The Future of Creator Commerce: How to Monetize Your Passion (Aaron Day)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Escaping the Drift with John Gafford

Episode Title: He Lost a $100 Million Company Overnight (And How He Rebuilt)
Guest: Aaron Day, CEO of Amaze
Air Date: February 3, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, John Gafford speaks with Aaron Day, CEO of Amaze, a company at the forefront of empowering creators to monetize content natively within major social platforms. The discussion dives deep into the evolution of e-commerce, the changing creator economy, Aaron’s personal and business journey—including navigating setbacks such as losing a $100 million company—and the disruptive potential of creator-driven commerce. The episode is a must-listen for entrepreneurs, content creators, and anyone interested in the future of digital business.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Giving Back and Personal Traditions

[02:59–04:47]

• John shares his holiday tradition of paying off layaway items for families in need.
• Aaron reflects on his years dressing as Santa at a battered women’s shelter his late mother ran, highlighting the impact of gratitude and giving back.

  “It’s probably one of the hardest things you can ever do is sit there as Santa Claus… But that made me appreciate my mother so much because she dealt with it 365. I dealt with it one day of the year.” — Aaron Day [04:13]

2. What is Amaze? The Embedded Commerce Revolution

[05:22–07:13]

• Amaze is an e-commerce platform seamlessly embedded in major social platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Discord, and Twitch.
• Their core innovation: creating live, shoppable experiences within native content—viewers never leave the platform to purchase.

  “When somebody’s viewing content, our stores are live, shoppable, so you can buy something in content, live, and you don’t have to leave the platform.” — Aaron Day [06:00]

3. Partnerships & Technical Moats

[07:13–11:01]

• John presses Aaron on how Amaze managed integrations with massive platforms without being outpaced by in-house teams.
• Aaron’s prior experience at Canva was instrumental, establishing key relationships and understanding platform priorities.
• The hidden complexity lies in supply chain management at scale, which big platforms are reluctant to handle directly.

  “Managing the supply chain is very complicated… and we do it really, really well." — Aaron Day [10:02]

4. Democratizing Commerce for Creators

[11:07–13:19]

• Amaze's mission evolved from just simplifying online selling to empowering creators to monetize effortlessly within the channels they use.
• Aaron emphasizes helping entrepreneurs escape reliance on paid media and SEO, instead building direct connections with their communities.

5. Affiliation vs. Brand-Building for Creators

[13:19–15:12]

• Affiliate deals are popular but result in diluted brands and thin margins.
• Amaze focuses on “first-party” (1P) brand-building, letting creators control products, data, and larger profit margins—scaling this with tech, not agency overhead.

6. When Should Creators Start Selling Their Own Products?

[15:50–17:34]

• The sweet spot: creators with 10,000–30,000 followers.
• Niche creators see higher engagement and conversion rates; “community over size.”

  “What you’ll find is that our creators that have 10,000, 20,000 followers—when they launch a product, everybody buys it. The conversion rate’s like 70%.” — Aaron Day [16:52]

7. Hot Niches in the Creator Economy

[17:34–19:37]

• Health/biohealth and “micro-apparel” (custom apparel via platforms like Roblox) are booming.
• Aaron’s nine-year-old son monetizes custom Roblox avatars—a peek into commerce’s next gen.

8. Platform Integrations and Proprietary Tech

[19:45–24:08]

• Digital Fit (Roblox apparel), Moments AI (generates product suggestions based on social content trends), and StoreDrop (lets users sell anything, anywhere instantly) are recent innovations.
• The vision: instant, AI-driven commerce triggered directly by content trends.

9. Copyright, Affiliate, and Third-Party Opportunities

[24:08–25:46]

• Increasing “middleware” technology lets brands and creators connect for customized affiliate and co-branded sales opportunities.
• Amaze’s goal: perfect buying at the intersection of content consumption and commerce in real time.

10. Competing with Amazon and Market Evolution

[25:46–27:31]

• Aaron views Amaze as complementary to, but distinct from, Amazon.

  “If they [creators] can’t make 30% or more selling a product on our site, we’re not going to be successful… My battle will be that the creator continues to make as much money as possible.” — Aaron Day [26:48]

• Questions on Amazon’s response and the importance of sustainable creator margins.

11. IP, Moats, and Early-Mover Advantage

[27:31–29:00]

• Amaze holds select patents but values expertise, deep integration, and speed in a fast-evolving space.
• Newly-announced partnerships (e.g., with Openwave, a rising music-tech platform) show continued first-mover gains.

12. How Creators and Users Interact with Amaze

[29:00–32:07]

• Most US consumers have unknowingly bought from an Amaze store.
• YouTube creators are Amaze’s key demographic given audience loyalty and long-form content engagement.
• Efforts to build community: recent acquisition of the Food Channel to empower food creators with direct fan access.

13. New Models for Community and Multi-Creator Commerce

[32:07–38:08]

• Amaze will allow creators to band together, collaborate, and co-own product lines—evolving beyond solo content grind and “MLM-style” incentives.
• The true future: tighter collaboration, mini-marketplaces, and community-driven commerce.

14. Creator Burnout and Sustainability

[38:08–41:00]

• Addressing content fatigue, volatility in virality (e.g., the "Island Boys" reference), and the need for multiple creators (and fans) to collaborate for more stable, sustained success.

15. The Next Wave: Funding, Going Public, and Disrupting Agencies

[41:43–44:56]

• Amaze went public to create financial vehicles (e.g., venture funds) that support creators directly, challenging the predatory agency model.

  "There are 15,000 plus agencies…they’re taking 40% of that creator’s revenue… I think the financial markets are going to attack this with everything they’ve got next year" — Aaron Day [43:31]

• Aaron anticipates 2026 as a turning point for capital markets directly funding creator businesses.

16. Personal and Emotional Impact of Going Public

[44:56–46:32]

• Going public was “one of the toughest things I’ve done”—emotionally draining and cash-consuming, but opened new opportunities for growth and liquidity for creator-focused businesses.

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Notable Quotes

• On Creator Empowerment:

  "We need to democratize this. We need to allow anyone—I don’t care who you are, my nine-year-old son could sell online in a matter of minutes." — Aaron Day [11:24]

• On Evolving E-commerce:

  "In three to five years you won't have e-commerce stores anymore... What you’re going to have is this mass ability to create a listing... you drop it, and you’re selling it." — Aaron Day [22:59]

• On Community-Led Commerce:

  "I’m starting with content and I’m building a community. And what is that community worth? ... Those communities have the power to wipe [Amazon] out if they don’t listen." — Aaron Day [40:41]

• On Funding and Creator Independence:

  "We went public so we could actually play in this space and help create a venture fund and help fund a lot of these up-and-coming creators in a better way." — Aaron Day [44:53]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Giving Back Traditions: [02:29–04:47]
• Explaining Amaze & Embedded Commerce: [05:22–07:16]
• Technical Integration & Partnering with Major Platforms: [07:16–11:01]
• Difference Between Affiliate and First-Party Brand Models: [13:19–15:12]
• Niche Creator Success Stories & Hot Markets: [17:34–19:37]
• AI, Instant Commerce, and StoreDrop: [22:23–24:08]
• Creator Communities & Platform Expansion (Food Channel): [32:07–33:49]
• Going Public & Disrupting Agencies: [41:43–44:56]
• Personal Challenges of IPO: [44:56–46:32]

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Memorable Moments

• John’s layaway holiday tradition and Aaron’s Santa-for-shelters story set an authentic, empathetic tone.
• Aaron marvels at his son monetizing Roblox designs, underlining tech’s democratizing force.
• The vision for collab-driven creator businesses—“Why don’t you join my business and we’ll do this together”—takes the MLM trope and hands fans actual equity and creative agency.
• Aaron’s frank reflection on IPO stress, candidly describing it as “hellish” but worth the vision.

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Closing Thoughts

The episode is a compelling journey through both Aaron Day’s personal and professional pivots—marked by resilience after major business loss and a relentless drive for creator empowerment. Amaze emerges as a key player shaping how communities, commerce, and content will intersect in the years to come. For aspiring creators, executives, and investors alike, the conversation provides both vision and practical roadmap for escaping the drift and building value in the next wave of the digital economy.

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Learn More:

• Amaze Co: amaze.co
• Ticker: AMZE
• Podcast: Escaping the Drift

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“Go make a video. Just start making content, man, and make really niche content about something you’re passionate about.” — John Gafford [47:29]

Transcript

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[John Gafford]

You by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. And now, escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the Drift. And it's time to start right now. Back again. Back again for another episode of. Like it says in the opening man, the show that gets you from where to you are to where you want to be. And today, beaming live the Internet into the studio. I got a guy who's done some amazing things and you'll see where that goes in a minute. Yeah, that's a terrible pun. I get it. He is somebody that spent the last, I mean, his whole life really working with some incredible companies and building some incredible things. And he most recently has taken on the role CEO of a company called Amaze, which is really leading what some would call the strategic evolution and is the leading player in the creator content ecosystem, empowering individuals to transform their passions into thriving and stable businesses. Some wouldn't say that that's what his public has said, but maybe we'll say it at the end of this. We're going to find out. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Aaron Day.

[Aaron Day]

Aaron, how are you great, John. Thanks for including me and hope you're getting ready for a nice holiday season, you know, so.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the holidays are upon us and all of the things that come with it. I don't know where you spend the holidays. You know, we do, we get, we're going to get to my favorite thing this week, which is every year. I stole this from my friend Kent Clothier and I do it here. And Kent told a story one time in a mastermind that I'm a member of and he said, you know, when I grew up, you know, my mom was one of those people that we had to put the Christmas presents on layaway.

[Aaron Day]

Right.

[John Gafford]

Those of you don't know what the layaway is, it's where you go to a store, you pick stuff out, you give them a little bit of money now and then when you get paid, you can afford to come back. And what he does now is he just randomly gathers a group of high level entrepreneurs and they go out and they just go into stores like Burlington Coat Factory or stuff like that and they say, hey, could you go do me a favor and pull all of the layaways that you have with kids clothes or toys, all of them, and then they just pay them off just randomly for people that do that and I've stolen that idea. We're getting ready to go do that after this. I love it. It's one of my favorite things to do during the holidays because, you know, my mom was also one of those lay people back in the day. So yeah, I appreciate it. It's my little fun way to give back. What's your before we get into a maze, what's your favorite way to give back for the holidays? What do you love to do?

[Aaron Day]

Well, for many, many, many years. So my, my mom, who passed away in 2021 from some, some of the effects of COVID ran the largest batter woman shelter in child shelters in Orange County, California. So for many, many years I would dress up as Santa Claus and go to the shelters and give away gifts to the kids and families that were pretty severely abused. Right. And I, I have to tell you that it's probably one of the hardest things you can ever do is sit there at Santa Claus and watch these kids come up and you give them one gift and the excitement in their faces and the expression of just joy. But physically you can see what they've been through and stuff like that. And so I did that for many years and that's still to this day probably one of the most grateful things I've ever did. And it made me appreciate my mother so much because she dealt with it365. I dealt with it one day of the year. Right. But that, that, that to me has been one of my lifelong favorite traditions at Christmas to give back. Right.

[John Gafford]

So I love that. That's awesome. So let's, let's jump right in.

[Aaron Day]

The new, the new generation of layaway is Klarna, in case you didn't.

[John Gafford]

What is it? What is it? What is it?

[Aaron Day]

It's called Klarna. So if you go to, if you go online and you buy anything, you're going to see payment options and you'll see Klarna. And Klarna lets you pay. Oh. As layaway. Right.

[John Gafford]

So I've actually had the CEO of that, of that product on my show. So yes, yes, I'm very aware of what that is because he's been just.

[Aaron Day]

Like, I get referred to all the time as the next generation of QVC or the live shopping network. Layaway is Klarna. So there you go. Things don't change much over time.

[John Gafford]

Well, let's talk about Amaze and what Amaze does. Let's talk about it.

[Aaron Day]

Yeah. So fundamentally, the easiest way to think about Amaze is where that company that is embedded in YouTube, TikTok, Discord, Twitch, all these big social platforms, and when you get to a certain number of subscribers, a little button pops up and says, would you like to monetize? And for the millions and millions of people who are using social media to create, you know, either content to create a community, or they're creating content to get to promote their business. They see this little option of this little company called Amaze and they can start to created, create an embedded e commerce experience in their social media channels. So why is that different than let's say a Shopify or BigCommerce or one of these big e commerce platforms? We built the company, John, to be natively embedded in social media platforms so that when somebody's viewing content, somebody could be watching this podcast right now, watching this live streaming event right now. And, and our stores are live, shoppable, so you can buy something in content live and you don't have to leave the platform. And so if you think about that, the benefit for what we do is we empower millions of people to create excelling experience while they're creating really exciting content, which is really, really fun for us. But at the same time, the platforms are not disant incentivized to not promote it because we're not forcing the consumer, the viewer, to leave the platform. Right. So that's what we do in nutshell. And everything else we do is around that. It's how to optimize that, how to accelerate that monetization effort for those creators. Right, those content creators.

[John Gafford]

Now when you said that it was natively existing in these apps, is this something that you went out and created a deal with directly with the Instagrams of the world, the YouTubes of the world, or is this a program that you get and it kind of works through API to integrate with those things?

[Aaron Day]

No, we were the first we did this. And I'll tell you a bit more about my background, how we came to this. When we found this company In September of 2021, the thesis of it was we were going to embed commerce in these big platforms. So it's natively embedded. So things like buy on YouTube, which allows you to sell and buy something on YouTube, fundamentally we're integrated into that. So that, that, that selling experience is native inside the platform. Doesn't mean you can't have a store on a maze and post it on your website, post it through your social channels. Sell, sell other ways. But people, the way people find us is they find us in the social media platforms. Right? And, and that's a great thing for us because it brings lots of creators to us at very low cost. So what can you.

[John Gafford]

Okay, so talk to me about how did you pull that off? How do you walk into an Instagram of the world or these big platforms and say we want to do this. And they don't just go yeah, that seems like a good. And then call their 8 million developers down the hallway and start replicating you. How did you pull that off?

[Aaron Day]

So, so, so two answers to that. The first one was so before I we, before I found we founded a maze, I was at Canva and my main job at Canva was to integrate Canva into high volume traffic platforms. Think FedEx, think Pinterest. So, so we built out this model of putting a design engine inside of all these large platforms. And so I spent over three years working for the founders of Canva, building out this idea of the next generation of content creation would come live in platform. And so during that, that period of time I got to meet with all the executives from all these big social platforms and these e commerce platforms. And as, as the time evolved, it became very apparent that that design platforms were commoditizing a bit but the selling experience was still very archaic. Right. And so I had that natural Sort of progression from hey, we want to add a design experience to hey, we want to add a selling experience in our platform. The fundamental piece is the platforms have two core goals. Create more content and allow the content creators to monetize more. So they create more content. Right? So it's this cyclical process. So, so we did that. Now why would Instagram not just go do this themselves? So fundamentally what we do, which is what we call under the iceberg, is we have a huge amount of tech that connects us around the world, America, United States, North America, Europe, India, Australia, with supply chain. So we connect with a lot of suppliers that can create products on demand, at scale, custom. And so this, this piece of managing the supply chain is very complicated, right? It's, it's, and we do it really, really well. So, so yeah, Instagram could say, hey, we're going to build a selling experience. But then you'd have to have all these different layers of connecting to supply chain, fulfillment, distribution. And they don't want to do that. They, none of them have shown desire to do that. Even TikTok shop, which is wildly successful this year, doing very well, still under the hood, we're integrated in there and we provide all the fulfillment supply chain operational pieces of someone selling something on TikTok. Right. So we're not the only ones that do that. But you know that that piece is very complicated and it's not in their core wheelhouse.

[John Gafford]

So this was your idea, you came up with this, you said so.

[Aaron Day]

It evolved over time. When we first started Amaze, our fundamental feeling at Amaze was that selling online was just too difficult. If you were to try to launch a store in 2021, 2020, sell something live, you needed programmers, you needed an agency, you needed a bunch of resources. It wasn't diy, right? You couldn't do it yourself. And we're like, look, we need to democratize this. We need to allow anyone, I don't care who you are, my nine year old son could sell online in a matter of minutes. Right? That was our fundamental belief is like, let's make this much simpler. And then as we started having conversations, it was like, okay, let's do this and let's embed it in the social platforms so that we can keep the revenue engines of these social platforms running the way they want to run. And so it evolved a bit over time, but fundamentally it was our vision. And look, this is my lifelong passion. I mean I, I love helping small businesses and entrepreneurs figure out how to monetize and become successful. And, and I believe fundamentally today that so many small businesses don't know how to get out of the paid media hell. They don't. They don't know to get out. They don't know how to get out of the SEO hell. Right, sorry, that's a strong word. But they're stuck in this motion, John. Right. Of they get to a certain size and they just don't know how to get bigger. And they're. And their only option is to go to Amazon and let Amazon distribute their product. Right? There's a better way, There's a better way to do this. And I think that's what we're trying to build.

[John Gafford]

So this is, so I'm just curious, so. Because I'm kind of envisioning as I'm listening to this, right. I'm thinking about like, I don't remember what it was. Was it like Minority Report or whatever with Tom Cruise is like a dystopian future when it was like every time somebody said something on like an ad that walked by, they talked to you and then that product would kind of. Is this like, is there a day? Because right now this is very like the company is choosing what products they're selling, right? It's obviously their products. This isn't, this isn't an arbitrage deal where they're. Or is it where they're saying, like, okay, I'm going to get, I want to get an affiliate deal with this product and I'm selling this as an affiliate deal. Or is this, are you trying to push actual products that are their own?

[Aaron Day]

You know, so it's a combination. So affiliate deals are really, really, really popular right now, right? Because it's Amazon's way of saying, hey, we're going to give you low cost distribution to fans, right? So they come in and say, hey, go in, click this button and promote this product. But you think about that. That's what influencers do. They promote a product, they promote something. They get a small 2, 3, 4% revenue share. I'm promoting something. But are they really building their own brand? They're not.

[John Gafford]

No.

[Aaron Day]

They're kind of diluting their brand because they're saying, hey, look at me, I'm a lifestyle influencer. I'm a healthcare influencer. You know, I'm a barbecue enthusiast, I'm a woodworker, Whatever, whatever I do, right. I'm passionate about this. And oh, by the way, here's some of the products I like to use. And let me, let me, let me make a little bit of money. Off promoting those what we. So we can do that. And we, and we're, we play in this space. Right? But what we really focus on is like, hey, I'm going to build my own brand. I'm a woodworker, I'm a yoga instructor and I'm going to build my own brand, my own community and my own physical product products. Right? And so we're trying and in that scenario you're talking about margins of 25, 30% or higher, which really is a real business. Right. And a lot more control. You have control of the data you get for the community, the fans. So we really are focused on internally. We call it one P John first party. We are building first party brands at scale. And that's a really important thing for me to say to you because at scale means it's a software company, it's not an agency, it's not an ad agency. Tons and tons of people help build 1P brands in small quantities. As an agency, we're trying to do it with tech, we're trying to do it at scale with millions of people.

[John Gafford]

So yeah, because I just, it's funny, I just, for some reason I thought about this when we were going like you could sign like a bulk affiliate deal with like all these products and then have AI that as you were posting a video or doing a live or talking about like car insurance is so expensive. They buy like ooh, car insurance. And then like the affiliate would pop up like whatever, oh, peanut butter. And then there's like a Jeff peanut butter thing that pops up like literally you could just, I don't know, I don't know if that would work. But that's just kind of what I, what I was thinking when you said that. So if I'm a creator, like how big of an audience do I need to have before I start considering going down to build my own products route?

[Aaron Day]

So our most successful sort of size is between 10 to 30,000 followers. So where we're seeing the most success with creators that are basically monetizing the most, being able to make enough money to where they can become a full time job is somewhere in the range of 10,000 to 30,000 followers. Now if you have 100,000 followers, you've got a million followers. You have more I guess audience to monetize with physical products and stuff like that. But you also have a much bigger audience that you have to keep happy with content. And so you start to realize that hey, if this could be content creation hell, because I might have to create content five times a day, seven days a week to keep this million audience really active. You think of Mr. Beast, how much content is he creating? Enormous amounts of content to keep those 400 million people happy. Whereas if you're a specialist, if you're a niche creator, you're focused on a very niche vertical, your community becomes very, very loyal and very dedicated to what you're doing. It's very interactive, right? It's collaborative, it's interactive. And so what you'll find is that our creators that have 10,000, 20,000 followers when they launch a product, everybody buys it. The conversion rate's like 70%. And so they make a lot of money during that period of time and then they'll think of something else and they'll do it together with the community. The community is very engaged. So it's very interesting for me, right? I mean, and if you think about it, to get to 10,000 followers on social media these days with all the tools you have isn't that hard if you have very unique idea, unique concept, niche content, right?

[John Gafford]

What niches have you seen right now that are, that are really converting at a high level?

[Aaron Day]

So I'll call it biohealth.

[John Gafford]

Peptides, everything else.

[Aaron Day]

Yeah, yeah. This next generation of how do I take care of myself, how do I understand my body, what's my body going to do over the next 10 years, how do I feed my body properly, things like that, how do I treat my body properly? Huge. And just think about it. From whether you're a 20 to 25 year old and you're trying to figure out how to get to where you want to go in your life, you want to be healthy, you're trying to get energy or if you're 65 years old and you're trying to, you know, trying to preserve your, your vitality for the next 10 years, it, it, it doesn't go away through generations. It's very, it's very, and other areas right now that, that it's, it's really interesting to watch the micro apparel space. Gen Zs millennials have grown up with instant access to content and, and now they have instant access to designs for what they want to wear. So it's very interesting to watch these little micro sort of niche creators that are creating apparel and selling it very rapidly. Right. We have a product called Digital Fits that basically allows you to go into Roblox and as a gamer, as a player, create your own digital avatar apparel. And with one click of the button you can take that digital apparel and make it physical. So my nine year old son who loves. My nine year old son who loves being in Roblox, playing with all his friends, goes in and designs his own avatar apparel and he clicks it and then he orders his own shirt, he wears it to school. Within a week, all of his buddies are wearing the same shirt. They've all gone online and bought a shirt. So my 9 year old son is monetizing something he did in a game, you know, so, so those little niches, you know, and look, he sells 20 shirts. He's happy, man, you know.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And so that's his little store that he set up. That, that's his little store.

[Aaron Day]

Yep, he set up. So.

[John Gafford]

Wow. And, and so is that. Is. Is Amaze embedded then in Roblox or is it embedded somewhere else?

[Aaron Day]

So, so Amaze is an embedded in Roblox. We have. Our Digital Fit product is set up to help help users create apparel much easier. Because if you try to create apparel now, digital apparel, you know, digital wearable skins, things like that in Roblox, it's not an easy process. It's very complicated. So we really make it simple to do that. What is not simple yet, and we're trying to simplify it, is the ability to sell that anywhere. Right? And that's something that's being developed and actually worked on and you know, is because once again we, we won't allow anyone to sell anything. Right.

[John Gafford]

So is this so like this little niche product and this is. You guys own that piece of tech, right?

[Aaron Day]

We, we built it. Yeah, we built the deck.

[John Gafford]

You built it. So how many little, how many little pieces snap together, pieces like that do you guys have?

[Aaron Day]

So four or five. You know, this year we've launched three pretty unique products. We launched Digital Fit, which is the Roblox apparel product, at Adobe Max in October in Los Angeles, we launched Moments AI. And you'll have to invite me back sometime in January and we'll show you the. We're in sort of beta mode right now with Moments AI. But Moments AI is our new live AI product and it's very different than like going to chat GPT. I'm going to see if I can set this down here and I'll try to maybe give you an example here. Yeah, so what you do with moments AI is you come in and you put your YouTube URL in or your Instagram URL in and it then tracks all your social media content, posting and all the comments. And because we have 14 million stores and 350 million active visitors coming to These stores all the time collecting a lot of data, right? And so when we see some sort of signal that that creator's content's trending. So let's say you're posting on YouTube every day, your videos and you're getting on average, let's say 10,000, 10,000 views and all of a sudden something hits 12,000 views. That's a signal to us, right? So our AI engine looks at it and says, okay, what are people saying about this? And then immediately you get back as a creator, four or five suggestions of products that you may want to make from those comments and you hit a button and you use our moments AI and it generates physical products designs and it puts it back up. So in a matter of minutes, something's trending on, on social, you now give them, give back products that were created from that, that content, that content feedback, right?

[John Gafford]

We're talking about like printables and stuff, like, like T shirts and we're talking about.

[Aaron Day]

Yeah, but I mean it could be, it could be, it could be that kind of on demand stuff, but it could also be other, other things. Like you could have a customized coffee bag, you could have a customized wine label, you could have different things like that that are, that are responding to. And look, you can, since COVID you can produce just about anything on demand, right? And so that idea of reading that behavior in social media and tracking that. So that's another product we launched and then we had this product called. It's not very sexy, John. It's called Store Drop, right? I mean, it's just the stuff that.

[John Gafford]

Makes money never is sexy.

[Aaron Day]

It's Store Drop. And my production managers create a new version they call store drop V2, right? That's real exciting, right? I feel like I'm Apple now. But anyways, so StoreDrop v2, which we launched a couple months ago, the idea here is that I fundamentally believe in three to five years you won't have E Commerce stores anymore. You won't have. What you're going to have is this mass ability to create a listing to take a product and drop it anywhere. And soon as you drop it anywhere, you can buy it and it just connects. And, and so the evolution of Store Drop for us is this ability to. You're walking down the street, you have your smartphone, you see something, take a picture of it, you run it through an AI engine and within three minutes you drop it and you're selling it, right? And it doesn't matter what it is, right? It may be a car and you want to Decide you want to customize the car, it may be a bike, you want to customize the bike, it may be somebody's apparel, it may be artwork, whatever. Right. So we're working towards this moment in time where things become sellable immediately. Right. And that's, and that's what store drop, you know, B2 is, is doing for us. So that's another.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. So how they get. So how do you deal with like copyright infringement? Would you be culpable in that if your software helps people clone things?

[Aaron Day]

Well, so, so you asked a good question about 10 minutes ago about the affiliate stuff, right? So there's thousands, if not millions of small brands, medium sized brands who are looking for distribution. There are new technologies evolving every day. Middleware piece, middleware technology that allows you to connect third party brands with new sellers, new supply. You know, right now it's affiliate, right. But it's sooner or later you're going to be able to, you know, as a third party brand, you'll be able to say, hey, I want to put my product in front of 40,000 creators and let them all sell it. Right. And oh, maybe I'll give my 40,000 yoga instructors the ability to customize my new yoga line that is coming from my company. So there's all these things evolving right now to where you can customize, you can immediately tie content to product, things like that that are evolving. It's fundamental in the development of social commerce and the next generation E commerce that you don't have to take someone away from where content's being viewed to a different site to buy it. Right. It's a fundamental thing that has to change. And I feel like if Amaze can do one thing really, really well the next five years, it's to perfect that ability to buy when content's being viewed. I think it's critical and if we can do that, we're a very, very valuable company.

[John Gafford]

No, no, I would agree with that. But so for this to work, and if you think it's going to be this way eventually, where everything is just point and shift, shoot, where does that leave Amazon? I mean, obviously you're talking about the biggest company on earth. Do they pivot? Did they get in this market against you? What do they do?

[Aaron Day]

I think Amazon's push, so their, their massive push into affiliates that they understand under the hood, that the idea of having one global marketplace where people go to buy everything versus this one potential global marketplace where people go to sell anything is happening and they need, they need to figure that out. Right. I Don't. I don't think Amazon goes away. I don't think Amazon changes that much over the next few years. But I do think Amazon has to adapt and people like Amaze, who have a high volume distribution of lots and lots of sellers, I think are going to be very interested, very, very attractive to Amazon. Right, so, so you think they're going.

[John Gafford]

To get in your same game or are they going to come knocking on your door? I mean, obviously I know the answer you want.

[Aaron Day]

Yeah, look, I care about, I care about the margin our small businesses, our entrepreneurs, our creators make. Right. I care about it. I mean, we, we, we talk about this every week in leadership meetings. If they can't make 30 or more selling a product on our site, we're not going to be successful. I don't know if, if an Amazon model where Amazon wants to take 40, a creator wants to take 30% can exist together. Right. I think there's a margin pressure there that's going to happen. And that's a very business response to your question. But, but I really do think that, that somebody's going to have to give and my, my fight, my battle will be that the Crater continues to make as much money as possible.

[John Gafford]

How much. That brings my next question, which is how much of your process is patented? Is patent pending. Is patent a bowl?

[Aaron Day]

Yeah. So we have, we have patents in certain areas, we have patents in certain parts of the technology. I, I will tell you that it's, it. I don't think there's any major metal gate, metal moats around the business. I think there's some, some wood moats and some water moats and stuff like that that are, that we built. But, and then this space is evolving very, very rapidly. Right. But I do think that we, we know the space really well, right? And we've got years of being integrated with these big social platforms. We know how to do this.

[John Gafford]

Well, you're first to market. There's a lot to be said for that.

[Aaron Day]

Yeah, we integrate, like we just announced this morning, an integration with a company called openwave. Openwave has a new app that's rolled out since July that's just being really well received by the big music studios. Right. And you're seeing this next generation of tech companies attack Spotify. And what's coming out is this new wave of streaming social media combining. So think Instagram and Spotify coming together in one, one tool with a bunch of new friendly ways to monetize and buy and sell things. And so you see that happening rapidly. We still are the de facto company to go to for, for if you want to sell something. Right. I mean all the options open Wave had they chose us. Right. And, and we will have an integration done with them in a matter of weeks versus you know what, it may take other people months to do so.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. Yeah. If I'm somebody like, I've never seen amaze pop up on any of my stuff. It just hasn't popped up to me. If I'm somebody that wants to use it and I don't see it on my stuff, how do I do it?

[Aaron Day]

So. Okay, good question. So I have data that shows me that there's not a single, there's. There's less than 1% of American consumers that have a credit card haven't bought something from an amaze store. You just don't know all the time it's an amaze store. Right? Okay. So you, you know, so from a, from a buyer perspective, from a fan perspective, you probably have bought something from one of our stores, right? You just don't, you just don't, you don't know it. From a seller perspective, you, you find us, because we are, we are attractive to you if you are living and creating content all the time on, on some sort of medium, right. We, you probably find Shopify, you know, way more than us because Shopify is out there marketing to you. If you want to sell something, build a store with us. Right? We are marketing. We have all kinds of marketing running in platform. So if you're, if you're a YouTube user, you know, content creator, you're going to see us all the time, right? Because we're promoting in YouTube a lot.

[John Gafford]

So on YouTube, is that your main channel? Is that, is that the biggest YouTuber.

[Aaron Day]

Is our favorite channel because the long form content still, still builds the, what I think is the most authentic communities, right? So people who, if you're going to take the time of your day to watch 30 minutes worth of YouTube content.

[John Gafford]

Oh sure, you know, you're invested.

[Aaron Day]

You're invested, right? If you're going to take, if you're going to take a minute to flip through something and watch, watch an image of somebody dancing, maybe, maybe you're invested, maybe you're not, you know? You know.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, well, I mean I think we can engage in social media. Depends on how hot that person is or how. Or how terribly awfully obese they are. Also would probably get you to stay as long as well make that work. So with amazed is amazed question for me because we use go High level for everything on the back end. That's our favorite piece. Does it work with stuff like that? I mean, does it take the data and then create it into a CRM that allows you to build community? Does it integrate that way?

[Aaron Day]

So yes and no. So some of what we're building right now for early release next year is a bit more of what I would call a next generation of a CRM. But we're kind of taking. Look, there's so many ways to go with the creator economy. Like, you probably read recently that we bought the Food Channel, right? We bought the Food Channel because one of our favorite verticals of creators on our platform are food creators. It's fun, they're active, they monetize very well. There's not enough, you know, there's not enough community being built around all these different food verticals. So we bought the Food Channel and what we'll do with the Food Channel is allow people to create content in the Food Channel, engage their audiences, communicate with them much more directly. Like, we're not going to. We're not going to restrict your access to your fans on the Food Channel. So if you come in and you create content and you get 10, 20, 50, a million followers, you'll have access to all those fans.

[John Gafford]

Is this still going to function the same way that it has? Like normal? Because I know the Food Channel is a syndicated channel where they do cooking shows or whatnot. Are you guys going to start taking some of your online creators and pushing them into that more traditional medium, or how's this going to work?

[Aaron Day]

Yeah. So we just started this week with a plan where we've got about 65,000 regular sort of, I'll call them consistent food creators on a maze. They're creating content all the time, they're monetizing all the time. We're going to allow those 65,000 people to come in and start creating content for programming on the Food Channel. And then as let's say we pick 5 to 10% of those people, they create content, we start promoting it, we start syndicating it around the world. And then over time, we're going to create more and more creator channels on the Food Channel. So we haven't come to a final agreement, but one of the creators we used to launch our moments AI was Perez Hilton. So Perez Hilton came on. He was one of our first beta sites for our new AI engine. He got on stage and showed the product off about a month ago, a month and a half ago. He said, I would love to have a Cooking show. So do we build a cooking show for Perez Hilton in his audience base? Right. But the fundamental difference there is that we're going to allow those creators to have complete access to their fans. Right. In a way that hasn't been done before.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, but you can also doing it that way, you're using the traditional channels as well. Not traditional, but using the online channels like YouTube as an incubator. And you can see the metrics of which one of these, what's hitting and what's not. And it makes it pretty easy for you to hand pick the right people to then move them over into that platform.

[Aaron Day]

Yeah, look, we, we wanted to go back and forth. Like we, we don't expect YouTube creators will, will abandon their YouTube channel. Right. I mean they, it's still a great way for them to reach audiences. Right. We think that we were off the food channel will be a bit more specific to the community that they're, they're, they're, they're and, and allow that community to be more involved. Right. So it's very, it's, it's a very interesting thing for us and we're going to do that. We're doing it in three verticals where we see really, really big opportunity for tighter, tighter networking and community building between the creators and the, and their fans. Right.

[John Gafford]

So what's the, what's the metric that makes that a win? What's when, when you're looking at this in a year, two years from now. So the metric says this worked.

[Aaron Day]

Up until now, the metric's been how many of the fans become creators themselves? So that's been a metric we watch very closely. So, so remember, and I say this all the time, you know, whenever I'm, whenever, if I'm in an investor meeting, if I'm in a big, big, you know, customer meeting, whatever our business, we're not an agency. We're not built to service 100 customers and just take care of 100 customers. White Glove, anything they do. We are a software company and we service thousands and millions of creators. Right. So what's interesting for us is let's say every day in The United States, 3 to 4,000 people Sign up to be a creator on our platform. 10, 20% of those people were fans of a crater and they realized by watching what the crater did, they could do it themselves. Right. So that metric, that's been a very important metric to us for the last couple years now going forward, I think the metrics are going to be very interesting to watch is how, okay, so I got to explain this a bit. So this is something that, if you're listening to me for the first time, if you're watching me for the first time, you need a little bit more background to understand. So. Sure. So, so unlike, like, so you, you think about the top three or four e commerce sites you go to to buy things, right? You go to them to specifically buy something or it's a impulse buy for something you may, you may want. You, you know, you want a new jacket. You go, you start looking around for a new jacket. In our world, the fans of these creators come into their stores every day because they are so tied to these communities of these creators. They, they, they, they're, they're so passionate about it. They come into these stores every day and their frustration point is that the creator's not launching new products fast enough. Right. And so, so for us.

[John Gafford]

I was going to say, I think the best example for that was, was Alex Hermosi's new book. When he launched that book, that was wild. And it's because he didn't put anything out for like two years. Nothing.

[Aaron Day]

Yeah, and we have it all the time and it's across every vertical, every spectrum you can think of. And so I think the metric will be how many new products are built and put into these creator stores that are collaborative with the creator and the fan. And I think what you're going to see is that you're going to see a big movement from one creator creating content, creating that 10,000 people view and follow to one creator finding 100 fans who want to come together and create content that 100,000 people follow. Right. And so I think technology is evolving enough to where these little mini marketplaces are being built. Right. Does that make sense to you?

[John Gafford]

Well, okay, so I'm going to say it a different way that I think I understand. It's almost like you can create a little mini multi level marketing deal where say you're a creator and you have this product idea, you get 100 people that are raving fans of you and you say, listen, if we all do this together, I'll cut you in on some of the profits of what we do. And let's, let's, instead of having my saturation, we'll get a massive saturation, maybe.

[Aaron Day]

Yes, but with one extra layer to it. I don't think you're going to have this mentality of I will cut you in. I think the mentality is going to be, why don't you join my business and we'll do this together. Because the most important thing that's every.

[John Gafford]

Multi level marketing pitch in history. Well, join my business.

[Aaron Day]

That's the pitch, right? But it's because the dependency on content is so strenuous, right? You become irrelevant if you don't get content. Look, here's. It's not my favorite one to use, but it's a funny one to use. Remember the hop to a girl, right? She, she blew up, right? She blew up. Then she did a deal with Jake Paul. She, for, for a moment she was extremely everywhere, right? And then she wasn't. Right? Now that, that example of someone is what I think the creator economy is viewed at as today of these one off hits of something just going viral and then going away. The one hit wonders, right? Yeah, but what you don't, you, what you don't see probably as much as I see under the hood is that there's this massive swell of content creators creating content that people want to see all the time. It's why YouTube, it's why YouTube is so amazing 20 years later. I mean I just saw Neil, Neil one times. Man of the year, right? It's, it's because there's so many of these little niche channels that people just want to watch over and over again that aren't, aren't fly by night. But, but because of that they're, they're spending so much more time thinking about the content. We need to help them with that content monetize, right? They, they need to be able to understand what their fans are thinking and sell to them more products so that they can make more, more valuable content.

[John Gafford]

Because the more money comes in, the more money can be put out into things that you want. So supporting those people as it works along. Well, I got to tell you man. Well, you know, I got to tell you, I'm going to give you a compliment which is when you have a podcast like we do, we get so many pitches for guests to be on and one of the more popular ones is always like e commerce. I'll show people how to set up your Amazon store. And I'm like, oh dude, we're still doing this. And so anytime I see anything that comes up, that's it. With E commerce, I'm immediately like, it kind of doesn't even anymore. It doesn't even get to me. Like my people filter it. But you got through saying this is the future, this is something new that people haven't heard or seen. And, and it's, and it's really interesting and it is. So I'll get, I'LL give you that. That's a massive compliment. So this, this is different than anything that anybody else out there that I know is doing.

[Aaron Day]

Yeah, John, it's, it's, it's a very simple change, right? I mean, E Commerce for so many years was, I have a product, I want to sell it and I want to sell it online with no inventory. I don't want to start whatever. Okay, Been there, done that a hundred million times, right?

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Aaron Day]

This, this is not. I'm starting with a product. I'm starting with content and I'm building a community. Right. And what is that community worth? And that's why when you ask about Amazon, I think it's obvious Amazon has to be thinking about this as well as many other companies because those communities have the power to, to wipe them out. Right? If they don't, they don't, they don't listen. Right.

[John Gafford]

So, yeah, I'm actually kind of shocked that Amazon's never tried to build, I mean, you got everything else never tried to build some sort of a community type feature into Amazon. Like build a fan page around a certain. Build fan pages around products that sell a certain amount.

[Aaron Day]

I mean, I think they have a lot of agencies that do that for them. Right, But I mean, do they do that in their product? I, you know, I think, I think there's. Look, I mean, when, how long ago was Amazon built? 25 years ago, 30 years ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's.

[John Gafford]

I mean, look, look, he'd done okay. He's done okay for himself. He's done. I think he's doing okay. So. Good. All right, well, if people had to know one more thing, if you had to nail it down to one more thing that we haven't talked about yet about amaze that you think people just should absolutely know, what would it be?

[Aaron Day]

Okay, so we went public this year and I lived through the process of taking a company public. We're on the New York Stock Exchange. And all I heard about this year from every investor group I ever met with was crypto. Crypto, crypto, the next generation of payment, all that kind of stuff. Right? And it was interesting to me because you could feel that there's this desire and this movement to change the process of money. Right. And I can't say it any more eloquently than that. Right. I look at next year and I think that what you're going to see in a very, very, very big way is this movement away from focusing on. And this is why I still love Canva. I mean, I work For Canva. I love them. I mean what Cliff and Mel have done is just, is this amazing democratizing design. But I think what you're going to see next year is this next generation of just of how content meets commerce. Right. It's coming in such a big way and I just think that. And I think what you're going to see now is you're going to see a whole. And why I brought the crypto side is I think you're going to see a whole new wave of financing come into the market to finance these creators that are showing success at all levels in a way that helps grow their business versus the agency model. And that's a moment in time, John, for you to watch and everyone to watch. Because today there's 15,000 plus agencies in North America that service on average about 100 creators. Think about.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Aaron Day]

And they're taking 40% of that creator's revenue, something like that, you know, on average. Right. So, so, so these agencies are just attacking these small businesses that are show these creators that are showing promise and they're taking all the lifeblood, all the, all the capital out of the business because they, you know, trying to say we're going to help you grow. I think the financial markets are going to attack this with everything they got next year and say, why would you do this? We'll fund you, we love you. We're going to fund you in a new way. And I think, and I think you, everyone needs to get prepared for that. Right?

[John Gafford]

So yeah, it's like, it's like watching Motown back in the 60s when you had like, oh, we're going to make a record, we're going to give you $2 and you know, maybe a new suit and then you have these executives that just made all the money. Yeah, there's. That was kind of the Wild west of that. You see that going away. That you see that going away in the next year.

[Aaron Day]

I think in the next year, year or two, it's going to go in a big way. I mean my wife and I just watched the Puff Daddy documentary. Pretty ugly thing to watch. Right. But the under underneath the hood, I mean the manipulation of no one getting paid. Right. I think the financial institutions are now at a point where they realize the scope of this business, the creator economy. And I think there's a breakthrough coming next year and funding of creators. Right. I really do. And we're going to. That's why we went public. We went public so we could actually play in this space and help create a venture fund and Help fund a lot of these up and coming creators in a better way.

[John Gafford]

Right, so what was that process like of going public? So emotionally and mentally, what was the process like?

[Aaron Day]

Well, okay, so it was, it was emotionally one of. Emotionally and mentally one of the toughest things I've done in my life. The reason it was emotional was that it sucks so much cash out of your business for a period of time that you can't do the things you love in your business unless you are just super well funded. Right. So the reason I think you've seen such a decline in IPOs is that so many fun and exciting business that should probably be public have been so cash starved for the last couple years. Right? Yeah, it was challenging, but now that we're there and we're doing all this, I mean we're massively cleaning up balance sheet and we're massively creating liquidity. Right. I think we're there. Hopefully, Hopefully I'll help lead the way with a bunch of, of, of younger CEOs that are trying to figure out what comes next in this, in this space. Right. I think being public at the stage where we are in today gives a lot of people access to, to buy shares in a creator economy company. That's very exciting. If you were to go out today and call your broker and say, hey, I want to buy 10 companies that are, that are disrupting the creator economy, who are you going to buy? Meta YouTube. I mean, you're already buying them, right? Who are you going to buy? Right. There aren't that many companies in our space public. Right. So it was challenging, it was hellish. But we're through it and I wouldn't change it for the world.

[John Gafford]

Okay, what's your ticker symbol?

[Aaron Day]

Amze.

[John Gafford]

Amze.

[Aaron Day]

Close to a M Z E. So think of A's without. Yeah, second A. Right?

[John Gafford]

A M Z E. Yeah, pretty close. All right, well dude, if they want.

[Aaron Day]

To find, it's right next to Amazon, buddy.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah. And it probably looks like a bargain right now, comparatively speaking to what they're.

[Aaron Day]

Talking about a hell of a bargain right now.

[John Gafford]

Disagree.

[Aaron Day]

So.

[John Gafford]

All right, well, cool. If they want to find you, how do they find more? How do they find you?

[Aaron Day]

Well, the best way to find me is Amaze Co. Just go to our corporate website. I can be reached there. Anyway, if you want to find out more about the stock, go to our IR site on Amaze Co. And love to connect. Right. So love it.

[John Gafford]

Well, Aaron, dude, thanks so much. I wish you nothing but the best. It's a really Cool idea. I'm glad to see that. It's, it's doing so well. And, and yeah, I think anytime you can, you know, it's like power to the people, man. You're putting the money right back in the people that as much money as you can right back in the pockets of who actually does it, which. I love the mission. It's great. Yeah.

[Aaron Day]

Thank you. Great, great to be on your show, John. I appreciate the time.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, well, listen, if you listen to that, you know, today and you don't know what to do with it, my advice is go make a video. Just start making content, man, and make really niche content about something you're passionate about. And for people that you think that would, would resonate with it because you don't need a lot of them. You just need people passionate about the same stuff you are to be able to monetize this and create a business to help change your future. We'll see you next week. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com you can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.