← Let's Get Dressed
Let's Get Dressed
How ShopMy Became a Billion-Dollar Business, with Co-Founder Tiffany Lopinsky
00:48:03
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- [00:00]
A
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- [00:32]
B
Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of let's Get Dressed. It's your host, Liv Perez. Okay, guys, we're here. We're in the final week, final stretch. I feel like we're all dotting our eyes, crossing our T's, trying to get all the things done, but then also simultaneously emailing everybody back saying, let's circle back the top of the new year. I know this week is hectic for so many of us, so I'm sending love, I'm sending hot cocoa, I'm sending well wishes. We can do it. We're so close to the holidays. I am currently in New York and I've been here for a week. I try to spend a week in New York in the fall winter. It's nice to like catch up with a lot of brands and businesses that I work out here with. I did the Today show. A lot of you saw that and thank you for all the love and support and I got to record a ton of really amazing episodes that I'm super excited to share with you guys. New York in the winter is so cold, but so fun. I did Rockefeller Center. So many Christmas trees, the lights, it was freezing. But we did it and it was such a great time. One of the episodes that I got to record while I was there was with the co founder and president of Shop My, Tiffany Lipinski. For those of you who have probably seen Shop My a lot recently, whether it's via me, I use Shop My for all of my linking. Maybe you've seen the billboards in New York and la, or you've just seen it on your social media and you've ever maybe wondered what is actually happening behind the scenes there. Today's episode is for you because we are breaking down everything about affiliate links and what goes on behind the scenes. Shop My I think is a game changer. It's a business that I really believe in, so much so that I actually invested in it last year. It has impacted my daily Life. It's something that I use every single day. And I really believe it has the power to dramatically disrupt the marketing industry for fashion, beauty, lifestyle and beyond, but also the way we shop as consumers. So in today's episode, we get into how affiliates really work, how shop My, I think has turned a very clunky kind of taboo industry into something that's kind of sexy and everybody wants to be a part of why follower count isn't always the biggest thing. We also talk about some creators who are driving major sales around the country and their consumer behaviors and their new feature circles. That means a lot for the future of personal shopping. And of course, we get into their recent billion dollar valuation. They're officially a unicorn. And I loved getting to hear a little bit behind the scenes on what that meant for Tiffany and the business. I hope you guys love this episode and learn something new. It's something that I've been fascinated by and have really loved to watch it grow over the last few years. Let's go get dressed with Shop My Tiffany Lipinski. Welcome to the pod. I feel like this has been a long time coming.
- [03:05]
A
Totally. I'm excited to chat so much to, to dive into.
- [03:08]
B
So much to dive into. And I feel like. So we always do pre calls with guests and I love doing them. They're just a great way to chat one on one with someone. But I feel like our pre call could have gone for like two more hours.
- [03:20]
A
Oh yeah. No, I'm like, we didn't even talk about the podcast. We just got distracted with different topics. So no, I knew we'd have a lot to discuss.
- [03:28]
B
I want to create a little bit of a baseline for our listeners who might not be on Shop My might not be familiar with affiliate links. Can you just walk us through the experience of what happens on both ends and this platform that you've built?
- [03:40]
A
Yeah. So probably if you're just someone who follows influencers or other kind of tastemakers, however you want to call them, you're probably you've clicked through Shop My Links. So if you're on Instagram Stories today and you're like, here's the blazer I'm wearing for recording the podcast that the link starts usually with Go Shopmy. And that is basically a commissionable link. And meaning if you as the shopper click through and buy it, that you are going to earn you live or are going to earn commission. So what it and what's going on behind the scenes is there's the whole creator platform and there's a whole Brand platform. So the pitch to the creator is like, you're talking about products organically all the time. You can monetize that by using commissionable links. And they'll join. They have like 30,000 brands that they could tap into from a commission perspective. And for creators, that's a huge revenue stream. Two main revenue streams are sponsorships and affiliate. There's creators who earn tens of thousands of dollars, if not more per month on linking things that they like and things that they're wearing. On the brand side, how it works is, you know, we have like 30,000 or so brands that we have a commission rate with, and then about 2,000 brands using US too. They're basically going onto the platform, they're finding influencers to work with. And part of our pitch is, or kind of like the philosophy that we tell brands to operate with is you used to look at creators as just actors and actresses that you're casting in campaigns where you can look at them more like distribution, like a distributed salesforce, and, and give them commission and they can do what they want with that. Just kind of like they work with a multi brand retailer, wholesale kind of thing. So you can go on and see, okay, this person, even if they have 10,000 followers, they move $100,000 a month in sales and their AOV is this, and they've sold these other kind of luxury brands. And then they can most importantly see everyone who's talking about them, who's driving sales, which allows them to operate this. And I think really where the industry is shifting is because a lot of these brands and I, you know, empathize so much with these smaller brands that previously working with influencers is just not on the table for them because they have to take $100,000 gamble. If you reach out to an influencer and they're like, it costs $100,000 for three Instagram stories in a reel. And a brand is like, how do they know if that's worth it or not? So affiliate gives this testing ground for both for creators and for brands to see, oh, wow, they're already selling organically. We want to take that partnership to the next level and do something bigger with them. But brands just need the tools to do that. So that's part of the ecosystem that we're building for people to allow them to earn by not having to do things that don't feel right for their audience.
- [06:50]
B
I remember before Shopmy, you were a content creator, which I think is so fascinating. So can you dive into that a little bit? What was it like being a content creator. In those early days before you started Shopmy, you grew in Instagram to almost like 150,000 followers. What was that time like?
- [07:10]
A
So I basically started when I was in college. I think it was 2014. So very early days of creator. And I just loved food, loved going out to eat. And I'd seen all these New York food Instagram accounts, and I was in Boston. So I was like, why isn't there a Boston food Instagram that would be a great way for me personally to discover restaurants. So I just decided to make one. I started posting pretty quickly, getting gained maybe 10,000 or so followers. But it was such a good way to learn about the industry and to understand what people care about and how people kind of respond to. I genuinely love finding places to eat, and I feel like people on the other side of the Instagram can understand that. So it was really fun to just. Also, it was nice to be working. And then I was working at the library as a research assistant and then start getting deals with brands. At the very beginning of, I think when brands were understanding what are influencers. I think one of the first deals I did was with OpenTable, and they were like, hey, we'll pay you $5,000 to talk about restaurants in Boston. And I'm like, what is going on? How do they know that I'm worth $5,000? And I feel like everyone who was there at the beginning kind of had that experience, but it shaped so much of what we do now and just being able to understand what's going on on the other side.
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B
I always call that time the Wild West. Yes, it was a crazy time. No one knew what they were doing. Throwing pasta at the wall, saying what stuck?
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A
Totally. And brands, I mean, the brands that got in on it early, I think got so much from it. But it really was one of those things too, where I remember someone telling me at some point when I started doing it, they're like, you just have to think of this like, it is a bubble, so you can't build your entire life around it. And if Instagram shut down tomorrow, would you still have a business? So at the beginning, I think about it a lot because I meet so many young content creators and thinking about how they think about their career and journey, it's that also, like, has has stuck with me.
- [09:28]
B
I actually think back to the top of this year when TikTok almost shut down and how I felt like that was a frenzy. Everyone was like, mass exodus to YouTube or Substack. I think you still have to be like that today. You just never know. But I also think a lot of the most interesting people that I follow are really multifaceted. Maybe it's someone who has a day job and they post at night or they take me through their life. There's a girl on TikTok who I follow and, like, love to follow her, and she works in finance and I love her days in the life of like a corporate finance job.
- [09:59]
A
No, I love those too. But no, you really have to diversify and like, if you're doing one thing over and over again and it starts to get kind of repetitive and boring, you just have to, I don't know, you have to pay attention and also think about how do you consume content and how has, like, how has that changed? Like, I used to not watch TikTok, but now I do. So, like, if I'm a content creator, how am I adjusting to the way that the world is consuming content? But no, you do have to think about as a content creator, what are my different revenue streams? And, you know, if a lot of it is sponsorships, what are the different surfaces that they're on? And if it's affiliate, where is your audience interacting with you from that perspective? But it's always smart, of course, to diversify because you can't just create a dependency on one channel for sure.
- [10:51]
B
What were some of the pain points that you felt in those early days as a content creator? I'm sure we could riff on these for hours.
- [10:58]
A
Well, you know, it wasn't even unlike my. I have two incredible co founders, Harry and Chris, and they have wanted to start companies since they've been like 10 years old. And I, you know, I love doing it, but I didn't grow up being like, I want to be an entrepreneur.
- [11:16]
B
What did you want to be?
- [11:18]
A
Many different things, like throughout my life. Doctor, lawyer, a bunch of different things. So after college I was like, I'm just going to start working and see what I like and see what happens. And I had my content creation stuff on the side, but basically I ended up meeting Harry, who's my co founder, when I worked at a startup with him. He was an engineer, I was a product manager and he, he had kind of been working on something with my co founder, Chris. They brought it to me and I was like, hmm, this is interesting. And I always tell the joke that it was like pink and turquoise when they brought it to me and I was like, it's like what a man thinks a woman would want. And we made it black and White. But I definitely resonated with the fact of. One of the things was no one really is making and maintaining their own website anymore. Like the Instagram TikTok, that is the website. But no one had a place to store products in a way that felt like it could be comprehensive and you could add context and you could link whatever you wanted. So, you know, it was like innate to me to understand that. Not that, you know, you couldn't if you weren't a content creator, but that was like the core piece that we started with when we launched Shop My.
- [12:33]
B
I think of. I really can't help but think of all the different eras that got us to this point of something that's really seamless and beautiful. Link in Bio was the cringiest thing, I think, to ever exist on the Internet. There have been so many different ways to figure out affiliate marketing or even just how to identify ROI with a brand. How did you. And, like, what went into really looking at something that was so cringy, clunky, not attractive at all, and be like, okay, you know what? I can make this sexy. And actually not just sexy. Something that everybody wants to be a part of.
- [13:13]
A
Yeah. I mean, it really came from just listening to people and what they wanted and how they interact with their audience. And I don't know, I think when we first launched Shop My, there wasn't even, like, not everyone could do the links in Instagram Stories, but those are just changes. Like, the features of the platforms are just things we adapt with, but the things that stay consistent are, okay, you're creating content, how's the content engaging? And you just try to make it easy for your audience to shop the things that you're talking about. And we've viewed ourselves from the beginning as wherever you're creating content and doing that, we want to help you make it easy for your audience to shop those recommendations. So that has evolved as the platforms has evolved and substack has become a thing. So for that, we're just like, we want to make it easy for you to link the things that you're talking about in Substack. And I tell creators all the time that's how they should think about it, too. It's not creating this store and what am I going to put in the store? It's just, what do you love and what do you talk about and how do you make it easy for your audience to shop? So us kind of staying connected to that, I feel like, has, you know, created this, like, thread that you can kind of see through Everything.
- [14:31]
B
I'm smiling because I remember the original Shop My pitch.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It was Shop My Shelf.
- [14:36]
A
Yes.
- [14:37]
B
It was Beauty. And I remember it was like all of your favorite makeup artists and hair people and people in that industry where they put all of their favorite things. And I remember where I was sitting when I first made my first shelf and. And was putting everything in there. It had to be 2021.
- [14:55]
A
Yeah. It could be launched in 2020, so it makes sense that you probably first saw it in 2021.
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B
I remember being very curious about it, and I think affiliate marketing has never been sexy. It's just not for me. I think the strongest thing of Shop My has been the fact that it just. It feels like my own store. Like everyone can come over, hang and find the things that I love.
- [15:15]
A
Totally. I think one of the important product decisions we made early on, that just. It makes it feel not. And I think it's also changed over the course of the past five years. There's not this as much of a, like, negative association with the word affiliate, but allowing people to link in their Shop My storefront, anything that they want, regardless of whether we have commission with the brand, has really contributed to the feeling that it's. I mean, it is authentic. And even. It's like if the creators are purely making their decisions based off of, I don't know who's paying them, you can tell. So I think that product decision has led to it feeling a little bit different because everything else on the market at the time that, you know, we launched Shop My, it was just this walled garden. You know, it's like Amazon is just Amazon. Other things are the. Even if they. They got a thousand different brands, it's only a thousand brands and, you know, more than a thousand brands, like, that's just not going to cut. It has to be everything. So I think that's contributed to the feeling of the authenticity and it just feeling like, oh, this is an extension of me. Because, like, the things we choose to wear, the things we, you know, put on our face, like, that is kind of a representation of who we are and how we choose to express ourselves. So the store kind of is that. So I think that comes through to people.
- [16:44]
B
Yeah, that. That idea of affiliate, I feel, has always just been really taboo. Like, I can recall influencers or people that I used to follow saying, like, I never use affiliates. Like, I just don't think that's right. And I think that that's shifted a lot.
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A
Totally. And I think it's. When you look at it as an alternative to just sponsored posts.
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B
Right.
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A
If you are a content creator, there's a couple of different revenue streams. The main one being the flat fee sponsored posts. Of course there's affiliate now with substack, people have subscriptions, but affiliate is more, I think it's more authentic than just a flat fee.
- [17:22]
B
Completely agree.
- [17:23]
A
So which is why when people are getting started and they're like, how do I start? And like, just talk about the things you wear and like. And you're making it accessible to people by linking it. But I don't know, when you boil it down, affiliate marketing is just providing a commissionable link, giving you a percent of whatever you're selling. I think of it too as like, I don't know, a personal shopper. They're also, you know, on commission or someone working at a store. It's like just someone you trust telling you about things that they like. And I think if we can make a world for creators where that is the primary revenue stream or a way more substantial one, then they won't have to take flat fee deals that they don't care about. Because I think the like, I don't know. Of course there's this negative association with the word influencer. I'm not the first one to say that. But that's why we're also. We've always. Not me, but the industry has created these different words for it. I think it's just because the tools weren't there. It's like at the beginning, brands knew, oh my gosh, there's this idea of influencers and they're moving product. And then if you're a beauty brand, you're like, okay, who are the best beauty influencers? Let me go to them and let me script them and then they'll send me their content back and I'll edit it and send it back to them and tell them to reshoot it. And then you end up getting this thing. And you know, we see it all the time when we're looking at TikTok Instagram, people are. It doesn't feel like them. It doesn't feel authentic. You see people talking about peptides and vitamin C and they've never talked about that before. So our part of what, you know, what I think is important about Shop My. And what has helped kind of change things is the starting point for a brand is who's already talking about you. Because the number one thing creators want, they want to be compensated to talk about brands that they already like. They don't want to be paid to read A script for a brand that they don't care about. So and brands want that too. Brands want to work with people who already like them. So there wasn't a place where brands could see which creators are creating content about us, like us, our fans and how can we amplify them. So giving that transparency to the brands and honestly just opening the gates to allow the brands and creators to connect with each other has been a huge part of what I think is moving the industry in that direction.
- [19:52]
B
Something that's always interested me about Shop My is the fact that you have some very clear competitors in the space. And I think something that founders often hear or aspiring founders often hear is, oh, that already exists.
- [20:06]
A
Don't do that.
- [20:06]
B
You have to do something more specific that's already out there. I think Shop My has very much gone into an industry that has existed and has again clear competitors. But what kind of gave you the intel to understand that you could do it better?
- [20:19]
A
It's funny because people have asked me that before and when we started we didn't even know who the players, other players in the industry were. We just, I think before we launched the platform we probably Talked to over 100 influencers just about how they do they use affiliate links? Why? Why not like what do they like, what do they not like? Would they, if they had a better tool, would they link more? And we weren't like building in reaction to something, we were just trying to build something that people told us they wanted. And I think that can be. And I think about it for, you know, we work with so many apparel, accessories, beauty brands who they, they're in fierce competition with each other, but you can only really focus on what you're doing. So that is kind of our guiding thing at Shop My and even our leaders, like we're so involved and we talk to clients every day. Like I talk to like brands and creators all the time because otherwise I'm not going to understand what we need to do. And that's really the only way we can stay ahead and build a good product is by paying attention to them rather than letting the bar be what already exists and trying to do it a little bit better. It's just not where I think good things can really come from.
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B
Are you a blinders on person? It seems like it, yeah.
- [21:47]
A
Like I, I know what I need to focus on and I mean I think about it all the time with creators. Like it's so hard to just be seeing what everyone says about you all the time. And for us, like I just Try to stay focused on what matters, and it's our brands and creators and building a product that they find valuable and creates value for their businesses. So, yeah, that's kind of what I feel like you have to do as an entrepreneur is focus on that. You can't focus on the noise and what people are saying about you. It's just not the most important thing.
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B
I know you're an Aquarius. How do you do that as a fellow Aquarius?
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A
Yeah. I mean, I feel like that comes naturally to us. You don't feel like there's a certain way to do things and you kind of. You carve your own path. So. No, I'm curious how you've connected to that.
- [22:49]
B
I'm not a big sign person, but I think as I've gotten older and have learned myself a lot more, especially in business and the things that matter most to me, being online is deeply vulnerable. So I think understanding what works for me and what doesn't, I have connected to my sign a lot more. I agree with you on the carving your own pathing. Like, there's that Aquarius thing where it's like everyone goes right and you're gonna go left. And I think that's been really helpful in a lot of ways. But I think that there's also something about, like, when you said, you know, you just, like, put your head down and got to it. Like, I. I resonate with that.
- [23:21]
A
Yeah.
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B
I think I can very easily, like, hole up at my house and do my work and kind of shut the world out around me, which is good and bad. I think it's important to see what's going on in the space and be very critical and analytical of what's going on culturally, to kind of stay in the loop. But I'm definitely someone who can sit at home and be on my laptop for like, eight to 10 hours and get done what I need to get done.
- [23:47]
A
Yeah. Something else that I kind of resonate with as an Aquarius is, like, just because something is popular, I'm not going to like it. I want to understand why. And it's always about that. It's like, what's the point? Kind of like getting to the point pretty quickly. But I think those. Those traits have helped. And I have co founders, too, so it's like the. The blind spots that I have are. Are covered by them. But no, totally.
- [24:16]
B
90% of the time when someone says they like something, I'm like, ugh, hate moving on.
- [24:20]
A
And then I'm like, oh, wait.
- [24:21]
B
And then I'm like, wait, I actually like it. That is. That is us to a T. I'm so glad we could relate on that because that happens to me all the time. I'm like, I have to check myself and just take a beat.
- [24:33]
A
Yeah, totally.
- [24:34]
B
Speaking of which, obviously this is all new. What was kind of the hardest belief or thing you had to put out there to get creators, influencers, celebrities, investors on your side?
- [24:48]
A
I mean, I think the hardest. It's so different, like, my job now versus my job at the beginning. And it's just really hard to try so hard to convince people all the time. And that's your only job at the beginning. I think we built a really good product, but we had to convince people to use it in order for it to be worth anything. You know, it's like there's that cold start problem with every company that's like a network in some aspect. So spending two years just getting on the phone every day with brands and creators and convincing them to try something new, and most people don't want to try something new. Like, there's the status quo and they want to protect what they have. There's other people who are willing to try new things and they see how excited you are and they want to help and they want to just try what you have to offer and are kind of evaluating it for the bones of it. But once you kind of get past that point of like, we have momentum now, like, we don't have to try as hard to get everyone to just try us anymore, then you can kind of step back and be like, okay, now how do I make the product better? How do we make the experience better? And what can we do? So it's always like a shift of convincing people to join because that's part of the value for brands is like, we have a network of creators, and same for creators. It's like, they want more brands. So that's part of the job. But that was the hardest thing, just having to do that so much for two years straight, where now it's about delegating and it's about other challenges. So, yeah, that was the hardest part on this show.
- [26:39]
B
We often have people who founded fashion brands are stylists or people like you who founded incredible tech brands. And when you're starting from the ground up like that, I often get asked how to nail the pitch. How are you doing it on the phone for two years? What were you saying? What do you think really drove the point home?
- [26:58]
A
I think you just. In sales, there's the concept of doing Discovery at the beginning of a call, which is so important to know because there's so many things that we do at Shop My. But what does the person on the other side care about? And then how can I frame the pitch in terms of what they care about? That really is the core part. Because the pitch that works for one creator isn't going to be the pitch that works for another. Some people care more what their peers are doing and is it validated. Other people have whatever specific needs. So just building your repertoire of, okay, if this person has this need, what am I gonna say? That's what I. Cause at least that's what works on me. This big, sexy pitch doesn't work on me. So that's never gonna be authentic if I come in and try to do that. So it's also finding, like, what are you comfortable doing and what can you excel at? And that's the kind of pitch that works for me.
- [28:00]
B
The dedicated pitch is everything. Every guest I have on before I pitch them, which I do via email every single day. I send, like, 10 pitches a day for the show, but the first thing I do is I go on that person's Instagram and see all the people that they are following that have been on this show. And instead of just sending them a deck with, like, top 10 guests we've had, I will literally say, we've had this person, this person, this person. And it's all people that I know they're following. And 90% of the time, I will get a response. I love all of your past guests. And I'm like, yeah, because I noticed that you follow them.
- [28:32]
A
And you mentioned those once, and I mentioned those specifically. It reminds me of, like, in the early days, you know, there's different people with different levels of sophistication, of tapping into the concept of affiliate. But if they were ignoring my emails, I would just look at what are the brands that they're talking about that I know that we have exclusively. And then I would say, I've seen you talk about. And I would list like, 10 brands that I knew would catch their attention, because they're probably thinking, oh, I can't get commission on that brand. So. And people would reply and say, wow, you really, like, watch my content. Okay, I'll get on with you and talk to you. So, yeah, doing the research really pays off, which is why I think when you. I'm sure people email you pitching you on things all the time, and you can tell if they made an effort, which is why the art of writing a really good email is so important. People now, they cold email me all the time and it's pretty easy to tell if they're worth getting on with. And so you can't just dump things into ChatGPT and get a response and, and think it's gonna be perfect. It matters to put in the effort of someone who you think is gonna be a perfect fit for your product, brand, platform, whatever you're doing, you can really tell.
- [29:55]
B
The influencer industry this year was projected to hit $32 billion, which is unbelievable. Shop My has close to 200,000 creators on there now.
- [30:04]
A
Yes.
- [30:05]
B
And I think it also has the power to democratize influence. But I, and I'm curious, from your perspective as someone who's working in this every day, do you still think that influencer is somewhat of a dirty word?
- [30:17]
A
I mean, there's definitely people who, they have negative associations with the word, but I think when they go one level deeper, they realize that ultimately like the core of what we're doing and the parts that excite me, like a lot of brands that I've been the most impressed by just how they've grown and built their businesses, they have this idea that kind of like everyone can be an influencer. Everyone who wants to talk about products and wants to talk about their products, they want to compensate them in some way. And if you think about how you're influenced to buy things, like if a friend says to me, oh my God, I use this product and it's so good and it helped my under eye bags, like that is what is going to make me buy something.
- [31:09]
B
Word of mouth, most powerful marketing of all time.
- [31:11]
A
Right. And I see what we're doing like whole use of affiliate and connecting brands and creators who already like each other as a scaled version of that. And it's taking what is the most powerful thing and giving it an ecosystem and infrastructure for brands to tap that. Because really good brands, you don't need to script and brief people. There's plenty of people who already like you, but it's like, how are you going to get them and pay them to talk about you so that you can leverage that to tell more people about your brand? So I think that the more we can do that and have influencer marketing be associated with that, that the reputation will change. But there's many different words we have now for influencer. Creator, curator, tastemaker, affiliate publisher. It's kind of like just the idea of influencing other people to buy products.
- [32:08]
B
I mean, I have a friend who is a mom and has immaculate taste and she doesn't have a following on Instagram by any means, but she joined Shop My and was able to make such an amazing income just off of sharing the things that she loves and the things that her daughter loves. She also is particularly like incredible at styling her daughter. And that's why I say, like, I really think Shama has the power to democratize influence because you've got people who just organically love sharing things, who don't have hundreds of thousands of followers, but deserve to have that back and forth with people who they are naturally sharing things that they love with.
- [32:44]
A
Yeah, it is. It's more about. And the industry has always been obsessed with the concept of micro influencers.
- [32:51]
B
Yes.
- [32:51]
A
Because they know that the engagement in those communities is so much better just because it feels more like you know that person. And oftentimes like people do, they're people within a specific, like, geographic community who like, you're following them and you see them in the neighborhood and all that. But for brands, they have to build something where it's not possible for them to talk to every single micro influencer. So they have to build a system where people can get compensated for talking about them. And that's what affiliate does. It gives people the chance to earn without a brand having to go back and forth and do all these things. So that's, I mean, that makes me so happy about the mom and styling her daughter because those are the best use cases of people who they just have incredible taste and they're sharing that taste with the world and they can monetize it. So it's. Yeah, I kind of see it as, it's a new way to consume this kind of like content that you used to read in magazines, just in a different format.
- [33:58]
B
On the flip side of my friend who is a mom, you guys have had some incredible celebrities on the platform. Sophia Richie, Grange, Nara Smith, even Meghan Markle was on there for a while. How did you convince them to take part in this as well? How did you convince them to get on Shop? My.
- [34:14]
A
Well, I think there's, you know, of course there's the micro influencers who can move product and then there's celebrities who don't want to talk about product. And there's celebrities who do. They love finding brands and talking about them and sharing cool things with the world. And those are the ones who can move product like the Sofia Richie's of the world. So I think the idea that they could do that too, a lot of them are already doing it in the media, like they're being, you know, there's articles about their favorite things and they're being asked to talk about what's in their bag for some kind of publication. So ShopMay is a way for them to kind of control that themselves and make it more of an ongoing conversation, not just a one time, you know, feature. So yeah, for celebrities who do, it's kind of the same thing. There's people who are really excited about fashion and beauty and things and they want to share it. And some of them have millions of followers and some of them have tens of thousands. So it's still the core concept of wanting to share what they love with the world.
- [35:28]
B
I'm sure you have some insane insight into consumer behavior. Is there a case study that you can share that has been the most surprising for you of someone who's used Shop My? Whether it's an influencer, creator or even.
- [35:43]
A
On the brand side, I mean there's so many things that surprise me all the time. Like I think something that surprises a lot of people, like if you look at our top 100 earners on the platform, they're not household names. They're people who, at least for the most part, there's definitely some household names, but most of them are not. And it just shows you influence from a following perspective doesn't correlate so directly with influence from a purchasing perspective. So like one of our top creators is an accountant and in Texas who just talks about things that she likes. And she is a great example. She has never accepted a sponsored deal, she's never even accepted a gift. So she has the most trust of anyone really. And I think that shows you just like the axis of how it works. It's like yes, the more deals you take that you're not excited about, the less trust you have. That's just how it works. So it's this trade off, but having an example of someone who hasn't accepted gifts or unsponsored posts and how much trust she has, it's really interesting to see. She's things I bought and liked on Instagram and she's hilarious. But yeah, that counties. It's another example of authenticity. She finds small businesses. She talks about Sephora. It's everything. And that's how most people are. Like most people don't shop at one place so it' sand she's just witty and funny. But people are always intrigued by stories like that. But it really shows that, I mean across the board there's a lot of people who they have 10,000 followers and they're moving absolutely insane amounts of product because of the audience that they have and just what they talk about and what their audience buys.
- [37:51]
B
Do you think that that's what sets apart Maybe even that 1% of your top earners? Is there something that you see them do that you think is just an interesting consumer behavior?
- [38:02]
A
I would say the top earners do things differently, but the thing that they do well is they've found a way to really like and get energy from what they're doing and set up their business and content in a way that aligns. Like, there's not that many people who are still creating content at the level that they were who started in 2014, like myself included. And it's because it is really hard. Like, the world changes so much and do you have the energy and interest and adapting and evolving to stay and kind of retain your influence? So the people who last the longest have found a way where they're genuinely excited and they're not drained. And that's another thing with the sponsored content, that it just sucks this creative energy from you. When you have to reshoot some alcohol brand ad six times, you know, it's like, oh, is that what I'm going to do today? It's where if you can find this connection and passion and interest and a deeper meaning to what you're doing, as with any job, not just influence, then you have the energy to keep going.
- [39:19]
B
You brought something up earlier that I've thought a lot about as you and I have had a lot of conversations about brands being able to find people that authentically and organically already love their product. And, and I can't help but think about the capacity that Shop My has to completely change the marketing industry in the next five years and the people that we see in marketing campaigns or in social media campaigns. Do you think marketing dollars could really shift in that way?
- [39:50]
A
Yeah, I think they already are. And I think like one of our core beliefs and something our investors are really excited about is that still, when you look at how brands spend their money, most of their marketing dollars go to traditional, like, performance channels. Influencer is like less of a brand's marketing budget in many cases.
- [40:16]
B
But still, there was a statistic that came out that said that in 2025 alone, brands will spend close to $10 billion just on influencer marketing.
- [40:24]
A
Yeah. So it's. And that's.
- [40:26]
B
It's prominent.
- [40:27]
A
It's prominent, but it still could be so much more. And I believe that if we can put more of a performance system in place that influencers will ultimately make so much more money. Especially good influencers who can move product will make so much more money. And I mean, the messages that have like, meant the most to me are people who've written me saying I only have 20,000 followers and I made $20,000 this month. Or you, I'm like a mom. I am a stay at home mom and you just gave me a new career because those are the people who are moving product. So that part energizes me a lot. But I think more and more of those cases are going to happen when, when brands realize this isn't just, you know, like, I think at the beginning when brands were spending money, like they're willing to spend 10% of the budget on like experimental things. But it's not an experiment anymore. There's real return associated with it and the more they can understand that, the more money they're gonna spend. So, yeah, that's where I see it heading to be much more than that.
- [41:44]
B
On the flip side, you guys just launched the Shopper app, which is very exciting. Talk to me a little bit about the mission with that. What are you hoping it will become?
- [41:53]
A
Yeah, so basically we, you know, so much of what we do at Shop my is it's these little improvements. It's talking to brands and creators all day and understanding. You know, for example, when we did gifting, first it was manual and then, you know, we have the Shopify integration, so all the gifting is easy and automatic for the creators, it's like, okay, we want to do a shop will grid this way and a shop will grid that way. And we want to be able to do links for specific countries. So it was kind of like five years of doing a lot of that. And then after fundraising and everything, we're like now, five years from now, how are we actually going to make things much better for people, for brands and creators? Not just a little bit better, which we'll do that too, but we're like bringing shoppers into the ecosystem. We felt like we could create this incredible tool for or make our tool even better for brands and creators. And thinking even on the creator side, we a lot of times talk about them like, oh, you're a mini Nordstrom, a mini Bloomingdale's, whatever, like a mini retailer. And you're selling a lot of product. Retailers have information on their customers, so giving them more information on who's shopping from them, what else are they buying? Giving them insights to better serve them and also give. We felt like we had this incredible data set to Be able to give consumers, like allow them to almost make their own personal store. So it's like you can follow your 20 favorite people and that's like your own customized personal shopping experience of everyone you love and everything they're finding on the Internet.
- [43:37]
B
And that's called a circle, right?
- [43:39]
A
That's called a circle.
- [43:40]
B
You can download the shopper app, make your own circle. So say you put me in there and like five other creators you'll have to follow and you will automatically get a curated assortment of all of the things that we're loving. Is that right?
- [43:52]
A
So there's like a feed. So it's like, let's say Today you link 10 things just on your Instagram stories. It would go into the feed. So it's meant to not be work for the creators, but it's like creating value for these consumers. So giving the creators another surface where they can monetize and serve like recommendations to people and. Yeah, so you can go look and I can see, oh, you found this blazer, you found this jewelry, you found all these cool things that, you know you're putting in gift guides. And everyone has their own collection of people that they follow. So it's just a place for you to see what they're talking about.
- [44:30]
B
Personalized shopping.
- [44:31]
A
Yeah.
- [44:31]
B
I love it. I think it's the future. I hate going and shopping in real life and having to sift through a billion things. I love the idea that I can sift through people whose taste I already love.
- [44:40]
A
Yeah, it's really smart. No, and it's fun. It's fun to see what people are finding across the Internet. I love it. I love seeing like certain people. I'm just like, where did you find this brand? You know, and it's a lot of times because of their training, their whatever used to be an editor, buyer. So no, we think it's going to be a really powerful way to shop, but it's based on like things that are already happening. It's like, yes, we've always been influenced to buy things from people we trust. And this is just the infrastructure for you to do that in a better way.
- [45:15]
B
So you just became a unicorn. What a big deal. How do you feel to have co founded and built a billion dollar business?
- [45:25]
A
I mean, it's funny because you're still so focused on everything else you have to do, you know, like, oh, we need to fix this and make it better. But I think it's a testament to creators and like just how people shop. And a lot of what we've done like the concepts of it are not rocket science. It's just giving people the infrastructure to do like what they've been doing in a better way. But no, still the day to day. And I mean honestly what energizes me and fulfills me is building it. But it is exciting and we're on the valuation obviously came with the fundraise. So we're excited that we just have the resources now to take things to the next level and think about things. Not so immediately, but that's what gave us the ability to try. Circles is a fundraise and the ability to just look and plan more to the future.
- [46:36]
B
What's in the future? What are you excited about for next year? I know you guys just did the holiday pop up event. I was there over the weekend.
- [46:43]
A
What's coming up more continuing to build out Circles and the whole shopper experience is definitely something on the roadmap. But then a lot of the small things that I've talked about just iterating and improving the experience that boring things but are important and that we can't forget about and then also getting into new industries and improving the product to be able to do that like something that so many creators ask me. They're like I want to do my travel recommendations on Shop My. They're like one of my number one questions is if someone is going to a place that I've been say Copenhagen, they're like what were all the Airbnbs you stayed at and what were all the restaurants you went to and what were all these other things? And adding more features to allow hotels and all of those kind of travel and hospitality brands to work with creators because that's really important that we continue to make things that they're excited about and they're very excited about travel. So more features to be able to work with brands that aren't just things you can buy online. Physical products is another thing that we're working on.
- [48:01]
B
I'm so appreciative that you came on the POD today. I've been wanting to chat with you for a long time and yeah, thank you for sharing your story.
- [48:07]
A
Thank you.
- [48:08]
B
If you guys are interested in joining Shop My, there's a link in my description to apply to join.
- [48:23]
A
Sa.