How The European Kid Is Building a New Currency | Aris Yeager Storytime

0:00Aris Yeager:What I'm really trying to do is build the next class class for creators. This is Aris. You might recognize him from his Fyros kits as a French rich kid on his account the European kit. It has helped him build an audience of over 3 million followers and generate more than 3 billion views. As a creator himself, Aris saw from the inside how broken the partnership industry was. He was spending hours in the DMs of shops and bars trying to set up brand deals that should have taken minutes. So he built Storytime, a hyper-local platform that matches businesses with creators in their neighborhood creators pay with the content and business pay with experiences effectively creating a new currency for the creator economy on today's episode of the hot start podcast aris tells the full story aris thank you so much for coming on my pleasure i'm curious like what inspired you to start creating content online especially as the character of louis this french rich kid i mean i really just started just kind of from curiosity of using social media and just being on tiktok i mean at the time when i started using it it was very much like a platform for like kids to be making you know TikTok dances and but I very much thought it was very interesting just to be on it and playing around with it especially during COVID I got like fascinated by how algorithms worked so just curiosity yeah and was there like different formats that you tested also different characters before you landed on Louis or was Louis like immediately the one that you were like okay this one is actually fitting what with like you like to make and also what social media actually likes yeah I mean I was experimenting with a lot of different type of content and then just stumbled upon like doing this one version of like a European French character which really just kind of it was clear like this is a brand that people love and I continued doing that one yeah and one of the videos that really took off was the one with the parmesan cheese when you shot that video did you kind of already know like hey this has the potential to go real viral or was that not the case no absolutely not I mean I make my videos so fast and I'm very spontaneous when I'm making a video like i just kind of throw my phone to someone i'm like all right let's do the skit character on i kind of know what social media likes and i know that it's obviously and the reason my my videos go so viral is because they're controversial yet it's like this persona that like there's just so much to comment and share about i filmed that video in two minutes to think that it accumulated like hundreds of millions of views was definitely not i never anticipated that yeah have you seen a correlation between kind of the time that you spent on certain skits and the virality where sometimes you plan it out for days and you have it in your head and you work it out and it doesn't go viral and sometimes you just pick up your phone you shoot something in one or two minutes and it actually has more virality yeah i always tell people like honestly like what's fascinating about social media is that the lower the production sometimes the more viral it can go like it's very much like i will always tell people like it doesn't the number of the amount of time you spend planning shooting a video does not equate to like the virality it's very much like you know something as simple on someone's phone filmed in a couple of minutes a couple of seconds can perform better than overproduction like actually makes it less likely to go viral yeah and also in the future with your own platform do you actually want to go to like other formats like maybe double down more on the acting side even talking about shows like Netflix or like different platforms for YouTube where maybe the more polished content is actually the better or you really want to focus on kind of what you do right now I definitely would be open to it i just enjoy acting and yeah i would be definitely open to it i mean i'm very busy with my startup so i don't really have it like in the foreseeable future but i would definitely be open to it yeah your character has also fooled a lot of people online what is one of the most surreal moments that like you actually encounter where someone genuinely believed that the person that you're pretending to be is you i think the most interesting was when i did this video outside of like an iconic nightclub in in new york and it went so viral that like it was in the french news And one of the lines that I say is I'm from the richest family in Europe.

3:48Aris Yeager:And so then everyone thought I was related to Bernard Vernault, the founder of LVMH. And then eventually his son had to like tweet that like it wasn't him. It was not the son. So that was pretty funny. Did I do, I had to do like PR damage control also on the family side, you think? Honestly, when you looked up his name, my video is one of the first videos that came up, which is crazy. One of the wealthiest people in the world has like some guy who made a random video, like two minute video being like trending on his google search that's wild it could have opened the door to a potential brand deal with louis vuitton as well is that uh something that uh opened the doors too or not at all no i haven't done anything with lbmh but um i would definitely be down to i've worked for other french brands you've officially built like an audience and you're now also a startup founder but while you're actually building that audience did you kind of already think that you wanted to leverage that as a launchpad to launch your own company or was that not something you were actually thinking about while you were building your audience?

4:47Aris Yeager:To be honest, I didn't anticipate how lucrative it could be having like an online presence and just like accumulating a following and then doing more sponsorships. And I didn't really anticipate how powerful it would be. As I grew every year, my account, I just realized, okay, this is like more valuable than I even thought it would be. Like having this, something that starts so comedic and completely for jokes can turn into like really it. It really is like a whole business also because a lot of like the companies I work with they're very like much luxury oriented. So I'm doing a lot of like black brand collaborations with like affluent brands.

5:19Aris Yeager:And then obviously like I studied business. So I've always been very entrepreneurial and I always thought like, okay, like from this, there's more. And I got really fascinated by the creator economy. And I was like, okay, this is what I want to hone down on for the next couple of years and build in this space. Yeah. And obviously, so you did. So yeah, could you tell the story about what is Storytime and what is also the founding story behind it? Yeah, Storytime is a marketplace that I built kind of really starting off with like an issue that I had as a creator. I just noticed like the complexity of connecting creators to businesses has been it's just so inefficient in so many different ways.

5:54Aris Yeager:So a couple of years ago, I was the story that begins when I was working my first job out of college, which was a influencer marketing software company. and at the time my boss who was also my friend we were discussing kind of just going over all these different trends and we just stumbled upon like this huge i was explaining like the issue of like creators you know imagine me like a great creator to go to joe and the juice i need to dm them and there's this back and forth for me to be able to get like a joe sand or june exchange just posting about it so it's like surely there needs to be a better marketplace that allows good creators to see offers that you know at a local spot where they can basically go and redeem like a coffee, a juice, a meal, whatever it is, a workout class in exchange for posting about it.

6:37Aris Yeager:And it's all automated as opposed to this back and forth with an agency or someone within the business. So really that was the premise of like what we wanted to build. And with the experience of me and my co-founder being the influencer marketing space, we had a lot of great insight into understanding the importance of how to vet creators. That's really where Storytime started when we came together at the startup. Now we're active over like a thousand locations in New York City. We just expanded to Miami. And what I'm really trying to do is build the next class spots for creators. So it's like a software that I imagine every business, brick and mortar business can use to be able to activate local creators.

7:10Hey, quick one before we get back to the episode. If you love conversations like this one, you would love the FameGate, our weekly newsletter in which we break down how celebrities and creators build billion dollar brands.

7:20Aris Yeager:Sign up for free via the link in the description. And now back to the episode. Yeah, how does that work actually with the local component? So let's say I'm a content creator based in New York City. I have a couple thousand followers. How does it know what kind of offers to present me and what makes me eligible? As a creator, like you can just kind of see at all the different local spots what you qualify for. And yeah, you can just see like everyone sees different tiers. It's based off what the business sets. But like I can qualify for, you know,$20 off at Blank Street in exchange for posting a story about it.

7:53Aris Yeager:It's really that simple. Or I can go to like I do a workout class in exchange for posting about it. It's all these different exchanges. Yeah, so you're kind of creating a new currency where in the past people could pay with like cash or their cart. Now you can actually pay with content, if I kind of understand it correctly. Exactly. Yeah, and how does it then work? Do you kind of have to redeem it in the app and then you can go to the store and showcase your phone or do you have to be in the store already and then talk to the cashier and say, hey, like I want to redeem this and I want to pay with story time.

8:22Like how does that exactly work?

8:23Aris Yeager:Yeah, it's a good question. We have it different for a lot of places, like for every place it's different. for like the big ones like kava joe and the juice it's all through an app it just basically like it's a deep link that just gets taken into their app and they can redeem the offer from there because obviously when there's 25 locations it's hard to train staff to be aware and then some of them are just like in-person redemptions yeah i assume especially if you're working with these large chains oakbury and that type of stuff like they have thousands of employees so the onboarding is quite hot.

8:53So that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So like there's obviously quite some like influencer marketing services already on the market or solutions. What do you think makes yours so significantly different?

9:04Aris Yeager:Well, I think honestly, just being able to get some of the top chains on there. I think it's really a matter of like having really good spots on and our marketplace has like all the hottest food and beverage. Like if you look at food and beverage and you think of all the hottest food and beverage spots in New York City, we have them all on. And like how, I mean, I took advantage of me being a creator also to be able to connect with founders. I launched the channel where I interview founders of a lot of these places that we work with to hear their stories behind how they got started. That was a great way to get kind of our foot in the door in a lot of these like places and just learn about the market and just like really occasionally meet new founders.

9:42Aris Yeager:And yeah, I think it's just really our network. If you go to any creator right now in New York City and say, have you heard of Storytime? the chances are they've heard about it because we have such a strong community of people that are on and it's really grown through a lot of word of mouth. So that's what I really think is defining us right now. And like we've taken the New York market, we're getting ready for new markets. So it's really the quality of the places that we have on, the power of being a creator myself to get obviously founders and just creators in general. And I think it's experience like that me and my co-founder have, mostly my co-founder because he's been in this space for four years.

10:15Aris Yeager:and some of the people that are invested in our business. For instance, our boss's boss, who was the founder of the company that we were at last, became one of our investors and advisors. And for instance, like the founder of Oakberry is one of our investors. Some very notable people that are just like great advisors and, you know, can guide us towards this. Yeah. Are there like a specific group of influencers or type of influencers that you're focusing on that are best suited to use Storytime? Yeah. So we've accumulated thousands of creators. We have around 10 ,000 in New York City. It's really a spectrum from 3 ,000 to 2 million.

10:49Aris Yeager:So our whole thing is, though, that we're very much redefining who's a creator in the sense that we like more nano and micro. I mean, we like everyone, but what we've seen work really well for businesses is activating people that don't really look like creators, but they're just aesthetic lifestyle people that love a brand, right? So a girl that has 4 ,000 followers that studies in NYU, where all her audience in the NYU area, is a lot more effective than a girl with 100 ,000 followers, but her followers are all in Brazil. So that's really what we look for. And for us, that's what we're betting on of the future influencer marketing economy.

11:27Aris Yeager:It's all nano and micro. To my opinion, like businesses are going to take a step back from spending tens of thousands on campaigns to activate big creators or celebrities and focus on spending that budget on being able to really diverse, like have a more diverse amount of creators. Hundreds and thousands of loyal customers who are also creators because those are the most effective people, right? Yeah. And I think especially with these type of purchases, right? Because like when we're talking about where you're going to go for lunch or where you're going to get up a drink or where you're going to take a fitness class, you're actually relying on the recommendations of your friends, of people that you know.

12:01You don't rely on the recommendations of like an influencer in New York City that has 5K followers because whenever they post about a fitness studio, one, it's going to be flooded with people. and do I even want to be there? And two, do I even know if it's authentic? Do I even know if that person is working out there or actually is getting paid to make that video? So I think it's also really solving the problem of authenticity influencer marketing, which is obviously probably the biggest problem that there is. Whenever we invest in a brand founded by a celebrity or creator, we're always looking for an authentic creative product market fit.

12:32So that basically means it's like, does the creator that the brand is launching, does it fit the brand with his or her persona, content and audience? When I first heard about Storytime, I was like, what is the authentic fit between a content creator that is flying in private jet and doing all this luxurious lifestyle and an app that basically gets you like free items for under$30? So I kind of felt the disconnect at first. Over the last couple of days, I've been deeply thinking about it and I kind of completely changed my opinion. And I think that you're the perfect creative founder for that. But before I kind of share my perspective, I would love to hear your take on it.

13:06Like, what do you think makes you the best creative founder for this company?

13:09Aris Yeager:Yeah, it's fair. It's a good point. I started off like being very entrepreneurial when I was 16. Like growing up in Belgium, I did the MIT Launch X competition, which was my first thing that I did like that was ever entrepreneurial. And I won that competition and got first place. So I've always been very into entrepreneurship. And ever since I had that, like that moment, I was like, okay, I want to become an entrepreneur. I love startups. I got really into that. And that's why I went to Boston to study like business. And like I went to business school. so undoubtedly like i love startups so for me it's like everything's kind of a business and yeah like i realized that i was just very fascinated by the creator economy obviously the niche that i did was really based off experimentation right like it was based off like i can't say like i'm i was like oh i want to go into the luxury space i want to go and it was just more like i was experimenting as a creator what resonates the most and how can i build community but i've always been very entrepreneurial so before that like i've always been doing startups.

14:07Aris Yeager:I just really noticed the market from being a creator. And I was like, of all the things that creators are struggling to do, I really think the connectivity between creators and businesses where there's so many small moments where creators are like willing to do collaborations that are being blocked by agencies or just the inability to connect from like the simplest things of like, where are we going to have our grab our coffee in the mornings? And where are we like these small, like micro giftings, which I really think is a huge economy. Because when I look at the economy, I'm like, okay, why am I receiving, you know, a huge pile of Prime, which is great.

14:43Aris Yeager:I understand Prime's trying to activate. They're great with activating creators, but I'm like, what if Prime, instead of sending me a hundred Primes, could be able to distribute those like, like, you know, split Primes into like all these different little segments of people. That's so much more effective. And if all those people were willing to post about it. So for me, that was the issue that I saw. I was like, this distribution of products and services going to like those, the top, top celebrities, it needs to be trickled down to like a variety of other small creators. So for me, I think of the most qualified person because I don't think creators are good business people.

15:18Aris Yeager:I don't think a lot of influencers are good business people. And that's why they have managers. And that's like, not to diss them, but for me, like I've always been into business. I've always been in entrepreneurship. So why would I not be building a startup in this space? Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. I think like if I share my perspective, like obviously you have a background in also working at an influencer marketing software company or create yourself. You're an entrepreneur yourself. So, you know, the whole journey. But I think it especially comes back to kind of what you just mentioned about the pyramid of influence.

15:48And when I first heard it, I was like, this would be much more suited for like a lifestyle content creator who talks about budgeting and meal prepping because that's kind of the audience that you want to target. But then I started to think about it and I was like, no, that's not at all because you want to kind of make this mainstream. Everyone should use this. And for that, you need influential people that are living an aspirational lifestyle to make this something cool, to make it cool that you're making a story. And that's obviously your whole persona, this cool influencer. So instead of like a budgeting influencer, they don't really have influence.

16:23You have influence over influencers. And it also attracts the right type of customers. like let's say the budgeting content creator would have started this they probably wouldn't have been able to get all the new york like high-end coffee shops on board because they were like i don't want your audience to in my store because they are not the right audience that we are actually targeting so like is that something that resonates you think that's correct or like

16:46Aris Yeager:am i just saying some random stuff definitely and i also think like i mean for instance it's actually quite amazing but like if i look at the investors that i currently have like for instance oakberry the only reason i got to meet him in the first place because i did a campaign for oakberry on the european kid so i met him through there i got along with him so well and you know like i told him and then and then i watched him i was like you know i had this idea i really i really see this big issue and i got a lot of validation from these you know some of these top like he has over 900 locations around the world of acai shops right so for him it's like this is a huge one of our biggest things on how we grew is people taking photos of it it's like super aesthetic and he was telling me how manual it is to find creators to connect them the inefficiencies of of those like permitting gifting for creators so it was very much also being able to have access to a lot of these top founders also founder of sweetgreen it was one of the people that i went to very early on to get inside sweetgreen is like a company that has over they've like ipo they have over 300 locations um of like it's a solid spot yeah i love that you bring up these practical examples because so many times whenever a content creator or a celebrity launches his or her own brand, they always talk about the only advantage that they have is the ability to put free eyeballs on their own companies by posting on social media.

18:05I'm always referring to other hidden superpowers that creator and celebrity founders have. Like you already talked about being able to directly approach the founders of Oakberry and Sweet Greens. Like traditional founders are not able to do that. So could you maybe elaborate on how like you have been able to leverage the European kit platform to an unfair advantage to your own company yeah i mean i think the easiest is just

18:27Aris Yeager:being like okay like if i want to connect with someone it's very easy to through a simple dm and finding out who the founder is of a big chain it's like okay like chances are they might even follow me they might have seen my content i've there's it's like almost like an icebreaker like it really is a networking thing where it's like i can dm you know and that and that's how i got in touch with a lot of big it's like i could find out who you know the owner of equinox is and send a message that like probably will get received because of my following and because it's like oh I've seen your content it's funny like so there's definitely that and then just like it's really like I mean it's more and more I'm just realizing it's just having this layer of like look I've I've been able to accumulate hundreds of millions of views you know it really just adds credibility being like I get how creator economy works because I'm a creator myself this is the niche that I did I would love to just being able to give more advice on what I think they should be doing to activate more creators and i really think it's the credibility layer yeah as the european kit platform also been like the biggest acquisition channel on the creator side no definitely not and that's what i really like about it a lot of the creators that we've been activating there hasn't been that i've been necessarily and that's the thing like i actually haven't fully leveraged it because a lot of my following is super international and right now we have a very like incredible new york reach that we kind of organically got through word of mouth through other creators posting.

19:53Aris Yeager:But that community was really built naturally, like all the people that are using the marketplace right now. And obviously, like when we launched in like Istanbul or Sao Paulo, like I have a huge audience in those cities, right? So I can leverage the European kit to be able to get more creators into the marketplace. But I don't think I've necessarily, I haven't been the one who's been bringing all the current creators that are on the marketplace. It's been also my team, like working with other influencers. there's a lot of ways that we've been reaching out to creators it's not just me posting i think what's also interesting about it is that the creators kind of become an acquisition channel for you too because let's say a creator so her favorite coffee shop is not on the market you or she will or approach story time or they will walk into that coffee shop and say hey can i actually pay with my influence and there's actually a really nice platform that i actually do partnership with with other coffee shops and other restaurants i can introduce you to the team Is that something that you guys have seen, kind of the network effect?

20:49Aris Yeager:Yeah, 100%. I think the network effects, especially for acquiring creators, that's how it's been. The friends are just on it. They're like, oh my God, I love this app. Like, I'm obsessed with it. And they're getting their friends on it because they're like, we got to go together and do this. The people are just obsessed with using story time because it's also just so fun because you discover so many spots. You realize how valuable your influence really is because you can qualify for hundreds of offers instantly. So it's a no brainer for any creator to be like, oh, I'm going to get my friend on this.

21:15Aris Yeager:I think that's the model for scaling also. It's very much like being able to get referrals for local businesses as you get rewarded for being able to connect and refer a business that gets on the marketplace. Before we continue, I wanted to share something quickly. At Hot Start VC, we exclusively invest in brands founded by celebrities and creators. Think Selena Gomez, Jake Paul, Katy Perry. If you are an accredited investor and want to co-invest alongside us, We just launched Hotstar Angels, allowing you to invest in the same companies we backed, starting at just 5k per deal. Interested? Sign up at hotstar.vc slash angels or find the link in the descriptions.

21:53Aris Yeager:Accredited investors only. And now back to the episode. Are there specific cities that are like high on your list that you want to penetrate next? Like obviously the end goal is to have this available everywhere in the world. But if you had to kind of say like two or three like bucket list locations? I think Miami is super exciting. I'm really excited about launching Miami and I mean we just launched like because there's just it's such an incredible creator economy going on there and also Boston because I was studying in Boston I really believe like this marketplace caters to obviously college students who are being thrifty also and so for me being able to scale it within college towns I'm excited to be able to do that and I think Boston I mean just for also for myself is something that I would have loved to have when I was in Boston.

22:41Aris Yeager:That was the time that I was being most frugal and I'm like, okay, like, can I afford to be spending 10 bucks on our coffee? It's really just, yeah, I'm excited to expand the college talents and then internationally. Yeah. And internationally, are there like specific top locations that you have in mind? I think the Middle East would be very interesting. And Istanbul, like any city that is like high concentration of places, Istanbul, sao paulo obviously london it's really endless like this model what we're seeing it like i can tell you like this idea of activating creators and being able to activate local and gifting products in exchange for influencer collaborations is global like it's just it's on a global scale like i was in kuala lumpur a year ago and i was like wow like this is the exact same thing i'm walking around the small and like i see people get their coffee as they post about it you know it's naturally something that's happening and it's a crazy economy of like everywhere around the world every business is forced to kind of come with these times where it's like okay we need to create an instagram we have to consider having a tiktok presence and how do we do that and everyone's looking for a simple solution and that's what i want storytime to be this you know simple solution that can instantly be activated yeah i definitely think like the brazil even but But also like Southeast Asia and even Africa could be really interesting because they have a high integration of cell phones.

24:00They kind of like skip the whole phase. Everything is online. Like I've been fizzling to Brazil often and I've never had to take out cash. Like you can just pay phone to phone and that type of stuff. So it's already naturally really integrated the whole technology infrastructure.

24:15Aris Yeager:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We already talked about like create entrepreneurship in general. and I kind of completely agree with your take that most creators are actually not really great entrepreneurs. Although we invest in them, like you would naturally say like, oh, we want all of them to launch companies. But we always say is that 98 % of them should never launch their own companies just because being a creator is like something completely different than becoming an entrepreneur. You are also one of the only creators that has launched a tech company. Like often when they launch a company, it's like another CPG brand, a liquor brand or a beauty brand.

24:46Why do you think that's the case? And do you think that's going to change in the near future?

24:50Aris Yeager:For tech? Yeah. I think obviously tech is huge right now. And I guess from being in software before that and my co-founder being in software, that's what also makes the most sense. I can't say there's a particular reason why I went into tech, but I just think it's very interesting. Yeah. But do you think that more creators in the near future are going to launch their own tech companies over CPG, for example? I don't think so, to be honest. I think it's very tricky to be in tech. and like in this pace that we're moving at, the people in tech need to be very AI experienced, which my co-founder is and like building in.

25:22Aris Yeager:It's a very different, like the way that companies are, tech companies are growing. I mean, AI is growing at a crazy pace. I think if anything, it's going to be mostly CPG brands and like services, but I don't, I think very few creators would create tech oriented companies. Are there like still any other creators, celebrity entrepreneurs that you take inspiration from, like how they're leveraging their own platforms, for example to to scale their companies i think my brother is doing an incredible job with like my tech ceo he came into the he understood really well like being in san francisco how there was very few tech creators and how like tech companies are the ones spending some of the most money on marketing so he was like i can fulfill that and he created the my tech ceo channel which generates more money than any sponsorship that i'm doing even though he has like a couple hundred thousand followers and have I have millions right but it's the truth is like it was just very smartly done like he just he's he's catering towards a market that's like very niche but huge budget spendings so he's like he's killing it right now yeah we saw this with like the news two weeks ago of the podcast uh being acquired by open ai for like a hundred million dollars plus in that specific niche so yeah that makes a lot of sense is there a specific skill that you learn from being a content creator that has helped you to become a better founder to be honest not really because they don't really they're not two and two like i know i have a lot of advice for creators i think my biggest advice for anyone like for that i've learned for creators is like don't dwell over one video be obsessive it's more quantity than than quality over one video obviously you want quality with that video but it's really it's a quantity game so posting relentlessly um and not spending too much on time on one video um so yeah i can't say there's something that goes like that correlates with both yeah man last question on my end like how do you still balance being a content creator versus an entrepreneur is like how much time do you spend on on one and each yeah it's it's not easy i mean some some weeks i'll spend more than others i spend probably 90 my time on story time and i'm pretty efficient with how i do my content and a lot of it's like skits right so they don't take much time to film i'm very like quick with it but sometimes i'll dedicate more time or like if i ever have to do a brand collaboration i don't do a lot of collaborations sponsorships but when I do maybe I'll have to travel so there's more time being invested into that yeah it's been so far I mean to be honest like I've been able to balance it pretty well and yeah it's not easy it's my days are pretty packed but I also enjoy that.

27:48Aris Yeager:Aris thank you so much for coming on. Of course it was my pleasure. Thank you for listening to the Hot Start VC podcast. If you enjoyed this episode make sure to subscribe and leave a rating or review. It really helps us grow. You can also subscribe to our newsletter at hotstart.vc for more breakdowns on how celebrities and creators build billion-dollar brands. Thanks again for tuning in, and we will see you in the next episode.