Insights on the future of fandom

How to Fuel Fandom From Couch to Cashier

Today on The Future of Fandom, we dive deep into the behavioral mechanics of purchase, with an ever-so-slightly nerdy illustration of the next-gen, couch-to-cashier journey with guest, Brittany Billings.

Brittany is the EVP of Marketing and Strategic Markets at Shopkick, and brings some commerce insight to the show that most can’t even provide. When you think about learning who your customer is, most brands will look to their social analytics and their receipt level purchase data. Not a whole lot is captured at least with true attribution about interim activity, that which happens between the couch and the cashier. But Brittany actually does thanks to Shopkick’s rewards based platform. And today we chat about how something as simple as watching a video or simply walking into a store is and should be rewarded.

What we describe on the show is truly next gen, and hopefully you get a glimpse into what the future of commerce really holds. So kick back, (yes, we went there) and listen in as we predict the future with Shopkick and Brittany Billings

Connect with Brittany Billings on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittanybillings/

Read more about Shopkick StockX: https://www.shopkick.com/

Back to All Episodes

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Adam Connor (1:20):

Brittany, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

Brittany Billings (01:34):

I am well, thank you, Adam. My daughter is back to school, so we’re back to normalcy now. Thank goodness.

Adam Conner (01:41):

Hey, well that must have been a while shopping season, huh?

Brittany Billings (01:44):

It certainly was challenging for many, many Americans out there, but I’m sure we’re all back, we’re happy to have our kids back in school now.

Adam Conner (01:53):

Well, hey, there have been a number of things that have confused shoppers. At least this year, we’ll get into a little bit of that as we move through this conversation. But of course, I know you’ll know the most and we’ll talk the most about Shopkick. So let’s start there. Let’s kick it right off from the top. Oh, didn’t even mean to make that pun, but no pun intended. What is Shopkick for those who don’t know, but should?

Brittany Billings (02:14):

Shopkick is a leading shopping rewards app for consumers and a leading shopper engagement platform for brands. So we allow consumers to earn rewards through many engagements they can have with a brand, whether that’s digesting content in app through perhaps watching a video through walking into a store, they earn rewards. We call them kicks here at Shopkick. They can pick up a product, scan it and earn rewards. And then they can actually earn incremental rewards for actually purchasing that product as well. And then our shoppers get to redeem those kicks for gift cards, cash and products.

Adam Conner (02:56):

All right. So this is fascinating. We have gone into this tangentially so far on this show in the lens of rewards and in the lens of appreciating people’s pre-purchase behavior, which is critical, but not often incentivized, truly incentivized. So we’ll get into that as well. And listeners, you can tune back into people like Rakuten and Baseline earlier this year for conversations like that, but it won’t be like this.

I’ll start with the broad view of what you’ve put in my head right there with that description, which is that because the consumer is rewarded every step of the way in an interim basis and on a final basis, and because the brand knows ideally what that consumer is doing through the purchase funnel, it seems to create this two way connection that let’s say a CPG or something like that, who doesn’t typically have first party data might not get. This is a two way connection, which is, I would think somewhat unique, at least something I haven’t heard of. It’s worth noting that Shopkick is part of a company based in retail analytics, which is great, because that’s where I started my career.

So I’m sure there’s plenty of data that’s getting passed between both entities. How do you accomplish that true two-way connection. And why is it critical when it ultimately comes to conversing with the consumer to be fan?

Brittany Billings (04:20):

Yeah, absolutely. I think first and foremost, you touched on a really good point from a CPG lens and our clients are Unilever, Kraft Heinz, Nestle. Their main points of distribution are through these major retailers. Those major retailers aren’t giving Nestle and Kraft Heinz a lot of information about the end customer because it’s Kroger’s end customer, it’s Target’s end customer, it’s Walmart’s end customer. So at Shopkick, we believe, and we’re able to facilitate that with our CPG partners, that there should be this two way value exchange before a transaction even takes place. So consumers have dedicated a lot of time and energy engaging with brands pre-transaction or consumers as well. We watch ads, we read content, we research, we follow brands on social.

Why shouldn’t the shopper be acknowledged for those behaviors? And at Shopkick, we think that they should. So as I mentioned earlier on our platform, we reward shoppers and through our brands throughout the entire purchase funnel. So we call it from couch to cashier as our cheeky, little way of saying it. So again, members, we sit on our couch, we watch videos, we digest a piece of content and then we can earn rewards for simply walking into a store.

So already right there, these brands are being associated with an incentive, with award, with a value exchange saying, “Hey shopper, we appreciate you taking your time and energy to learn more about my product. Let me give you something back before a transaction even takes place.” And so we’re treating these amazing shoppers as more than just a transaction.

Adam Conner (06:08):

Well, yeah. And in a way that is slightly more proactive than the commercials of [your 00:06:15]. Imagine listeners who are thinking about that traditional experience of watching a TV ad and you may have noticed on digital platforms that sometimes those ads are not coupled with the QR. Well, normally that QR will just take you to a website to go buy something, but it doesn’t really reward you for taking that interim step.

It seems like this is something that Shopkick is covering off and it is certainly a data treasure trove that somebody like a Walmart when they were real heavy into retail link, I know that they’re doing something new now, or DunnHumby, that will just have consumption level metrics, are unable to capture. This is a really nice, well, interim data set to match that interim action.

Brittany Billings (06:55):

Yeah. From a data perspective, we’re actually sharing it with our brand partners as well. So here, customer 1, 2, 3, 4 has watched your video. She is the chief household officer based outside of Atlanta, Georgia. She has two kids and actually she’s also shopped at these retailers. She’s also purchased these brands. Here’s the type of content she’s engaging with.

So we’re also utilizing it to optimize their campaigns, even within our own platform. A lot of times, they don’t have access to do that. As you said, with more traditional advertising, you can’t just change a television ad because that demographic wasn’t responding to it or those display banners or just going to bots. So it’s really exciting that we get to have such a meaningful relationship and value exchange with our brand partners as well.

Adam Conner (07:47):

Yeah, the creation of, and we’re going into a bit of a weed here, listeners, but the creation of a behavioral data set, just so that you’re aware if you’re not, is extraordinarily difficult to do, if all you’re getting is a transaction log. And unless you have something like an entire credit card profile, I know the major payment switches will do things in creation of psychographics.

But again, these are just data sets that well, ultimately you don’t see, you may not even care about, but are things that are critical for finding the path that a shopper takes, as you said, from couch to cashier. These interim steps that are taken along the way and incentivized and rewarded. You talked about watching a video, maybe downloading something. I wonder if there are a few examples of interim steps that people wouldn’t immediately think of as being rewarded, which Shopkick is able to unlock.

And then I also want to know to the degree that you’re able to tell us what you know about consumers who take those interim steps and their incremental proclivity to buy, having been rewarded for those steps.

Brittany Billings (08:48):

Absolutely. So our app right now, and of course we’re always iterating really amazing features and looking for all of those behaviors and those engagements that our members can be rewarded for. So right now it’s watching a video, an ad. We have 99% completion rate within our app on video ads from our brand partners.

Adam Conner (09:11):

That’s unheard of.

Brittany Billings (09:12):

That is unheard of. Absolutely. We have other more static content or lookbooks where our users can go through and get inspiration on what’s the next best thing that they should be making for dinner or spring cleaning tips or festival fashion ready. They can be rewarded for it. Our shoppers can be rewarded for simply walking into a store. So walk through Whole Foods and get rewarded, walk into a Publix, walk into a TJ Maxx, get points. Half the battle is even getting the customer out of their car and into your store. Our shoppers can then go into an aisle and pick up a product.

So at the moment of truth, when it’s the most important time, what product are you going to put into your shopping cart, we can actually influence our Shopkickers, as we call them, to pick up the product, scan it and get rewarded. And then when they go through to purchase the product, they upload a receipt into our app. So what’s even more, I know you as a data geek as I am, we at Shopkick are then receiving the full receipt, the full basket data, which also generally isn’t shared very broadly with those major [inaudible 00:10:22].

Adam Conner (10:22):

No, it’s not. It’s normally just a hash. It’s a hash credit and a total, unless you’re… Yeah, that’s cool.

Brittany Billings (10:26):

Yeah, absolutely. As well as online shopping. So we think omnichannel is very important, especially to the consumers. So you can shop online or shop mobile within the app and then through all of those major points during the shopping funnel, and get rewarded as well. Then we also do really fun things like contesting through social channels with our partners and sweepstakes and some wonderful surprise and delights that our community loves.

Adam Conner (10:49):

So based on the data that you are seeing and the incredible success of that interim content that you have on Shopkick, wonderful internal validation, I want to hook you with a curve ball just because this came up in the news yesterday. And listeners, you’re hearing this on Monday, we’re recording this last week, just so that you know.

Yesterday, Amazon basically released some news that it would be layering in TikTok style content into its app to incentivize people to consume that content and then to buy. At least externally, do you all find that as additional validation that maybe you were first to this and now that other players are beginning to catch up in whatever shape that may take that you’re on the right track with something or maybe that they smell some opportunity that you were first to?

Brittany Billings (11:36):

Yeah, absolutely. It’s really funny because as we think about Amazon and we think about online, a recent US commerce study just came out that 54% of consumers still prefer to shop brick and mortar compared to any other channel. So I think Amazon’s trying to approach that angle. And what we tried to do here at Shopkick is when we’re looking on Amazon, we have the ability to search and to filter. We can’t do that in the in-store world.

We wanted to harness that power within Shopkick and make this gamified experience where it’s very curated and you can learn about brands and you’re purchasing in-store and you’re getting that same fun gamified online experience within your store experience as well. So I agree, we are a trendsetter beyond Amazon.

Adam Conner (12:27):

Yeah, I would hope so. And the fact that you are able to do things like geolocate users and reward them for just walking into a store-

Brittany Billings (12:34):

Absolutely.

Adam Conner (12:34):

… very, very, helpful. And something that I’m not sure that Amazon’s even thinking about, which is probably again good for you.

Brittany Billings (12:40):

No. And your point of geolocation, we’re actually seeing as we are a native app, we are able to actually send push notifications to our users as well if they’re near a location where they could earn kicks.

Adam Conner (12:52):

Who wouldn’t like that? Listeners, if you don’t have Shopkick, I’m guessing you’ve never had a notification like that, offering to give you something as opposed to have you buy something, which is nice. We’ve talked a lot here so far and this is just fascinating to me. Again, I started my career in retail analytics and just to know the deep mechanics that go into getting somebody to buy something is much more than the first couch to the final cashier, plenty in the middle.

But on the show, we also talk about what that means for the end consumer who have probably to this point only really thought about it in those two end points. Do you have a few favorite stories of Shopkickers? I might not even saying that right. People who use the app to buy things and get rewarded. I’m sure through your tenure, you heard a couple of highlights. Could you share some with us?

Brittany Billings (13:43):

Yeah, absolutely. And I don’t want to get too sappy here on this podcast with you, but I would say the stories that we hear from our Shopkicking community on a daily basis, what motivates us here as a team to get up every day, it inspires our CPG brand partners to continue partnering with us and engaging with our shoppers in this way. We hear from one element of help during these really difficult economic times. As I mentioned earlier, our Shopkick users are America. They’re middle America. They’re worried about gas prices. They’re worried about how to pay for their children’s back to school supplies. And a lot of the stories we hear is that they use Shopkick to help them during these really hard financial times.

So one of the redemption options that we have is PayPal. So we hear that they’re using their Shopkick rewards to cash out, to get cash through PayPal, to help pay for groceries and gas. That they’ve been laid off during these times, that it’s helping ends meet. ‘There’s grandmas, who are helping buy back to school supplies for their grandkids. There’s a single mom who writes in and says that she is the best daughter in the world, and she saves her Shopkick kicks to redeem for a birthday gift every single year. So if that’s not motivating to you or to our brand partners, and if that’s not creating fandom between our community and the brands that are enabling them to do this, it’s pretty spectacular.

Adam Conner (15:20):

I agree. Being able to hear those stories either as a steward of the brand or somebody simply listening to one, that is what the essence of fandom is. It’s experiential in nature. Listeners will readily know what it’s like to be a fan of a TV show or a celebrity or sports team. Why is that? Well, it’s probably based on something that you’ve felt when you were engaging with that person or that good or that service. The stories that you get in the middle here are critical to that conversion from consumer to fan.

And once again, though I’ve harped on it a few times here, that is historically not something that I have seen when it comes to eCommerce companies’ ability to figure out what that path looks like much similar to the path to purchase.

So when we talk about that word fandom, and in this lens of eCommerce where it seems like you have an upper hand on learning behaviors and interim actions of people in that parallel path, how would you define that word? If we flipped open the Shopkick dictionary and we turned to F and got to fandom and maybe your personal dictionary, what would that definition read?

Brittany Billings (16:28):

Wow, that’s a great question. That’s a big one. I think and going on to your point too earlier, we normally don’t hear about fandom in those experiences when it comes to vitamins and household cleaners and… Right.

Adam Conner (16:43):

Right. Totally.

Brittany Billings (16:44):

It comes more in different categories of sports or entertainment, but making that connection. So how I would define fandom in the lens of what we do here at Shopkick and you mentioned eCommerce before, but I would really approach it from a standpoint of omnichannel or everywhere commerce. As I mentioned before, consumers still want to go into store, but they also want to shop online.

So I think it’s more about shoppers wanting choice. And can you provide the benefits of eCommerce, the search, the filter, the compare to the store experience and vice versa. So many of our customers, partners, excuse me, and this is just an anecdote, we’re originally D2C. Right, so they’re a D2C brand, their only purchasing eCom. And there’s been a huge wave of them moving to distribution through major retailers. And why is that? It’s because they heard from their customers that they want to find those products at those major retailers where they’re doing a majority of their shopping.

So to me, creating fandom is about listening to your customers and providing them that experience that they’re looking for.

Adam Conner (17:59):

So let’s turn for a moment to the other F word we pursue on this show, which is future. And colored by what’s recently been going on, at least in the US macroeconomically, we’ll stick here, is that retail made a huge bet through 2021 and first half of 2022 stocking up on excess inventory, which has now led to a bloat not only there, but with inflationary worries, we are starting to see a few cracks in the US retail landscape. Now Walmart’s earnings beat this week, not withstanding, certainly is going to provide, I believe, downward pressure on price at the, maybe the store or something like that, in the case that inventory becomes a real problem.

For somebody who is running the shop at Shopkick, what does that cause you to adapt to where if a consumer is really only concerned with the final price that they’re going to pay, does that bear some weight on the potential interim awards they can get? Does it further incentivize them to do that because their money goes longer? What do you have to say about this current macroeconomic environment and how it affects retail Shopkick eCom and the consensus they’re in?

Brittany Billings (19:08):

Yeah, absolutely. So I think first, the majority of our shoppers are value driven, and so they’re already going to be concerned. And even though Target might have mismanaged their merchandising buys and predicting the trends up front, yes, consumers want couponing. Yes, they’re going to find discounts at retail. The brands, however, and I think what’s really unique about Shopkick is our Shopkickers are earning kicks. They’re not earning discounts. And so they still need to go in and buy milk and buy eggs. They’re still necessities that families need for their family.

So how can we provide the best alternative in terms of providing additional value to shoppers? And so brands can come in and instead of majorly eroding margin by deeply discounting and deeply couponing, they can give this reward award in terms of kicks to the end user. So it’s also not discounting directly at point of sale, but we’ve heard that from our Shopkickers that a majority of them will actually buy a new brand compared to the one that they’re generally loyal to, if they can earn kicks for it. So I think it’s also a really interesting time that was 87%, excuse me, of our Shopkickers, would buy a new product as opposed to their go-to brand.

And so I think in these times, we’ve seen loyalty waiver, whether it was during the pandemic when consumers were moving more to private label and they had the ability to comparison shop when they’re online, sitting at home, not going out, going through supply chain issues, when maybe their preferred brand wasn’t there. So I think in this time, brands need to not rest on the laurels of their loyalty and discounting here and there just to get a customer. They need to go back, as we talked about earlier, that value exchange of making sure they’re awarding and recognizing a consumer at every step of that purchase funnel.

Adam Conner (21:13):

Yeah, that’s a good point too, because while loyalty has eroded, at least through the middle of ’22, personal consumer expenditure has largely stayed the same or risen a tiny bit. Now my guess is there’s a great deal of trade off beneath that, and that has to be incentivized by something, whether it is a price difference and availability difference or an incentive difference, maybe in terms of some intern award. It’s interesting then to try to, without having the data sitting on this side of the interview table, knowing exactly what the best in class path looks like.

And so that’s what I’d like to round this out with. I want to hear from the other side of the table, because in, let’s say, the future, beyond a high inflationary environment, beyond Target maybe mismanaging the merchandising, beyond Amazon looping in content and seeing if it can get beyond content creators wanting to boycott purchasing from there at all, based on labor practice. All this stuff, eventually there will be, and even if there isn’t, I’m sure you’re thinking about it, some utopian best in class shopping experience for a next gen consumer who is incentivized to meaningfully move through every step of the funnel.

That’s a huge context for the question, which is what do you foresee for the future of that experience, but I’m interested as we round out to just peer into that looking glass with you, because so far you seem to have been a step ahead.

Brittany Billings (22:34):

Absolutely. So incentives should be just one of the many elements of the future best in class shopping experiences as you’re looking for. But it’s really interesting. I believe that the stages of the funnel as we marketers have traditionally defined it is being altered, and it’s no longer going to be linear. So this next gen consumer, and we’re seeing it a little bit right now, anyway, with your Amazon example and my push notifications where we’ll follow you around everywhere that you’re going, consumers are navigating their day with brands and products and services completely competing for their attention.

And we see it as the winners that convert them into buyers is going to create that most frictionless experience. And again, I’m going to come back to this, the greatest value. So if loyalty is no longer guaranteed, brands can’t rely on the customers they once had. So how can they treat this new generation in a different way than how they used to rest on their laurels of past?

So I think it’s about just continuing to always strengthen the habitual and emotional connection that consumers have with your brand. And through incentives is one of them, incentivizing those desired behaviors. It’s how can you blur the lines of physical and digital and make the benefits of the online shopping experience relevant in store and the benefits of the in-store shopping experience relevant online. So I think it’s that seamless frictionless experience where we have all of our data and knowledge and power in our hands and consumers can make smart choices immediately.

That’s how I see the future. And again, I would say you don’t just end with the transaction. So we’ve talked about it a lot in this moment of, “Okay, you see some content, you get awareness, you get education, you get discovery and then you purchase.” One transaction is really great, but how do you guarantee that second one? So how do you follow up post engagement as well? So ensuring that there’s that solid loop between the transaction and those behaviors that lead to it, and then the behaviors that lead to the next transaction is where we’re going to win.

Adam Conner (24:51):

And no music fan ever became a lifelong die hard after one concert ticket. It’s always about that prolonged experience, one where they feel that they belong to a community. And that’s one thing that I’ve personally learned over this year, even via this podcast, is that when we say next gen consumers, which is essentially just, well, the youngest consumers out there, doesn’t matter where they shop, where they bank, how they’re entertained, they want to feel like they belong.

And that is just another way of saying emotional experiential is here to stay, and that will be dominant. Actually, I’m going to do one bonus question here because sometimes I like to flip this question on its head. Based on everything you know about what the next gen best in class experience, could you fill this blank for me? And the blank is, “Well, I could tell you for sure that a best in class next gen experience will not include,” blank. What’s that blank for you?

Brittany Billings (25:41):

It would not include waste.

Adam Conner (25:43):

What kind of waste?

Brittany Billings (25:44):

I think waste of time, waste of money, mental bandwidth. Again, I think we have so many things coming at us from a daily basis and I think the next gen wants something clean and open and honest, and that meets their expectations and is conscientious and wants to get it quickly and has just the power in their hands to make that quick decision to move on to the next one.

Adam Conner (26:13):

Yeah. And that makes sense too. I think, well, it goes hand in hand with that frictionless goal, that ideal where there is no slip up. And the reason why I asked about waste is because that’s taken so many different various definitions and various societal context even this year and last year. But yeah, very interesting. I do hope for at some point a wasteless experience with regard to any of this because it’s hard to do. And that’s the thing that I talk about with people all the time. It’s nice to talk in terms of ideals in the future will definitely include that, but it’s going to be a bit of a slog, I think, because we’re always going to be surprised by whatever, whether it’s macro conditions, societal implications, geopolitical issues, whatever. There’s always something that’s pressuring that bubble, but it’s nice to think about it. It’s nice to conceptualize.

Brittany Billings (26:59):

An ideal world, ideal world.

Adam Conner (27:00):

Yeah, in an ideal world, and we’ll get as close to it as we can. But in the meantime, I mean, hey, this journey to purchase and learning all of this behavior in the middle seems like a pretty ideal way to build that future. And so for that, I’m really appreciative to have you come on here and share your expertise and to share the story of Shopkick. Brittany, thank you so much for joining us today.

Brittany Billings (27:19):

Thank you so much, Adam. I really appreciate it.

Adam Conner (27:24):

Thanks again to Brittany Billings for joining us today. I’m glad you played along with me, even as we approached the weeds on retail macroeconomically and its implications on what’s to come. And thanks to you, the listener for exploring The Future of Fandom with us. I’d encourage you to stay connected. Here’s how you can do it, livelike.com/podcast, where you’re going to get all of our shows from 2022.

Of course, you can also subscribe to The Future of Fandom across podcast networks. And finally, we’re on social media, too, LinkedIn @livelike and Twitter @livelikeinc. I look forward to predicting the future again with you real soon. And until then I’m Adam Conner saying so long and thanks for being a fan.

It’s time to meet the man, the myth, the legend!! This week, we’re excited to introduce you to an employee who always gives 100%: Design Lead Shu-Kuang Lin.

We’re happy to introduce you to Shu and give you a chance to hear about his love for design, his daily responsibilities at LiveLike, and so much more. We’re proud to have someone like Shu on our team, and excited to get to share a bit about him!

Tell us a little bit about your career path. How did you get into UX/UI design?

Surprisingly, my major was actually film and directing rather than design. I made several short films and expected to be a director before moving to the United States. Then, in the first summer of grad school, I had an internship opportunity to work for an app design startup where I found some interesting similarities between exploring UX user stories and drawing film storyboards. At that moment, I stepped into the world of digital media and never went back to the film industry.

Can you describe what a Design Lead does and what your typical workday looks like?

For me, providing direction and mentoring designers is how I typically like to spend my time; checking in with them often to see if there are any blockers on the project side, and also helping their voices to be heard within the team to make sure the progress and feedback are aligned with those of our cross-functional partners.

Did you always want to work in a lead designer role?

I like to be in a role which brings long-term impact to not only the product itself but also to the team. As a design lead, it’s exciting to take ownership of projects and share any valuable past experience with other team members so they won’t make the same design mistakes in the future.  

What have you learned about LiveLike (as both a business and a team) since you joined?

A lot! Mainly, the power of integration, and getting a wider vision to explore areas I’m not familiar with.

For example, our product decisions are sometimes majorly impacted by business strategy, which gives me more opportunities to consider design, not just from a user perspective, but from how it can meet each team’s requirements. LiveLike is really open to all kinds of these conversations between different teams and so I learned how important transparency and communication is to the Company.

Is there anything else you’d want to share with aspiring designers?

I know designers can sometimes feel imposter syndrome—the truth is that we have all experienced it somehow. I believe there is no one-step solution to be perfect, however, there is always room for improvement.

Join us! We are not just a group of talented designers, we are real humans! We like to share, listen, and are very open-minded. We respect each other’s feedback and design decisions. That’s what we always do; at LiveLike, we love to help each other get to the places where we feel comfortable and confident.

Thank you, Shu!

It’s time for our Summer Product Update! This month, we are pleased to announce that we are moving forward with our Stats Perform integration, we have released the first version of the LiveLike Quest feature, and we have upgraded some of our existing product features.

We Launched a New Feature: Quests!

This feature has been brought up in several conversations over the years and has been requested by many of our clients, so we finally made it a reality: We launched the LiveLike Quest feature. Quests are sets of tasks that users must complete in order to achieve a specific goal that may lead to the acquisition of a badge or a certain user status on the platform. This checklist of interactions is a fantastic way to give end users a more engaging, motivating experience as they work towards certain goals through Quests.

Quest tasks can be partially completed, so that integrators don’t have to keep their own counters when designing tasks like “invite 5 friends” or “attend 3 classes”, and both the user and the integrator will be able to track the task progress during the Quest. Quests can be used to build things like new user onboarding checklists, product and feature tours, or one-time promotional campaigns. Check out the quick demo below to see how to build a Quest using the LiveLike CMS!

Note: Quests are still in the early access phase and not generally available.

We Integrated Automation for Interactive Widgets

A few months ago, we introduced you to our brand new data feed integration with Stats Perform, that enabled the automatic creation and publication of alert widgets such as statistics and facts. We are excited to announce that we have since moved forward with the integration of automated interactive widgets for soccer games.

Now, you can automate the creation and publication of emoji sliders and text polls when a specific action in a game occurs. Currently, the supported actions are: Match Start, Match Half, New Goal, Yellow Card, Red Card, Shot, Foul, and Substitution. Of course, you can decide what kinds of actions you want your audience to engage with (for example only Match Start and Goals). Currently, text widgets are predefined: When a goal is scored, the alert text will automatically read: “Did you enjoy this goal?” with the designated slider below. However, in the near future, you will be able to edit the text of each widget prior to this automation.

So, what’s in it for you? Less human control over the CMS, an increase in pace in terms of widget publication, and the allocation of your resources elsewhere when your event is live.

The upcoming main steps will be to expand the number of data feeds integrated to be able to cover more sports and provide you with even more possibilities. However, if you wish to use our solution for other sports right now, we would be pleased to further investigate the possibilities together.

Also This Month

​Sponsorship is Now Clickable!

Let’s drive more synergies and conversions with your partners using our latest update regarding sponsors! Now you can configure click URLs for sponsors, directly from our CMS. This major update is also available by API and can be used inside custom UI. Don’t waste your valuable time and instead start showcasing your partners by pushing clickable Sponsor Alerts!

A New Leaderboard Feature

Previously when checking a leaderboard, users were able to directly see the top 5 members and their own position in relation to the top 5. Now, you can decide to show leaderboard positions of specific users to add more relevancy. It is even possible to integrate the leaderboard with your social graph to show users their friends’ rankings. Reinforcing the competition leads to more interaction and engagement on your platform, which is a key step to creating loyal users!

We hope you enjoy these new updates, and please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. If you are not yet using LiveLike but are interested in integrating our solution, you can also reach out and book a demo with our sales team.

Ever since the introduction of Facebook reactions in 2016—which feature reaction buttons like “love”, “haha”, “wow”, “sad”, and “angry”—many other brands and companies have followed suit with the same formats.

In 2019, LinkedIn announced the launch of LinkedIn Reactions, in which users can mark posts as “funny”, “insightful” or “curious”, and take a stance on whether they “love”, “like” or “celebrate” them. In 2020, Instagram added a feature that allows users to react to DMs and stories with emojis. And now in 2022, we can leave emoji reactions on iMessage, Slack, Zoom, Snapchat, and almost every other online platform.

We even see icon reactions being used in the real world; in many mall, restaurant or airport bathrooms, visitors can find emoji feedback machines, where they can rate their experience based on restroom cleanliness.

As a part of the LiveLike audience engagement suite, we prioritize making this type of self expression a given on your platform in order to show your audience you care about their opinions, and give them a way to share their thoughts with the rest of the community.

In this article, we’re breaking down the top four reasons why social media reactions work successfully to increase user engagement on your platform.

1. It Allows Your Users to Express Themselves

The depth and range of human emotion is far too wide and complex to narrow down to a simple “like” button. People want to be able to express themselves and share their opinions as often and with as few limitations as possible, whether they’re in the real world or interacting online.

In other words, it isn’t enough to give something a thumbs up or down, people want to be able to cheer on posts or experiences they support and appreciate, show dismay or rage to the ones they disagree with, and question the ones they don’t understand.

Don’t just take it from us; let the stats speak for themselves. In the first year following the launch of Facebook Reactions, users shared 300 billion Reactions, adding up to more than 800 million a day.

When users are given a broader range of emotions to react with, they are also more likely to feel comfortable engaging with content, as it takes less than a second and they know their reaction is less likely to be misconstrued. For example, previously users only had the option to use the traditional “like” button if they wanted to engage with a post, regardless of if they actually liked the content or not.

With reactions, they are no longer limited or at risk of being misunderstood, and can engage freely in a way that may lead to richer, more intelligible discussion.

2. It Shows Your Customers You Care About Their Input

The difference between a passive user and a loyal fan is often determined by simply letting them know you value their opinion and want to know what they think.

By giving your users more options to express their thoughts or feelings on your platform, you are telling them that you care about what they think about your content, and are going to use that information to give them a better experience. When the option to react to posts isn’t there, it subconsciously lets your users know you are not a people-first platform.

Not only does this ability to express themselves give your fans more freedom, it also results in the collection of valuable user data regarding the content on your platform. While they feel heard and perhaps engage in more meaningful discussion about the different reactions given, you can start to discover what content resonates the most with your audience.

3. It Enables Conversation Between Users in the Community

With Live Chats being one of our major LiveLike solutions, we’re all about giving users the ability to communicate, and fostering productive or engaging conversation between fans. Doing so not only works to establish a sense of community and belonging for your users, but also boosts engagement rates on your platform, and gives you key insight into user opinions about your product, service, or platform experience. While live chats are a more obvious way to enable conversation, reactions are an equally strong force in getting people talking.

Take, for example, this post by Learn Basics, that makes great use of the LinkedIn Reactions format and saw over 15,000 reactions and 500+ comments:

By using reactions strategically and pairing it with a relevant poll question, this post successfully catches the attention of its viewers, engages them in sharing what is likely an opinion they feel passionately about, and entices them to start a conversation either arguing others’ message reactions or advocating for their own.

As well as being an effective way to start debates or discussions in the comment section, reactions also offer an extremely low effort option to interact with a post. Not everyone is comfortable leaving comments on social media, and not everyone has the time to craft the perfect response. Reactions are a quick, easy second option that still allow users to participate in the discussion and give their two cents, which in turn goes towards boosting your overall platform engagement.

4. It Creates Opportunities for Increased Brand Recognition

At its core, reactions were created to expand the limits of how users could express themselves online; but even still, the reaction options found on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn remain limited to around 4-5 emotion-based emojis.

That’s why, as a part of the LiveLike suite, we’ve pushed the boundaries even further by introducing the ability to react with custom brand reactions through build-your-own-bespoke UI. You can use the suite to introduce brand-specific emojis and GIFs that fans can use to respond to chat messages, sentences in a blog, images, or even moments in a live event.

LiveLike Reactions

Whether you’re in sports, music, edtech, or fintech, using brand and industry-specific reactions that are personalized to your niche target audience helps to make your fans feel special and to create a sense of community, all while helping to define your brand voice.

What’s more, launching brand-specific reactions—like the ability to react to something with an image of your company logo or a GIF of a player on your sports team—essentially works as a free way to have your own users spread the word about your brand, and build up your brand recognition.

At the end of the day, your users are looking to feel heard, share their thoughts and opinions with others, and connect with likeminded people in their community. With stock UI to use OOTB or build-your-own-bespoke UI to get added customization, the LiveLike Live Chats solution has everything you need to introduce fun, effective reaction formats for your fans to meet these needs.

Currently, LiveLike powers three different types of live chats—Public, Private, and Influencer—that all integrate reaction capabilities to engage users. Start boosting user engagement on your platform with social media reactions with the help of the LiveLike engagement suite.

Still not sure if gamification can be applied to your business platform? Get in touch today to learn more about how gaming elements can enhance your user experience.

Get in Touch

How to Own the Next Gen Experience

Today on The Future of Fandom, we deep dive into the next gen experience — and how to own it. on this episode we take a look at StockX and how it stays ahead of the curve, and even ahead of its partners, in this realm of consumer connection via their Chief Marketing Officer, Deena Bahri.

StockX is known for sneakers, streetwear, accessories, collectibles, and everything in between. It’s also been able to harness hype and build an ocean of fans drop by drop. Today, Deena chats about how they stay close to next gen consumers in the physical, digital, and “phygital” worlds.

We also talk about Own It, StockX’s next brand platform that they hope will layer another critical element of the next gen consumer into their own experience: the desire, and the need, to belong as an individual.

Deena’s been on the cutting edge for years, and over the next half hour, you’ll see why. So let’s collab for a little while and predict the future with StockX and Deena Bahri.

Connect with Deena Bahri on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deenabahri/

Read more about StockX: https://stockx.com/

Read more about Own It: https://stockx.com/lp/own-it-2022/

Full episode here:

Back to All Episodes

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Adam Conner (01:26):

Deena, how are you? Thank you so much for chatting with me.

Deena Bahri (01:29):

Hi, Adam. Good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Adam Conner (01:32):

And chatting with you again, by the way listeners. It’s not been on this podcast stream, but I have interviewed Deena before in a similar vein, specifically how to harness hype, which we will talk a little bit about today I think. I think that it is certainly relevant to this idea of fandom. And we’ll get to that. We’ll get to the other F word here, which is future. But the first thing that I want to do, I’m guessing most people who listen to this know what StockX is. If they don’t, where the hell have they been? What is StockX Deena?

Deena Bahri (02:01):

Hmm. I hope everybody knows, but just in case, StockX is the leading global platform for trading and consuming current culture. You may be saying to yourself, what is current culture? It’s everything from sneakers to apparel, to electronics, trading cards, collectables, art prints, Lego, anything that represents what the consumer is talking about, thinking about right now.

Adam Conner (02:29):

Now in terms of that current culture, of course ever changing, but the way in which it was interacted with digitally and in eCommerce has changed a lot, progressed, evolved, let’s say over the last several years from the first days of direct to consumer where people were starting to take advantage of their own relationships with brands that weren’t necessarily tied to a specific retailer, to the time when you began at StockX to today, to this interview. From that heyday, to your first day, to today, what have you seen change the most about the way that consumers engage digitally and what has stayed the same?

Deena Bahri (03:11):

I’m thinking of three things that have changed. The first I would say is the pace. Just things are going faster and faster. A symbol of the influence of technology, I guess, and the amount of conversion 15 years ago, when I started in direct to consumer, there were pretty much the early adopters in e-commerce. Maybe some people were converting from offline to online consumption, but it was a smaller more separate ven diagram. And I think it’s converging more, more and more. You have more consumers who maybe don’t fit the traditional eCommerce consumer profile becoming eCommerce consumers. And I would say that is also contributing to the change of pace. And then you have just so much convergence, right? There were, I think, brighter lines between it’s called, one example might be entertainment and fashion, or sport and music.

Deena Bahri (04:10):

These were more separate quadrants of culture I think that are now converging more and more and crossing over. I guess the last thing that has changed is just the nature of the dialogue between brands and consumers, which, going back in time was a one way dialogue. Obviously the advent of social channels has created faster, more frequent conversation. But I think in the very recent times, the emergence of newer platforms has allowed for true two way conversation. And I think that’s really, again, fundamentally changed the relationship between the consumer and a brand.

Adam Conner (04:50):

Completely new ways to interact, truly with this well new generation of people, a next generation of consumers, which requires a next gen experience. Now you’ve been at the forefront of that over the last several years with StockX. Thank you for telling me what’s changed over time. When it comes to the today, the most recent part of that last analysis, when decoding what that experience should look and feel like, from an elemental basis, from its foundation to its frills. Let’s just say, if I were to create a wardrobe on StockX from the shoes I got to wear everywhere, to the watch that I can wear maybe, what are those parts that are essential? And what’s the cherry on top right now, again, in your experience, for that next gen experience?

Deena Bahri (05:43):

I think what’s essential for the NextGen consumer experience, I think truly an omnichannel experience. It’s a word we’ve talked about for a long time in e-commerce and in retail. And I think increasingly that is table stakes, right? A consumer who has an experience or an interaction with the brand online, wants to have a connected experience with your brand offline. I think the other piece of it is really being distributed with your brand presence in the channels where the consumer lives, and the marketing channels where the consumer lives. And that means really showing up well natively and consistently in social channels and in each social channel where your consumer is living and breathing and consuming content. We talked again for a long time about having a consistent brand presence in your touch points. But I think today more than ever, the consumer expects to be greeted where they are with a familiar voice and presence from you, the brand. And that’s something we’re certainly working on all the time.

Adam Conner (06:52):

Yeah. What are some of the recent ways in which you’ve leaned into that? Meet people where they are is certainly something I’ve heard about a lot, meeting the demands of the newest generation of consumers, for sure. They’re more demanding than most in terms of sounding and in terms of feeling like they want to belong, like they are of value, well, a valued customer and in turn that makes them a fan. Are there any specific examples recently that you’ve built up to meet that demand?

Deena Bahri (07:17):

Yeah. I think last time we spoke about discord, and that’s an example we go back to often because it is a channel that has emerged over the last 12, 18 months as a place that we as a brand must be, and a place that we can engage with our consumers in a very rich way. And I think launching that, continually testing our presence in that channel, expanding our presence in that channel with different content types and engagement platforms. I think also some of these emerging streaming platforms like Twitch, where again, a year ago or 18 months ago, we tested, we gingerly put our toes in the water. And then now, fast forward to today, we have a team of marketers and creatives in Amsterdam activating our brand at TwitchCon as part of our partnership. I think it’s about being on the right channels, but also being there in the right ways.

Adam Conner (08:11):

Yeah. I think that’s the first time I’ve heard. And it’s a nice moment for me just in my years of interviewing marketers, but learning about this world, it’s the first time a brand and you’ve done it now twice to say, “We need to get into Discord.” I really haven’t heard that and I can more readily understand activations with Twitch. I think live streaming has a long way to go, even though live commerce is sort of sputtering, at least in the US. That’s certainly something I can grasp.

Deena Bahri (08:37):

Mm.

Adam Conner (08:38):

But the Discord thing, I’m going to remember that, when Discord, it becomes an essential brand channel maybe a couple years down the road in terms of the way that you interact, and then remember that you said it first and you said it twice before anybody, which was very notable.

Adam Conner (08:51):

Let’s talk about some ways in which you create magnetic experiences and maybe Discord eventually will be one of those where you feel really, really tightly tied to, as a consumer, to StockX. I’m reminded of other players out there right now, I think who are navigating this digital ecosystem really well.

Adam Conner (09:12):

The first one that comes to mind is Nike and sneakers, just because of the inherently shareable experiences that they allow people to publish as soon as they get, or don’t get a new drop of shoes. In fact, also on this show, a gentleman by the name of Rob Petrozzo. I don’t know if you’ve met him, but he co-founded a platform called Rally, and basically said that he borrowed a lot of those things for his platform because it was so inherently shareable. And because it was a great way to connect people. Now, marketplaces, I think in general, have an ability to do that more so than their brand counterparts. The people who would supply that marketplace. Nike sneakers, I think is a bit of an outlier, but I’m curious how you pull those brand partners along for the ride, because I’m guessing that they’re not thinking about it or are as connected to do it as you are. Do you know what I mean by that?

Deena Bahri (10:02):

Yeah. Yeah. It’s a topic that comes up a lot in our conversations, in our direct brand conversations, because they don’t understand this consumer. I’m generalizing of course, but…

Adam Conner (10:13):

Sure. Yeah.

Deena Bahri (10:14):

By and large, they don’t understand this consumer as well as we do. And they don’t understand how to reach them and how to be relevant to them. And I think they do recognize the need obviously to show up in the right channels, in the right ways, with the right product. But they are often struggling with the path. And I think it’s a place when we do develop these partnerships, it’s a great opportunity because we can bring that. They bring the product, we bring the connection with the consumer. And one of our strong desires every time we partner with a brand, or a personality, or an entity of any kind, we try to make it feel authentic and be fully integrated. Right? We don’t like to do these surface level partnerships, but we try to build multiple layers where there’s content integration. There’s hopefully some unique product involved. There’s a tailored or targeted marketing campaign. There maybe is an event. It becomes more of like an immersive 360 experience with that brand partner for the consumer.

Adam Conner (11:19):

List something that’s a branch of that. And I don’t want to tiptoe, but I want to make sure I ask the question carefully, which is that it seems obvious to me and to you, and thank you for noting that individual brands are behind when it comes to that consumer connection. Obviously they ultimately want to get there. Do you foresee a time in which they will ever get there to the extent that a traditional marketplace has it? Because if you are going to build genuine fans, my guess is that most people want to do it directly. That’s why DTC rose 15 years ago, as you said, when you were part of the first adoption of it. Do you see brands accelerating even towards you or do you think you’re accelerating away from them even as you grow?

Deena Bahri (11:58):

Maybe I’m biased.

Adam Conner (11:59):

Okay. Fair enough.

“I think we’re accelerating. I think it’s true what you’ve said about brands wanting to establish that direct connection with consumers. And I also think sometimes they do that with blinders on without really seeing what the consumer wants. And they’re perhaps not asking themselves the question of, “Does my consumer really want to have to create credentials and sign up for loyalty with me and the 10 other brands they interact with,” as an example, right? I think when you’re interacting with a marketplace is one of the great benefits is you can engage with lots of your brands, your beloved brands, and when you’re interacting directly with one of those brands, obviously there’s tons of value. But I think there is a cost to the consumer to have to give their data, develop that deep relationship in the way that serves the individual brand’s goals.”

— Deena Bahri (11:59)

Deena Bahri (12:50):

There is a trade off there. I think we are accelerating because we are today in line with the way the consumer wants to consume, right? Which is in this eclectic, hybridized fashion, right? We use the word multihyphenate a lot. And we use the word intersection a lot. I think people don’t want to look head to toe, one brand. They don’t have one single passion point. They are complex and their interests are complex. And at a place like StockX, they can serve that complexity in one single place.

Adam Conner (13:22):

Yeah, that makes sense to me. And that was my inkling as well. That marketplaces are generally going to continue to accelerate away. And that brands will always be a bit myopic in the way that they want to attract consumers because it’s consumers [inaudible 00:13:35], it’s consumers that consume my thing, right? Whereas on StockX, or on any marketplace that can consume a bunch of stuff. And the way that you connect with consumers is your, I don’t know about secret sauce, because it’s sauce that’s out there, and other people have their other ways. It reminds me, I had a conversation with Rakuten and Dana Marino, who’s their CMO, another person I should introduce you to, anyway. And they do it through rewards, but everybody’s got their thing. And regardless of what that thing is, yeah, I think they’re getting away from brands. We’ll see. But that’s what I…

“Well, I do want to add one thing though, because I think there is one element in which brands have been super successful at reaching the consumer, and it comes to life on our platform a lot. I think it’s worth talking about, and this is collaborations. I think this has been a trend with our consumer for quite some time now. And we see more acceleration with brands collaborating with, let’s say an incumbent luxury brand collaborating with a musician or an athlete, or with a brand that’s adjacent, but not in their direct space. We’re seeing this with Gucci North Face, or any number of the Crocs collaborations. And I think this is one of the smartest ways I’ve seen some of these brands reach outside of their comfort zone to connect with consumers. And I’d love to see more of that. I think it speaks to, again, being focused on the customer and the way they consume rather than being focused on the singular brand goals.”

— Deena Bahri (14:03)

Adam Conner (15:04):

I’m right there with you. I think that’s a great point. Borrowing fandoms is a subtopic that we’ve explored on this show and it hasn’t been with product to product. Actually it started with getting warranties on product. We had another interview here with a gentleman who runs a company called Extend that does extended warranties. Anyway, he described a flywheel of that where consumers will ultimately want, in his case, it was extended warranties from a singular source. But in your case is they love the idea of those collabs. They’re new, they’re fresh, they’re things that brands probably aren’t thinking about all day, but that somebody like you can and can demonstrate how successful that it is, gets the people going, gets them excited.

Adam Conner (15:41):

This is actually where I want to bleed into the last conversation that I have with you. Because as we talk about fandom, we talk about fans and turning consumers into fans. You got to talk about the hype that comes along with any new drop, any new collab, anything like that, especially since StockX has grown to be a platform for more than just one thing, one category. You can get a whole ton of stuff on StockX. Listeners, you should be going to StockX.com right now, while you’re listening to this, because you have your hands free, but given the volatile nature of some of these things and I’m talking mostly digital goods and collectibles over the last couple of months, let’s say, we’re doing this around the middle of 22. What can you, and what can brands take away from the hype cycles that dominated their growth to retain engagement from those hyped up consumers once some of those fads start to wane?

“Well, we talked about the pace of change, and I think brands that want to stay relevant need to stay on pace, right? Launching one really great product or collaboration today will sustain you for a little while. But to stay in the foreground for the consumer, you as a brand have to continue moving alongside them. And I think you really need a roadmap of continued drops, continued moments. It doesn’t have to be drops depending on what business you’re in, but continued moments to engage the consumer in an accelerating or crescendoing story, right? And it could be building on the original moment or it can be a rotating cadence of stories. But I think the consumer’s appetite for interaction and for consuming stories is large. And you have to be willing to try to satiate that with a strong cadence of content, moments and engagement.”

— Deena Bahri (16:35)

Deena Bahri (17:37):

I think focusing on passion points, for us, that’s been super successful, right? Really understanding our consumer. We talk often about how much we listen to the customer. We study the customer, we do a broad array of insights work, qualitative, quantitative to really understand our consumer. And then we use that to fuel our decisions. And I think the results are showing that the consumer appreciates being heard and being observed in that way.

Adam Conner (18:06):

Well, that ties back to what NextGen consumers want. They want to feel like they belong. They want to feel individually valued and they want that individuality to shine. They want to be empowered in that search for it and in that embodiment of it, once they do. How relevant and timely then it must be for your newest initiative, “Own It,” which is very aptly named, and successfully, I believe, tackles this search and this destination, that’s a very broad way to sell it. Could you please describe what “Own It” is for StockX and what you plan to do with?

Deena Bahri (18:45):

Yeah, absolutely. Just this week we launched “Own It” as our new brand platform, and if you’re watching, you’ll see it perhaps on a digital media channel on television, you’ll see it on [inaudible 00:19:00] home, at TwitchCon, we’re going to be activating it all over the world, then all over the customer journey in order to celebrate individuality, self-expression, and the confidence that comes with really knowing who you are and putting it out there for the world to see. We talk about as our purpose at StockX, our purpose is really to empower consumers everywhere to participate in culture through their passion points, and “Own It” is an ode to that.

Adam Conner (19:28):

I was just reading a couple days ago. In fact, listeners, you’re going to be listening to this probably on Monday the 18th, which means this is brand new. You’ll be able to see it for yourself and the way that you’ll be activating this “Own It” platform will be in a number of ways, including one which is described by a word that I first heard by an expert and a consultant in the Gen Z world. It’s a guy named Ziad Ahmed. I don’t know if you’ve ever met him, which is “phygital.” Let’s go back to Discord for a second. This is the way that you are embodying it. I’m curious, in your perspective, what are the ways in which the physical and the digital will continue to bleed together, especially in the lens of this next gen consumer connection and experience?

“Yeah, I think it’s a fun word. And we started using the word phygital, actually when we launched our digital trading platform in January for basically tokens of physical products. And we said, this is a phygital item, meaning you own a physical item, but you have a digital token that you can trade to represent your ownership. And I think that is a great way to explain phygital. It’s the crossover between something that you interact with digitally and something you interact with physically. In our marketing world that might mean you engage with our brand campaign online, and then you happen to be at TwitchCon and you interact with the brand there in person, or you participate in an “Own It” themed panel on Discord, and then you go to one of our retail locations to pick up a piece of merchandise that ties back to the campaign. It’s again, that crossover between the digital and the physical, which goes back to a theme we talked about earlier, which is showing up in a consistent omnichannel way for the consumer.”

— Deena Bahri (20:14)

Adam Conner (21:22):

Right. Yeah, I can’t wait to see how that manifests, especially at TwitchCon and I’m not going to be in Amsterdam, but I’ll read about it plenty. Because I do follow that world, especially in the world of livestream, in a real world Discord experience. Never seen it. Can I use the word hype? Yeah. I’m pretty hyped to see actually how it’s going to roll out.

Adam Conner (21:40):

Okay. Let me touch on the other F word we like to talk about here, which is future as we close, and excuse the multiple word plays here. I’d like to know what you’re putting stock into next or what your “X” factor is for the future. I want to know what is next for you, for StockX? Maybe this is even what is nobody thinking about yet that they should, when it comes to this, again, we could say consumer connection experience, this broad stuff that we’ve been talking about over the last 20 minutes. I’m just curious. Is there some crazy, wacky, wild idea that is just the roots are there, but hasn’t proliferated. You seem to be on the cutting edge of pretty much every other way that consumers have connected over the last couple years. You might as well be able to tell me about the next ones.

Deena Bahri (22:25):

I wish I had that crystal ball.

Adam Conner (22:26):

Yeah, me too.

“There are a few things that we believe are going to be really strong themes for the future. And some of them are themes you might have heard from me last time we spoke Adam, alt investing, something we talk about a lot, the idea of digital or phygital assets. Having a lot of value, being highly valued by our consumer, and being a viable investment vehicle. And that’s something we’re going to continue to spend time on.”

— Deena Bahri (22:27)

Deena Bahri (22:52):

We talked about convergence and used collaborations as one example, collaborations between say luxury and street brands, for example. I think that’s going to continue to happen and this hybridization of themes coming together. I think we’re going to see that happen more and more. And then, maybe as my last prediction here, something that we’re starting to think about a lot. And certainly personally I’m thinking about a lot is the value of experiences, and how I think this consumer and this time in life, as we’re hopefully coming out of a pandemic, there’s a high premium on experience. And we’re thinking a lot about how do we help the consumer engage in that?

Adam Conner (23:41):

Yeah, that’s an area where I’m specifically super interested just because it’s been a few years since people have either been comfortable for it, and thus, a couple years, and since it’s been heavily invested in, and what’s old will be new again, almost in that way, but of course the tech will have evolved in a great way and a great deal since.

Adam Conner (23:59):

Thank you for telling me all of this. This has been a wonderfully enlightening, again, and listeners obviously now you know what StockX is. You should go over there and see what they are doing. Check out this “Own It” thing and just follow along. Because if the last few years of experience have taught me anything, it’s that these folks will continue to be at the cutting edge which means that you should be too.

Adam Conner (24:23):

Deena, thank you so much for joining me on the show, for peering into the future with me. We’ll keep looking for that crystal ball, but for now I’m very appreciative.

Deena Bahri (24:29):

Thanks, Adam.

Adam Conner (24:33):

Thanks again to Deena Bahri from StockX for joining us. Calling it now, as I did on the show, Discord will be a place more brands flock to in the coming years, maybe sooner. And thanks to you, the listener of course, for exploring the Future of Fandom with us. I’d encourage you to stay connected so here’s what you do: go to livelike.com/podcast and subscribe to the Future of Fandom wherever you listen. We are also on social @LiveLike on LinkedIn, and on Twitter @LiveLikeInc. Adam Conner (25:08): I look forward to predicting the future again with you real soon. And until then, I’m Adam Conner saying so long and thanks for being a fan.

This week on our Get to Know LiveLike series, we’re excited to highlight Software Development Engineer and Tester Intern Shruti Aggarwal.

Shruti has been passionate about software development since she was younger, and thrives off of any opportunity to improve her skills, grow her knowledge, and further expertise when it comes to programming. She has a love for coding languages and is always looking to learn more from her peers. After being introduced to the world of coding in high school, Shruti knew she wanted to find an SDE role and since found her way to the LiveLike team.

We’re happy to introduce you to Shruti and give you a chance to hear about her passion for coding, her daily responsibilities as an intern at LiveLike, and so much more. We’re proud to have someone like Shruti on our team, and excited to get to share a bit about her!

Tell us a little bit about your career path. How did you get into engineering?

My love for coding began when I first chose computer science in Grade 11 and that was the moment I decided I wanted to be a software developer. When I was first introduced to the concepts of programming languages, I was so excited to learn how different and powerful each of them are, learning first about the amazing power of C++.

After graduating, I continued with my journey in coding by entering into a postgraduate degree program to earn my Master’s of Computer Applications (MCA). I was a bright student but as soon as I got into college, I realized I had a lot more to learn in the coding space. I started participating in technical activities like research paper presentations, projects and more, conducting full, in-depth research on programming topics.

During my postgrad, I worked really hard to learn other languages along with my program course subjects, and completed some really strong projects on my own and with my peers. I also used to spend time helping out other classmates who were eager to learn more about coding, which helped me to strengthen my own knowledge at the same time. I sat for placements in my MCA and eventually landed where I am today, living my dream to be part of a technical field and learn more every day.

Can you describe what an SDET intern does and what your typical workday looks like?

As an SDET intern, my workday is not often very typical and can greatly vary from day to day. Generally, I start by going through my messages and emails, and checking in with my teammates. Then, I check some of the JIRA tickets which are either related to my language domain or to that of my team. After that, I spend several hours learning more about the LiveLike product, and reading more on the technical documentation of the Company, other task-related documents and my domain-specific learnings.

As a Software Development Engineer and Tester, I perform multiple kinds of testing throughout the day like sanity and regression, and on the development side I perform integration testing of the features, which gives me a better understanding about iOS language.

Did you always want to work in an SDE role?

Yes! It has always been my passion to work in the technical field as an SDE. When I first started learning about computers, I knew that I wanted to build something unique and helpful that would add to the betterment of the world. Since then, I have worked hard to get to the place I’m at today, and though I was unsure at times about the career journey I was taking, I am certain about the destination it led me to.

What have you learned about LiveLike (as both a business and a team) since you joined?

As an intern, you not only get to know the ins and outs of the product you’re working with but also the company. Since this is my first job out of my postgrad, I can say that being a part of LiveLike as a first career experience is no less than a blessing. As a startup, the opportunities at LiveLike are endless, and the company culture provides a profound example of how teams should work together. The people and the culture here not only work to foster the creation of a strong product, but it also has made me a better person both professionally and personally.

Someone once said that having a good manager feels like having a good friend, and I am lucky to have Vijay Rawat and Shivender Singh as my seniors. Even in terms of iOS skills, my knowledge zone has expanded and all the credit goes to iOS developers-Mike Moloksher, Ljupcho Nastevski, and Jelzon Monzon who are highly skilled and help me become a better developer each day. Everyone here believes in growing as a team and helps each other in the best possible way whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Company culture aside, when I first got to know about the LiveLike product, I was astonished by the sheer creativity of it. It’s clear that the team at LiveLike is constantly working to make the product more optimized and present it to the world in the best possible manner.

Is there anything else you’d want to share with aspiring engineers?

Dear aspiring engineers, do not lose hope and remember that you will get to learn more in this field than any other. If you ever feel like giving up just remember your “WHY”. You don’t have to be perfect in everything, just be unbeatable in one domain. Do not get overwhelmed and do not compare your first day looking at someone’s 657th day of practicing. Just keep going and keep working on your skills. The world is full of help, you just have to ask for it.

Love yourself, take really good of yourself in every manner and  be gentle towards yourself and to the people around you. And remind yourself everyday that “practice beats talent”.

Thank you, Shruti!

The first-ever NFT was minted in 2014, and just seven years later, in February of 2022, the market cap of Art Blocks NFT projects available on the Ethereum blockchain and listed on OpenSea was worth roughly 828 million US dollars.

Nowadays, NFTs seem to be everywhere and can take many forms including art pieces, collectibles, domain names, event tickets, video-game items, virtual land, memes, and more. Despite their abundance, however, NFTs are still often poorly understood by people who don’t work directly in the NFT space, and who find themselves asking the same question: “What is the point of an NFT?”

This is a tough question to answer as the NFT market is still at a very early stage and is set to evolve significantly over the next few years. But one thing is for sure, the popularity of NFTs and the global NFT market will only continue to rise if, firstly, the access to NFTs is simplified as much as possible so it can be accepted by global audiences; and secondly, if there are more identifiable utilities associated with NFTs to help sustain and reinforce the market over time.

Before diving in to this crucial conversation around NFT utility, check out our NFT announcement video:

So, What Do We Mean By Bringing Utility to an NFT?

When you’re planning on investing in an NFT, you’re likely not doing so simply because you find that specific NFT—whether it’s a piece of art, an event ticket, or a domain name—particularly beautiful or impressive or extraordinary. Of course, that can play a major role in your decision, but it’s probably not the sole appeal. Instead, you’re likely also investing in an NFT to be a part of a community.

The appeal of being part of an NFT community, and what’s often responsible for incentivizing NFT buyers in general, is the exciting, redeemable perks that come with it. In short, minting an NFT with utility gives you access to a community where you’re then granted admission to enjoy exclusive benefits that can be digital as well as physical.

Take Crypto Baristas as an example: The “fun, caffeine-inspired NFTs whose purchase supports real-life coffee initiatives”. Crypto Baristas have launched a small collection of NFTs with the goal of opening the world’s first NFT-funded café in New York, supporting coffee supply chains, doubling down on sustainability, and improving the livelihoods of coffee-growing communities.

Holders of Crypto Baristas NFTs receive caffeinated perks for life at all future brand café spaces, exclusive coffees from Coffee Bros., and discounts on Crypto Baristas merchandise. As you can see, the investment in a Crypto Baristas NFT has a double utility here; not only do you get advantages like free coffee, you also contribute to a project that matters and makes a difference (and bonus appeal if you’re a caffeine lover!).

Measuring the Value of NFTs

At the start of the NFT craze, the value of NFTs was mainly measured by their scarcity and the reputation of the people behind their creation. The understanding was that if the founding team members seemed skilled and resolute, the public reputation was thriving and majorly positive, and the actual products were so exclusive and obscure, then the launch was sure to be a success.

This is how things typically went in terms of selling NFTs in the earlier days—specifically more artistic NFT projects that would be coveted by a niche group of people who held interest in either the space of NFTs or art collection. The more famous you were or the more hype you built around your project, the better chances you had at success, and you’d better not screw up your pre-launch reputation or the value of your NFT project may diminish.

Of course, these types of artistic NFT projects that target buyers who understand the ins and outs of NFTs will still exist as the NFT space evolves. But the reality is that in order to democratize NFTs and have them exist in the mainstream, reputation and scarcity won’t be enough to make people realize the value they will acquire over time and invest in them.

Should Every NFT Have Utility?

While some projects rely on utility as a key driver for people to purchase them, the short answer is no. Why not? Because it depends on what kind of NFT you’re looking to purchase or mint.

If you are going to mint a digital artwork or a meme, it is best to think of it as if you were buying a physical painting or drawing, where the appeal is not necessarily its use. And similarly to purchasing a physical piece of art, NFT artwork will come with a public certificate of authenticity and ownership despite being issued by the blockchain in which the artwork or meme is stored.

On the contrary, and for some other categories of NFTs such as collectibles or gaming items, the added utility can help to empower an NFTs’ value and increase its demand even further.

Why Utility is Becoming More Important in the NFT Space

Simply put, utility NFTs are growing in importance because scarcity, reputation, proof of ownership, and certificates of authenticity are no longer enough incentive. People want to invest in an NFT because of its long-term value, not its bragging rights.

Buyers are starting to ask: What can I achieve with my NFT? What am I getting out of this? How is this purchase benefitting me?

This is where the utility layer can provide answers and strengthen the value of NFTs, ultimately helping to democratize NFTs. We are already seeing a lot of opportunities and use cases arising in the gaming industry with utility NFTs: In some cases, holders of utility NFTs are able to use their NFT to gain access to exclusive items in multiple games; in others, a holder’s avatar is able to wear NFT fashion items. And with more and more integration of utility in these industries, it is becoming a crucial factor of staying competitive in the NFT space in general.

So, How Can LiveLive Help Bring Utility to Your NFT?

The NFT space has opened up a whole new world of opportunity for consumer interaction, brand storytelling, and engagement through digital goods. Since our Audience Engagement Suite was created to reinforce connections with users through interactive features and to reward fan behaviors with points and badges, it was natural for us to further investigate how we could use the power of NFTs to further drive engagement.

We truly see our platform as a gateway for Plug and Play utility for NFTs. It’s no longer only about collecting items in your wallet or being part of a community; it‘s about creating additional ways to incentivize all NFT holders with advantages and gated experiences within digital platforms. Our main goal now is to combine NFTs with our loyalty and rewards features to make them even more attractive and useful.

Through the LiveLike CMS and our Proof of Interaction API, you’ll be able to link NFTs with any specific rewards and experiences of your choice. For example, the Golden State Warriors listed their first NFT collection last year and have planned a new drop this month, as a build up to the 2022 playoff season.

The GSW roadmap includes both digital prizes (ex. Ticket Stub NFTs) and physical prizes (signed jerseys) for every round victory. Using our API solution could enable them to extend the scope of utility for their NFT holders, offering them new experiences such as virtual one-on-one discussions with players, Ask Me Anything sessions with the coaches, access to private group chats, significant discounts on merch and ticketing, access to premium content, emojis, stickers, and more.

Expanding the NFT utility layer using our Audience Engagement Suite will help organizations to increase the reach of their collections and seamlessly onboard more and more non-crypto native users. It could also help them bring more value to their NFT collections, reinforcing the appeal and subsequently the demand for them.

Want to learn more about how LiveLike can help you bring utility to your NFTs?

Get in Touch

This week on our Get to Know LiveLike series, we’re happy to be highlighting Sales Development Representative Nick Thomas.

Nick has always been passionate about building strong relationships in his working life, and providing the best customer experiences possible, no matter the position or industry he’s in. After being introduced to the world of sales by a friend, he knew he wanted to move into the SDR role and found his way to LiveLike.

We’re happy to introduce you to Nick and give you a chance to hear about his career journey, his day to day life as an SDR, and more. We’re proud to have someone like Nick on our team, and excited to get to share a bit about him!

Tell us a little bit about your career path. How did you get into sales?

I got into sales through a friend of mine who I worked with at a nonprofit called Tulsa Responds where I worked as a client navigator. My friend told me about a program called Satellite in which they train you to become a sales development representative and help you to find your first sales position.

At the time, I was looking to change career paths and after researching what an SDR is and what they typically do, I was immediately interested. I signed up for the Satellite program and totally immersed myself in the world of software sales. It was super fun learning about what it takes to become a successful SDR, and it helped me develop a newfound passion for sales that eventually led me to LiveLike.

Can you describe what a Sales Development Representative does and what your typical workday looks like?

A sales development representative is someone who conducts outbound prospecting and research for new clients who may be interested in the product the SDR’s company is selling.

A typical workday for me includes researching potential new clients, writing cadences to various industries, conducting outbound prospecting through multiple email campaigns, and monitoring those email campaigns for any promising responses. I also do organizational tasks such as preparing meetings for our business development team and providing upkeep through our client database system HubSpot.

Did you always want to work in a sales role?

I knew that I wanted to work in a role where I could build relationships with clients, but it was only last year when I determined that sales was the right path for me. I’ve always loved talking to and meeting new people, and have previously enjoyed working in customer service roles.

Once I had done some research and learned more about what it means to be a sales development representative, it became clear to me that it was the exact kind of role I’ve been looking for—one that combines passion for a company or product with meeting and building relationships with clients.

What have you learned about LiveLike (as both a business and a team) since you joined?

Since joining the LiveLike team, I’ve learned so much about the LiveLike platform itself as I’ve explored new and exciting ways to pitch our product to new industries. It’s been really cool getting to learn more about how our product can be implemented to meet the needs of all different types of companies.

When I first started, it felt a little bit like I’d be on my own island being the only SDR on the team, but so many teammates across all the different departments have been really supportive and inviting during my time so far with the company. I can definitely say I don’t feel like I’m on my own island and that I love the community feel that the LiveLike team brings me.

Is there anything else you’d want to share with aspiring sales representatives?

I would say the best advice I can give to an aspiring sales rep is to always be respectfully persistent, treat clients like human beings not robots, and think of creative ways to reach people!

Thank you, Nick T!

Let's Get Shoppable!

Today on The Future of Fandom, we’re live! Well, not really, but we talk a lot about being live. On this week’s episode, we learn about the ever-evolving world of live shopping and commerce, thanks to the perspective of talkshoplive and its CEO and co-founder, Bryan Moore.

As you probably know, this world of live shopping was started on television years and years ago. While live streamed content became more popular across sectors like gaming and then more broadly, Bryan was studying trends in the far East to learn about how the discipline was trickling into shopping. What’s resulted is a sharp focus on creating the best shopping experience possible—one which is interactive, always-on, and available wherever you are.

Since 2018, Bryan has been shifting those trends westward and has brought along mega-talent and merchant partners to combine customers and fandoms in unique experiences which we’ll touch on today. Of course, as always, we’ll also leverage his perspective on how far we’ve come to get a glimpse at what the future of live commerce will be—plus, we’ll expand on why every brand should leverage live content as a pillar of its strategy.

So let’s talk shop, so to speak, and predict the future with talkshoplive and Bryan Moore.

Connect with Bryan Moore on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanmmoore/

Read more about talkshoplive: https://talkshop.live/

Full episode here:

Back to All Episodes

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Adam Conner:

Hey Bryan, how are you?

Adam Conner:

Hey Bryan, how are you?

Bryan Moore:

Doing great. Thanks for having me. How are you?

Adam Conner:

I’m doing well. This whole world of live commerce is new-ish to me. Actually really new to me because I’ve never purchased something in a live context, and not through some of the ways in which that live commerce is proliferated today. So this is going to be a class for me and our listeners as to what it’s all about. And what’s changed over the years and what you see going forward. So I appreciate you coming on and for educating us, first off.

Bryan Moore:

Of course, glad to be here.

Adam Conner:

So just so we set the record straight, let’s start with a very brief description of what talkshoplive is and why you started it. What clicked in your brain like, hey, this is where I got to be. This is where I got to be building, and this is what people are going to want.

Bryan Moore:

Yeah. So, just to put out there, talkshoplive is a livestream commerce platform where people go live, sell their products. The player on talkshoplive is in embeddable, which means everywhere that the video player is embedded, sales execution happens within the video player. So what we really set out to create was a vehicle that really helps connect the retail landscape, right? Between publisher, creator, brand, retailer, and for all of them to win at livestream commerce together, which we can get into when I kind of talk to you about kind of the inspiration behind talkshoplive, and kind of what we looked at as the model and what it would really take for livestream commerce to be successful here in North America.

Adam Conner:

Okay. So then, let me nip this thing right in the bud, a comparison that I have in my head, which folks who may be like me and maybe have not yet used this new age of live commerce to interact with a brand or talent or to buy something might have stuck. I want you to break it loose for me. And that is this comparison to only other way that I’ve seen something be shopped out live to someone, which is just television. I mean, folks, you probably saw a shopping channel at night, overnight, infomercial, something. This is obviously much different. I would say probably better than that from my initial understanding. Can we break it apart what talkshoplive is from that sort of like QVC world of old. Real quick, before we even go forward, because I’m sure people are thinking about that.

Bryan Moore:

Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, I’m a huge fan of QVC television shopping and kind of how they created the genre of TV shopping, right? But what I will say is that with livestream commerce, I think people who are most successful at it, look at it very differently, right? Because when you look at traditional television home shopping, it’s very much, it’s very much about the sale of the product. Whereas when you look at what’s driving the success in livestream commerce, what it really is, is connecting content with commerce. Bringing people into an experience that’s shoppable. So maybe, if it’s useful, Adam, I can just kind of jump back and kind of give you the why on talkshoplive really quick, because I think that that would be useful in kind of just explaining this difference.

Bryan Moore:

But I worked in television for a long time. I started the social media department at 20th Television, and my whole role was how to get TV and the viewers to adopt different social platforms and how we would utilize them to create community around what was on television.

Bryan Moore:

So I was at 20th Television for about five years. I moved over to CBS where I oversaw social and digital for Entertainment Tonight, the Insider, all their syndicated programming. And then when I left, it was that time period where influencer marketing was taking off, right? The social media algorithms were starting to shift and impact how people made sales. And I had taken on some really cool clients, basically people that, in my mind, wanted to use social media to not just check the box, but destroy the box. Right? So from Vanity Fair, like social clubs around the Oscars and the Emmys, to the United Nations, to Garth Brooks, right, on his comeback and return.

Bryan Moore:

And one of the things that I was looking at, because I had studied Mandarin Chinese for 13 years, and I actually lived there for two, but I watched as livestream commerce took off in Asia and became a billion dollar industry. And I was like, wow, I wish I had the power of this for my clients in the US, but it would need to look different. Right? Because as opposed to people driving their fans, their viewers to go download an app, to get into an experience to potentially buy a product, I was like, what they ultimately need is something that sales can execute within the video player. They can bring the talent fans of the brand, bring them into an experience and have an engaged conversation, which drives social media to do so well, right? And then allow them to execute the sale within that. Right?

Bryan Moore:

And ultimately with the embeddable player, serve as that distribution vehicle that then helps them connect across the whole landscape of the internet. And so, when you’re looking at the difference between QVC and talkshoplive, or television home shopping and talkshoplive, what I would say is it’s really about the experiences that people are creating. It’s the same shift, I believe, that we’re seeing in advertising, right? Nobody loves, you know, I feel like people hate being advertised to, but people love entertainment, right? So, if you look at even how advertising is changing, is people are really looking to bring people into it, right? And invite them into your brand, as opposed to chasing them.

Adam Conner:

Yeah. This is right down the middle of what we are looking at on this podcast.

Bryan Moore:

Fantastic.

Adam Conner:

Because this is something that we have talked about in terms of well, fandom. We did it really early in the show with a gentleman by the name of Pete Vlastelica and listeners, you may remember this, but we talked about how interacting with entertainers today is less this quasi demigod of there they are on the stage and on way back here, and much more being invited in, as you say. Fandom changes over time of course, and getting more actively involved is what consumers want. And if that means that it’s an easier way, instead of just looking across a television screen and seeing somebody sell something to, it’s right here on my phone, it’s very simple from a stream. I can just click a link, even better. That access really is what people want. And it doesn’t matter if it’s shopping or anything else, but obviously shopping is the key here.

Adam Conner:

So I’m glad that you stepped into that. And as a nod to your studies of the far east, I think we probably on the show should do a better job of how far ahead markets in Asia are when it comes to tech-enabled offerings, tech-enabled shopping, live commerce. Maybe even, I’m glad we’re doing that now. But those trends are slowly moving westward and it’s good to know that you saw that and were inspired in part based on that.

Adam Conner:

So to that, there’s obviously a reason why those trends are moving westward. I want to know from you next, the way that live commerce has evolved to today, thanks to you and some other players. What have you seen to be the impact on the ultimate engagement with the consumer, from the perspective of a merchant, because obviously a talent is going to always have that sort of palpable direct connection. Obviously it’s a little easier now, but I don’t think that the merchant, and by merchant, folks, I’m talking about the brand that has the thing that they’re integrating with the talent, knows or knew how to do that as well before this, have you seen a palpable impact there also?

Bryan Moore:

I have. I have. And what I often liken it to just when we’re talking about timing is that when I first started in social media, right, I remember when I first got that job at 20th Television, it was a brand new job. It didn’t exist. And when I first got there, everyone was like, what social media? Do we really need social media? A year later, everybody was like, what’s our social media strategy? And then it was, what’s our Twitter strategy, Facebook strategy, Instagram, you know what I mean? It became very, very, very important. So it took that, inflect that year, and then that inflection point and then the adoption. And I think we’re at that point with livestream commerce right now, in North America, right?

“I feel like everybody’s kind of like, what is this? Do we need to be doing it? We know that it’s become a billion dollar industry in Asia and people started dabbling in it. Right? And being like, we need to experiment in it. And now is where we’re at the adoption phase, right? Where the merchants, to your point are adopting it, the merchants and the brands. The retailers are adopting it. And most importantly, the consumers are adopting it. And we believe at, talkshoplive, that talkshoplive’s the most adoptable version of livestream commerce because we meet the customers where they are. You’re not going into an app, right? You’re not going just to one website. Right? But because the player’s embeddable everywhere. And we have partnerships with Condé Nast, with Hurst, with Ziff Media, MSN. So our players exist all over. So wherever you go, talkshoplive is meeting you there. Right?”

— Bryan Moore

Bryan Moore:

So we really serve as a solution for these brands and retailers to meet their customers where they are, even if it’s not within their domain. But allowing it to exist in their domain too. But now, to your initial question that I jumped off on here, but in terms of how the brands and merchants are really doing with it, I would say, on talkshoplive, we’ve been really fortunate enough to have everybody from Mattel, to Pampers, to L’Oreal, to a lot of P&G products launch on talkshoplive, and I think where they’ve been able to see, beauty and food are our fastest growing categories, right? Books and music were our gateway categories. And where I think these brands and suppliers were able to really see the value is the value in connecting with the retailers, right? They also have a great value connecting D-to-C. And what they’re able to do is provide that experience so that they’re their customers, right, are now having a fantastic shopping experience online. Right?

Bryan Moore:

I believe that for the past two decades, right, everybody’s been trying to figure out their e-commerce strategy, which is how do we create the best buying experience for our fans. And what talkshoplive and livestream commerce is really going after is how are we creating the best shopping experience for our customers, right? And that engaged experience. And one example that I’ll give you is when someone was on and they asked a question, they bought the product from the show. And then later they actually wrote into our help desk at talkshoplive, and they explained that what was so great about it was they didn’t just learn more about the brand, right? But now every time they use the product, it brings them back to the experience that they had when they were shopping for it. And I think that when you’re looking at what’s a shopping experience versus a buying experience, that’s creating a lot more brand loyalty, and in the case of this podcast fandom for these brands.

Adam Conner:

Yeah. That’s where I am trying to draw a line where people cross over from being just a customer into being a true fan. And I’m still talking about of a brand here, because most of the time with talent or an entertainer, you are a fan first maybe, and then a customer. Obviously the ease of access, creating the best shopping experience possible, all of these are overarching variables in crossing that line to true fandom. Are there a few others that you can think of or just from your experience over time, a few moments that clicked in your head as, well, I guess, watershed moments from the transition from a customer to a fan? I ask because I assume that you, via the live commerce angle have a perspective that few others really do, at least now.

Bryan Moore:

And I think we’ve seen that a lot. And I think a lot of the brands who are on the platform have been able to see that. And that’s why when we talk about livestream commerce, talkshoplive specifically, and kind of what we put out there as best practices is that it’s not about the one off show, right? The one off show is kind of an experience, right? But to kind of create consistent programming where people are connected to your brand in a meaningful way, and where a lot of the brands, the retailers that utilize us, what they’ve seen is that people continue to come back for their programming and their audience grows week over week, their sales conversion rate grows. Right? And so, I think that that is a true testament to if you’re creating the experience, they will come.

Bryan Moore:

And I think the other thing that talkshoplive really tries to provide to our sellers is to work with them on what is creating the best live commerce experience all about for your brand? And I know there are a lot of people who can bring on people onto their team who come from eCommerce, right? And who come from tech, right? Who come from partnerships. But what we’ve done in assembling our team at talkshoplive is our team is very much, obviously we have an incredibly strong engineering and development team. We have a strong partnerships team. We also have a lot of people on our team who come from media, right? Because the big thing to be successful in livestream commerce is how are we creating content around the products that we have, right?

Because, back to the point that you brought up in the beginning, it’s different than television shopping where you’re just showing the product, offering a sale price, and expecting it to sell, right? With this, you want to create a shopping experience worth talking about. A shopping experience that people want to share. A shopping experience that people want to embed. A shopping experience that people want to pass to their friends. And our team is really skilled at A being kind of first to market in the US doing this, but also a lot of people coming from media and content creation on our team.

Adam Conner:

Yeah. It’s always great to be first here. And it means that you get a pretty serious swing at the bat with some big names, just probably because they haven’t quite heard of it before. But, I want to transition here into doing a little bit of storytelling. Actually, I’m going to ask you for a story or two, because ever since you started this, you have been ramping up the integrations you have with merchants and talent, the intersection there, everything in between. And for instance, and listeners, I don’t know if Bryan would say this, but I will. I know that you’re doing a heck of a lot of work with Walmart, and that Walmart looked around at all these other services that did live commerce, and they chose you, obviously for a few reasons, which we might get into, we might not.

Adam Conner:

But regardless, the frequency has ramped up significantly. I feel like every week on your LinkedIn profile, which I’ll link in the show notes to listeners, you can see another great integration you’re doing with a consumer electronics manufacturer or a megastar, whatever that is. Now, I’ve spoken about how fandoms interact in the context of product in retailer. Had that discussion with Rakuten. With merchant and merchant, had that conversation with Extend, which is a player in extended warranties. But I haven’t had it with the intersection of a merchant, a megastar, and let’s say a manufacturer. And I know that was one of the most recent instances of an integration that you advertised.

Adam Conner:

This is a long pre-conversation here, but listeners, we are releasing this on Tuesday the 20th, or rather the, yeah, the 21st of June, and we’re recording this on Friday the 17th. And you just talked about, on your LinkedIn, Ciara, and Samsung, and Walmart all coming together, and I want to learn from that some of your favorite stories of brand building and fandom building through the platform. Just bring this to life for us, if you wouldn’t mind.

Bryan Moore:

Yeah. So, well, A I’m super excited about the Ciara, Samsung, Walmart program. That’s actually happening on the 21st. So when people are listening to this, this is happening.

Adam Conner:

Okay, well, listeners, you get this in the morning. You get this at midnight. So now you know what to do. Anyway, go on.

Bryan Moore:

Yeah. But I think that being able to have the creator collaborate with the retailer and with the brand, and then everybody can embed it within their worlds and also put the embed code and press releases to exist in other worlds. What it really does is it creates a lot of distribution for your program. So that, in addition to your existing audience, you’re also able to bring new audience, right? And bring people into that experience with you.

“The best examples that we have of brands, retailers, talent coming together. I have so many stories, but one that really put us on the map in a big way was Garth Brooks coming on with his vinyl box collection. It was fulfilled by Best Buy. It was embedded on bestbuy.com, garthbrooks.com. It also existed on aol.com, todayshow.com. Everywhere that picked it up, right? So it was able to really meet all of those customers and people able to come in for that experience. And it ended up being a record selling, not to use record twice, but it ended up being a record selling sale for Garth’s records. And put us on the map in a big way, right, to then be followed by Oprah coming on. And then Dude Perfect, and a lot of the digital stars like Noah Schnacky and Joshua Wiseman.”

— Bryan Moore

“But I think what’s really incredible is we look at the space and how the space is going to evolve for livestream commerce, right? When we talk about our vision at talkshoplive, it was it’s livestream commerce, right, and how that can really benefit brands, retailers, and creators, and publishers. Right? But more than that, as we look at how it’s changing the future of shopping, right? And creating those experiences for people to come into where you can go into the kitchen with your favorite food network chef and shop their cookbook, but also shop all of the products that they have in the show from Walmart.”

— Bryan Moore

Bryan Moore:

What it does is it really starts to connect your experience with the brands and with the talent, because you’re also engaging with them. Right? And it’s a very meaningful experience for people who bought Oprah’s book, right? To have that book delivered to their doorstep and know that they had that personal experience with Oprah. It changes that shopping experience versus just buying it off of a website. And what it does, is it makes people want to come back for their future experiences with those brands. It makes them say, hey, you know what? I want to follow this. I want to be a part of this. I don’t want to miss the next opportunity.

Bryan Moore:

Sorry, and before I just keep talking too much, because I get super passionate about it. But when we look at how beauty is one of our fastest growing verticals, right, and we do a lot with Allure, we do a lot with New Beauty Magazine, and we do a lot with independent beauty brands. And what’s so great is that as people are applying, everybody knows that people love beauty tutorials, right? But as they’re having the tutorial for the viewers to be able to ask them the questions, right? And then get the product, and then the person be able to acknowledge who’s actually purchasing it. Right? It really, what it does is it connects the dots in your shopping experience. And what we constantly look to do at talkshoplive is how are we connecting those dots online. But also as we look forward, one of the things that we hear from all of our major retail partners is that when people do their talkshoplive programs, they’re seeing omnichannel in store sales lifts for every product that they’ve had on their programs between 15 and 400%. Right?

Bryan Moore:

So the numbers don’t lie in terms of being able to actually convert sales. But I think what’s even bigger than that for the brands, for creators is to be able to actually give their customers, their fans, their viewers, an experience that they will always tie to that product and tie to the brand to remember.

Adam Conner:

Yeah, I mean, this seems like a pretty clear indictment that live commerce in general, and the evolutions they’re in, will be part of the future of most brands and certainly of your business, obviously. And those numbers are striking. To the point that maybe this question is redundant, but I do want to ask, assuming you believe this to be true, why should live content be a pillar of every brand’s experience?

Bryan Moore:

Well, what I’ll tell you about talkshoplive is there’s a process right behind it. So we recommend doing a promo video seven days in advance of your show that’s shoppable. The live show that’s shoppable. And the replay of that show, that’s also shoppable, right? So why is it so important for it to be part of every brand’s experience is because it’s the ability for you to connect with your customers in a meaningful way, right? It’s a way for when if they’re not coming into the store and they’re watching online, or they’re consuming content online, it’s an ability to actually touch and engage with them in real time, and those engagement and those touch points make a difference.

And when these brands work with talkshoplive, they also have best practices, right, which is looking at the behavior of how people operate online, so that when you’re doing your program in the first two minutes, really get out kind of what the program is going to be about, because there are some people who come just for the first two minutes of the show on the replay, and there are other people who will come for the whole 30 minute experience, you know?

Bryan Moore:

So I think it’s livestream commerce is when you’re just looking at our business alone, we were up 800% year over year, last year. And we’re up already 730% over last year. Right? So I think-

Adam Conner:

Good Lord.

“That what that shows is the adoption. I think also looking at it and saying everybody from the Vogue Club, which does a bimonthly show with us to Allure, to all of these publications, GQ, People, they did a shoppable interview with Scottie Pippen where people could shop from the show while he was getting interviewed. But I think looking, as a media starts to adopt it, right? And I think one of the things that we’re starting to get a lot of requests from is the actual creators themselves, right? Who are thinking to themselves, wow, I don’t want to just be out selling a product, but if I can bring my community into an experience, right?”

— Bryan Moore

Bryan Moore:

Where they see the, because right now we live in a time period where everybody’s looking for transparency, right? And so, for people to be able to be transparent with their audience, bring them into an experience, and have them remember that experience, that’s how you create connectivity to your brand and just searching a topic online, purchasing it, buying it. You’re not having that shopping experience, and I think by getting back to that shopping experience, brands are also getting back to brand loyalty. And I think for creators, it’s also really about authentic connection.

Adam Conner:

Speaking of content creators and connection, we’ll go to another, well, let’s say conference that carries a C word as we round out here, because as you listen to this listeners, Bryan has just shipped off to Cannes in the Southeast of France and where they have award shows and fireside chats and everything about creativity. Keep going with these C words. So, in that way, I want to ask, what are you excited for there? What do you anticipate to see in terms of, well, can I say the future of fandom, or maybe just the future of commerce. Like what you anticipate to see, be highlighted from the best and the brightest out there when you head out next week as we are all listening today.

Bryan Moore:

Yeah. Well, I’m really excited, because I have the opportunity to do a fireside chat. It’s put on by Influential, which is one of the biggest creator influencer agencies in the country, and I’m doing a fireside chat with the head of global commerce from TikTok. And what I’m really excited about is A, that live commerce is on the map in the way it is, and top of mind. Obviously we’re seeing all of the big players in the space get into it now.

“Right? But I think because brands, and retailers, and creators are starting to see success in it. And for me, what I’m personally really excited about with talkshoplive, and where we fit into that ecosystem is that we’re the only player in this space that’s really connecting the retail landscape. Right? So when it comes to your program, and because of our in embeddable player, right, with the sales execution happening within it, and everywhere it exists that it’s shoppable. So the ability for brands to work with retailers, to work with creators, to also work with publishers and have this mass distribution, and the next phase is a lot of social media platforms are also looking and reaching out to us about partnerships for programming and extending with them.”

— Bryan Moore

Bryan Moore:

And so, I think there’s a lot of opportunity. Really, we look at it as us being the experts in livestream commerce, and really partnering across the landscape to allow everyone to collaborate, to work together to see the most success. And I think what we’re able to deliver in terms of the experience that people can provide for their audiences, in addition to the ability for them to have the connectivity and ability to reach their audiences, eliminating the social media algorithms is really powerful.

And I think that as brands, and retailers, and media are adopting it in such a big way, like that we get to look at it and say, wow, talkshoplive, we get to do the significant programming that we get to do with Walmart and help them connect with their suppliers to create these amazing experiences for their customers. But the other thing is that it’s scalable, because I think the point that we’re at right now is everybody’s trying it, and now they need a solution that’s scalable. And the VP of brand at Walmart, he put a quote out there saying that talkshoplive is their scalable solution for livestream commerce. And that to me is the greatest quote we could possibly have heard, because at the end of the day when you’re doing anything with your brand, you need to consider how is this scalable, right?

Bryan Moore:

And so, the fact that brands and retailers can come on talkshoplive, cut their production costs by 95%, see their sales increase, see the distribution increase, and it’s something that they can go from doing, one or two a quarter to saying let’s do 20 in a month. I think that that really shows the power of scalability.

Adam Conner:

I totally agree. I think, listeners, I had a lot of great conversations here with brand geniuses, and I do get a glimpse at what is yet to come. We are right at the beginning of this live world of commerce, and obviously live content been around for a long time. Streaming really picked up. You can thank all the gamers for that for several years ago, but the commerce side and the shoppable side is just beginning. So to have you here, Bryan, to learn about one of the real pioneers here and somebody who will likely lead the charge going forward is great. And that has been evidenced by these giant names that work with you.

Adam Conner:

One final question, and since we’ve talked about a lot about what could be or should be, I want to get your thoughts very briefly just to fill in the blank on something that won’t be. So I’ll do the sentence, and I’d like you to fill in the blank.

Bryan Moore:

Okay.

Adam Conner:

Given my expertise in live commerce and how I’ve seen it grow and transform the way that fans interact with talent and merchants alike, I can tell you that the future of fandom likely won’t include any more ____.

Bryan Moore:

The future of fandom won’t include anymore… The hard sell. It will be the experience.

Adam Conner:

Clear enough to me. And hey listeners, you’ve seen that probably if you’re in the business world and you get sold software and various widgets, you know that it’s been more experiential buying than just somebody cold calling you every day. It doesn’t work anymore. If you are in a retail shop, you know there’s plenty more AR experiences that you put the product on you before you actually buy. Same thing here with live content. The fact that it is interactive, that it is shoppable, that it is, is it weird to say not quite evergreen, but certainly greener that it was considering that you can make these things past, present, and future shoppable, even though it’s not the time of the event. All of these things leading to a future, I think which is much more deeply connected for A, a consumer, and then hopefully the future fan. Bryan, thank you for all of this expertise. It’s a world that I get really jazzed about, and listeners, you may hear this too, but I just think it’s wonderful and I’m glad that I was able to learn more from you directly.

Bryan Moore:

Awesome. And thanks so much for having me. Love your podcast.

Adam Conner:

Hey, thanks.

Adam Conner:

As Cannes unfolds this week, I’m sure we’ll be learning a lot more about the world live commerce and its overarching trends – and I have a feeling talkshoplive will be a big part of it. Thanks again to Bryan Moore for joining us.

And thanks to you, the listener, for exploring The Future of Fandom with us. I’d encourage you to stay connected — so subscribe to The Future of Fandom wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can also find all our content at livelike.com. Across socials we’re also on LinkedIn @LiveLike and Twitter @LiveLikeInc.

I look forward to predicting the future again with you soon. Until then, I’m Adam Conner saying so long and thanks for being a fan.

Letting Your Superfans Tell Your Story

Today on the Future of Fandom, we explore how to let super fans tell your story for you. On this episode, we take a look at Rally Rd. and how it creates shareable experiences for its investors and die-hards, all with the help of Rob Petrozzo, their co-founder and chief product officer.

We’ve chatted with a few fintechs and investing brands on this show, but Rob is a true modern day pioneer of the belief that anything can be an investment. So he’s seen the best and the worst of the trends within alternatives, and he’s had a front row seat to the ways regulation impacts the ways financial brands can tell their stories, not that that stops him. Rally had developed a cult following, and with a little experience tinkering and a lot of shareable moments, Rob has managed to steer his community into a frenzy whenever they get in on the investing action.

We chat about this particular strength and how the future relies on that critical muscle, no matter who you are. So join us as we predict the future with Rally Rd. and Rob Petrozzo.

Connect with Rob Petrozzo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robpetrozzo/

Read more about Rally Rd: https://rallyrd.com/

Full episode here:

Back to All Episodes

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Adam Conner (01:06):

All right, Rob. How are you? Wonderful to have you on the show.

Rob Petrozzo (01:22):

Adam, what’s up, man? Thank you for having me, dude. Appreciate it.

Adam Conner (01:25):

I’ve chatted with a ton of folks in fintech and broadly within investing for this show, but you’re one of the earliest entrances to the world among those with whom I’ve spoken. And just before we got on here, we were talking about just how we think alike and also how even the concept of this show we’re doing, The Future of Fandom, very much applies to the ways in which you’ve built the audience over the years.

Adam Conner (01:49):

Now, before we get into the nitty gritty of that, because it’s interesting to me and our listeners, let’s just start with a very brief description of Rally for those who don’t know. I assume most of them do. And also, why you founded it, what pulled you into this world so soon?

Rob Petrozzo (02:02):

Yeah. That’s a good intro, and it’s also true in that fandom is also something that we’ve always thought about from day one. When we started this platform, the long and short of it is that it’s intended to let regular people buy and sell fractional equity in unique, often one-of-a-kind assets that have a lot of historical and cultural significance.

Rob Petrozzo (02:20):

So every week we run initial offerings, which are kind of our version of an IPO. And that allows investors of all income levels to purchase shares of assets similar to the way you might buy shares of stock, and then we do that with no minimums and no commission. And then we also facilitate a secondary market for those assets to register broker dealers within the app, that allows you to access liquidity daily during market hours, so you can buy and sell based on bid ask after the initial offering runs.

Rob Petrozzo (02:45):

So really, it’s about taking these really unique assets that have great history, great stories. We do our best to tell that story within the app, then we allow you to own real equity in it and really put it into a portfolio. So for us, when we founded it, myself and my co-founders Chris and Max, we always talk about it as these missed opportunities are what led us to put this idea on paper.

Rob Petrozzo (03:04):

So Chris, my co-founder I’ve known forever, one of my oldest friends, also one of my smartest friends. He’s always really loved classic cars, but the idea of owning the one that he wanted meant making the decision to spend all of your money, and go get money, and live your whole life sort of working to find this one million dollar thing. When in reality, there are these millions of consumers everywhere, and these millions of enthusiasts in classic cars and in baseball cards, and in dinosaur fossils, and in NFTs, and all the things that are on Rally now, these 20 different asset classes. They know everything about it. They know what the best ones are. They feel like they can see around those turns, but owning real equity and the best versions is impossible without owning the whole thing.

Rob Petrozzo (03:44):

So we saw the ability to take what existed, that fandom that existed around these spaces, and to allow regular people to get equity for 10 or 15 or $20, the same way you might buy stock and put the best version in your portfolio. So that, for us, was always the motivation. And when we started in 2017, I don’t think that we envisioned the world changing as dramatically as it did, to understanding what alternative assets were, but now we’re in a place that we’re able to bring awesome stuff that people really care about it every week.

Adam Conner (04:11):

Yeah. I’m so glad that you’re here then to talk with us about this, because of course listeners to the show will know that we’ve spoken to a couple of players here, but really folks who are just starting to trickle into it, either the executives themselves or the businesses themselves. You’ve been here since 2017, which was very, very early in all of this.

Adam Conner (04:33):

Technically, I know the first I think NFT was made around 2014. 2017, the first, first early adopters really started to jump in, so quite prescient that you should make a platform that was based around these broad alternatives. And you’re right. The folks that are going to do well are those who are broadly diversified in their investments. You can extend of course that philosophy to all sorts of asset classes.

Adam Conner (04:57):

Now, because of that, that being your breadth of coverage here, my guess is that since 2017 lots of things have changed, both about the offerings and the people who take up on those offerings. What are the most predominant trends that you believe have stayed consistent since that time, and which are new? And then I want to ask about those you think are dying away, but I’m going to start with the ones that have been the mainstays and the newest.

Rob Petrozzo (05:26):

Yeah. The real heart of all this, I think, and the big trend is not even necessarily asset based. If you had a hundred people on earth right now, one of those would control 50% of the wealth. I think that wealth inequality and that wealth gap is something that over the last … when we first had the idea, 2015, we started putting it on paper, seven years ago, between then and now, people have started to understand that in a way more real way, and the conversation around money has changed so dramatically.

Rob Petrozzo (05:53):

Our comfort with talking about money, just like the general how much my salary is or talking to your friend about what they’re spending their money on or the investments that they’re making, and the ability to broadcast those investments and have conversations with the tribe and with the community that cares about the same way as you, that’s this giant fundamental shift.

Rob Petrozzo (06:09):

And I think it was happening over the course of the last decade with the proliferation of more of the investment tools for retail investors, starting with the E trades of the world, leading into Robin hood and Coinbase and all the asset classes that everyone knows they can invest in now. And the conversations that kids have with their parents about NFTs. All that has kind of changed obviously and become way more commonplace. That all really accelerated during COVID. And I think it’s impossible to ignore what that did for so many different types of investments, and in terms of access to information, it changed dramatically during COVID.

Rob Petrozzo (06:38):

So what we saw in the opportunity that existed for Rally was always that the future would involve you investing and putting your money into things you care about and not necessarily as discretionary purchase. As a true in investment and true equity. The understanding of equity has changed so dramatically over the last six or seven years since we started this business, that now trying to explain to somebody that a baseball card could be an investment or a blue chip NFT could be an investment, even though that’s so relatively new, compared to everything else in the platform.

Rob Petrozzo (07:08):

It’s not as hard as it once was. It’s as easy to tell somebody, “You can get a real return on a Michael Jordan rookie card or on a vintage first edition book, a first edition copy of Harry Potter for example. You can get the same or better returns or be a part of a conversation about real equity with those assets, the same way you might 401k or a stock or a real estate even.” I think that’s what’s changed so dramatically. And we’ve seen that kind of become commonplace and obviously never investment advice, but I think people have kind of taken it upon themselves to find the asset classes that matter to them. And they’ve seen returns there as well.

Adam Conner (07:42):

I’ve certainly seen it. The offerings have obviously broadened, that they are available now on your platform and I can’t help but think of the skepticism that came with what I had experienced as the first wave of collectible hype. This is all the way back in the ’90s. This is a real legacy description, but we’re talking Beanie Baby era. What have you seen happen to the skepticism around these alternative investments, between 2017 and now? Of course they’ve become more accepted, but have those skeptical voices gotten quieter or are they just the same volume drowned out by those enthusiasts that are getting involved with them?

Rob Petrozzo (08:25):

Yeah, that’s a great way to put it.

“I think that [skepticism] always exists. And I think that people are inherently scared of what they don’t understand. The things we find comforting are the ones that we overindex, and that’s just human nature. And the things that you’re uncomfortable with, it’s really easy to say, “That’s wrong.” And to take a really serious stance against the things that you don’t understand. And I think that’s happened throughout history with every investment. There was a time, not that long ago where stocks were deemed too risky and everything was bonds.”

— Rob Petrozzo (8:27)

Rob Petrozzo (08:51):

And then things start to change and [inaudible 00:08:52] come out. And that’s the thing that everybody looks at and goes, “Oh no, that’s never going to be a thing. It’s too risky.” And now real estate that, all that stuff, it makes up a significant portion of the way of the S&P. The same thing happened with crypto. The same thing happened with NFTs.

Rob Petrozzo (09:04):

I think what’s happened that’s changed all of that, is that the voice of a collective group and the ability to share that voice has gotten so dramatically larger to drown out those voices, because passion, it gives you power and it really levels the playing field a bit. And at the most basic level, it’s something you can bring to any conversation. At a higher level, it’s how you find actual joy. And then you can make smart investments from that joy, and you can find other people who feel the same way.

Rob Petrozzo (09:28):

And I think that’s what’s helped Rally for sure, but helped a lot of platforms who are really keen on that passion and turn it into real equity. I think it starts with the fact that so many people are having the conversation now to drown out some of the naysayers or the voices that are always going to be there, because those are people who don’t understand why somebody would invest in first edition literature. Why would you put that into a portfolio? That’s a thing. But when you see all these people talking about it and finding all that joy from it, it’s impossible to ignore at this point.

Adam Conner (09:53):

Yeah. And it’s something which I would’ve initially assumed to be just the property of the elite, right? Who invests in art? Well, people who have money to buy their own island, where they keep that art. Something like that certainly has been more democratized now, to anybody and listeners, you don’t have to be on Rally right now. We hope you get there, but you don’t have to be on there right now to understand that these people who are really enthusiastic about this, their energy is electric and magnetic.

Adam Conner (10:21):

These investments have not only gone through and they’re maybe approaching the top of a hype cycle, who knows. But their value has also gone up considerably. And with that, you got to follow that money a little bit, comes other voices and people curious about this world. Mainly the government. Talking about regulation here for a second, Rob. I know that these asset classes have exploded, speculation on them has exploded. And so too has buzz about regulations. Now, obviously you’ve mentioned earlier that nothing that we’re saying here is investment advice, but as a brand operator, how does tightening regulations around these instruments affect your ability to actively speak the message that Rally is trying to give?

“I think it’s funny because we kind of got lucky in that respect, in that we’ve never had a ton of marketing or even a true marketing function at the company. There’s no CMO here. I do a bunch of the brand stuff. We have a great team that on the operation side and on the social side, that just helps with sort of amplifying message. But our biggest driver and the biggest sort of push toward the flywheel that becomes the conversation around Rally has been our users. And we’ve always relied on them to tell our story.”

— Rob Petrozzo (11:05)

Rob Petrozzo (11:34):

We’ve been as transparent as we possibly can be with them at every step. And they’ve kind of taken it upon themselves to go to work and go to bat for us. What’s happening on the other side is that from a marketing perspective, we work with broker dealers who help us transact a lot of these individual assets. And they’re the ones that put their stamp for approval and go through the KYC process and all that, is all part of the platform.

Rob Petrozzo (11:55):

But it’s also a situation where we’re not in a position to … we don’t want to, when we’re not legally allowed to really promote these assets, the same way you might see some nonsense NFT project that’s being pushed on Instagram by some B list celebrity. We would never do that. That’s not a world we live in, because we really think about these as true investments. But also there’s a lot of passion and a lot of information around these assets and the group around them are the ones that tell the story, the most appropriate and most effective way. And that’s our user base. We always, and each of these assets is essentially a regulated security.

Rob Petrozzo (12:25):

So each of these are qualified by the SEC. They’re Reggae Plus offerings, which was part of the Jobs Act, which was from almost a decade ago at this point. But when Reggae Plus came out, the goal was to sort of bridge that wealth gap. And it was a measure taken to allow for regular people to be involved in some of the assets and the investments that only the wealthy had access to, where a platform that’s really about bringing more of that to life and working with the SEC and with the regulators to make sure that we’re doing that in the most appropriate, possible way.

Rob Petrozzo (12:55):

And that’s also a big differentiator for us too. I think NFTs and the unregulated marketplaces that are continuing to come out, we don’t want to be on the wrong side of that. And I think that a lot of people will find themselves on the wrong side of it eventually. Working within the confines sometimes is a little bit rigid of the SEC and of the regulatory bodies, but it also allows us to sort of protect ourselves and protect investors in the most viable possible way. So, that’s always been a working relationship that we make sure is above board.

Adam Conner (13:18):

Well, it’s a relationship that you have to work at these days, especially as that skepticism, maybe doesn’t necessarily get louder in aggregate, but certainly within various projects that end up getting rugged or things which are obviously scams. As you mentioned, are easy pickings for celebrities and influencers, not so much for the actual investors of those things. So it seems to me that the way that you’re able to speak loudly is through those fans.

Adam Conner (13:49):

And of course, this is great not only for this show, but I have approached this topic over the last several years, listeners even before this podcast. And so that’s what gets me excited, because you have created fans, you have probably created super fans and those people are very socially loud. And while maybe you can’t do as much active promotion of what you offer as possible, as you’d like rather, these super fans are the ones who can just outside of your sphere of influence.

Adam Conner (14:19):

How do you set up either Rally or them, to be able to spread that message? How do you empower them to be able to be loud? I would think that’s some of the best ways to do it. Certainly some of the most authentic ways to do it, assuming you can stay on the right side of those influencer endorsements and all that. But I’m curious, because you’ve done it well, you’ve just said to yourself, not so much on the marketing side, you’ve had to do, luckily. How have you maintained that?

Rob Petrozzo (14:48):

Yeah. I think the stories of each asset and we always at those as like the celebrities. So it’s, you can have someone that you pay a hundred thousand dollars to go all over Instagram and put it on their story and hashtag it as an ad. Or you can build something that people really care about and then link it to the story of the asset. So whether it’s the Honus Wagner card, which is the Holy Grail of baseball cards, and we have one on Rally. Or it’s a dinosaur fossil from millions and millions of years ago. Or it’s a NASA, some sort of NASA vintage, something from Apollo 11, from a space shuttle. Those all have these stories that we do our best to tell inside the app, as it’s own kind of mini editorial.

“The difference between us and a regular investment platform, is that finance is inherently a zero sum game. And it’s like make money by any means. And there’s sometimes nuance to it. But, and I think everyone wants to do the right thing in some capacity, but experiential value has been looked at as the polar opposite of investment value forever. And that’s why Tesla feels way different as a stock than it does as a car company. And that’s why Elon Musk, when he’s tweeting and going crazy people, aren’t like, “Oh, he’s talking about cars right now.” He’s talking about the experience and everything around it. And he’s very, very opinionated. That’s part of the story that he tells and the story that his tribe tells, that everybody who’s in that cult to Tesla is going to tell that story for better or worse in the same voice as Elon Musk.”

— Rob Petrozzo (15:26)

Rob Petrozzo (16:06):

What we try to do on Rally is that we take these assets that are really celebrities in their own right, we put the story inside the app, and then it’s up to you to spread that as you want. Certain assets will get more attention than others. Certain stories will get more attention than others. We’ll put a quick Tweet out that tells that story and a threat maybe, or gives a link to something else that is on YouTube, that shows a video from the moment it was used. But then it’s up to the users. They’re the ones that amplify that content on our behalf, because it’s that interesting, it’s that unique. And we’ve always tried to find the best possible assets to help tell the story without us having to do it. And it’s worked to this point.

Adam Conner (16:38):

Got any favorites among the times in which it has worked?

Rob Petrozzo (16:42):

Yeah. I mean the NFTs are a really, really good example. I think that’s a world that it’s got momentum all its own, and it’s a massive, massive divergence from everything we’ve seen in finance at this point and the way people talk about it. We launched our first NFT, it was a crypto punk, which now has taken a little bit of a hit since the real run up a few months ago when crypto punks were looked at as one of the earliest NFT projects and they’re the ones that gain the most celebrity attention. That was all happening in the ecosystem outside of Rally. We acquired our first crypto punk really well, where by the time we ran the initial offering at $72,000, the floor for that particular NFT, the cheapest price that any of them were for sale was closer to $200,000.

Rob Petrozzo (17:25):

So at that point, you had this mechanism where everyone looked at it as an arbitrage opportunity that was investing on Rally. It was also the first NFT that we brought to Rally. It was before the peak of NFTs, where you are allowing users to use their insight and see around that turn and empower them to make a decision really early into a space. But also the biggest difference with the way NFTs work on Rally versus the way they work if you were to buy from OpenSea from one of the third party platforms, is that it doesn’t require you to own crypto, or to have a wallet, or to have a seed phrase tucked away somewhere, or to have a ledger. It doesn’t require you to link a wallet when you get to a separate website.

Rob Petrozzo (17:59):

It’s the same transaction you make by buying anything. You’re linking an ACH or a bank account, and then making a one click purchase. I think that was the big differentiator, doing it with NFTs, doing it with an under priced NFT, and then doing it with one that was a Marque Blue Chip NFT, doing it really early, putting that out on Twitter. One, saying it’s going to be live and a week was enough to generate the type of interest that we had never seen before from any offering. And that was one of the best days, in terms of new investors, in terms of engagement, in terms of every measurable metric on Rally, the day that offering went live for that crypto punk.

Rob Petrozzo (18:28):

And then we had this little mechanism at the end of each offering, where once you make your investment, you get a little shareable card that says, “You’re in,” and has an image. It talks about a little bit about what that asset is, and it goes to Twitter or Instagram and your social media accounts. And that was the most we’d ever seen anything shared from the platform ever, was after that offering was done. So now you have three, 4,000 people who own this really unique, significant NFT. And they’re able to talk about it and be a part of this group that felt really closed off beforehand.

Rob Petrozzo (18:55):

I think that for us, it was a big win, but it was a bigger win for investors and for the people who were able to get their first NFT on Rally, of which 70, 80% or something like that when we did our user surveys had bought their first NFT on Rally. So anytime we could do something like that, where we’re hitting on the zeitgeist as part of a cultural moment, but we’re able to sort of break down the barriers to entry in such a way that makes you part of something you weren’t sure you could be a part of. That’s when it takes off on its own. And that was a really good example of it.

Adam Conner (19:22):

Gosh, I’d say so. To be able to issue this, can we call it literally a status symbol, to folks who had gotten in on this. Anybody who … listeners again, you should go on Rally, but whether you’re there or not, if you’ve seen anything on Twitter about the latest shoe drop, I think the sneakers app does this, doesn’t it? When they get it, don’t they give you an image that you can share that says, “I got it,” or something with the picture?

Rob Petrozzo (19:45):

Yeah, I’ll be honest. There are certain growth mechanics that it’s easier to think about what others have done successfully than reinvent the wheel. That’s where we took it from. That was … when I first started designing the first version of the app, it was one of those things where it’s like sneaker culture. Is diverging right now with investment culture. They’re all part of the same thing.

“What the Nike app does well, is allow you to share your purchase after it’s done. But they also foster a community where saying you took the L and you didn’t get in, is as big a part of it. So even when there’s you didn’t get the sneaker, the community that forms around that drop is so impactful. And it’s so important to the future of that platform and the community. Emulating that as best we could was always part of the thought process with the way that we do share ability on Rally.”

— Rob Petrozzo (20:01)

Adam Conner (20:26):

Yeah, totally. That is something that now that I’ve heard it and seen it elsewhere, and I have this duh moment where I’m wondering why others don’t do it. But maybe it’s because they aren’t like you. Now I have a question then to round us out, because that’s certainly novel. Creating shareable pieces of the experience is a way in which you can continue to grow this fandom, especially outside your four walls.

Adam Conner (20:56):

But as we stated towards the top, you were early to this broader alternative world, all the way back in 2017. Today, there are plenty of services out there. We’ve had a few on this show, dipping their toes into that world. It’s crowding, thus I’m curious as it crowds, what will the elements of a world class experience on one of these apps, yours or somebody else’s but hopefully yours? What will it look like in the future?

Rob Petrozzo (21:29):

Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it’s one of those things where kids always kind of want to do what adults do. When you’re young, you seen adults doing something you want to do it. And adults are always going to chase what kids are doing and that if you make good products for either one of those, you’re usually good. I think something like Rally and where a lot of the big ideas are going to come from, are things that hit on both, where somebody gets to plan for their future and invest in a way that’s really interesting while they’re young. But if you’ve seen a few things and you know a few of these plays that are coming to life right now, you can put your money where your mouth is. That’s what we did really well.

Rob Petrozzo (21:59):

I think the amount of ideas that are kind of coming to life and the supply coming to market is moving at a pace right now that we’ve never seen before. But the pace of innovation and the pace at which information sticks is also increasing exponentially. And that pace is relentless right now. So really, it’s a matter of in my mind, it’s a lot, it’s going to be, and it is right now, a lot more of quantity with quality. So it’s one of those things where you can’t really sacrifice both right now. I think a lot of what we’re going to see is that when those communities get built and the fandom gets built around a lot of these communities and you have a product that hits on all those points, where kids love it, adults love it and it’s also moving quick.

Rob Petrozzo (22:34):

It’s hard to deny that in a space that we’re in right now, because it’s one of those things where great ideas come from people, but they’re brought to life by community. And that’s kind of the litmus test. That’s the pass fail. So if you have a good idea, you’re moving quick, you put out in the world, it’s something that allows real sort of investment in community or even things like the way we’ve done it. It’s going to come to life if enough people care about it. I think that’s what we found out in 2017.

Rob Petrozzo (22:54):

And we see it every day now. The more people that care about what you’re doing, the money flows and the ability to make money with the product flows, if you get that community to care about it. But the pace right now, it has to be head down building. That’s the only way to bring things to life right now, because there’s 4,000 kids that are just knocking this out every day right now. They’re going to have a hit just by the numbers. You got to catch up with that right now. We got lucky, in that it was still really early 2016 when we put this on paper. So to get to where we’re at now, was just that relentless pursuit of building things that people care about.

Adam Conner (23:25):

So let me hit you with two more quick hits before we get out of here. The first is that you saw this before most, five or six years ago. Today, as you’ve noted, people are building new projects every single day. If you don’t know exactly what it is, in what vein of thought do you think the next super early future Rally founder is thinking right now? I mean amidst all this noise of projects, what do you think doesn’t get enough attention?

Rob Petrozzo (23:53):

Man, that’s a good question. I think that part of our mission, and I think this should be the mission of everyone who’s working on something new right now. And I think a lot of kids are thinking about this, especially in the NFT space, is building to make money and building a product that solves a need or taking away friction. That was the biggest thing. When Robinhood came out, the idea was like, damn, this UX is seamless. They built something that I’ve never really seen what this looks like before. I’ve seen this movie before, but I’ve never seen it played this way. It was kind of the way it was looked at now. It’s about making things meaningful.

Rob Petrozzo (24:26):

And that’s what we’ve always thought about too, because people care way more about the outcome and the product and the prettiness of it and the aesthetic, and making sure it’s something they could use, but use in a way that it feels shareable and feels like they’re part of something new, way more than they care about the return right now. And that’s from a user perspective. So if you’re building anything right now, if there was a kid right now and I try and talk to as many of the 17, 18, 19 year old builders. And I try and make small seed investments in these founders.

Rob Petrozzo (24:51):

So I see that kind of have that twinkle in their eye a little bit, where they’re thinking about it more, about experience and about making sure people care about what they’re building, than making money on the product early. That’s the be all, end all. That’s what opened up all of Web 3.0. That’s what the idea around NFTs were a real utility. And that’s what the on-ramps look like right now. And that’s why these alternative chains are starting to pop up. And that’s why tokens with shared governance and the way NFTs are looked at, is not just aren’t anymore, they’re part of this remarkable new shift and the way people think.

Rob Petrozzo (25:18):

All that is kids that are building with the experience in mind of making it meaningful and not, I’m going to make a billion dollar company. I think that’s the, my generation has that make the next Facebook and exit. That was always the mentality really early on for anyone in their mid to late 30s. But someone now who’s like 18, 19, they want to make dope shit for their friends right now. They want to make something that everybody cares about as soon as they start using it, and call them up and be like, “Oh, this is awesome. I’m a part of this.” Anyone building right now with that in mind, all the other stuff comes with it. That’s been the real fundamental shift, at least I think I’ve seen over the course of the last five, six years, especially in marketplaces

Adam Conner (25:54):

And hey, the first Facebook was built on that premise. Let me make something cool for my friends.

Rob Petrozzo (25:59):

That’s actually true. I can’t even talk crazy. I’m thinking about it more as like the 2011 Facebook and not the 2004 Facebook. You’re right.

Adam Conner (26:05):

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Totally. All right. Let me round out one more. It’s a bit of an inverse question at you, but we’ve talked a whole lot about what you think the future will be. If you could fill this blank for me, I’d be entertained. I, Rob could tell you the listener, that the future of this alternative investment world will definitely not include blank. What is that blank?

Rob Petrozzo (26:27):

Damn, in my mind, it’s going to include everything. So it’s hard to say that. What it won’t include is stepping in front of a moving train. So anyone who’s a naysayer right now to something as simple as NFTs or something as sort of old school as gold, you’re probably making the wrong decision. That’s probably something that you’re going to regret at some point in the next 10 to 20 to 30 years. I think that’s the biggest thing for me, that’s a little bit of a nuanced answer. It’s probably the wrong answer, but that’s the way I think about it.

Adam Conner (26:53):

Well, all of us are sort of guessing at what will be the next biggest, brightest and greatest. Thankfully, you’ve been there since the beginning. So you have a little more directional knowledge than most. And I’m glad that you’ve shared that here with us on the show. So Rob, for telling us the Rally story, thank you so much for predicting the future with us.

Rob Petrozzo (27:12):

Adam, thank you so much, man. I appreciate it.

Adam Conner (27:16):

If you’ve listened all the way through, it’s clear you like podcasts or maybe it’s just us, but in case it’s the former, Rally has a podcast as well. It’s called The Best Money I Ever Spent. Take a listen to their stories as well. They got Gary Vee as the launch guest. This host is a little jealous, I’m not going to lie. Thanks to you, the listener, of course, for exploring the Future of Fandom with us. I’d encourage you to stay connected, subscribe to us wherever you listen to your shows. And you can also find us at livelike.com/podcast and on social LinkedIn @LiveLike and Twitter @LiveLikeInc. I look forward to predicting the future again with your real soon and until then, I’m Adam Conner saying so long and thanks for being a fan.

Protecting the Future of Your E-Commerce Experience

Today on the Future of Fandom, we protect you, by telling you how you might be able to protect your platform. On this week’s episode, we explore how Extend is building and borrowing fandoms in the name of protecting product, with their founder and CEO, Woody Levin. On the show, Woody refers to Extend as the AppleCare for everything, and our conversation drifts into what a best-in-class e-commerce purchasing experience might look like in the future. He’s betting that it will include warranties on what you love written in plain English, and that consumers will grow to demand that just as they do for protection for their iPhones.

Woody also talks about how you can’t create external fans without internal ones, which we haven’t touched on too much on this show, but it carries extra weight when talking about an industry not known, at least not yet, for having fans. I’m not sure how many extended warranty brands have that right now, but they might down the road. So let’s get some coverage on this topic and predict the future with Extend and Woody Levin.

Connect with Woody Levin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/woodrowlevin/

Read more about Extend: https://www.extend.com/

Full episode here:

Back to All Episodes

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Adam Conner (01:19):

Woody, thank you so much for joining me. How are you doing?

Woody Levin (01:21):

I’m doing great. Thanks for having me, Adam.

Adam Conner (01:23):

It’s a pleasure. We should start, of course, as most of these do. It’s probable that a lot of people know what you are, but they don’t see you until the very end of their normal shopping experience, so could you please start us out by just describing what Extend is and why it started?

Woody Levin (01:43):

Absolutely, I’d be happy to. So Extend, and I love that we say that it’s probable that a lot of people know. I love that, and we do work with over 800 merchants.

Adam Conner (01:51):

We’re certainly hopeful, yeah.

Woody Levin (01:53):

Yes. We work with over 800 merchants today offering modern, digitally-native, best-in-class, extended warranties and product protection. And what I mean by that is Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, Walmart, Wayfair, when you were checking out and buying something, you, many times, are offered to an extended warranty, or what we call product protection on that purchase. But you really don’t know what you’re buying, you don’t know how the service is going to be. The customer experience could be really poor as it is with many of the legacy players out there, and the customer isn’t informed. It’s not a transparent offer to them. What’s covered? What’s not covered? Is there a deductible? How do you file a claim? What does that process look like? So Extend is solving all that. Let me take a step back. What we found is that a lot of people don’t love extended warranties as the legacy players provide them, but they do love AppleCare. And I don’t know, Adam, if you buy AppleCare, do you?

Adam Conner (02:51):

I do. Yeah, I’m a customer of AppleCare.

Woody Levin (02:54):

Fantastic. So AppleCare has almost 85% of Apple, and iPhone owners add AppleCare. It’s a huge revenue generator for them, and they’ve figured out a way to provide customers with a great value that is called AppleCare, but it’s really just an extended warranty. So think of Extend as AppleCare for everything. Modern, digitally-native, approachable, fair, transparent, and where customers can get value. So we created an easy to integrate, API-first solution that allows any merchant to offer extended warranties and protection plans on the products they sell while doubling down on focusing on the best customer service in the industry, as well as making sure that for merchants, we can also drive significantly higher attach rates than any of our competitors. In a nutshell, you should think of Extend as AppleCare for everything. Really, a modern, next generation e-commerce tool that levels the playing field for all merchants and allows them to offer the optionality customers have come to expect from the biggest retailers in the world.

Adam Conner (03:59):

Okay. Helpful foundation, and that is a good way to explain it, AppleCare for everything. Folks, you’ll know exactly what Extend is, and I didn’t say that tongue in cheek at the beginning. You’ve probably literally seen it. In fact, you may have gotten an Extend warranty and not immediately attach the name to this, but now you will. So this ease of use is something that I have explored, specifically within FinTech with the various instruments in which you can invest your money today. I mean, that continues to grow almost by the minute. And in that world, it’s all about access to information and ease of investment.

Adam Conner (04:42):

Now, you mentioned ease of use in sort of picking up an Extend warranty or an Extend policy with anything that you buy. What else do you see as a gap in that total e-com transaction that helps to set your mind towards what a next gen or future state of e-com experience, the way that it is. Obviously, this is where you’re developing and spending all your time right now, but I’m just curious if there’s sort of a higher ecosystem that you think this is part of that it’s modeled after.

Woody Levin (05:19):

Well, I mean, if you look at the best retailers in the world today, right, they’re offering same day shipping. Not everyone does that, but the best retailers do, in my opinion. The biggest retailers do, in my opinion. They’re offering “Buy now, pay later,” or consumer point-of-sale financing, right? Different ways for you to purchase that item. They’re offering product protection. They’re offering returns management or free returns, so I think there’s this modern e-commerce stack, right, that the largest merchants, the largest retailers have been using for some time now, and in order to truly compete with them, you have to have these bells and whistles. You have to offer customers these options.

Woody Levin (06:05):

Now you can say, “Well, sure I’d get it,” but you’re not going to get the limited edition or the bespoke products, right, on an Amazon or on a Walmart that you would get when you go directly to the OEM, or directly to the manufacturer or the fashion designer. And you’re probably right, so there are ways to accomplish differentiating yourself from the marketplaces or the big retailers with special products, but that’s a much bigger lift than just saying, “Hey, there’s all these tools that I can now use to, and sign me up.”

Adam Conner (06:37):

So at the end of the day, of course, this just makes for the best possible customer experience, and that’s where we focus a lot of our time here on the podcast, is to learn how that experience is being built and the various pieces that layer together to create it. I’m going to stoke this next question a little bit because those various pieces can come together, and, of course, as e-commerce has really come into its own and, let’s say, across the 2000s broadly. That tends to be piecemeal, things coming here and there. You put in different widgets here, different suppliers there, but you note the importance of owning the full stack of that. Can you explain what that is a little bit more and put it into the mind of a consumer who may be experiencing that piecemeal process today?

Woody Levin (07:26):

When we say Extend owns the full-service contract stack, and service contracts are just a different way to say extended warranties and protection plans. When we say we own the full stack and that we believe it’s necessary to own the full stack in order to drive the best customer experience, we mean that you need to control the technology-enabled broker. So what that is that’s the prebuilt integrations into the e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, IBM Hybris, and many others. It’s the administration layer, so you need to be licensed in all 50 states in order to be an administrator of service contracts, and the administrator is who controls the customer experience, the approval and the denial of the claims. [inaudible 00:08:15] you get a replacement? Do you get a repair? What does that look like when you get reimbursed? Do you send someone a prepaid debit card or a check in the mail, or can you actually keep them in the merchant’s ecosystem, turning potentially negative experience into a positive one like Extend does, and getting them a replacement directly from that merchant?

Woody Levin (08:33):

So controlling that customer experience by the administrator is so important. And then last but not least, there’s the underwriting, right? So again, technology-enabled broker, administrator controlling the customer journey, and then the underwriter is who’s taking on the balance sheet risk of these programs. Now that may sound pretty mundane, but it’s important that the underwriter, or the obligor who’s taking on the balance sheet risk of the programs, can create bespoke programs that serve the customers best. I’m happy to give some examples of that later on, but we found really owning the full stack from the brokering, the selling of the protection plan, to the administration, the customer experience if and when something goes wrong, and how do you utilize that protection plan to get a repair or replacement of the product, as well as the underwriting, are all necessary elements to be a leader in this space.

Adam Conner (09:32):

Yeah, I would feel much more comfortable if any of my buying experiences, at least in my head, gave me the perception that it was all in one house, so to speak. And not even just from a fluidity of experience, but just from I don’t want my data going here, there, and everywhere else. As a customer and as a regular Joe who’s always weary and wary of that kind of thing, I agree, and not just as a business operator. Of course, if I were owning the business, I want to own every piece of it, too, but I think that is going to continue to be part of best-in-class customer experience for anybody because the more barriers that you can take away, the more obstacles, mentally or otherwise, you can take away to a consumer engaging with your thing, whatever that thing is. You get them closer and closer to becoming a fan.

Adam Conner (10:27):

I mean, are there really fans of extended warranties on things? I want to get your thoughts here because I’ve talked to a lot of folks and a lot of brands for whom the word fandom is tangential, maybe translatable, but here it seems completely extraterrestrial. So could you help me figure out how extend works to build something close to a fandom within the consumers it serves?

Woody Levin (10:56):

Fandom or promoters or advocates of our service offering, that’s what we strive to do every single day is build that. We are in the midst of building, and we’re doing a pretty good job of it thus far, a consumer-facing brand that is recognized across hundreds of different merchants that’s trusted, that’s reliable, and that gives you value. That’s the end goal here, right? No legacy company in the service contractor or extended warranty space has built a powerful brand. The net promoter scores of these insurance companies that run service contract businesses or the service contract businesses is in the low 20s.

Woody Levin (11:45):

Our CSAT score is over 92. We’re talking step functions greater than what it is today, so we are so focused on, again, building promoters, building happy customers, which become fans of our product, and they talk about the experience they had with Extend. How easy it was to file a claim, how we replaced their products immediately from the retailer they bought it from, or from that manufacturer, how we very quickly got to a resolution on their claim, how they didn’t have to jump through the hoops that they thought they were going to.

“Again, creating this elegant, digitally-native, modern, dare I even say, delightful experience around extended warranties because when you need us, if we’re trying to create obstacles, create hurdles around filing a claim, then you’re not going to be our fan. But if we can create this streamlined experience and do what we promised, you’re going to tell your friends about it. Next time you see it, you’re going to buy it, and it will create this flywheel, right? It will create this flywheel where merchants will be incentivized to work with Extend because they know their customers are going to get a great experience. We are an extension of our merchant partners. One of the reasons we’ve been able to grow so quickly is because of the fact that we have created, to use your language, your vernacular, fans of Extend. Both merchants who are fans of how we integrate and how we drive revenue, but also consumers who are fans of Extend because we stand behind our offering. We service them well.”

— Woody Levin (12:19)

Adam Conner (13:26):

The flywheel is where I’d like to turn for a moment because it’s a really advantageous thing as a business, of course, to be able to, at least at the beginning when nobody really knows who you are, borrow the fandom, but really consumer base of somebody else, adding on a value-added service. And then in time, creating a core of people who love you for you. I talked about this earlier in our podcast with Rakuten, and serving as a marketplace within which you could buy your favorite pair of shoes or from your favorite retailer. And now, they have developed an audience where some of their die-hards will only shop through Rakuten, no matter what. If Rakuten isn’t attached, it doesn’t matter what the brand is. They won’t do it, and maybe that’s because of the benefits they get and in their case, it’s not ease of service or ease of claim, but it’s the cash back. Do you see brands of the future, who become really sticky, start in that same way, “borrowing other fandoms” to create a flywheel of fandom? Does that make sense?

Woody Levin (14:31):

Sure! I can’t speak to how others will grow or how others think about it. I can really only be specific to Extend, and I can tell you that from the beginning, it was deliberate for us to focus on delivering an uplevel, dare I even say, the best customer experience in the industry right from the start because we knew at the end of the day, if we served our merchants’ customers well, the chances of them ever leaving us and going somewhere else were very small. And the opportunity for us to grow organically from the ground up, because all these merchants talk to each other, right? All the merchants are saying, “What new tool are you using?” or “How can I improve my business?” They all talk to each other and they share information. And for Extend, they talk to their customers too and when their customers have a great experience with Extend, they promote us to other merchants, and we’ve seen that.

Woody Levin (15:28):

That’s one of the reasons.

“I mean, we’re only 37 months old. We’ve only been selling for just over two years and we already have more than 800 merchants on our platform, including Peloton, and Brilliant Earth, and Traeger Grills, and Advanced Auto Parts, and Sur La Table, Nectar Sleep. It’s amazing how quickly we’ve gotten traction in the industry. Number one, I think that’s because the industry was really looking to, again, level the playing field and have these next generation or future e-commerce tools, but number two, because of how maniacally focused we are on driving a best-in-class customer experience that hasn’t been seen before.”

— Woody Levin (15:30)

Adam Conner (16:17):

So no matter how these brands build their consumer bases, and yes, great experiences at the center of it, I think it also comes down to just being easy to get, just being easy to understand it, and that’s where I want to go next. Again, I mentioned earlier in the show that I’ve spoken within other industries, and that was the real basis of how they became sticky. It was like, “Well, we make investing in blankity-blank easy,” and I’ve even talked about insurance too. “It’s really easy to get a policy with some people out there, blah, blah, blah,” and that’s become a real selling point.

Adam Conner (16:50):

Let’s talk about the brand value. No matter who you are unlocked, when you just make things clear, put things in plain language. Anybody who’s wrote a contract for anything understands you can stuff it with a lot of legalese and confuse people very quickly. I’m sure you knew that as well, and getting into this world, probably you were tempted with quite a bit of that at least upfront, but as a way to protect yourself. Let’s talk about how you can create these relationships much more easily when you sort of get out of your own way.

Woody Levin (17:21):

So I don’t know if you knew this, but actually I’m a licensed attorney and …

Adam Conner (17:26):

Okay, so maybe it was in your DNA to be like, “Oh God, but I really should say this and warn them,” or whatever, right? I mean, didn’t that pull at you?

Woody Levin (17:32):

I mean, you can go both ways. I don’t practice, but I’m keenly aware of the legalese that can be put into terms and conditions or contracts and sometimes, even as a lawyer, I can read it and I have no idea what someone’s trying to say. It’s like they’re trying to say everything but say nothing at the same time. If I’m a lawyer and I can’t understand some of what’s going on in the terms and conditions and with the protection plans that these companies are offering, a layperson is probably going to have a harder time understanding that, so we really came at this. When we think about transparency and building trust and being fair and driving value, that’s across everything we do, and that starts with offer presentment, right? When we pop up on a merchant’s page, are we clearly and consistently telling a consumer what’s covered, what’s not covered? Is there a deductible? How do you file a claim? What does it look like when you file a claim, and then allowing them to double click into what’s called the terms and conditions.

Woody Levin (18:44):

So the terms and conditions, they can be 12, 15 pages long. They’re regulated by many different states, so you have to have specific nuance in them, but it’s basically what are our responsibilities? What are the customer’s rights, and what governs the purchase of your service contract, your protection plan? We completely rewrote, and got approved by all of the state regulators, our own easy to understand terms and conditions. So our terms and conditions have tool tips. If you were online and you would mouse over something, an icon, and you didn’t know what it was, we have tool tips for almost every section on the right side of our terms and conditions, explaining in plain English, what the legal mumbo jumbo means.

“See, we’re not trying to hide behind anything. We’re not trying to create customer confusion. We’re trying to create clarity, and when you create the clarity of information and people understand what they’re purchasing, we have found that an informed consumer who understands the value they’re getting converts at a three to four, to even five times higher rate for extended warranties and protection plan, than in the legacy providers are driving today. So let me say that one more time. Because we, from the beginning, are fair, transparent, and open and educating consumers on the value of what they’re spending money on with our extended warranties and protection plans, we’re seeing conversion rates, how many people out of 100 buy an extended warranty when offered, that are three, four, sometimes even five times greater than the legacy protection plan providers. Our attach rates are 14, 16, even 20%+ across our merchant universe.”

— Woody Levin (19:30)

Adam Conner (20:29):

All those metrics are super impressive, and the one thing I can’t get out of my head is, “My God, I wish that there were some sort of translate tool that I could just highlight some text in a contract available online somewhere, and it just like live edits.” There’s a good business. Somebody out there listening to this. Maybe you don’t practice. Maybe you went to law school or something like that, similar to our guests and have that in mind because my God, wouldn’t that be easy? Wouldn’t that be a great experience for a consumer? But it is undeniable, the business case here, and obviously it’s showing, even though you’ve been around for what, just about three years, just a little over. You have been able to grow and create those great experiences and those great relationships. You’re doing so externally.

Adam Conner (21:11):

Now, I’ve got a few more questions here for you, but before I get to the big other F word here, which is future, I need to talk about how you’re doing things internally. And maybe this is where fandom becomes a little bit more recognizable of a word because, of course, you’re building relationships with everybody who’s getting covered through your services. How do you make sure that your employees are fans of you, too? I’m going to say a quote here because folks, we do a little bit of prep, and the quote that I wrote down from my notes was, “You can’t create external fans without internal ones.” Well, that’s plain English to me, but I’d love to, let’s say, double click into that a little bit more if you could, Woody.

“So we live in a different world today after the pandemic, where there’s less face-to-face interaction, and Extend is a remote-first company. We do have offices in New York, and in Austin, and in San Francisco, but for the most part, we have people working from everywhere, wherever that they can be effective. I think that it’s really important to build good internal culture, and people throw that word around a lot. Culture, culture, culture. What does that mean? How’s your culture? Do you have a culture? Is it good culture? I think the simple answer is you can’t BS culture. You either have it or you don’t, and that comes from the founders, right? That comes from the executives and it trickles down throughout the organization.”

— Woody Levin (21:54)

Woody Levin (22:37):

I’m passionate about what we’re doing here, right? I used to be a competitive athlete. I played sparingly, but I played Division I College Hockey at the University of Wisconsin, and I’m extremely competitive. Now this is my competition, right? I want to build. I want to win. I want to be proud of what we’re doing, and I like to bring people on this journey, the team members that we have at Extend who are also focused on that. We give people ownership here, right? We’re not micromanaging them. We hire them and we point them towards what we want them to go tackle, and they get to figure out how to do it. Two of the biggest things at the beginning of the year that I shared with the entire team, we’re about 440, 450 people right now, were number one, focus, number two, accountability. What are the key things which we’re going to focus on, what we’re going to drive forward this year, right, and what’s going to be expected of you?

“If you provide your team members with those two things, “Here’s what we’re going to focus on, and here’s what’s going to be expected of you to get us towards those goals,” I believe that you create a culture, you create an environment where people can thrive. So not only do they become fans of the work they’re doing, but they become fans of the culture and the environment, and they become fans of the team that they’re on. So again, as we talked before, you can’t create external fans if the internal people are not passionate about what they’re doing. And that doesn’t mean that everyone here has to wake up every day and go, “Oh my gosh, I love service contracts! I love extended warranties!” Because besides me and a couple other people here, probably not many people do, right? But they need to be stimulated by the challenges here, they need to feel like they’re making an impact. They need to feel like there’s a career opportunity, and they need to feel, again, like our customers feel, that I am being transparent about where the company’s going and what we’re doing.”

— Woody Levin (23:32)

Adam Conner (24:30):

Well, I mean it’s easy to just throw that word around, as you said at the beginning, culture and be like, “Oh, it’s great. Yeah everybody!” It’s just such a team dynamic, and you could very quickly slip into an area where even if somebody’s an employee over time, just to start to look around and say, “Ooh, okay. People really don’t either practice what they preach, or it’s just not as important as they claimed it was when I was signing my papers.” But I completely agree with you, and it’s something that we don’t really talk about a whole lot on this show. Again, we mostly just talk about consumer experiences, but you really can’t do that and hope to build it, especially in a world where it hasn’t really been prevalent before like in the business that you’re in, without having those internal advocates, because that’s how you build the best team in the future.

Adam Conner (25:21):

Now, let’s talk about that future as we begin to round out today. I would broadly just say, “What do you think the future of Extend looks like?” But rather, I want to go back to something we touched on towards the top, and we touched on it lightly while talking about owning the full stack of your service, but just in a broad sense, looking at what the future of e-commerce tool sets should be, and maybe the future of what consumers within e-commerce should expect. Because if you have services like Extend, where you’re the AppleCare of everything, that’s like bringing a top level service in with anything from a one person, mom-and-pop shop, all the way up to the largest retailers out there. It makes me wonder what other elements of that consumer experience we should expect in the future to rise to that level of the biggest and greatest to survive.

Woody Levin (26:16):

Yeah, so coming from Extend’s standpoint, we’re really focused, Adam, on upleveling and owning the entire post-purchase experience for consumers. And if you think about how much money is spent and how much time and effort is spent on pre-purchase, getting customers to the merchant, getting the product or in their cart, right? Clicking on that button, right? So there’s the pre-purchase, there’s app purchase, right, which is how do you check out? Is it one-click checkout? Is it buy now, pay later? Is it stripe? Is it PayPal, whatever it may be? And then what happens post-purchase? In so many industries which you see, is you see an unbundling of services and that leaves you with dozens or more of providers who are offering discrete services, right, to a user base, or a merchant base in this case, and you have to manage dozens of different integrations.

Woody Levin (27:15):

So what usually happens is that over time, you see a rebundling that happens, and you’re left with maybe three or four integrations, but they’re still providing you with this wide array of services, and Extend wants to own the post-purchase experience for our merchants and their customers. There’s a lot that we’re building there in order to be able to provide a more streamlined experience, just like we’re doing by owning the entire stack internally for service contracts. Unfortunately I can’t share all them today, but we’ve identified multiple customer-merchant interactions that take place post-purchase that are very disjointed and disorganized today. So as we look towards the future, where we want to grow is to really go deeper in that merchant stack, and we can because of the significant right to play across the merchant stack, because of how we integrate into their ERP, into their order management system, into their customer service stack, into their billing and accounting system, we are already there. So we’re getting pulled deeper in the merchant stack, which allows us to do more for customers and merchants in the post-purchase timeline.

Adam Conner (28:42):

Well, I’m sure you have a master plan. I don’t want you to uncover that plan for us. I’ve done this a couple times, but I’ll round out with this then. Perhaps you can help me by filling in this blank, and I’m going to make a sentence and hopefully you can fill it for me. Sentence reads as follows, “If I have anything to say about it, the future of best-in-class e-commerce experiences will not include blank.” What’s that blank for you?

Woody Levin (29:13):

It will not include customer confusion, frustration, misinformation. I think that’s the focus, right? Eliminating confusion, eliminating frustration, eliminating misinformation.

Adam Conner (29:30):

Well, there you have it. Well, I appreciate you going into this world with us. It’s a world that I knew very little about even before jumping on the mic and listeners, I’m guessing you probably haven’t explored this world, or you’ve certainly explored it less than Woody. And as it relates to creating relationships and maybe fans down the road, it’s just an angle that we wouldn’t normally approach. So for looking into that lens with us, Woody, thank you so much for joining us.

Woody Levin (29:55):

Thanks for having me, Adam. I really appreciate the time.

Adam Conner (30:01):

Thanks again to Woody Levin for joining us and telling us how Extend is building relationships. I enjoy chats like this. It makes me wonder what other often ignored offerings are quickly building followings, and maybe even fandoms. And thanks to you, the listener, of course, for exploring the future of fandom with us. I’d encourage you to stay connected, so subscribe to The Future of Fandom wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can also find all of our content at livelike.com/podcast, and across socials, LinkedIn @LiveLike, and Twitter @LiveLikeInc. I look forward to predicting the future again with you real soon, and until then, I’m Adam Conner saying so long, and thanks for being a fan.

One of our favourite parts of the Get to Know LiveLike series is learning how passionate our employees are about the work they do. And this week’s featured teammate is a perfect example: Senior UI/UX Designer Lauren Granato.

Lauren’s passion for design started back in her middle school days, when she was first introduced to Photoshop. We’re happy to introduce you to Lauren and give you a chance to hear about her career journey, her day to day life as a senior UI/UX designer, and more. We’re proud to have someone like Lauren on our team, and excited to get to share a bit about her!

Tell us a little bit about your career path. How did you get into UI/UX design?

My passion for design started back in middle school, when my grandfather, a photographer, introduced me to Photoshop. Years later, after graduating from college with a degree in Graphic Design, I spent about two years freelancing and jumping from job to job to find my best fit in the industry. At that point, I realized I didn’t have the skills necessary to be the type of designer I wanted to be and realized I needed more education.

So, I spent the next six months in a bootcamp type course that gave me a ton of knowledge and new skills surrounding UX/UI design. It was at that point that I dove headfirst into a field I barely knew about, but I immediately knew I loved it and knew where my design skills were going to be put to use.

It was before I even finished the six-month course that I started my first role as a UI/UX designer. The role gave me hands-on experience with user interfaces and the design aspect of it, and made me realize that the conversation about user experience, which describes how users feel when they actually interact with an interface, didn’t truly exist. Over the next several years, I have spent countless hours studying use cases, other user data, and personas to achieve an understanding of the best UI/UX design tactics. I absolutely love the combination of designing what a space looks like but also focusing on making that design user focused so it is easy and satisfying to use.

Can you describe what a Senior UI/UX Designer does and what your typical workday looks like?

A designer in any position doesn’t really have a typical day, but there are some constants! I usually get up and start my day checking emails and looking at current design trends. Then I spend the next several hours working on design tasks for my team. I also QA developed designs to make sure they are getting completed the way I had envisioned them prior to creation. In between all of this, I am typically doing user research, and studying personas. I always like to end my day by looking at what I accomplished for the day and making sure I gave our users the best experience possible.

Did you always want to work in a design role?

Yes! I was introduced to design at a young age as I mentioned, and I have always loved looking at the way color, typography and images blend together to create something beautiful. I didn’t know where my roadmap would take me, but I always knew that I would be doing something related to design.

What have you learned about LiveLike (as both a business and a team) since you joined?

As someone who hasn’t been at LiveLike long, I certainly have learned a lot about the company and the community that exists here. LiveLike is a start up, and we are consistently adding to the team so that we can properly enter new markets, grow the current business and move forward with creating more interactive spaces and experiences for our customers.

Something that I have learned about the community at LiveLike is that we are truly like a big family. There is always someone there to listen when you need an ear; There is always another team member that can help you out if you get stuck on a task; There is always someone to help explain something that you may be finding challenging or confusing. We support each other through our highs and lows in and outside of the business.

Is there anything else you’d want to share with aspiring designers?

Dear aspiring designers, I see you. Your designs are good. Stop comparing yourself to the other designers out there. Always aspire to be better, but don’t let that stop you from excelling where you are now. Do your research, look at other designers, get inspired outside of the internet (nature is my personal favorite inspiration). Don’t take feedback personally; it’s not about you or your skills, it’s about the fact that every person has their own interpretation about what good design is. Love yourself for trying.

Thank you, Lauren!

If you’re a part of our growing LiveLike community, or have an interest in gamification, user engagement or digital optimization, you’ve probably already heard about the Future of Fandom. And if you haven’t, it’s about time you did!

Launched at the start of 2022, the Future of Fandom is a podcast brought to you by LiveLike that is dedicated to giving you your digital fandom fix. Every other week, our host Adam Conner sits down with chief executive officers from some of the world’s most recognizable names in Sports, Fintech, E-Commerce and beyond.

Since launching, we’ve had the pleasure of hearing from some incredible industry leaders, including Tim Clark from NASCAR, Adam Grossman from the Boston Red Sox, Jordan Olivas from Qisstpay, and many more, all eager to discuss what the world has planned for the next generation of digitally-native users.

In this article, we’re talking about the key lessons we’re learning so far from the Future of Fandom.

1. The Future is Undoubtedly Digital

Though this one may come as no surprise, our first round of guests have made it clear that optimized digital experiences are becoming a must for brands and businesses alike. As a society, we’ve certainly been heading in the digital direction for a long time now, and COVID helped to speed up the process even further.

What has been confirmed by our guests so far is that this is not unique to any one industry, but to all of them—in other words, all industries seem to be on a similar path of prioritizing digital experiences. Your users have come to expect the ability to access your product or service either online or in person with minimal sacrifice to the quality of the experience. Whether they’re looking to watch a rugby game, take an online dance class, shop at their favorite store, or invest in the stock market, they want to do so in a way that is quick, easy and fun, from their fingertips.

“Last year when we were able to fortunately have fans back, what we saw was the rise for us in our digital ticketing. Without having paper tickets anymore and physical tickets, what we saw was a massive digital transformation. We were reticent in the past to force people to go digital. Last year, there was no option. Now we’re amongst the league leaders in digital adoption.”

Adam Grossman

Chief Marketing Officer, Boston Red Sox

Adam Grossman Episode

“The pandemic has been eye opening in a lot of ways about the way people shop, how people shop, when people shop…as you remember, the first six, nine months or so, people were not going into stores. So that in itself was an interesting and different dynamic. Everyone was forced to buy nearly everything, from clothes, to sunglasses, to toilet paper, online. That of course changes the dynamic. One of the things I think has been very eye opening to us around how retailers and merchants are balancing what I would call a sort of hybrid approach now. People are going back into stores. People are comfortable going into a shop now. But, e-commerce already really blew up and people have become used to buying online.”

Dana Marineau

Chief Marketing Officer, Rakuten

Dana Marineau Episode

“What’s really interesting is there’s a strong preference toward digital first, all-in-one solutions. Now, if you take the pursuit of financial freedom and then couple it with the tendency to want a digital-first solution, I think this sort of sums up why people are investing through Roofstock. And you think about all the apps and tools and investing services that the younger generations use like Robinhood, they’ve come to expect sort of the same level of ease and user experience, right? With online banking, with Rideshare, food delivery apps, and also real estate.”

Suresh Srinivasan

Chief Marketing Officer, Roofstock

Suresh Srinivasan Episode

2. Users Expect a Personalized, Rewarding Experience

A major theme from our guest insights so far is that users want to feel the love from the brands they stay true to, and get something in return for their brand loyalty. The same way that most of us dream of being a regular at our local coffee shop, your users want to feel as though the brands they support know them on a deeper level, and can provide them with an experience that is tailored to them.

Whether it’s meeting them where they’re at in the user journey with customized notifications, curating a brand voice that is relatable, consistent, and familiar, or fostering a strong loyalty rewards program, your users are no longer satisfied with cookie cutter brand interactions, and instead want them to feel unique and personalized.

“What’s most interesting about better digital engagement isn’t just that you can have more frequent fan engagement and more eyeballs on a product, but actually it’s all ultimately about how do you actually add greater value to that end user’s life…To me, that’s the future of everything. And you can see everybody moving in that direction. Every brand wants to figure out how to better engage digitally, and to actually exist with the end user out in the real world, in their natural course of their lives, organically as possible. And digital technology, truly the nature of AWS and native serverless architecture really does allow for the immense processing power of data to create hyper targeted and hyper personalized experiences.”

Joel Lieginger

Founder & CEO, Paceline

Joel Lieginger Episode

“I think everyone realizes that we’re constantly marketed to, but it’s the idea that, I think people want that personalized journey. Look at things like TikTok. Talk about consuming personalized digital media. That is a perfect example of how consumers love to consume this content, but at the same time, make sure it’s personalized to them and make sure it’s relevant.”

Jordan Olivas

Co-Founder & CEO, QisstPay

Jordan Olivas Episode

3. Consumers Crave Genuine Connections and Brand Transparency

As well as users wanting more interactive experiences that are both digital and personalized, a key takeaway from our episodes so far has been that users also long for a sense of realness and authenticity from the brands they love. Gone are the days, or so it seems, where users will blindly return to a brand simply because they have been endorsed by an influencer they admire, or even because they offer the best solution on the market. Consumers crave a sense of pseudo-mentorship or friendship with your brand over idol worship.

“I think there’s two words that I come back to on the sponsorship front in our sport and that’s authentic and honest. And the reason I use those two is because I think in a, and this goes beyond sports across all of media, I think consumers are just conditioned now to be accepting of advertising and marketing. That messaging and that promotion is intertwined in almost anything that you do on a day-to-day basis. I think the authentic and honest relationship that our sponsors have within the sport is that our fans are able to understand how those brands are supportive of their favorites.”

Tim Clark

Chief Digital Officer, NASCAR

Tim Clark Episode

“It used to be a very different dynamic where the star was untouchable and unrelatable, and the fan just sat there and watched and worshiped, I guess…it’s now easier than ever for a fan of an athlete to learn and follow an athlete’s training, nutrition, recovery, mindfulness, et cetera routine, and to use the services, the products, and to kind of follow the experts that these athletes are using and following to get the performance edge and the longevity edge that they’re looking for…Suddenly, the relationship feels more relatable, more familiar, more like a friendship, more like the fan has a real stake in the success of the performer. And they feel a connection with them that I don’t think last generation sports fans felt with their favorite players.”

Pete Vlastelica

Venture Partner, Elysian Park

Pete Vlastelica Episode

While we’ve already learned so much about the future of fandom, we’re really only getting started, and we can’t wait for you to hear from the amazing guests we have in store. New episodes come out every Monday, and each one presents a new opportunity to learn more about what lies ahead.

If you haven’t yet joined our band of avid listeners, trust us, you’re going to want to get on board. Join the Future of Fandom now.

Fostering Fans From the Small Side of Small Business

Today on the Future of Fandom, we explore an explosion of entrepreneurialism, chatting with Fundbox about how to build and retain communities of small businesses and its similarities with consumer efforts via their Head of Brand and Content Marketing, Cameron Maxwell.

Think about it for a moment: How many people that you know have started up a side hustle over the last few years? The truth is, small business is on the rise, and Cameron has a front seat as to how those businesses are being built and supported. We also talk about how to market when small businesses and consumers become indistinguishable. After all, on the small side of small business, we’re essentially just talking about people. Thus, a fandom can be achieved even in a B2B context, and Cameron explains how. So let’s all put on an entrepreneurial hat and predict the future with Fundbox and Cameron Maxwell.

Connect with Cameron Maxwell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameroncookemaxwell/

Read more about Fundbox: https://fundbox.com/

Full episode here:

Back to All Episodes

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Adam Conner (01:11):

Cameron, thanks for joining me. How are you?

Cameron Maxwell (01:14):

Hey, Adam, I’m doing well, thanks. How are you?

Adam Conner (01:16):

I’m doing fine. This is an interesting angle that I haven’t really got to approach yet, and we haven’t on the show, which is this great nexus of the individual, the side hustle and the small business, all as it relates to building, retaining, sustaining community and getting to that ultimate F word, Fandom. Now, let’s get to another F word to start this, which is of course, Fundbox. For those unaware, could you explain what it is and does?

Cameron Maxwell (01:44):

Yeah, absolutely. Fundbox is an embedded working capital platform for small businesses. So we’re embedded in customers, systems and workflows, and we’re also embedded in the tools they use every day. For instance, we have partnerships with QuickBooks, recently announced a partnership with Stripe, we’re embedded natively in their new mobile app center. So small businesses can come directly to Fundbox for working capital and spend management solutions or they can access Fundbox through those partner tools.

Adam Conner (02:15):

Got you. So Fundbox is generally speaking when it comes to the entity on the end user, let’s say. These are small businesses of what, generally between one and 10 employees or does it vary?

Cameron Maxwell (02:27):

That’s right. Our customers are the smaller side of small business. So prop, generally less, up to 50 employees, less than 1.5 million in annual revenue. So on the smaller side of small business. Yep.

Adam Conner (02:40):

Okay. This is actually perfect because in most of the conversations we’ve had so far here on the Future of Fandom, we have been talking with businesses and brand purveyors of those businesses who are marketing to consumers, individual entities aside from any business entity. And so knowing that you are approaching the small side of small businesses helps this case a little bit. And the case that I speak of is this rising wave of entrepreneurship that of course was spurred by COVID and a lot of people losing their jobs in 2020. I certainly was a part of that. And now has led to a, not resurgence, but just a never stronger side hustle craze. Outside of what Fundbox does and what you’ve experienced for them personally, have you seen this in your life, just with friends that you know, family members, maybe even yourself, have you noticed people taking on more side hustle type of maybe small business before they call themselves a small business just in the world?

Cameron Maxwell (03:43):

Absolutely. Like you said, COVID has driven a lot of… Folks have just had more time and obviously the job market is crazy right now, but I think similar to how photography or music production have become more accessible over the years, starting a business is easier than ever. It’s fairly simple to start a website. So much of the process of getting started as a business can happen digitally. You can stand things up pretty darn quickly. So I think that’s amazing. And there has been this renaissance and it’s a really exciting time for small businesses where I think folks are really empowered with the tools that are available to them now, to be able to stand up their businesses and really pursue their passions.

Adam Conner (04:40):

Yeah. It’s never been easier to start something. I’ve seen this in real life too, between friends of mine, personal contacts, even colleagues who have started things. I don’t even know if it’s with extra time or time that’s been opened up, but just the need to produce more for whatever reason, prevalent, persistent, perhaps linked to a newly found non-permanence of a job. But in essence, it seems that most people are at least thinking about this if not doing it. So again, easier to start than never. I would argue as a result, harder to sustain than ever. Now I’ll talk a little bit about what you may perceive as part of your work at Fundbox. What do you see as challenges for these small businesses that are starting at a higher clip than ever? And in many cases are first time ventures. I’m curious to get your thoughts there.

“The challenge is the competition. When it’s easier for anyone to start a business, then it’s much easier to have a whole lot of competitors and I’ll use music again as an example. It’s fairly simple to open garage bands now and anybody can put together some sound loops and record their voice over it and make a song. But what that means is it becomes a fairly crowded space. There’s a whole lot of content being produced. And because of it, the way that content is consumed has really changed over time. You have a lot less big music stars as an example, and you see a lot of playlists and on Spotify or Apple Music, et cetera, and songs don’t necessarily have the shelf life that they used to.”

— Cameron Maxwell (05:35)

Cameron Maxwell (06:29):

You don’t see hit songs sticking around necessarily unless you’re Adele or something, for a year, right. A lot of songs might blow up for a couple weeks and that’s it. And then it’s on to the next. So just to draw the parallel with business, a lot of businesses starting in similar spaces, in similar categories, I think from a brand perspective, differentiation is extremely important and is going to be part of the challenge and part of what separates the winners and those who forge ahead. But in general, I think having access to the tools to be able to start these businesses is great. The sustaining part is, I think the big factors are differentiation, increased competition and operational and execution excellence is of course important for the success of any business.

Adam Conner (07:25):

Totally.

Cameron Maxwell (07:25):

But those key factors.

Adam Conner (07:28):

Now let me get to another part of this whole thing, of course, because given this newest, strongest wave of entrepreneurship, just as you have the movements out there that say buy local, shop with small business, you have on the other side of that, of course, these small businesses, tons of them who are all going after the same overall dream, growing, surviving in some ways. In terms of the ways that you bring those people together, and I say people because a lot of times these small businesses are just single entities. In that way is building a community of small businesses that much different from building a community of just people, individuals like you might with a consumer audience?

“The lines are blurred a bit, especially when you’re talking about the smaller side of small business in terms of how that happens on both sides from a B2B and B2C perspective, I think particularly for digital businesses like ours that we don’t have a whole lot of human touch points. Content is key. It’s the way that we have a conversation with our customers, the way that we provide additional value and the way that they get to know us as well. So I think content has really become in whatever channel that’s distributed through, wherever your customers are, whether it’s social media or email or own content on your blog, et cetera, content has really become a key part of building communities because we’re so digital. And so particularly I think that’s true of both B2B and B2C companies. So again, in some ways the lines are blurred. In other ways, once you get into bigger businesses, there’s account-based marketing and things like that and the tactics become different, but certainly from the consumer and the smaller side of small business side, there’s a lot of parallels there.”

— Cameron Maxwell (8:15)

Adam Conner (09:36):

Yeah. And I’ll get to that growing angle in just a second, but it’s good to have your perspective on this. Listeners, just as background, Cameron has done this both in B2B and B2C for many years from the content point of view. And this is in some ways, if you are a small side, small business owner, sometimes you feel like, well, there’s not a whole lot of support around you. I feel like it could just be you trying to make it. And so bringing together people via content related experience can be incredibly powerful. I’m curious and I might as well just dive into this just a little bit deeper. Cameron, what are some of the ways that you do this today at Fundbox?

Cameron Maxwell (10:15):

There’s a couple of ways we do it. I think having a robust life cycle marketing program is vital. Additionally we have our Resource Center on the website, which is blogs and eBooks and guides, and we publish content on a weekly basis on the blog, if not more often than that. And I think part of it for Fundbox it’s being a trusted resource. And again, truly adding value to our small business customers. It’s about offering actionable insights. So from a tactical standpoint, we’re giving businesses tools and learnings that they can leverage in their everyday lives. But there’s also a storytelling theme as well, like what we’re doing with podcasts. Some things that we’re developing with video where it’s not just a list with maybe best practices on marketing or sales or ops topics. It’s told through the stories of individuals in a way that is I think more relatable, and small businesses in general, there’s no one size fits all. They all have different experiences. And learning through the stories of others is a really powerful way, I think, to still deliver interesting content from an entertainment and enjoying the consumption perspective, but also layer in really actionable insights and takeaways that other folks can relate to and apply to their daily lives.

Adam Conner (11:56):

Agreed. And hey, good nod to the podcast world. Obviously much appreciated on this side of the mic. So let me ask you about that growing angle that I mentioned just a moment ago. This is mostly today an offering that as we described up top is mostly taken up by the smaller side of small businesses. Employees could be up up to 50 in an organization taking advantage of Fundbox. I’m curious now how you keep folks engaged with the offering during their growth, but once they have grown beyond that typical threshold that you serve. Obviously you and any brand wants to grow with their customer. And so I’m curious, have you thought about this? Once a small business gets out of the small side or stops being a small business altogether, how do you stay with them?

Cameron Maxwell (12:49):

Yeah, it’s a great question.

“I think in general, our product roadmap is certainly taking this consideration, certainly reflects our thinking around this. And it’s a good point particularly for a lender, for instance, which we do provide working capital, but we also offer spend management solutions as well. So I think it’s really looking at, for us, the product roadmap and making sure that the products and services we offer address the needs of our target audiences. Additionally, knowing your target audience is really important for a small business of a certain size. There’s certain things that really a bank has the type of infrastructure that’s needed, right? You have an individual banker and there’s treasury services, et cetera. So there does become a time when a business might become so successful or grow in a way where they outgrow the product. And obviously we want the success of our customers, so that’s okay. But I think the thing about Fundbox is we recognize that there’s a whole segment of the small business economy that’s really underserved. The big companies have access to working capital. They have access to the tools that they need to run their business. And that’s not necessarily the case for businesses on the smaller side.”

— Cameron Maxwell (12:50)

Adam Conner (14:16):

So with this in mind, talked a little bit about the fandom, how to build content and service around small businesses who sometimes feel like they could build on a very small island in a very large ocean, how you’re bringing together archipelagoes as small businesses let’s say. I want to get to the other F word that we focus here on the show, which is future. I’m curious, given the fact that you’ve been able to see firsthand the ways in which consumers starting small businesses and small businesses themselves have engaged with services like Fundbox and other adjacent services, which you’re no doubt aware of, what do you think will be certain elements of the future of how those types of services will attract and retain communities of small businesses for themselves? Essentially I’m asking, what do you perceive to be the future of behavior in these small businesses that you’ve just started to see the beginnings of now?

“I think maybe there is something to the content piece in general. It becomes a real differentiator in the way that content is delivered. I think in general businesses are already of course getting really smart about social media and their email marketing programs and things like that. But in terms of the future, I think there’s also efficiencies and new technology and content production, for instance, like AI copywriting tools, that just make it easier from a self-service standpoint for businesses to more efficiently produce quality content. So in terms of the future, I think that there are some really cool tools being developed that will make it more accessible for folks who maybe aren’t creatively inclined to be able to produce content that’s relevant to their audiences easier and faster and more efficiently. And so similar to what we were talking about earlier, it’s easier to start a business now, but from a future looking standpoint, I think content’s going to be really important, especially differentiating from the competition, from everything we’ve been talking about in terms of establishing and maintaining relationships with your customers.”

— Cameron Maxwell (15:14)

Cameron Maxwell (16:42):

And I think there’s some really cool tools out there that will, and you’re already kind of seeing it with Canva, for instance. Just make it a lot easier for these small businesses to create content that addresses their target audiences in a way that’s more impactful and it’s just easier for them to create than it has been historically.

Adam Conner (17:04):

Making that process easier lightens a lot of loads. And especially if it can be value creative to a provider or even a small business, all the better. I appreciate getting your thoughts on that and for speculating on this a little bit with me. I have one more question, which is the inverse of the one I just asked, but one I’ve asked a little bit recently and well, I enjoy listening to the guests give the answer. So I’m going to give you a blank. I want you to fill in the blank for me, if you could, as we round out today. Gone are the days of blank when it comes to getting in touch with, attracting, and retaining communities of small business as a service provider.

“I’m thinking about this in the context of, again, this might seem selfish, through the lens of content and I keep bringing it up. But I think that there’s really a requirement from a content perspective to have a strategy, to make it a robust strategy, and I guess gone are the days of being able to be successful without creating and being intentional about creating communities. And again, I think I mentioned earlier, I think one of the primary ways that’s done today is through content. So I would say gone are the days of low level of effort, creating a successful long term relationships with your customers and growing your business.”

— Cameron Maxwell (17:47)

Adam Conner (18:36):

Just as it’s become easier to start a business than ever, so too has the baseline of required effort to grow it and sustain it risen, and so too has that barrier risen for providers like Fundbox. I’m glad that you’re at the helm there when it comes to branding content. And again, thanks for exploring the future there with me. Look forward to seeing how else small businesses will be supported going forward. For giving me a look at the now and a glimpse at the what may be, Cameron, thanks so much for joining me.

Cameron Maxwell (19:07):

Thanks Adam. Thanks for having me.

Adam Conner (19:12):

Thanks again to Cameron Maxwell from Fundbox for joining us. Hopefully you got your mind racing about your passion project and how much easier it may be to start than you thought. And thanks to you, of course, the listener for exploring the Future of Fandom with us. I’d encourage you to stay connected. So here’s what you do. You go to livelike.com/podcast. Of course, listen to all our episodes there and you can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Finally, across socials, LinkedIn at LiveLike and Twitter at LiveLike, Inc. I look forward to predicting the future again with you real soon, and until then I’m Adam Conner saying so long and thanks for being a fan.

For months now, we have been working on LiveLike’s entry into the NFT market as a natural evolution of our product. Over the years, we have powered amazing experiences for some of the greatest organizations in media, sports, and entertainment. Our solution has proven its efficiency to engage millions of end-users and consumers, and we have proven our adaptability to tailor our solution to satisfy every stakeholder’s expectations and needs.

LiveLike as An Enabling Technology

That being said, we see Web3 and NFTs as a natural extension of what we’ve been doing so far, adding a new layer of enabling technologies to help brands bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 by reaching the next 100 million users and further democratizing NFTs.

If we take a step back, our mission at LiveLike has always been to develop a product that brings together communities, engages those communities to turn them into loyal customers, and rewards them for their loyalty. Stepping into the Web3 and NFT space will allow us to take that third pillar of our mission to the next level, and shape the future of loyalty rewards and digital empowerment.

So, What Will LiveLike’s Entry to Web3 Actually Look Like?

LiveLike’s entry into the NFT market will consist of providing customer tools to seamlessly onboard non-crypto native users, and meet them at the stage of understanding and education aligned with their current knowledge and crypto ambition. These tools will complement LiveLike’s existing engagement suite to further drive engagement and open up new revenue opportunities. Our product suite will host two major features:

Minting-as-a-service

Through our CMS, our clients will soon be able to mint their own NFTs. Our main objective is to simplify the overall minting process for the operator, removing the complexity of building smart contracts “on-chain” and providing useful details during and after the minting process is complete.

Minting-as-a-service

Note that NFTs won’t be stored on the LiveLike platform but in your crypto wallet. They will also be transacted in your wallet, and as minting an NFT requires computing energy used by the network, the operator will be required to handle it. This computing energy is represented by a gas fee. And in order for the gas fee to be paid, a connection to a crypto wallet is required.

Utility-as-a-service

Our second objective is to allow operators to easily integrate a utility layer into their NFTs. The utility aspect is becoming more and more important within the NFT space—as scarcity, reputation, proof of ownership, and certificates of authenticity seem to no longer be enough incentive for consumers—and we truly believe it will be the next key step of this industry. That being said, our vision is to bring forth a new NFT model based on utility-first structures, the concept of the earn-to-use model, and Proof-of-Participation, a protocol that rewards individuals who successfully interact with digital experiences, such as quizzes, polls and chats within their favorite brand’s native apps.

Through our CMS, you will be able to link your NFT to exclusive rewards, and gated experiences, all of which will be supported within your native app and/or in other LiveLike-supported ecosystems. We are also willing to provide this service to any third party who wishes to add more value to their tokens.

Who Are We Targeting?

By entering the Web3 space, our goal is to democratize the use of NFTs to incentivize larger audiences and to increase the value of NFTs over time through utility. We hope to work with as many companies as possible, from those who have not yet been exposed to NFTs to those who have created their own NFT-based technologies.

For uninitiated companies, our major objective will be to raise awareness about the opportunity for these new technologies to engage their users and monetize their platforms. For companies who are somewhat familiar with the Web3 and NFT space, and may have already launched some NFTs, our goal will be to offer a turnkey solution so they can mint more NFTs of their own. Finally, we are also keen to work with established providers to investigate more ways to add utility on top of their existing NFTs.

We hope this rundown has helped you to understand how we will be working within Web3 and how our Audience Engagement Suite will evolve in the coming months to complement your future engagement strategies. We will be announcing more exciting updates regarding our product soon, so make sure to stay up to date. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or if you want to discuss these topics further.