How ShopMy Became a Billion-Dollar Business, with Co-Founder Tiffany Lopinsky

0:01Hey 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 I's, crossing our T's, trying to get all the things done, but then also simultaneously emailing everybody back saying, let's circle back to 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.

0:34It'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 ShopMy a lot recently, whether it's via me, I use ShopMy for all of my linking.

1:10Maybe 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. ShopMy, 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.

1:44So in today's episode, we get into how affiliates really work, how Shopmai, 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.

2:20I 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 ShopMise Tiffany Lipinski. Welcome to the pod. I feel like this has been a long time coming. Totally. I'm excited to chat. So much to dive into. 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. Oh yeah. No, I'm like, we didn't even talk about the podcast.

2:52We just got distracted with different topics. So no, I knew we'd have a lot to discuss. I want to create a little bit of a baseline for our listeners who might not be on ShopMy, 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? Yeah. So probably, you know, if you're just someone who, you know, follows influencers or, you know, other kind of tastemakers, however you want to call them, you're probably, you've seen, you've clicked through ShopMy links. So, you know, 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.

3:38And meaning if you as the shopper click through and buy it, that you are going to earn, you live, 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.

4:15There'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 2000 brands using us to, 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 sales force and give them commission and they can do what they want with that.

5:00Just 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 in there. 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 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 a hundred thousand dollar gamble.

5:43If 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 like 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. I remember before ShopMy, you were a content creator, which I think is so fascinating.

6:27So can you dive into that a little bit? What was it like being a content creator in those early days before you started Shop My, you grew an Instagram to almost like 150 ,000 followers. What was that time like? Yeah. 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, gained maybe 10 ,000 or so followers.

7:10But 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... you know also it was it was nice to be working and then you know I was working at the library and 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 like I think one of the first deals I did was with OpenTable and they were like hey we'll pay you five thousand dollars to talk about restaurants in Boston and I'm like what what is going on how do they know that I'm worth five thousand dollars And I feel like everyone who was there at the beginning kind of had that experience.

8:01But it shaped, you know, so much of what we do now and just, you know, being able to understand what's going on on the other side. I always call that time the Wild West. Yes. It was a crazy time. No one knew what they were doing. Going pasta at the wall saying what stuck. 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 like you can't build your entire life around it and like if Instagram shut down tomorrow would you still have a business so like you know at the beginning I think about it a lot because I meet so many young content creators and, you know, thinking about how they think about their career and journey, it's that also like has stuck with me.

8:57I 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 as 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. She works in finance and I love her days in the life of like a corporate finance job. No, I love those too. But no, you really have to diversify.

9:33And 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 it 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.

10:20What 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. Well, you know, it wasn't even, I, 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, I, you know, I love doing it, but I didn't grow up being like, I want to be an entrepreneur. What did you want to be? 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.

10:57And I had, you know, 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 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 resonate with the fact of like one of the things was no one really is making and maintaining their own website anymore.

11:38like 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 ShopMai. 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.

12:17There 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, OK, you know what? I can make this sexy and actually not just sexy, something that everybody wants to be a part of. 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 ShopMai, there wasn't even like not everyone could do the links in Instagram stories, but those are just changes like the, you know, features of the platforms are just things we adapt with.

13:07But the things that stay consistent are, okay, you're creating content. How is 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 like 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 so and I you know tell creators all the time like that's how they should think about it too it's not you know 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.

14:00I'm smiling because I remember the original shot my pitch. Yeah. It was shot my shelf. Yes. 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 was putting everything in there. It had to be 2021. Yeah, I think we launched in 2020. So it makes sense that you probably first saw it in 2021. 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 Shopmai has been the fact that it just it feels like my own store.

14:41Like everyone can come over, hang and find the things that I love. 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.

15:23So I think that product decision has led to it feeling a little bit different because everything else on the market at the time that we launched Shopmite, it was just this walled garden. It's like Amazon is just Amazon. other things are that 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 the feeling of the 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 put on our face.

16:01That 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. Yeah, that idea of affiliate, I feel, has always just been really taboo. I can recall influencers or people that I used to follow saying, I never use affiliates. I just don't think that's right. And I think that that's shifted a lot. Totally. And I think it's when you look at it as an alternative to just sponsored posts. Right. If you're a content creator, there's a couple of different revenue streams. The main one being the flat fee sponsored posts.

16:42Of 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 partnership. Completely agree. partnership. So, which is why when people are getting started and they're like, how do I start? I'm 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.

17:25And 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. At the beginning, brands knew, oh my gosh, there's this idea of influencers and they're moving product.

18:03And 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 ShopMai 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.

18:48They 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 are fans and how can we amplify them? So giving that like 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. Something that's always interested me about ShopMy is the fact that you have some very clear competitors in the space.

19:28And I think something that founders often hear or aspiring founders want to often hear is, oh, that already exists. Like, don't do that. Like, you have to do something more specific that's already out there. I think ShopMai 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? 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 a hundred influencers just about how they, do they use affiliate links?

20:10Why? 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'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 ShopMy. And even our leaders, like we're so involved and we talk to clients every day. I talk to brands and creators all the time because otherwise I'm not going to understand what we need to do.

20:57And 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. Are you a blinders-on person? It seems like it. Yeah, like 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.

21:43So yeah, that's kind of what I feel like you have to do as like an entrepreneur is focus on that. You can't focus on the noise and what people are saying about you. It's just not like the most important thing. I know you're an Aquarius. How do you do that? As a fellow Aquarius. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that comes naturally to us. Like 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 what, how you've connected to that. 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.

22:29So I think understanding like what works for me and what doesn't, I have connected to my sign a lot more. I agree with you on like the carving your own path thing. Like there's that Aquarius thing where it's like everyone goes right and you're going to 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 resonate with that. I think I can very easily like pull up at my house and do my work and kind of shut the world out around me, which is good and bad.

23:00I 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 ten hours and get done what I need to get done. Yeah something else that I kind of resonate with as an Aquarius is like just because something is popular like I'm not going to like 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 traits have helped. And I have co-founders too.

23:39So it's like the blind spots that I have are covered by them. But no, totally. 90 % of the time when someone says they like something, I'm like, oh, hate. Moving on. And then I'm like, oh, wait, that's actually real good. 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. Yeah, totally. 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? I mean, I think the hardest, it's so different, like my job now versus my job at the beginning.

24:24And 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. 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 like just try what you have to offer and are kind of evaluating it for the bones of it.

25:24So, 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.

26:04So yeah, that was the hardest part. On this show, we often have people who founded fashion brands, are stylists, are 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 were you doing it on the phone for two years? What were you saying? What do you think really like drove the point home? I think you just, you know, like in sales, there's the concept of like doing discovery at the beginning of a call, which is so important to know because there's so many things that we do at ShopMai. But what does the person on the other side care about?

26:43And 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 going to say? That's what I, because at least that's what works on me. This big, sexy pitch doesn't work on me. So that's never going to be authentic if I come in and try to do that. So it's also finding like, what are you comfortable doing?

27:25And what can you excel at? And that's the kind of pitch that works for me. 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're 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 and you mentioned those ones And I mentioned those specific people.

28:05It 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 watched my content. Okay, I'll get on with you and talk to you.

28:42So 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 think it's going to be perfect. It matters to put in the effort of someone who you think is going to be a perfect fit for your product, brand, platform, whatever you're doing, you can really tell.

29:24The influencer industry this year was projected to hit$32 billion, which is unbelievable. ShopMai has close to 200 ,000 creators on there now. Yes. And I think it also has the power to democratize influence. But 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? 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 the core of what we're doing and the parts that excite me, 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 word of mouth right most powerful marketing of all time Right.

30:41And I see what we're doing, like the 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.

31:23But 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. 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 ShopMy 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 Shopma 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.

32:13Yeah, it is. It's more about and the industry has always been obsessed with the concept of micro influencers. Yes. 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 of 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 you know 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 and do all these things so that's I mean that makes me so happy about the the mom and and styling her daughter because those are the best like use cases of people who they just have incredible taste and they're sharing that taste with the world and they can monetize it.

33:17So 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. On the flip side of my friend who is a mom, you guys have had some incredible celebrities on the platform. Sophia Ritchie 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 ShopMy? Well, I think there's, you know, of course there's the micro-inflinters who can move product, and then there's celebrities who don't want to talk about product, and there's celebrities who do.

33:56They 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 Sophia Ritchie'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 shop my 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 for celebrities who do it's 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.

34:52So it's still the core concept of wanting to share what they love with the world. 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 Shopmy, whether it's an influencer, creator, or even 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. There are people who, at least for the most part, there's definitely some household names, but most of them are not.

35:37And 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, you know, an accountant in Texas who just talks about things like that she likes. And she is a great example. She has never accepted a sponsor 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 done sponsored posts and how much trust she has, it's really interesting to see.

36:37She's things I bought and liked on Instagram. And she's hilarious. But yeah, it's another example of authenticity. She finds small businesses. She talks about Sephora. It's everything. And that's how most people are. Most people don't shop at one place. And 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.

37:20Do 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? 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.

38:03And do you have the energy and interest in adapting and evolving to stay and, you know, 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. 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 in a deeper meaning to what you're doing, as with any job, not just influence, then you have the energy to keep going.

38:48You 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 I can't help but think about the capacity that Shopmai 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? 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.

39:41Influencer is like less of a brand's marketing budget in many cases. But still there was a statistic that came out that said that in 2025 alone brands will spend close to 10 billion dollars just on influencer marketing. Yeah. So it's prominent. 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, you know, I only have 20 ,000 followers and I made like$20 ,000 this month.

40:28Or you know you I'm like a mom I was I'm a stay-at-home mom and you just gave me a new career and because that's 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 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 like return associated with it. And the more they can understand that, the more money they're going to spend. So yeah, that's where I see it heading to be much more than that.

41:14On 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? Yeah. So basically we, you know, so much of what we do at ShopMy 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 a 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.

41:49So it was kind of like five years of doing a lot of that. And then, you know, after, you know, fundraising and everything, we're like now, like 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. system, we felt like we could create this incredible tool 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.

42:31Retailers 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. And that's called a circle, right? That's called a circle. You can download the Shopper app, make your own circle.

43:12So 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? Yeah. 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 then 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.

43:47You 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. Personalized shopping. Yeah. I love it. I think it's the future. Sure. 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. 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?

44:21And it's a lot of times because of their training, their whatever used to be an editor or 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. So you just became a unicorn. What a big deal. How do you feel to have co-founded and built a billion dollar business. 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 like fix this and make it better.

45:05But it's, I think it's a testament to creators and like just how people shop. And a lot of what we've done, And 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 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, you know, 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.

46:05What'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. Yeah. 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, you know, boring things but are important and that we can't forget about. And then also getting into new industries and improving the products to be able to do that. Something that so many creators ask me, they're like, I want to do my travel recommendations on ShopMy.

46:50They'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? What were all the restaurants you went to? and what were all these other things and adding more features to allow hotels and 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.

47:31I'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. Thank you. If you guys are interested in joining ShopMy, there's a link in my description to apply to join.

47:55Thank you.