Lia Haberman Talks Memes and Conferences; Sophia Kianni Reveals How She Scales Her Content Business

0:00Welcome to Creator Upload, your Creator Economy podcast. I'm Lauren Schnipper. I'm Lia Haberman. Oh, okay. You're not Josh Cohen. Hi, Lia. Thanks for joining today. Tell the folks a little about yourself. Yeah. So my name's Lia. I write a newsletter called In Case You Missed It or I See Y Am I. It goes out to about 60 ,000 people across Substack and LinkedIn. It's all about platform updates, where people are hanging out online, what are the things that are grabbing their attention and keeping them engaged. I also teach influencer marketing at UCLA and I am a corporate consultant. Which would you say of those platforms is like you get the most engagement or like you're seeing the most traction these days?

0:41Because obviously Substack is huge, but LinkedIn, like what's the difference? You know, it's two different audiences. So I think the Substack audience is probably more the doers, like the people that are in the trenches. My newsletter is all about, you know, marketing, social marketing, creator marketing. So it's the people that are actually doing it. the audience on LinkedIn, like it's a more of a CMO, VP, executive director type audience. So it's more the people that are going to be passing the newsletter on to their team or, you know, making suggestions like, hey, have you seen this today? And so, yeah, it's two different audiences.

1:15Fascinating. Well, very excited to have you here. Before we get started with stories, we do have a great interview today that Josh actually pre-recorded with Sophie Kiani, co-host of The Burnouts, as well as the founder of Climate Cardinals and Fia to talk about how she uses content to scale her business. So that's really exciting and coming up. But before we get to that, you were at Scalable Summit yesterday, if I'm not mistaken. I believe you're moderating there. So it's the first time that this has happened. I was unable to attend. So give me kind of the high level takeaways. What did you learn?

1:45What did you not learn? Tell us everything. Yeah, I actually think I spotted Josh there. I'm not sure, but I felt like out of the corner of my Like, so it was great. It was Kaya Urieff and Jasmine Emberg, formerly of the Information and eMarketer. They had had, you know, they'd had a lot of experience doing events or creator economy events. This is the first one they've done under their own handle, Scalable. So the Scalable Summit, it was in Venice at the Lighthouse, which is like this super trendy. It's like a co-working space, but specifically for creators, Colin and Samir work out of there, like a very cool space.

2:20there were a few creators it's really the business of the creator economy so there were less creators than i think maybe like a typical la event um there was a lot of guy in vests a lot of guys in vests which like it was a vc slash like a pata like we're talking old patagonia vest okay we're talking like the bay area type vest um which you don't see a lot of in la like it's very boho and cool and trendy and you know you go to events and it's like all creators this was a business crowd. It's also interesting because I heard that Patagonia like doesn't allow VCs and tech companies to put their logos on their vests anymore.

2:56And just to be clear, like you can fact track it might not have been Patagonia or whatever brand it was. It was like dudes in chinos and vests. And right away you're like, oh, that's a certain type of vibe that's just different from something that's more casual or creative. This was really about like, where's the money? Who's spending? What are they spending on? There's a lot of platform presence. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest all had people there who were speaking. There were some really interesting stuff I felt around. So Instagram, this is actually going in my newsletter, is that Instagram is thinking about how they can support long form content, not just short form.

3:38So they were talking about the product roadmap and thinking about podcast, live, and long form in addition to, you know, short form creators. So interesting. Yeah. That is very interesting. I think that's going to, you know, obviously whatever meta does ends up having repercussions on like everybody's jobs. So I thought that was interesting. OpenAI was there. That was interesting. Like he kind of talked a little bit about Sora and, you know, like their short form video app, which disappeared. Yep. The other things, I think some of the main speakers, Ian Schaefer was there. You know, I'm sure you know Ian, right?

4:14Yep. He is co-founder, co-president with Issa Rae. They have a production company. They partnered with TikTok on a microdrama, 26-episode microdrama. It just launched a week ago. He said it's already at, I think it was 100 million views for this 26-episode microdrama. That was a co-collaboration. And I believe it was the first of its kind that TikTok has done, if I'm not mistaken. It's the first one that TikTok has partnered on. So we've seen the other ones like a year or two ago was like Risa Tisa. Yeah. Did I marry? I don't know if I'm allowed to say that on the podcast. Do you swear? Shockingly, we do.

4:53Yeah. My mother does not like it when I do. But go on. Yeah. OK. So it was Risa Tisa's Who the Fuck Did I Marry? We've seen Sidney Robinson, the group chat. That was a big one last year. But this is the first one that like, yeah, TikTok was actively involved in. Do we think that this is like a pilot for TikTok and we think they're going to get more into this game? I mean, it must be, right? Um, I think that this was looking at, can you professionalize the, what creators are already doing? So like Risa Tisa, that was great. It was very spontaneous. How do you build a framework so it becomes like a regular part of what creators are doing on the platform?

5:30It reminds me a long time ago of when YouTube used to fund certain creators. Like we're talking 10 years, like a decade ago, YouTube would fund certain creators and programs because it was the type of programming they wanted to see on the platform. And I kind of get the sense, you know, nobody said anything. It's just to me, the sense was, I don't know that TikTok is going to get into the entertainment business, but I think they are trying to create the type of programming they want to see on the platform from creators. it's like a step above the dancing meme trend kind of stuff that we're seeing on TikTok.

6:05And it's, you know, maybe stickier programming that people are going to come back and watch. And I think it was just like doing it with Issa Rae was really smart. Yeah. Clearly she knows what she's doing. Ian was great. He talked about it. Well, it's so funny. Talked about how brands could get involved, too. Yeah. I thought that was interesting. Yeah. No, it's interesting because, you know, I always say when I got to Facebook in 2014, we were like it was like written in stone with blood that we would never produce original content like to the point where when we moved into our now they don't exist but these they were new offices in LA and we had two studio spaces we were not allowed to call them studio spaces like we were literally not allowed to use that that verbiage because it would imply we're going to create content it was like we had to come with like crazy other names and stuff point being like they all get into the original content game at some place some point whether that they go full or like they'll do a like a, you know, like a little test run or whatever.

6:56But like it is often, to your point, trying to get the type of content that they want to see on the platform. They're trying to influence in that regard. And in my sort of experience, it doesn't necessarily really work. Like people are going to do what they're going to do. Not to say that like their original content can't have its own life and work, but like it doesn't necessarily like change the way people are going to produce content on their platform. I mean, to your point, be the change that you want to see. So like that's what TikTok's doing. Love that. But I also very much agree with you that I think it takes a certain type of creator or creative person to be able to script a 26 arc storyline and then record that.

7:38And I think if it was easy, we would see creators doing multiple arc like micro dramas all the time. The fact that I remember Risa Tisa or the group chat is like because they stand out because there's not a ton of them because I think it's a skill. But it's certainly it's what they're encouraging on the platform. Awesome. And then we did you did you moderate something? Yes. And I moderated a panel on social commerce with an executive from Pinterest, an executive from Teachable and Joanne Molinari, who's the Korean vegan. Do you know? Do you follow her on? Yes, I do follow the Korean vegan and I love her.

8:15She tells these really compelling stories as she's making. I'm not a vegan and I have made some of her recipes because she makes them look so amazing and delicious. She's a former lawyer. Like I know her whole story. Oh, my God. She's a marathon runner. What do you want? I've got stories to tell. She's a former trial lawyer. Yep. She's turned creator. She's written multiple cookbooks. Yep. She launched a vegan skincare, Korean beauty skincare line. So cool. Yeah. And then she writes all of her own newsletters. And she was saying she writes multiple newsletters a week. No human help. No AI help.

8:47Writes it herself. And I'm just like, I write one newsletter a week and I struggle to get it out every Friday morning. She's Beyonce levels of productivity. Like, it was insane. I literally am like patting myself on the back when I do like two LinkedIn posts a week. I'm like, that was a big week, Lauren. Yes. No, this was like, we should all be looking at the Korean vegan. And interestingly, there's two creators that I've had friends text me when I'm on a panel with them and they've been like, oh, my God, you're going to see this person. Brand Flakes. I don't know if you know the TikTok guy. I was on a panel once with this guy, Brand Flakes.

9:22I got tons of friends, people, former students texting me like, oh, my God, how is he? Korean Vegan. That was the second one. I'm there. Like so many women reached out and said, oh, my God, you're going to be on a panel with Korean Vegan. Love her. Her like issues with her parents. I mean, I know the whole story. I love it. Well, that's awesome. Thank you for that recap. Okay, before we get to the interview, I want to just do a little bit of stories right now. So big announcement coming out of Meta. So they're working on, unsurprisingly, trying to make the platforms more safe for teens. Who knows where this inspiration came from, I think largely due to like the many, many lawsuits coming out of them, the European regulation, etc.

9:59etc. So they've announced that they have a new layer of protection for users under the age of 18. So they're going to be subjected to age verification technology that will scan context clues to determine which accounts need to be placed into the teen account experience. So of course, the teen account experience, when you go on meta or Instagram is like, you know, it's much more private and nobody can message you about all the things. So what's interesting about this, and I really want to get your take on this, they're very much like, we want to be clear, This is not facial recognition. Our AI looks at general themes and visual cues, for example, height or bone structure, to estimate someone's general age.

10:36It does not identify the specific person in the image. I don't know. Fascinating. You have a lot in sight on this. Please tell us your thoughts. Well, to your point, the lawsuits and I think all of the countries around the world that are jumping on this bandwagon of banning social for people under 16, which I think it will have big repercussions if it does end up becoming, you know, a global trend. So I think we're trying to get ahead of this. I agree with you. Is it facial recognition? I mean, they're going to deny it. Who knows, like what's stored in the back end? Hopefully not these children's identities.

11:08They're looking at, like you said, visual cues. They're also looking for captions that mention grades, birthdays, anything like that. You know, ultimately, like, let's hope that it's best for the teens and categorizing people at the right ages. You know, to me, it kind of made me think of, like, there's already software, Creator IQ, for example, or other influencer marketing platforms that are scanning and, you know, looking for visual cues and in trying to figure out like in vetting creators, yellow light, green light, red light, like is this a person you want to partner with? There's already so much surveillance, sounds kind of ominous, but it's like surveillance technology in looking for bad actors, in looking for, like I said, vetting creators for campaigns.

11:54To me, this is just like another layer of that. It's just that this one is targeted at teens, which tends to make people a little nervous. So it's just, I do feel like they're, the only solution for this that, right? Like it is like not like 16. Right. Because at that point you have a sensibly a piece of identification that you can then be vetted. Right. And so I think that most of us would agree that should a 13 year old get on the platform, they need they need to be protected. So like what two thoughts about this, a few thoughts about this, actually, but it's like, what else could they be doing?

12:26Like, if not this. And then the other thing that really strikes me about this, there's a big cohort of people, kids. And I know this is on TikTok a lot where they say things like, I don't post. I just watch the content. Right. Right. And that's honestly, in my opinion, almost worse, because in terms of you can be watching really bad stuff, you know, and you're young and they don't know anything about you because you haven't posted anything. And so it like it does. But and then they keep feeding you content that's potentially inappropriate. Right. But they know they know a lot about you in terms of that kind of data.

12:59So, like, I don't know, I guess it's kind of two questions there. Right. But like the main one is like, what is it? What else could they what else could they be doing besides this? And then like this, like, what do we speak to about that other sort of cohort? Just curious about your thoughts. I mean, listen, if we knew what they could be doing, I feel like we could make a ton of money selling that solution back to them. You know, like obviously making it less appealing to teenagers in the same way that you think of the beauty brands at Sephora that got in trouble because they were attracting teens.

13:26It was like, like, I don't know, whatever facial formulas that were meant for people that were much older. So I think it's, you know, trying to make it less attractive to teens. I think that the idea of like IDing teens and putting them in buckets or categories works. It's probably and this is more than I think Meta or any of the other platforms are going to want to do. It's like working with schools, working with government. Like if we were really serious about this, there would be a nationwide or global program. There would be education to parents, education to educators. If we were really serious about it, there would be consequences if there were actually underage people on the platform.

14:03Let's just start there. They don't actually, even though they say that they try to regulate this, there's no consequences should they not regulate it. And so that's a big thing, you know, if we were actually serious about this in that camp. Yeah. No, we're not that serious about it. And it's interesting that you think that the people that don't post is almost worse. having a kid myself who I know just DMs content never posts just consumes content and shares it with friends it's goofy I mean maybe you know maybe that's not every kid's experience the content that I've watched because occasionally I go check the DMs just to see like what is being traded and it's mostly really dumb stuff that like the humor escapes me but it's mostly just like dumb goofy stuff like maybe that's I don't know if that's a boy thing but like it's dumb goofy stuff.

14:49I guess it's like, I just think it's like, worse maybe is the wrong word. I just think it's incredibly, there's a very, there's a slide you can go down. It's a slippery slope. That's what I'm looking for. It's a slippery slope. And I think it is, I think a lot of the kind of thoughts around this right now are all about, they do talk about, of course, you see like, you know, all those memes are like, not memes, but the content with people talking about like, I registered on TikTok or Instagram as a 13 year old and I got, you know, served all this terrible content without doing like one thing. And so like people are talking about it.

15:19But I think as it pertains to like regulation and trying to like manage and police this, they're not talking about that cohort that isn't really posting. Right. They're talking about they're either talking about just the cohort that is posting. I think that there's a huge bucket of folks that because I have a niece that was like this. Like she'd always be like, I don't I don't post anything on TikTok. I just watch. And I'm like, right, that's not it's certainly not better. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes. I think that's my point. Like they're falling through the cracks. Correct. But I think to your point, like the recommendation engine, that is something that needs to like when we talk about what needs to change.

15:50It's like there are like product algorithm software changes that would need to happen to stop recommending content. Like you said to a 13 year old that logs on and it's like whether it's sexualized violence, whatever it is, is like, yeah, we got to fix the recommendation. And that's, of course, what that whole lawsuit that the meta lost recently was about. It was about not the content, but it was actually algorithm that was recommending content, which was pretty genius and I think is going to have a lot of ramifications. One last thing before we get to the interview. Yeah. In the meta in the meta bucket.

16:19Instagram says it doesn't want your tweet roundups. OK, they don't want your content that somebody else has posted. God damn it. So basically, I mean, that's kind of the thing. In 2024, the company sort of made these incremental announcements saying it would be limiting sort of unoriginal content from being recommended on Instagram. And so now they're sort of doubling down on this. They're expanding those rules beyond video content to photos and carousels, effectively putting a whole group of new accounts on notice. What do you think about all this? OK, so people got very excited and upset. And it was kind of like we saw these headlines like meme accounts are gone and, you know, like it's going to be a huge thing.

16:56You're not going to be able to get your content recommended. Reposts don't count. Um, here's the thing. I was on a phone call. Meta invited meme creators to a private webinar specifically hosted for them to explain how they're not going to be penalized as long as they're creating memes. If you're just wholesale stealing or ripping off somebody's content and uploading it as your own, yes, that is going to be penalized, deprecated, whatever you want to call it. Like that is not going to go into the recommendation engine. If you are creating memes that are editorially, contextually changed from the original content, you're adding more context, you're adding, you know, humor, insight, whatever it is to the content, to the caption, you're crediting the original creator, then like they are not coming after you.

17:42Those are not the people that they're going after. And I think the fact that they had this private webinar specifically for meme creators was essentially to reassure the meme community, like memes are such a big part of social. I don't think they want all of those people to disappear. Well, so is sharing, by the way. Do you know what I'm saying? Which is also just like... But I mean, I understand fundamentally what they're trying to do here. And I think that ultimately it's a good thing. And I think that the internet was really... A lot of folks cite whenever the like and share sort of features happened on the internet is what you could say.

18:17Some people think it was the best thing that happened on the internet. Some people think it was the worst thing that happened to the internet. I am somewhere in between. But curious, was this call a reactionary call or did they make the announcement and immediately schedule it? Curious about the timing. The call was scheduled the same morning that they made the announcement. So almost simultaneously with the announcement, they went through a whole webinar. They went through do's and don'ts. They talked about, they encouraged meme creators. No, it was a very warm, fuzzy, We still love you. I think the only thing that I've seen people talking about online is like, what if the algorithm gets it wrong?

18:52What if it mistakes a meme for like content that's been ripped off and uploaded? That's where I think some of the smaller creators might suffer. Because if you don't have a meta rep, if you don't have a contact and you can't reach out to somebody if your account's been penalized or whatever, that's the people that are going to slip through the cracks. I think the really big meme creators are going to be just fine. And this is not the end of memes on your feed. Everybody, you heard it here first. Memes are here to stay. Don't worry. Okay, awesome. We are going to get to Josh's interview with Sophia Chiani.

19:25Sophia, so happy to have you on Creator Upload. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited about this. Me too. I think I'm really excited to talk to you because I think that you are kind of emblematic of what a young entrepreneur is these days in more ways than one. and we're going to get into it as we talk about what you're doing, your career, your trajectory, where you're headed. But first, zooming out a little bit, you started Climate Cardinals in May 2020 when you were 18 years old. It's basically a nonprofit that was translating climate information into 100 plus languages.

19:58You gained an active audience on social media from that. And then a few years later, you started FIA. You've raised over$40 million for it, which is an AI-powered personal shopper. And so I'm interested in like, it's fascinating to go from these two seemingly disparate kinds of interests and being successful in those different kinds of interests. How was it kind of converting your audience that you gained in being this climate advocate into this new AI personal shopping venture? Yeah, well, I think it's really interesting because for me, I would say that the inception of both were actually very similar.

20:41So when I started Climate Cardinals, I was a senior in high school. I was in my childhood bedroom. And my whole focus essentially was that I saw this big problem, which was that so many young people cared about climate change and wanted to get involved. And simultaneously, there also was a huge lack of climate resources that were available in languages other than English. It was like upwards of 80 % of climate resources were only available in English. And so I saw this problem that I cared deeply about. And so my initial instinct was, well, if a solution doesn't exist, I want to try to build one.

21:15And I want to try to do it with people that I admire and respect and think are exceptionally brilliant. And that happened to be some of my close friends in high school. And so I rallied a group of people together and we put together the initial infrastructure, which was really supposed to be a volunteer project. And then very quickly over the course of a few years, it grew into what it is today, which is the largest youth and climate nonprofit in the world for young people. And so it was a huge kind of like multifaceted journey in the sense that in the beginning, I of course could have never imagined what it would be today.

21:51In the beginning, it was very much just me as a young person wanting to make a difference. And so with Thea, it kind of followed a similar trajectory where I was a college student and I felt like the fashion industry was also tremendously unsustainable and very inefficient. And simultaneously with the rise of AI, I felt like there was an opportunity to create a better tool and platform to make it easier to shop more efficiently. And so that is what FIA was. It was actually just a school project at the time. When I was at Stanford, my college roommate, Fidi, and I were taking a class together, which was an applied AI and entrepreneurship class.

22:28And so we came up with the idea for FIA and built it as a class project. Of course, not knowing that two and a half years later, it would be a full-fledged company with over 20 employees. That wasn't the initial kind of pattern. In both of these cases, it came from this initial kind of conclusion that there was a problem that existed that I cared about. And there was not a solution that I felt like was adequate enough that I felt like the problem was really solved. And I wanted to be someone who could make a difference and take a stab at working on that. So in that kind of way, I would say that both trajectories were pretty similar.

23:06So there's a story of when Justin Bieber first joined Twitter that like Jack Dorsey and team were scrounging through servers to try to keep the site up and running. They like maybe people are actually moving physical objects to into different server farms. And then you contrast that with Kevin Systrom, who when Justin Bieber joined Instagram, they just like chilled because their site automatically scaled up in terms of the server capacity. And I imagine like you taking an AI and entrepreneurial class a couple of years ago and being able to spin up these types of companies to the size that they are in a short time frame.

23:48It's just a very interesting time to be a young entrepreneur right now, because I feel like you can activate really easily on these impulses where if you see a gap in the market that you want to fulfill, you can go fill that pretty easily. A hundred percent. The two big things that I would say have emboldened other young people and definitely myself to be able to quickly grow and scale ventures is the rise of social media and the rise of AI. For Climate Cardinals, the fact that I, as an 18-year-old, could basically just hop on TikTok, make some videos, and invite other young people to join my volunteer initiative, and that it very quickly went viral.