Bytes Over Bagels · S2E6
Steven Galanis, CEO of Cameo: transcript
A timestamped transcript of this interview. Speaker names and wording are reviewed before publication; listen to the original recording for context.
John
Good morning,
John
Chicago. Welcome to another episode of...
John
Bye.
Mary
Good morning, Jesse.
Jesse
Good morning, Mary.
Jesse
How are you?
Mary
I'm doing well. How are you?
Jesse
I'm doing great.
Jesse
I hear we have an outstanding guest today.
Mary
We do.
Mary
John and I talked to Steve Galanis from Cameo.
Jesse
Oh man,
Jesse
I love Cameo. For those who don't know, do you want to explain quickly what it is?
Mary
Yeah, so Cameo is a super cool marketplace where people can go online and find all different types of celebrities to give them shout outs.
Mary
notes for birthdays,
Mary
congratulations,
Mary
all types of events.
Mary
We actually did one last year for my best friend's 30th birthday from Luann of Real Housewives of New York City and it was the highlight of her party.
Jesse
Oh my God, that's amazing.
Jesse
I know Steven likes to refer to selfies as the new autograph,
Jesse
which is really exciting.
Mary
Yeah,
Mary
he talks a lot about that and we get a lot of other insights and just the emotional impact of these celebrity shout outs. It's a really cool interview.
Jesse
you.
Jesse
I'm excited to hear it. All right, well, let's get started.
Jesse
Cool.
Jesse
Today's episode is brought to you by 8-Bit Studios,
Jesse
a global leader in mobile and website product strategy in Chicago.
Jesse
If you're in need of digital or product strategy,
Jesse
a native app or web app,
Jesse
reach out to them at 8bitstudios.com.
John
So here we are. This is John.
Mary
This is Mary.
John
And we are here with Steven Galanis, CEO and co-founder of Cameo, a hidden gem in the West Loop of Chicago. Welcome to the show.
Mary
Hey, Steven.
Steven Galanis
Hello, hello.
John
You are officially famous because you're on this podcast now.
Mary
So
John
Not famous. until now. Not Time Magazine. None of these large publications could do it. We have finally given you the bump.
Steven Galanis
I can literally feel my life changing.
John
You just got three text messages about
Mary
Yeah, the press is outside the
John
deals.
Mary
door.
John
About deals. So welcome to the show. Thanks for coming.
John
We've been really excited to have you because you've been in a lot of news both in built in and in some of these major publications and things.
John
And so for a lot of listeners,
John
they might be totally new to Cameo. So could you just give kind of a brief overview of what is Cameo? What have you done?
John
What have you done?
Steven Galanis
Well, that's a great question. What have we done?
Steven Galanis
I think I wake up every day and ask myself.
Steven Galanis
stuff that cameo is a marketplace where you can book per size video shout outs from over 14 000 different athletes actors and celebrities our big idea was that selfies are the new autograph so when you see somebody famous you want to take a picture with them tweet it out put it on instagram otherwise it didn't happen and we were thinking it's
John
Deep fake.
John
It's a deep fake.
Steven Galanis
the deep fake real fake but we were really thinking like
Steven Galanis
How could you take a selfie with someone if you're not with them?
Mary
Mm-hmm.
Steven Galanis
And my co-founder showed me this video that he'd made.
Steven Galanis
He was an NFL agent at the time, and he'd gotten one of his clients to send a video to his buddy Brandon, who was number two in Nike's consumer marketing department.
Steven Galanis
Brandon loved the Seahawks more than anything on earth. He had his first kid,
Steven Galanis
and Martin got him to send a video saying,
Steven Galanis
hey, Brandon,
Steven Galanis
it's Cassius Marsh from the Seahawks. Heard about your son Maverick. If he gets your.
Steven Galanis
he gets your athletic ability he'll be playing for the Seahawks one day go Hawks
Jesse
Oh man,
John
Oh,
Jesse
that's
Steven Galanis
and
Jesse
amazing.
John
oh,
Steven Galanis
Brandon saw that he flipped out he put it on Instagram and he said it was the best gift he ever got in his life and when we
John
sweet.
Steven Galanis
saw that it's like maybe that should exist yeah
John
Wow.
John
Yeah,
John
that's a great.
John
That's called testing the market right there.
John
Do you have gold?
John
Are you holding gold or is it fool's gold? But in this case, it was gold.
John
So
Steven Galanis
it was definitely
John
that's
Steven Galanis
gold
John
really cool.
John
So so
John
So you guys started this thing and at the time you were at LinkedIn or what was the deal because obviously everyone it's not that everyone's just like hanging out like I've got an idea I'm gonna start a company like what did that look Yeah, like geez
Steven Galanis
we had the idea literally driving home from my grandmother's funeral.
Steven Galanis
So Martin flew in for the day from Los Angeles.
Steven Galanis
The funeral was over by Old Orchard at Memorial Park over there.
Steven Galanis
And then Martin, keep in mind, this was October 2016.
Steven Galanis
So Trump hadn't won yet, but Martin wanted to get a drink on Trump.
Steven Galanis
Trump Tower because he'd never been to Chicago and he's like oh this is great so in traffic you can imagine like four o'clock he had like an eight o'clock flight driving in traffic into the city getting one drink turning around driving right back to take him to the airport it was on that drive that we had the idea for Cameo I dropped him off at the security you know at O'Hare he went through security he called me right away we talked until he got on the plane I literally booked a plane to LA
Steven Galanis
I went the next day and didn't come back to work for two days and
John
No way.
Steven Galanis
it was really during that you know few days that Martin and I kind of articulated the vision for what would become Cameo we recruited our co-founder Devin who
John
Devon.
Steven Galanis
who's
John
He made it into this and he's going to get the bump too, I guess. That's fine.
Mary
What does Devin do?
John
Well, that's Devin.
Steven Galanis
now Inc 30 under 30 no
John
I saw that.
John
I saw that. Yeah, that's the dream, isn't it?
Steven Galanis
Devin Devin's just an incredible
Steven Galanis
an incredible engineer or CTO and co-founder.
Steven Galanis
Devin and I, or Martin and I are not technical,
Steven Galanis
so we had no idea how the hell to build it.
Steven Galanis
So we needed to recruit the best engineer we knew.
Steven Galanis
We did
John
Cool.
Steven Galanis
that.
Steven Galanis
And, you know, one cool thing about Devin, Devin was actually like an early Vine star.
Steven Galanis
So he like very much understood what it's like to be a long tail creator.
John
How funny.
Steven Galanis
And, and
John
Devin was an early Vine star.
Steven Galanis
yeah,
John
Now see that's the kids listening are like, what's Vine?
John
Fine.
Steven Galanis
860 million loops on Vine.
Jesse
What?
Mary
For what?
John
Yeah,
Mary
What
John
what
Mary
was
John
did this they like do?
Mary
best video?
Steven Galanis
Him and his best friend Cody Ko,
Steven Galanis
they were apples at Microsoft and Apple respectively.
Steven Galanis
And they did that for two years and both hated living in Seattle and Palo Alto respectively.
Mary
Oh,
Steven Galanis
So
Mary
interesting.
Steven Galanis
they decided to quit their jobs and they got on planes and they traveled the world for two years.
John
As you do.
Steven Galanis
As you do.
Steven Galanis
Today they would have become Instagram travel bloggers, but back then they were.
Steven Galanis
they were doing it on vine so
Jesse
Okay.
Steven Galanis
they were making this incredible content traveling around the world cody his buddy ended up with 3.6 billion loops on vine and today is one of the biggest youtubers on earth so you know it's just a That's really insane. interesting thing but one of the things that happened was they had they'd become like world famous the two of them but like they never got rich from it if that Yeah, makes sense if
John
right.
Steven Galanis
if you go to
John
Like
Steven Galanis
lala
John
$20
Steven Galanis
palooza
John
over a million plays.
Steven Galanis
if you go to lala palooza with
Steven Galanis
so with devin like girls like come up to him and are like oh my god when i was in junior high you were like my favorite person in the world and
John
Which is the dream.
Steven Galanis
and he has like 26 000 followers on you know instagram which is big for like a normal person of course but like not if you're a celebrity so i always like to call devin a micro a vine micro influencer or a minor vine star is my favorite one so we've had shirts made that
Steven Galanis
that said minor vine star but the the crazy part was you know it kind of fit with this thesis for us is there's this huge gap between fame and monetization there's more famous people than there have ever been people are more famous today than they ever were and the gap between how famous someone is and how much money they could make from it has never been wider and you know you think about it every youtube video that pops up
Steven Galanis
So people could have millions of followers overnight,
Steven Galanis
a one hit wonder on the radio might get millions of followers on Instagram or Twitter.
Steven Galanis
And in our generation, they would have faded away.
Steven Galanis
But today there's a stickiness to social and they will retain, you know, their followership despite
John
Right.
Steven Galanis
if they never put more content out.
Steven Galanis
So, you know, we really felt there was a mismatch in the market. I'm a former options trader. So for me, I saw that and I thought it was a tremendous opportunity to give people like the greatest gift ever.
Steven Galanis
at a price that was shockingly low to them.
John
yeah right right and so and so you know going through this i think for a lot of people who listen to this podcast who are entrepreneurs there's this huge a to b to c thing like everyone sees their company from the adc like that might be that conversation on the plane right where you're like oh what about this and i could see it growing to this and this and that but how did how do you guys go from that a to b like what did that look like between you having the idea you kind of really tested it in a microcosm
John
Awesome because you're like this is obviously huge like we just we just you know caught on to something randomly But
Steven Galanis
Yeah.
John
what did that look like going from a to b like what did the first version like how did the first version cameo even get built?
Mary
Who's your first celebrity pitch?
Steven Galanis
Well, the first one was Cassius Marsh,
Steven Galanis
who was this player,
Steven Galanis
this Martin's agent.
Steven Galanis
But Oh, I
John
perfect
Steven Galanis
mean,
Steven Galanis
I remember so we decided we were going to do it. I was still working at LinkedIn and Martin calls me. He's like.
Steven Galanis
like you got to get to Seattle I'm going to go up for you know the Seahawks game we'll stay with cash like
John
Oh,
Steven Galanis
we
John
obviously.
Steven Galanis
need to get him on the platform so I it was like Q4 you know like biggest time of the year for sales like right before Thanksgiving I like blew off customer meetings and just like got on a plane
John
No
Steven Galanis
and and
John
kidding.
Steven Galanis
went to Seattle and you know we I booked like a it was like a four-day flight and I think in the first five minutes that we were there we like pitched him he's like yeah I'll come on but like
John
Sweet.
Steven Galanis
we have
Steven Galanis
Right. Of
John
It's
Steven Galanis
course, like we
John
a ton.
Steven Galanis
didn't we didn't have anything like put them on yet.
John
Yeah,
Steven Galanis
And
John
right.
Steven Galanis
and bottom line,
Steven Galanis
like we.
Steven Galanis
Devin you know to his credit Martin and I because we're not you know smart we're like hey we should have we need to build an app you know we need to build an app and Devin's like you don't need an app build a website let's see if like anybody will even buy this as a website like nobody's going to download an app to like have one person out and you don't even know who it is so
John
delivering value delivering
Steven Galanis
Devin we built a really really easy mobily optimized version if you go to Cameo website
Steven Galanis
let's say today cameo.com like there are so many videos and people and there's a lot to do but you could imagine v1 of the website was literally just like what looked like a google form that said
Steven Galanis
Who is this for?
Steven Galanis
What is your email?
Steven Galanis
What do you want them to say?
Steven Galanis
That's
John
Oh, cool.
Steven Galanis
it. That's the price.
Steven Galanis
And V1 of Cameo was literally us emailing the talent,
Steven Galanis
telling them to record a video and email it back.
Steven Galanis
That was V1.
Mary
Got to start somewhere.
Steven Galanis
V2 was us moving to Devin had heard on some hacker blog that Facebook was opening a bot platform up on Messenger.
Steven Galanis
So V2 was like literally us.
Steven Galanis
hitting Facebook Messenger,
Steven Galanis
hitting the talent on Facebook Messenger,
Steven Galanis
them accepting
John
oh that's
Steven Galanis
or declining
John
cool oh
Steven Galanis
a video,
Steven Galanis
recording it,
Steven Galanis
sending it,
Steven Galanis
getting paid.
Steven Galanis
And it's kind of funny, like two years later, people are still using that early bot platform because it was so simple and easy.
John
yeah right right wow
Steven Galanis
But we'd have done over 10,000 cameos before we'd even built our creator app.
John
wow isn't that something so yeah most people don't realize that like i know you're uh good friends with mark lawrence here in town from spy hero and he's
John
and he's he's a friend of the show and he has kind of a similar story about how they got started where it was like they were you know they're like ah we'll spin up a wordpress site it's going to take like literally 10 to 12 steps to book a spot
Steven Galanis
Yep.
John
and i think i think it was similar they booked like 10 000 parking spaces off this like piece of basic garbage i mean you know obviously still functional and all due credit to wordpress but they didn't really they didn't really build their full-on platform till much later until it was
John
it was very much validated and i hear more and more about stories about that like
John
we got a lot of guys who think they need to build the most awesome thing to start
Steven Galanis
Well it's not only that in our case too it wasn't just build the most awesome thing but it was also get the most awesome talent to start right like what like we had hundreds of talent before we got like our first like person that people would have called like an A-lister or somebody big it was important because we got our friends and family and like people that were friends
Steven Galanis
or friendlies does like try it out give us feedback and one of the things i've really learned from devin over the last two and a half years working with them is like you just got to ship and you got to get it out there right and and the very first time uh we tried to sell a cameo i remember we finally we built this website and the website literally had one person on it and we always had this idea that like the talent had this huge following so all we have to do is get them to tweet it out and then the business is getting
Steven Galanis
this is going to go nuts.
John
Right, right.
Steven Galanis
And the very, very first time that we tried to sell one,
Steven Galanis
I'll never forget this.
Steven Galanis
I was down in Scottsdale, Arizona, trying to get like our second and third people on.
Steven Galanis
It was spring training for baseball and I have a buddy that's in the majors. So I stay in at his house, like, you know, again,
Steven Galanis
like I'm at his house, like I had one ask, like, will you join my app? And you're like, of course, you know,
John
Right,
Steven Galanis
but, but
John
yeah, please help.
Steven Galanis
it was coming down and I'll never forget it was launch night. It was a Tuesday night.
Steven Galanis
state night was probably about 10 o'clock pacific time and i'm at the steakhouse in scottsdale uh devin martin and cassius marsh are at devin's apartment in venice beach california and they decide to go on cassius twitter to tweet out the link of that original video of that one that i was the one that gave us the idea
John
Yeah,
Steven Galanis
and
John
right
Steven Galanis
he said for 20 bucks i will make a message like this for anyone you know come to this website and
Steven Galanis
it didn't book it he sends the tweet out you know we got google analytics going like this is launch day we're
John
We're
Steven Galanis
like we've
John
like,
Steven Galanis
been looking
John
watching
Steven Galanis
at this for
John
the monitor.
Steven Galanis
like five months i just quit my job you know like and
John
Cool, cool.
Steven Galanis
and literally there's two dots that pop up on google analytics one in scottsdale one in venice and nobody else came so
John
That's awesome.
Steven Galanis
of course like we're looking around like shit is google broken and and
Mary
Google's
Steven Galanis
and then
Mary
broken.
Steven Galanis
i remember
John
It's
Steven Galanis
like
John
always Google.
Steven Galanis
i literally like
Steven Galanis
I
John
I haven't
Steven Galanis
was on my phone I literally signed off the website and a dot disappeared and then I went back and it was there it's like nope Google is not broken and then to make matters worse like people were on Twitter and they started talking shit to cash they're like
Steven Galanis
you know they're like 20 bucks you'll make a video like how much is this company paying you he had just given us 25 g's like Oh to help start
John
no.
Steven Galanis
it so now he's pissed off he walks out he leaves and like it's a disaster and and you know martin's freaking out because martin is his agent still at the time so now he's
John
Way
Steven Galanis
like he's
John
to go, Martin.
Steven Galanis
like shit i just gave my client my client gave me money i just lost it like i'm done so he's you know freaking out he storms out and then all of a sudden this dot pops
Steven Galanis
pops up in rent in washington rent in washington is like the the home of the seahawks it's like where their practice facility is and the stops just on there and again there's nothing to do on the website there are no videos there's nothing to do and
John
Yeah, like what
Steven Galanis
for
John
is
Steven Galanis
over
John
this?
Steven Galanis
four minutes which probably felt like six hours this dot is just there and we're like what the hell's going on is this person gonna buy and you know we're all sitting at that you know elbows on the table edge of our seat
Steven Galanis
And I'll never forget this.
Steven Galanis
Like, we're just so excited. And then the dot just disappears.
Steven Galanis
And we were like, we were literally like heartbroken.
Steven Galanis
You know, we're like, this is never going
John
One
Steven Galanis
to work.
John
customer.
Steven Galanis
No one's
John
Customer
Steven Galanis
going to zero. want this.
Steven Galanis
And then all of a sudden I get a DM on Twitter and this dad goes.
Steven Galanis
hey i'm trying cassius marsh is my daughter's favorite player in the world it's her birthday on thursday i'm trying to get a video but your payment processor is not working so now we're like okay just like i'm
John
All good.
Steven Galanis
like i'm
John
Just
Steven Galanis
like just
John
call me and I'll check your credit card.
Steven Galanis
just send me the video don't even worry about pay like we'll get it so the dad like tells me the instructions and the it's like a tuesday night the birthday's on thursday i send it to martin like cash isn't responding to us he'd stormed out
Steven Galanis
formed out he's so pissed off five days goes by we missed the birthday like nothing and then all of a sudden on tuesday he sent the next tuesday he sends us like the most unenthusiastic like shitty video you've ever seen and he's literally like hey britney you know i heard you're a big
John
he'd
Steven Galanis
fan happy 16th birthday hope
John
still be into
Steven Galanis
you
John
it though
Steven Galanis
have
John
she'd
Steven Galanis
a great time and it was so shitty that we literally
Steven Galanis
like i felt bad we'd missed the birthday and it's like fuck you know he doesn't even care so we send it we have him send it to her and uh and then the dad films her reaction and the girl literally started crying she was so happy
John
No way.
Steven Galanis
and it was at that point when we saw that like you still get the chills on i get like the hair on my arms like pop up when i think about watching that video and at that point like that was the first one we'd ever done and now these reaction videos
Steven Galanis
reaction videos are a thing people
Jesse
Yeah.
Steven Galanis
like
John
Yeah.
Steven Galanis
we did a Times Square billboard we have reactions all the time like that is like so core to what we do but literally like when we saw that first one we knew that if we could make one person happy we could make billions of people happy at scale and that was all that we needed and the second we had that then we now had ammo that we could give to the next athlete and we could say hey like look don't you want to make people feel like that and most of them were like yeah that looks cool
Steven Galanis
It's cool.
Steven Galanis
That's kind of how we got going.
John
What a crazy story.
John
Is it the case that celebrities have been needing a better way to connect with fans?
John
Because obviously everyone's got an Instagram, like it's normal now for a celebrity to have an Instagram,
John
not just like a Twitter,
John
which I don't even know where that sits on the spectrum now, but there's an understanding that you need to kind of keep in touch with your followers and things.
John
What kinds of things do you feel like?
John
Celebrities and artists are still missing from that connection standpoint.
Steven Galanis
social media has absolutely changed the game for famous people right it used to be the old like cia hollywood a plus list or model was like the star of a tv show or a movie would never do like commercials because you wanted to limit their exposure and
John
Right.
Steven Galanis
get people to pay for like the summer blockbuster movie so you would never like it was all about limiting exposure social is the great equalizer where now because people
Steven Galanis
expect that access like if they don't get it it's weird like say what you want about trump but the next president will not be able to not tweet as much as that like
John
Right.
Steven Galanis
every one of us like whatever you sit on the spectrum wakes up every morning and like it's like what did he say right and and whoever wins next like it will be the same it's changed another good example will smith now has a youtube vlog
Steven Galanis
Oh,
John
That
Steven Galanis
right.
John
was unheard
Steven Galanis
Yeah, saw this.
John
of.
Steven Galanis
He vlogs for free on YouTube because his fans now are demanding to become part of his life.
Steven Galanis
And one of the things, especially with the influencers,
Steven Galanis
that is not something that I really understood,
Steven Galanis
is that people literally like, in many cases, they're putting out four to five like full length YouTube videos a day.
Steven Galanis
Like for most of their fans,
Steven Galanis
they're like one of their top 10 favorite people on earth.
Steven Galanis
and
John
Mm-hmm.
Steven Galanis
they they like feel like they know them in a way that like the celebrities that we grew up with they were like on a pedestal and it was like man like Sammy Sosa like isn't gonna like you know you'd like go wait in line for like Sammy Sosa to like say hi after a Cubs game and like he would blow you off and it was like oh like
John
Yeah,
Steven Galanis
but
John
that was sweet.
Steven Galanis
it was like it was like cool
John
And you didn't have a photo of it.
John
You're just like, dude, Sosa and myself had a
Steven Galanis
moment. but but now it's like people demand that connection and I always say like
Steven Galanis
say like on instagram it's kind of like if you're commenting on a celebrity's instagram where they're having thousands of comments or getting like tens of thousands of dms it's like going to the it's like going to the united center and like yelling at patrick kane during like the national anthem of
Jesse
Yeah,
Steven Galanis
a hawks game
Jesse
they're
Steven Galanis
like
Jesse
never
Steven Galanis
they
Jesse
going to see
Steven Galanis
can't
Jesse
it.
Steven Galanis
hear you but
John
Yeah.
Steven Galanis
they they do want that connection or at least the ones that will join cameo do so like what we've really one of our big pitches early was like
Steven Galanis
like we're helping you monetize your dms like and it's not that they're they're doing cameo because of the money even though a lot of them make great money it's really more that like price is just a necessary friction for engagement if
John
Right, right.
Steven Galanis
they
John
There's
Steven Galanis
were zero
John
got to be some
Steven Galanis
if
John
gate.
Steven Galanis
they were zero dollars then it's just instagram comments right
Mary
Mm-hmm.
Steven Galanis
and
John
Yeah.
Steven Galanis
and there'd be so many that nobody could do anything so even like a one dollar like friction point like you
Steven Galanis
really limits that and you know again this is why like this thing is is worked so well because the people that are willing to put up like any amount of money for this are usually bringing like a much more high quality request not
Mary
Do celebrities have access to see the reactions from the people that they're sending out cameos to?
Steven Galanis
automatically but what happens in practice is you know you would like
Steven Galanis
you get a cameo for john you'd like record his you
John
Hey,
Steven Galanis
know you record his reaction and then a
John
birthdays.
Steven Galanis
lot of times what you'll do is like you'll actually my half birthday is june 15th
Mary
His was like two months ago. I don't know why he's bringing it up.
John
Half birthdays better than my wife.
Steven Galanis
quarter quarter three quarter birthday will be it's
John
I like
Steven Galanis
coming up
John
that,
Steven Galanis
um
John
quarters.
Steven Galanis
no but but honestly like what would actually happen is you would record his reaction tweet it out at the celebrity or send it to us if you send it to us
Steven Galanis
us then we will send it directly to him and a lot of times like that talent will tweet it out and put it on instagram and like they love that but
Mary
That's cool.
Steven Galanis
in the future like we'd love to like build the app so like the cameo like you you know you text it to him like he downloads his app and like the camera is rolling and you know that could be really cool
Mary
Yeah,
Steven Galanis
So
Mary
that's cool.
Mary
Who is your favorite celebrity on Cameo?
John
favorites and everyone who's isn't mentioned
John
mentioned is automatically not really worth.
Steven Galanis
I think like.
Steven Galanis
I think the most important and one that I've really gotten to love, and this is huge because he ruined most of my childhood, but Brett Favre has just been like,
John
I've ruined most of your childhood.
John
There was a time when it wasn't ruined, but not
Steven Galanis
really. I mean, the Packers just like I'm born in 87.
Steven Galanis
So like literally I think there was that streak where like the Bears had 28 different starting quarterbacks in the time that Brett Favre never missed a game.
Steven Galanis
But I've gotten to know him really well over the last.
Steven Galanis
over the last year and he's just a tremendous guy was kind of that first person to give like huge credibility to the platform when he came on and now you know we have so many kind of like hall of famers like Earl Acker and Troy Aikman and all these guys come on and and just like seeing Brett doing this was was really huge and then on top of that you know we had this controversy that happened in December where there was
Steven Galanis
There was like a neo-Nazi group that tricked Brett Favre into making like an anti-Semitic message.
Steven Galanis
And, you know, the way that we handled it and the way that Brett handled it.
Steven Galanis
like and he never left the platform he's stuck by us he's like i love doing this like i don't you know there's shitty people out there like basically like fuck him you know
Mary
and Yeah, right,
Mary
Right.
Mary
right.
Steven Galanis
and if he left the platform at that point it actually may have capped
Steven Galanis
it might have capped like the quality of talent that we could have ever got Yeah, on so
John
interesting.
Steven Galanis
you know him like standing by it and having a scandal that was you know New York Times and Wall Street Journal and
John
Yeah.
Steven Galanis
Good Morning America but like standing by us like I'll never forget that
John
Yeah, that's cool.
John
Well,
John
and that speaks volume to, you know, the reason for the app existing,
John
right?
John
It's one thing if it's just kind of vaporware, it's like, oh, it's like a one off type of thing. But if it really is adding value into both celebrities lives and the fans.
John
then there's something to be said for it having staying value you know and i think that's that's great it's a great testament to
Steven Galanis
The
John
what
Steven Galanis
same week that all that press broke,
Steven Galanis
there was a guy in Wisconsin who was at his wedding,
Steven Galanis
and the people at his wedding had bought him a cameo from Brett Favre and put it on the big screen at the wedding.
John
oh that's
Steven Galanis
In
John
sweet
Steven Galanis
the greatest moment of the greatest night of this guy's life.
Steven Galanis
life was like hearing from Brett Favre and
John
not the
Steven Galanis
like
John
mouse
Steven Galanis
and
John
oh
Steven Galanis
and it was just but
John
well
Steven Galanis
it was it was literally just like you could see like how happy and pumped and excited he
John
that's
Steven Galanis
was and like when Brett sees that it's like he's like dude I've had he's like this isn't my best day it's not my worst day like when all this stuff broke but he's like but like how often can I do
John
that yeah right that's a peak moment for sure right yeah that's sweet that's sweet so you guys have created this platform now where you're like
John
You're like, you're cool to fans,
John
you're cool to celebrities.
John
What's next?
John
Because, I mean,
John
Cameo is obviously doing its thing well and there's features you can have that, you know, about looping back, you know, reactions and things like that.
John
But what do you see bigger picture with it?
John
I mean, are you guys really looking to grow this into something even more or just continue to get better at what you're doing or what does that look like?
Steven Galanis
Yeah, so we really and it's kind of funny that like.
Steven Galanis
This has been really top of mind and we actually just had a lecture with our team about this yesterday to like really make sure they understand like the gravity of the situation and like what we're trying to do and how fast we need to go.
Steven Galanis
You know, we really want to become like a standalone publicly traded company. This is not like a quick one and done sell to Instagram,
Steven Galanis
anything like that.
Mary
Mm
Steven Galanis
We think
Mary
-hmm.
Steven Galanis
that this thing has legs and this could be like really the first social network in the world that's not ad based.
Steven Galanis
and
John
Mm-hmm.
Steven Galanis
you know we think that has potential to just be massively massively disruptive but the first thing that you know the longer term like what we want to build with cameo is the marketplace where for x amount of money you can do y activity with z person so what we're really building is the marketplace for people's time now when you think about everything you can do with somebody a cameo is like one of the easier things you can do i think of everything i'm like
Steven Galanis
like a two by two from like highly generic on the x-axis to highly personalized and then on the y-axis low friction like pretty easy for them to do to high friction Yeah. the core cameo experience is a top right experience
John
Yeah, right.
Steven Galanis
it's Perfect. highly personalized low friction like really easy to do but as you think about other things that we would do or wouldn't do we definitely want to stay to the right of that you know personalization access like we want to stay highly
Steven Galanis
highly personalized our mission is to create the most personalized and authentic fan experiences on earth so the things we probably won't do like we're not going to throw fire fest right like it's
John
That's
Mary
I have it in my head.
John
ideal.
Steven Galanis
because
John
That's what we wanted to talk to you about, actually.
Steven Galanis
fire fest is just a big ass you know it's just a big like la la palooza music it's not it's not personalized right everything we want to do is personalized and it's very very high friction as you guys saw from the documentary probably one of the
Steven Galanis
one
John
Really
Steven Galanis
of the harder things
John
great.
Steven Galanis
to pull off
John
Something
Steven Galanis
it's so
John
to really model for us all.
Steven Galanis
one of the things we've been thinking a lot about is really turning cameo into a platform that people are using every day and to do that you have to do one or two things you either have to become a messenger platform or you have to become a content business and right now we have aspects of both but we're neither so right now we have a product that people use love and then you know maybe we'll come back again but like
Steven Galanis
like it's still pretty early and you know we don't know yet like are people going to buy 10 of these a year are they going to buy two like it's it's very early we don't know so for us like the first stage of of making a messaging platform is to really open up a rich two-way asynchronous conversation so you know suddenly new use cases are possible like right now cameo is simply like you paying to text someone getting video back but in the future you can imagine
Steven Galanis
imagine paying to text send a video send a picture send a sound to someone
John
Right.
Steven Galanis
getting text video sound picture back so suddenly new use cases come up like you have to go to a wedding and you take a picture of the dress you're going to buy and there's four pairs of shoes you're trying to buy at Nordstrom's and you text it to your favorite fashion blogger and she responds like buy the nude not the black or
John
That's really
Steven Galanis
suddenly
John
cool.
Steven Galanis
like you're golfing and you get like one of the best golfers on earth
Steven Galanis
to take a look at your buddy's swing
John
Yeah,
Steven Galanis
and like that's send you a note on like hey this is how you could fix it like we
John
super cool.
Steven Galanis
want to open it up like that and then in the future it might be like getting Brett Favre to come throw football you know around with your son like these are the types of things that you know we uniquely can enable but it all starts with getting all the talent today we have 14,000 talent on Cameo we think there's five million in the world that we could have
Steven Galanis
would have.
John
Wow.
Steven Galanis
So we're really focused as international expansion right now. We feel really good about this engine here,
Steven Galanis
but like, what about the K-pop stars?
Mary
Right.
Steven Galanis
What about the Bollywood stars?
Steven Galanis
What about the soccer players in Europe?
Steven Galanis
What about, you know, the telenovela stars in Latin America? Like it is just the top of the second inning for us. And like, we're just trying to go really fucking fast.
John
Yeah, right.
John
Totally, totally.
John
No, that's very cool.
John
Very cool.
Mary
So I'd like to get on a wait list.
Mary
I'm not getting married anytime soon,
Mary
but.
Mary
But I've always wanted Pitbull and Lionel Richie
Steven Galanis
Yeah.
Mary
at my wedding.
John
Oh, that's like, that's, they're really good together, actually.
Mary
Yeah, yeah.
Mary
So I'm going to, I'd like to get on a wait list for that to happen,
John
Yeah,
Mary
you know,
John
is there a next. wait list,
John
the idea of wait
Steven Galanis
There
John
lists?
Steven Galanis
is. So if you search Pitbull or Lionel Richie, because we don't have either of them as of this morning,
John
That's
Steven Galanis
what
Mary
Okay,
John
a huge mistake.
Mary
yeah.
Steven Galanis
you can do is you put their name in, then you put your email in, and the second we get them, then we email you.
Steven Galanis
Email, yeah.
Mary
Amazing.
John
That's really good.
Mary
Yeah.
John
Sign
Mary
I did see
John
up for the way
Mary
Snoop
John
list.
Mary
Dogg was on there, though, which is amazing. And I
John
Well,
Mary
don't
John
is
Steven Galanis
Yeah,
John
he still go by
Steven Galanis
I
John
Snoop
Steven Galanis
guess.
John
Dogg? Is he still Snoop?
Mary
Yeah.
Steven Galanis
Yeah,
Mary
Oh.
Steven Galanis
well, Snoop also I have to say is got to be like one of my favourite people on there.
John
Yeah.
Steven Galanis
And when so when Snoop was talking to me about joining, he gave me the line that was just like crazy. He had seen his buddy Ice-T on it and Ice-T is making crazy money on Cameo.
Steven Galanis
And
Steven Galanis
And Snoop
John
Of course he is.
Mary
Yeah.
John
Of just course he's a superstar.
Steven Galanis
like,
John
Come
Steven Galanis
he
John
on.
Steven Galanis
called me up and he's like, this is amazing.
Steven Galanis
He's like,
Steven Galanis
I need to get out of this thing.
Steven Galanis
We're going to billionize this shit together.
Mary
Billionize.
John
billionize
Steven Galanis
So like we want to make sure it's an office that's just billionize this shit.
John
Yeah, yeah, that's
Mary
We
John
amazing.
Mary
need him and Martha to do cameos together.
Steven Galanis
Yeah,
John
Oh
Steven Galanis
we
John
my gosh.
Steven Galanis
got to get Martha on.
John
Yeah,
Mary
Yeah.
John
if you could pair cameos, if you could do matchmaking, celebrity matchmaking, I think that's what the people really want. It's like,
John
can we get...
John
Get
Mary
Yeah, or like celebrity best friends,
Mary
you
Steven Galanis
the
Mary
know, like Reese
Steven Galanis
other the
Mary
and
Steven Galanis
other
Mary
Jennifer
Steven Galanis
thing
Mary
Aniston.
Steven Galanis
too is is you know like having celebrities make content for each other so for example like one of the things we hear back is that the talent loves doing this because their fans are helping them create the best content of their life right
John
Right
Steven Galanis
it's like they're super fan being like hey Cody like I love that vine you did three years ago like if you could mix that with that YouTube video
Steven Galanis
of from last week and make fun of john like that would be awesome
John
This
Steven Galanis
so
John
is ideal.
Steven Galanis
it's just like they're getting all this you know these new ideas and i love the concept of like the fans being almost the co-producers of the piece of content but we have this one talent named bob menry who's got like like the most insane voice ever you should go check him out on instagram he's amazing he's like a dirty sportscaster he's so funny but norm mcdonald who's my all-time favorite comedian and i would get drinks in la
Steven Galanis
la way about a month and a half ago and he's like he goes
John
obviously he's got drinks norm just norm it doesn't go by the full name anymore oh
Steven Galanis
goes he's like i fucking love bob menry but the kid's got no content he's like i want to write for him and like norm was like the best
John
that's
Steven Galanis
writer
John
sweet
Steven Galanis
in like snl history right
John
Yeah. totally totally
Steven Galanis
so so
John
yeah
Steven Galanis
imagine
John
he's hilarious
Steven Galanis
now if like he's like this guy's got more god-given talent than anyone i've ever heard but like we need to get him some stuff like i'd love his talent to be able to write for other talent and allow them to make videos so
Mary
That's
Steven Galanis
It's
Mary
cool.
Steven Galanis
so early, and one of our core values at Cameo is fight for simplicity.
Steven Galanis
And I think for us to scale,
Steven Galanis
that's been incredibly important.
Steven Galanis
you know what we could do it's pretty endless as long as we get all the talent i'm
John
Well, there is one more important question.
John
What is your favorite type of bagel and how do you like it prepared?
Steven Galanis
actually eating it you guys did it right for me i like an everything bagel with not toasted no butter no nothing plain
John
A plain everything bagel. This is a, that is Chicago blood dripping.
Steven Galanis
Yeah,
John
No
Steven Galanis
I don't know.
John
bullshit.
John
No bullshit.
John
That simplicity,
John
you're actually living your mission statement.
John
Good on you.
John
Well, Stephen,
John
thank you so much for joining us this morning. I
Mary
This
John
know you're a busy
Mary
is awesome.
John
guy.
Steven Galanis
Thanks for having me and
John
And
Steven Galanis
thanks
John
we
Steven Galanis
Adam
John
feel privileged to talk to you. It's a great story and I love – I'm hoping that the entrepreneurs listening in particular, you know, get some insights just in terms of like how you guys got started because I think that's probably the biggest question we hear or the biggest like comment we get is
Steven Galanis
There's
John
like what
Steven Galanis
one one
John
is it?
Steven Galanis
I guess one other little thing that we should talk about for getting started
John
Yeah, yeah.
Steven Galanis
I mentor a lot of young entrepreneurs at this point and like I relate to them a lot more than I do to people that are kind of like at my level now.
Steven Galanis
I still feel like I'm one person sitting at 1871 and I respect the shit out of the work that they're doing.
Steven Galanis
It took us seven months to sell our first video, right? So like the big moment there was an any entrepreneur that comes to me and hasn't quit their job yet. Like the most.
Steven Galanis
this important thing is like you cannot be doing a full-time job and like try to run a company it's too hard it takes too much even in those early days where nothing is going on and i'll never forget being in costa rica or i was in nicaragua it was new year's day with a bunch of the guys i worked at linkedin with and we were all going to like divide and conquer from our desks at linkedin
John
Oh,
Steven Galanis
and like yeah, build
John
of course.
Steven Galanis
the next billion dollar company and my buddy will herne was like steven this idea is too big somebody's going to become a billionaire doing this
Steven Galanis
unless if you don't leave LinkedIn and somebody else builds that could you live with yourself
John
Oh, yeah,
Steven Galanis
and
John
yeah.
Steven Galanis
the answer was so obviously no I never went back so I highly highly recommend like any entrepreneur I talk to I'll give them like one meeting but like I'll tell them if you haven't quit your job and don't have conviction enough that no one will ever invest in you nobody's going to quit their job to come work for you so
John
Right, right.
Steven Galanis
like you need to take the plunge and burn the boats
John
Oh, that's great.
John
That's great advice.
John
Awesome. Awesome.
Mary
I'm inspired.
John
Seam. Yeah,
Mary
Yeah.
John
that's great.
John
Well, Seam, thanks so much for coming on the show.
John
We love having you.
John
Best of luck to building your empire in the West Loop next to all the, next to Bari.
John
I hope you buy Bari just
Steven Galanis
Hey, I
John
to keep it alive no matter what.
Steven Galanis
I don't think, I think my team spends enough money there anyways where
John
Exactly.
Steven Galanis
I have to.
John
Thanks very much.
Steven Galanis
Thank you.
Jesse
What a great interview,
Jesse
Mary.
Mary
Wasn't it awesome?
Jesse
That was so good.
Mary
Yeah.
Jesse
What was your favorite part?
Mary
So I kind of mentioned this in the in the intro to the interview,
Mary
but my favorite part was really hearing about the emotions that people have when they when they see these celebrity shout outs from these people that, you know, they know and love and find a true connection with.
Mary
I just I loved hearing the stories from Stephen about it.
Jesse
You know, when I first heard about Cameo.
Jesse
You know, I thought it was really just very surface level,
Mary
Mm
Jesse
but watching
Mary
-hmm.
Jesse
and hearing about all of the lives that have been changed is just outstanding and it really has opened my eyes to some possibilities.
Mary
Yeah,
Mary
and it just creates a feel-good feeling for a few seconds for folks, so I think it's a positive for sure.
Jesse
Excellent.
Jesse
Well, who would your favorite cameo be?
Mary
Well,
Mary
as I mentioned in the interview,
Mary
Pitbull and Lionel Richie.
Mary
Top of my list.
Mary
What about you, Jesse?
Jesse
You know I think I don't even know if she's on Cameo yet So this is a shout out to get her on to Cameo But I really want Patty Jenkins to give me a shout out She's the director of Wonder Woman and
Mary
Yeah, yeah.
Jesse
of Monster and she just does some great stuff Well
Mary
Yeah. Well,
Mary
I'm pretty sure you can go on there and if you don't find her, you can get an alert whenever she joins Cameo.
Jesse
So for our listeners out there who would you want to be your celebrity on Cameo?
Jesse
Let us know. You can find us at Bites Over Bagels on Twitter,
Jesse
Facebook,
Jesse
and Instagram.
Mary
We'd love to hear from you.
Jesse
See you next time on the next episode of Bites Over Bagels.
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Announcer
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