you know, against all odds.

Um, and I think, I think we had like under 100 customers at that point.

Convince him to join.

And he was really,

he has 70 million followers across platforms and really

70, 7-0.

He's got 25, I saw a million on Instagram.

And how many does he have on?

I think he's got

15 million on Twitter, like 10 million on YouTube, I think like 18 million on TikTok.

What kind of content is he?

So he was huge in, he was at one point the second most followed person on Instagram and started on Instagram and then kind of went to Vine and,

you know, was posting jokes, et cetera.

And then he went into, then he

saw that, you know, he was getting millions of likes and, you know, views on these things on Vine, but no one, there was no such thing as a social media influencer.

So he, no one was taking it seriously.

And one day he posted a picture outside a building and said, I'm going to be here 4 p.m.

tomorrow.

Come and see me.

expecting no one to show up.

And like 600 teenage girls showed up to come and see me.

Even more than that.

Are you serious?

How old is the guy, by the way?

He's 28.

He just turned 28.

So he's out of Gen Z, too.

Out of Gen Z,

but he was the first social media influencer.

You know, he saw, okay, he thought there's, if all these people are coming to see me, when I just posted this yesterday, this stuff has power.

So he started, he created MagCon,

which, you know, was kind of a touring company

where they do these basically concerts/slash meetups around the world, which is massively successful.

And then he pioneered the first, you know, the first brand deals, was one of the first creators, I think the first digital creator represented by a large agency.

And then

eventually, you know, he, he, when we met him, it was perfect timing because we needed, you know, access to creators and some legitimization.

It was just, you know, two schmucks in college

trying to trying to sell this stuff.

And

he really provided and then at the same time for him um he had

you know he'd been an influencer for 10 years was you know 20 26 at the time I think 27 27 at the time and you know really thought I he doesn't want to be posting on tick tock whenever he wants to kind of evolve his career yeah totally and so

so he wanted to get into the business world full-time and so he joined us as a co-founder and really has been amazing so how did you find him like how did you get connected to him yeah so we got connected to him through a mutual friend.

So, when we first started, there are all these content houses in LA.

And I'm sure you guys have heard of the Aloe House or the Wish House, Hype House, whatever.

Hype house the Wish House.

Yeah, so

we use that kind of as a go-to-market.

So, we would partner with various content houses and host content days where creators could come and create content together, collaborate,

grow each other's following.

And one of the content house managers connected us to Cameron

because Cameron saw what we were doing and he realized this is actually something that he could get behind because he's approached by brands all the time, by startups all the time to join their teams.

And really,

he can't feel like he could really get behind those projects.

But with this, his network of creators, allowing them to monetize in new ways was something that he wanted to get involved with.

What was the equity that you had to give him to be involved?

Well, we can't really say what we gave him.

But, you know,

I think as

an entrepreneur, you really have to be able to pull rabbits out of hats.

Yeah.

I see how you're smiling over there.

Pull rabbits out of hats.

I just love that.

I like that phrase.

You really have to be able to pull rabbits out of hats.

And, you know, that there's an element of luck.

There's an element of, you know, being in the right place.

So how much equity did you have to give him

Harry?

I really can't say how much

just let it split.

We took we took, you know, we took care of him.

Um, is it in the is it in double digits, or is it like in the nine points below, or is it ten above?

Can you do that at least?

Can't give, can't give anything.

I think that's fair.

Harry and I are the

main

main shareholders, yeah.

Right.

Um, yeah, we uh we own the vast majority of the company, but that's what we could say.

You're turning red, Harry.

I'm not.

No, no, no.

I think that's the light.

The sunlight's really hit.

The sun just hits.

I think that's what it is.

Is there like a contract?

You're not allowed to talk about these stuff.

Yeah,

we can't talk about these.

But

one thing I will say that really, I think, sets us apart from a lot of the competition out there

or other platforms is really,

we are Gen Z.

I know Cam's 28, but

he's still young.

A lot of our team is Gen Z.

We have multiple creators on our team who are going out there and onboarding creators, bringing their friends on.

How many people do you have on the platform now?

We have 8.2 million.

8.2 million?

You have that many on that platform on FanFix?

Yeah, we've had 8.2 million people on the platform.

Who are like, how many are like...

Monthly?

Monthly.

Monthly.

1.6 million last month.

That's incredible.

Was it, it can't be all Cam, right?

Like, it had to be like, have you guys done a lot of like, what are some other strategies you use to build out, you know, marketing and to get?

I know you didn't spend any money on marketing, but was it much, you said it was much more all-referral, like people were bringing their friends, but to get to that level of people that was just simple,

simple referrals, or was there any other tactics that you used that were

basically for free that you couldn't talk about?

Yeah.

So,

you know, I think something that,

as I spoke prior and mentioned prior, is, you know, being built on network effects.

So creators are the ones actually promoting their fanfix profiles across all their social channels.

So they are converting their followers into paid subscribers on fanfics, but they're also driving new creator signups.

So if you're a creator and you're seeing four or five of your friends posting about their fanfix profiles every week, you know, you're going to sign up or you're going to ask them about it.

So it really was organic in that

creators are driving other creators to the platform and also driving users to the platform.

So one thing we like to do is,

you know, we don't overly promote fanfix and market fanfix the platform because we understand that

users aren't coming to fanfix to find new creators to subscribe to.

They're being dragged here by their favorite creators.

By their favorite creators.

So one thing we do is we actually like to promote the creators on our platform and and allow them to grow their followings across all their social channels so putting marketing spend behind these creators to grow on other channels and align aligning the creator with the fanfix brand to build that brand affinity with their following um so we always like to put creators first we like to highlight the creators on our platform um and help them in growing their following across all their social channels i'm just curious because camera is i know he doesn't want to be an influencer, but does he do fanfics?

He's making six figures a year on fanfic.

And fanfics alone, right?

Yeah.

That's great.

I mean, it's amazing.

And I think, yeah,

it's really cool when one of the founders of the company is making considerable amounts on his own platform.

It's amazing.

Name other people that are on your platform that maybe are well known to other to us.

Yeah.

I don't know if you, Anna Shume, Anna Banana on TikTok, one of the largest TikTokers out there, kind of Gen Z icon.

What does she do?

Anna treats her fanfics almost as like a Finsta.

So she'll post

Q ⁇ A's with her fans.

She'll post

unedited content.

What's Finsta?

Should I be knowing?

I think I know.

Finsta is, you know, a lot of creators out there.

We'll create like a fake Instagram where they only let their fans see the content.

And it's like bench feed content.

Like closest friends.

Yeah, their closest friends.

So So really she gives her

fanfic subscribers access into her daily lives, which they can't find on other platforms.

So you look at her TikTok or her Instagram, a lot of it will be highly edited content

that isn't very authentic.

So fanfix is really the platform for that authentic content,

you know, non-edited content, bloopers.

So we have podcasters who will put their last 10 minutes of their podcast behind a paywall on fanfix.

What podcast?

Like Jumper's Jump Podcast, one of the largest Gen Z podcasts out there.

What's it called?

Jumpers Jump.

Like the Jumper's Jump podcast puts exclusive episodes or extended cuts or bloopers or

special subscriptions.

What do they charge for subscription?

They charge $6,692 for monthly subscription.

But then we have fitness influencers who drop their meal plans or their fitness.

Maybe a couple of fitness people.

I'll know them.

Maybe.

A couple fitness.

Abby Berner is a new fitness creator who started this week.

I don't know her.

Who else?

I don't know.

I'm not sure I'm on the spot.

But yeah, massive, massive amount.

Yeah, like Maddie Monroe is another big creator, big Gen Z icon

who's on Fanfix.

But yeah, it's become their number one kind of form of modernization.

So

our highest earner, I think, is earning $6 million a year on fanfics, I think.

Who?

Can't say anything about that.

Can't disclose earnings without anything.

So it's all I can say.

I can't say.

Honestly, honestly.

Well,

this is

kind of like private energy.

This is one of those things that you can do.

It's for them.

That one I get.

That one I get because it's not your.

Yeah.

It's not you.

But also, this is what happens when your startup.

is acquired by a much larger company that is.

There's a lot of like red, a lot of things you can't talk about, which remind which which is a great segue into talk about who bought you because it's so unique it's not someone that that you would imagine right it's not a tech company yeah so beauty brand you said super ordinary super ordinary and you know they've been absolutely amazing it was and i love their brands by the way the brands are i'm not and i literally am not saying this because you're sitting here i didn't realize they own like not just ordinary but erna laszlo uh strivekton i saw in there they have like olaplex they have like huge brands.

Yeah, so we have a portfolio of brands that we own.

And then we also have

a ton of brand partners, which we handle all their distribution, all their e-commerce, whether that's on Amazon or

Through Creators or Alibaba or Lozada in Thailand, wherever it is, in India and Europe.

Why do you think why them?

Like, what do they I mean, what was their reason for

purchasing you?

So right now, they really are the global growth partner for high-end beauty brands and cosmetics brands worldwide.

So they take a lot of the big U.S.

beauty brands and they launch them into new markets, into

China, into Southeast Asia, into other massive beauty markets.

So they really are this growth partner and they use these marketplaces as a distribution channel for

their products.

So creators really are the new distribution channels for you know, beauty products, especially.

Um, so really allowing creators to be able to sell their products, um, being able to create brands with creators, as we've seen with, you know, Chamberlain Coffee and Emma Chamberlain, or

Prime Beverage with, you know, KSI and Logan Paul.

So, being able to create custom lines for creators, being able to white label their portfolio of products with creators, really opening up new distribution outlets

for their products and trying to create a seamless experience between creators, brands, and marketplaces worldwide.

So it's not like Olaplex, just giving that using as an example,

they're not allowed, I guess, to use one of your creators and just do a free collaboration.

Oh, they totally, yeah, they totally could.

And also, another, you know, another big aspect.

On the actual person, like, let's say I was on there.

Yeah.

And because Olaplex is owned by Super Ordiner, who owns you, does that mean I'm,

does that mean I have to do a collaboration with Olaplex and

so a lot of our brands are arm length away?

Yeah.

There are some brands that we

fully operate, and those are like Joanna Vargas is one of our brands that

is 100% acquired by Super Ordinary.

And

that's an in-house brand.

Okay, so say whatever.

So would I have to do a collab as a, if I was a creator, so where is the,

can they just just like pepper in an inner, like an ad on the site somewhere else?

No, no, what would be the benefit?

We haven't done any of that yet.

Um, we are going to be doing social commerce currently.

The the way we're doing it is kind of helping creators white label products and co-create brands with creators.

Um, so you know, we get hit up the whole time with creators saying, Oh, I want to, you know, I want to create a

tanning oil.

Um, okay, so, you know, we can now help them do that.

You know,

I want to create a merch brand so we can help them do that.

So that's the main way right now.

And then the other big aspect of why, you know, why they bought us is there's massive, massive opportunity for the platform in Asia.

And a lot of the, you know, U.S.

creative economy companies and platforms neglect the international reach.

And, you know, the Super Ordinary's bread and butter is Asia.

They have a massive base there.

So they're going to take us there and, you know, we'll dominate the creative economy in Asia as well yeah as as well as being able to facilitate brand deals between um you know our portfolio of brands with our creator network um so right now there are a lot of middlemen between a brand and a creator uh at superordinary we can remove the whole middleman completely so but when they when they bought you at the 10 month mark right um

and how many users did you have already

and were you making money like what were you making yeah we we were, we had millions of users at that point and, you know, we're making kind of seven figures in,

you know, annualized revenue.

So it was, there was a ton of traction with

the platform, which is,

I mean, probably the main reason they bought us.

Right.

And also it's like a place, it's a great space for them to be

developing because they have like an audience of what that, what that is.

It makes sense to me.

And if you were tracking and you're just doing that now, what are you going to to do in two years or three years?

They bought you early.

And what's your deal now?

You have to still work with them, right?

Like you're still involved in the company.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We're still, you know, CEOs of fanfics.

And then.

Oh, so you're so you're still operating.

Yeah, we're still, we're still CEO of fanfix.

We're also SVPs at Super Ordinary.

So we are, so we are launching.

So we are launching a suite of new tools for creators in the coming months that will help them with monetizing off of brand deals as well as launching new products and highlighting brands that they want to work with.

So, stay tuned.

We'll have a lot of fun.

I want some Ordaplex, please, for my hair.

Yeah.

And some Ernal Laszlo.

I have a whole laundry list of stuff that I'm going to be giving you.

Totally.

Awesome.

I love those brands.

Like, I'm

serious.

By the way, the ordinary brand,

I'm not just, like I said, I'm not saying that.

I heard that their products are are so cost effective.

Like they're very

high margin.

No, they're very like, they're not cheap.

I don't hate the word cheap, but like

value.

Great value.

Great value and very good quality.

Yeah.

That's why I thought that they have a huge name.

People love them.

So, I mean, this is amazing.

Did I forget anything

in this interview with you?

Harry?

I don't think so.

Not that I can.

You definitely didn't forget anything that I can remember.

How about you, Simon?

Is there anything else you want to talk about?

I think you covered it all.

I think Harry had a few questions for you, actually.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, okay, go ahead.

I think the final thing, Simon, you know, prepared a dance for the podcast.

A TikTok dance.

They love to show.

Harry,

we always have.

With about three jokes that we recite.

Yeah, we

have the same jokes that we tell all the time.

That's what happened.

He always brings up some TikTok dance I created in the middle of meetings, and everyone's always very confused.

And did you ever, did you ever

created the TikTok dance?

But when I say I didn't create it, they usually don't believe me.

Until now, they think that you did.

They go searching violently for it.

Yeah, they think I'm like embarrassed to show it.

But really, that's very funny.

You know, really, Harry's the one who created the dances.

Yeah.

I love this.

Okay, so you guys are very young.

Now you guys are very rich.

Do you guys have girlfriends?

Not at the moment.

He loves us all.

Not at the moment.

Yeah.

Do you guys have, like, I heard that you're the Gen Z crew, but like your age, people don't even have boyfriend and girlfriend anymore.

It's much more just like dating and like hooking up.

And like

it's much more casual.

Is that true?

Definitely.

Yeah, I think, you know, Harry has spent a lot of time on the dating apps, whether that's, you know, Hinge, Bumble,

even Facebook.

He uses.

He used Facebook for the old ladies.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah that's his style that's his style that

i think i think you are right that you know long-term relationships especially amongst like high school students is very different than it was 10 years ago very different but i'm saying college i mean college students it's like i feel like it's like there's very few more like we're not it's not it's not that

It's not an anomaly.

Actually, maybe it is an anomaly.

I just find it's not very common.

Is it just in LA or everywhere?

Most of my friends, I mean, most of my friends don't have girlfriends.

That's just what we like to tell ourselves.

Yeah, exactly.

I think it all comes back to TikTok, honestly.

Like, TikTok ruined everyone's

attention span,

as well as 100%.

What you,

how some of these creators portray themselves on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok.

That,

you know, I think it has really impacted the dating world.

Yeah.

100.

I mean, also because

nothing is real anymore.

Right.

And so when you see people in real life versus like online, it's very jarring sometimes, right?

Because of all the different filters and stuff like that.

But also,

it's like the

volume of people.

So like why, like people have told me many times that they've gone on a date with somebody, whoever, they actually have like a nice time.

They look nothing alike, but they looked like or nothing like, or yeah, or that like, but their brains now, the neuroplasticity has changed so much that like their brains now are just going to like, okay, now I got to go back on my, like, it's not, there's no like,

there's, there's no, like you said, there's no attention span to even like take that longer than like an hour.

Yeah,

what I think we are seeing is

we are seeing, you know, movement back to authenticity, especially amongst Gen Z.

And I think,

you know, Be Real, if you have heard of Be Real or seen that app blowing up, really all of that.

Which one is that app?

What's that?

Be Real is an app right now kind of taking the world by storm.

What is it?

It essentially is, imagine Facebook.

I mean, imagine Instagram,

but back to its basics, no filters whatsoever.

And you really only follow your close friends and family on Be Real.

And the thing about Be Real is...

This is an app?

Yeah, it's an app.

Every day at the same time, it's shoot at random time.

At random times, but with all of its users,

it shoots out an alert for you to post on B-Reel.

And what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to take your phone out and take a photo.

And the difference between B-Reel and Snapchat or Instagram is B-Reel

is a dual-facing camera.

So when you take a photo, if I were to take a B-Reel right now, you would see my face and you at the same time.

So

you can't see your friends be reels until you post your own b-reel.

So it's kind of a gamified, authentic platform

that's been blowing up recently.

And Instagram and Snapchat copied that feature.

So now on Instagram or on Snapchat,

you could take a dual photo where you could see yourself and who you're taking a photo of.

Yeah.

yeah, it's a new feature.

That's a badge.

It's a badge of honor in the social media space once Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok try and copy what you're doing.

They've done that already with us with subscription.

And now be real, you know, they're trying to get it.

So where would it be on the Atlantic?

Really?

Yeah, it's launched like

last few weeks.

Are people using it?

Yeah.

Oh, they're crushing it.

They're crushing it.

Crushing it.

I think people, you know, people, it's like what we were saying with, you know, with content being endless, it, you know, makes kind of exclusive paywalled content all the more valuable.

I think it's the same thing with authenticity, with everything

so filtered and edited and inorganic.

It makes authenticity, people really just crave authenticity.

Listen, you're preaching to the converter.

I agree with you, but I do think that like people are now just like, even like everyone just automatically goes to a filter because it's like what to do.

It just completely alters everything.

And that's why plastic surgery is up and all these problems.

People are like so insecure with themselves and they think that they're so like that all their imperfections are so highlighted in real life because you see this like artificial

view of you.

100%.

And there are all those apps out there like FaceTune being a big popular one amongst Gen Z creators.

They're so popular.

Yeah.

And it's it's you know pretty crazy what you can do with these filters nowadays.

So then what's your reason?

What's your excuses for not having girlfriends?

The filters aren't good enough yet.

The filters aren't good enough.

Maybe not 10 years.

Exactly.

Yeah, 10 years.

You don't want the filters.

You want these be real authenticity, authenticity.

Be real.

You just said it.

Yeah, no, I'm saying no.

So now, why don't you find real girls that have no

filters and doing all this?

Girls with no filters.

Yeah, that's what we're looking for.

Yeah.

You guys can spot who's using a filter.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can definitely tell.

You can definitely tell.

More or less.

Yeah.

Yeah.

100%.

But you're still not going to go and date and have a relationship, are you, boys?

But either one of you.

No, we will.

Keep it casual for the near future.

But at some point.

Harry's just struggling.

If there's anyone out there who, you know,

wants to taste a lot of stuff.

English accent, you know, Simon.

That English accent, I'm sure just is a deterrent for most girls.

Oh, yeah.

They hate it.

It's always like bear spray.

It's like eating beans on toast for every day.

Exactly.

Who wants to do that?

No, exactly.

Gosh.

Well, okay, so for the, how do people find you guys?

Go to fanfix.

Like, give us some details for people who want to be a creator on fanfix or

are curious.

If you are an aspiring creator, go to fanfix.io and apply to be a creator.

You can apply.

Yeah, so that's actually one thing we didn't touch.

But on fanfix, we are exclusive with who we allow to be a content creator.

So, you actually have to apply to be a creator on our platform.

You have to go through our approval process.

We verify your identity.

We check that you actually have built a community, an engaged community.

And then, once you are accepted, we hand-hold you through the process of launching your page, creating content to begin with, and really be able to build your community.

So, that's something that no other platform does.

On Patreon, on OnlyFans, whatever it may be,

you can become a creator today and start creating content.

And there's no control over

that content being posted.

So on FanFix, coming back to it, fanfix.io, apply to be a creator.

Harry will personally review your application.

Absolutely.

And yeah, and then once you're accepted, you essentially connect your bank account, you set your subscription price, your message price, and you start making money.

That's simple.

I love it.

Thank you.

Okay, so this has been, I don't know how long it's been.

Harry, how long has it been?

Like an hour and a half?

I think like, yeah, hour 45, hour and a half.

Oh, God.

And I was worried.

I had nothing to say to you.

I guess I was wrong.

I thought it was going to be four minutes.

I know, right?

Four and a half minutes.

So, do you want to share your Twitter?

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

Well, you know, I don't have a Twitter.

I don't have a Twitter.

Well, thank you, boys.

And thank you.

I'm very proud of you.

And I'm very proud of you, too.

Of course.

Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being here.

This was excellent.

Of course, thank you guys.

Habits and hustle, time to get it rolling.

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