How Visa Supports Creators as Small Businesses w/ Jonathan Kolozsvary

0:00This next age digital entrepreneur who's powering kind of a digital economy, really is the creator who's becoming their own business owner. And for us, that meant that one, we had to pay attention to it, but also we needed to make sure that we treated it uniquely compared to what we've seen as other segments within small business before.

0:24Hey, Jonathan, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm well. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Today, I'm very excited about this episode because we finally talk about, you know, something that is there, right? People know that, you know, creator economy is booming. Creators, finally, understanding that they have to manage their finances, they need resources. And finally, also the world is understanding that creators are not just like having a hobby. It's actually a job, right? And it's a serious thing. And therefore, right, we should look at that in a very serious matter. And so today, again, we're going to get into all these financial tools and resources and everything.

1:00But before we get started with that, why don't you tell us, Jonathan, a bit about yourself. We use this thing called the map. Basically, it is divided in three main sections. The mission, so what do you aim to achieve with your work? Achievements, anything that you are really proud of could be in your career life or both. And the last one is the purpose. So why do you do what you do? So I'll start with the M, which is the mission. I'll keep it really simple and pithy. Maximize the probability of success for small businesses. Throughout my career, if there's been one consistent segment of interest that I've worked on, it's small business.

1:30And so I'd say that's probably the mission. I think achievement with segment. I'm going to go personal on this one. I'm a father of three, two boys and a girl. And we recently just had our third about eight months ago. And so I think the greatest achievement I've had is probably just the beautiful family that I'm blessed with. And then remind me of the third P is... Bilas, what is the purpose? So why do you do what you do? I have family members who own small businesses. I have worked for companies who have said that they're focused on small business and realized just how difficult that challenge is.

1:58I think it's the segment that often gets forgotten about in between consumer and commercial. And that change is becoming more prevalent in the sense that companies and governments and even consumers and all of us in our daily lives are starting to take small businesses more seriously. So for me, the purpose is really, you know, focusing on that narrative and making sure that on the platforms we have, we broadcast it and support them. That's fantastic. So, you know about small businesses. That's very important because so different from big businesses, right? In a lot of different aspects and congratulation and detriments of the families.

2:30Absolutely a great one. So congrats on that. And, you know, your career spans, right? Like, you know, from corporate strategy, innovation, you went through a lot of different, right, aspects of that. And so I would like to understand a bit more, right? What inspired you, right? You already kind of said a little bit, right, during the introduction, but I would like to dive in a bit more about all the initiatives, right, to support creators within the financial ecosystem, right? Because many times we talk about the creative aspects that we talk about, maybe like, you know, brand deals, but everything else, right, is still a bit, you know, cloudy sometimes.

2:59So, like, what made you go into this? So I'll wind the clock back to Web Summit in Lisbon almost a year ago. It would have been November. And that's when Visa decided to make the declarative statement that we were considering creators specifically as a part of the small business community, getting access and rights to all of the tools and resources we have. Over the course of time since then, we've taken what I would call a very thoughtful and intentional approach. And I often describe it in like these kind of like three categories of P's. First is like partnerships. The second is programs. And then the third is product.

3:32On the partnerships piece, you know, we've done a couple of things. One, we've worked with large social players like Visa and its recent partnership with X to make sure that we're in the places in which creators are engaging and enabling them for like peer to peer payments through our Visa Direct platform. Another is kind of like lowercase p in partnership. So we've announced ambassadors, meaning creators who are becoming partners with Visa, Giovanna Camille that I announced at the Brazil Web Summit event, and then Jocelyn, who we just announced at Adweek in New York City. And so that for us, in my mind, is actually more of a listening exercise than anything to really understand the voice of this segment and be privy to a true understanding of their needs and demands.

4:13The second is around programmatic. And so since also that announcement, we've done a number of things, such as our Get Paid series, which pairs more mature, what I would say, accelerated creators who've had success with new and coming creators who want to understand, like, how do I get a better followership? How do I get more hits or likes? How do I monetize? And that also includes both our take on 25 campaign, which I think you kind of illustrated earlier, which is like, how do you take passion and turn it into profit? And so a consumer idea into a business, as well as even working on immersing creators together with, you know, finance providers and Visa subject matter experts.

4:48And so I think the partnership, the programmatic, and now what we're really approaching is the product side. And we're excited because at Visa, those first two things are allowing us to listen and learn about how we co-author our product roadmap to develop something specific for this segment, but also with the same needs and demands of small businesses, owners everywhere, like working capital and cash flow management. It makes absolutely sense. I'm also wondering, was there a moment or a story or something that happened that you were like, you know what, I'm realizing in this moment that the creative economy needs a financial infrastructure?

5:23It's a good question. And about a year and a half ago, we had started conducting some research on what I would say the overall composition or pie of small businesses were a large part of it that came kind of top of mind for us was the fact that this next age digital entrepreneur who's powering kind of a digital economy really is the creator who's becoming their own business owner. And for us, that meant that one, we had to pay attention to it, but also we needed to make sure that we treated it uniquely compared to what we've seen as other segments within small business before. I think there's a often misnomer that like small businesses are homogenous.

6:00There's a huge asset of diversity, everything we're in, time in business, age, generation, demographic, firmographic, you name it. So for us, we see this as the pie growing overall, not just a portion of the pie becoming more creators. And so that was kind of a moment for us. And then what I would say is of recent, we publicly distributed what we call our next gen research, very much focused on Gen Z, millennial, kind of like the creator economy entrepreneurs. And we realized a ton of fascinating stats, things like what you thought was post-COVID complete digitization really is a hybrid model where when they want to have a financial discussion with a banker, they want to be able to go into a branch.

6:37They're willing to try new tools, but also really trust social media and platforms for their source of truth when it comes to advice and guidance. So all of the data was pointing us in the direction that like this is a segment we need to focus on and be very declarative about it. Interesting. And, you know, since now, right, Visa has officially, like, recognized creators, right, as small businesses. And you said all small businesses are different, right? It's like, you know, depending who is the owner, the geolocation, the type of industry, the history of the person, like, have they run a small business in the past?

7:08Have they come in from a different type of perspective and so on? As small businesses are different, also creators are very different, right? From, like, you know, even if you, on paper, have the same numbers and metrics, they can be totally different in terms of the approach to work. Do they work by themselves? Do they hire contractors? Do they have actually a proper full-time team? So I'm curious, how these are determined, like if a creator is a small business, like do they need a team? Is it just like if it's for solopreneurs? Do they need to have like certain type of requirements and criteria?

7:39Can you tell me a bit more about that? So when we think about criteria and requirements for small businesses, it varies dramatically even when you're thinking about geography. So in the United States, for example, a number of financial service providers rely on like the SBA, Small Business Administration, that has a definition of small business. That changes as you move out of the United States, out of North America and to different countries and regions. And so at Visa, we don't necessarily have a global definition of small business because of the local nuance with it. That said, the second that you take that step from your consumer life into business, meaning you're selling a product, you're accepting payments for it, you're marketing yourself, branding yourself, opening accounts, whatever it is, we're along that journey with you in a small business of being both an entrepreneur, an owner, and an operator.

8:24So you could be individual, five employees, 50 employees. For us, we want to make sure we're there at infancy, maturity, and growth. And, you know, based on these, I'm also interested to know a bit more what are the specific financial tools, right? And resources, because I'm pretty sure, right, that each creator is a different stage, right, of their entrepreneurial life. Some could be totally experts. Some others are like, are they falling my taxes? What does it mean to have an accountant, right, and so on? So I know that like real-time payments is definitely something important. But again, I'm very curious to see what Visa developed, right, in terms of financial tools and resources to really meet the unique needs, right, of creators.

9:02So some of the programmatic things I mentioned earlier are very specific to the creators, like the Get Paid series, Take on 25. Even we ran a workshop understanding the NFT's non-fungible tokens and what that means to creators when it comes to their content being on these social platforms and the ownership and exchange of financial metric associated with it. In addition to that, we offer all of the Visa core products and services that are really, I would say, critical for a small business as it gets started and grows. That's everything from our core prepaid debit and credit services that we run through our issuer network, which can be everything from kind of the hub and spoke of your financial account to your working capital loan with your credit card.

9:42I often hear from even Jocelyn when I met her in New York, the fact that it's the speed at which you're developing content, it's the number of hits that you're getting, the frequency in which you're producing it, which means the inputs in order to create that content require financing. And so the time at which you finance that content to when you get paid may be different. And so I would say the core value proposition of Visa Card Network is there. In addition to some of the net new products that we're offering out there, things like Flex Credential, as an example, the ability to be able to flex between your personal and your business accounts within your business accounts, debit versus credit, and when you might want to access, again, that line of working capital versus the core accounts within there.

10:21So I think we're on a journey, a journey to continue to develop products for the creators, but we're at a good starting point to hopefully support them with where they are now. Hello, is your brand ready to amplify its reach? Well, the Influencer Marketing Factory is here to do just that. We are a global influencer marketing agency helping brands ignite their growth from influencer identification to campaign strategy, handling legalities and agreements to managing shipping and logistics. We have it all covered. We work with hundreds of brands across different verticals from fortune 500 companies to DTC brands and we don't just stop there with detailed ROI analysis we help brands like yours measure success transforming impressions into actionable conversions you can find us at theinfluencermarketingfactory.com or just search the influencer marketing factory on google amazing and you mentioned a couple of times already right the the you know jocelyn that you partnered up with the last time i think was at the Adweek, right?

11:18Even in New York City. So can you tell me a bit more again, like I know that, you know, she was talking about how do you transform the passion, right? Into something that is actual business. How do you manage that? Any key takeaways from that session? So when I met Jocelyn in New York and what I had heard, even when listening to Giovanna in Brazil was the barrier to entry or success for creators is massive, right? It's everything from producing content that's of interest to the audience. It's, you know, producing it at a clip or pace that allows them to really be ahead of the curve when it comes to their competition.

11:50And then honestly, there's a discrepancy between when they produce that content and when they might monetize or get paid for it. And so what I learned was like we at Visa and we in financial services, I think have a learning curve here. It's a learning curve on understanding those barriers and then what we do to kind of co-develop, co-author our product roadmap to support them. And some of that around those three Ps that I mentioned is like product specific, some of its programs, and then some of its partnerships. You know, we mentioned things like our loyalty and rewards programs and how we partner locally with teams to be able to offer discounts or rewards on products based on our core value proposition for our card products.

12:27And sometimes that can go a long way for a creator who, you know, needs that in order to be able to produce that content. So if anything, I think we're on a learning journey, one of which Jocelyn, Giovanna, and then hopefully our other to-be-announced kind of ambassadors will help us learn along that with them. and then produce some really great products and experiences for them. And you know what? It makes all sense, especially because what I noticed in the past, you know, there have been many platforms out there and tools that created things for creators without actually talking to creators or co-creating.

12:57And for me, it was like, that's the idea of what you have, like, but actually, do they actually need that? Can they easily use that? What also, what is the adoption, right? Because many times we forget that you have to convince someone and then you can create the best product in your mind, but if they're not going to be used, right, or the usage is different or it's not user-friendly or it's not exactly in the needs. So it makes absolutely sense that Visa is doing that in co-creation and listening all the time in reiteration, right, of the concept, they're really getting the sort of loop of optimization all the time.

13:29And I would tell you, and this is probably going to date myself, but, you know, the cliche reference from Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come. That's not true. It's funny. No, right? So we need to be able to put ourselves in a position to say, those that are the segment of interest need to influence and inform how we design. And to me, that user-led design is kind of the core of what Visa's done historically really well. And so one of the things I mentioned at Adweek, and I think hopefully will land with the creator segment, is we're going to take the best of our history and the legacy of what we've had.

14:00Yeah, we're going to pair that with what we need to learn from this segment. Fantastic. Amazing. Love this message. Let's fly from New York City to Japan for a second with the Creator Summit in Tokyo. What was the event about? And I'm very curious, what are the key takeaways? Are they very different from the U.S. market? Are there similar opportunities and needs? Can you dive in a bit into that? Yeah, it was our inaugural kind of Creator Summit in Tokyo, and it was in late November. And it was a two-day event kind of hosted and held in conjunction with what I would say is industry leaders like TikTok.

14:35and Amplify and others, really to bring together creators and partner them with Visa experts. And it's all about kind of that learning journey that I discussed. Relative to what I would say, like local or regional differences, while I wasn't at the summit directly, I will tell you, like the learnings from it had some consistency. So it was everything from like getting off the ground and starting my business. What are the things I need to know? What are the tools and resources I could have? It was back to that maximizing probability of success by offering working capital in times of pay and be paid kind of discrepancies.

15:07And then it was honestly cash flow management and the understanding of, you know, how do I put myself in a position to know when do I need to buy inventory to produce my inputs? We think about creators in different ways, right? Like my experience with creators has been everything from like my kids watching Blippi content on YouTube to Roger Steele's golf lessons that I see. But there's everything from culinary, fashion, music. And if you think about these sub segments, they require certain materials, right to produce their content and so for us i think the understanding was how do we accelerate right their ability to produce content while purchasing their inputs for their output and how do we make sure there's some rigor around both the education and awareness so they understand how to better manage that cash flow and again you know kind of increase that success rate and in addition to you know helping uh in all this you know like differentizing that you that you just mentioned And with the creative economy that is projected to get to 500 billion, that is a crazy number, right?

16:07Just think about it, compared to when I started in the creative economy, it was not even called a creative economy. And it was like, you know, just a bunch of kids having a hobby, right? And now it's like half a trillion business. I'm very curious also, in addition to all this, let's talk for a second also about scaling business, right? Because, again, we covered how do you get started, how do you get more like the educational side about finances and so on. But then there is a moment where you want to get to the next level. And how do you help creators identify that? Do you help them with the idea of a potential journey?

16:45Do you go into do's and don'ts, different scenarios possible for them? I'm also interested that, I don't know if you know these, but whenever they ask you about scaling the business, What are some of the questions that usually come along? Yeah, it's a great question. So here's what I would say. I feel like the traditional mindset of a small business's expansion is opening another brick and mortar office or store or warehouse in a different region. And that's still true, by the way, especially when we think about physical commerce versus e-commerce. I think the nuance and difference here too with creators is for them to scale and grow, they also need to learn best practices from what I would say are those who have blazed that trail for them.

17:26And so the one thing I'll anchor on, and it's probably a bit of what I had referenced earlier, is the core tenant of our Get Paid series was truly partnering what I would say those creators who have been through that journey with those that are about to go through it. And so whether it's, again, one of those industry segments like culinary, fashion or music, it's knowing like, what do you need to do to make that leap? Whether it's your first monetization moment, whether it's scaling and creating, you know, a different medium in which you need to be present on in order to access that audience, or frankly, whether it's like diversifying the content you're doing in order to get more hits.

17:59And so a part of that is for us acting as kind of the facilitator and orchestrator of those parties. Another part of it then is pairing our products associated with it. And so what I would say is like we're early at the stage of what that product kind of maturity looks like for this specific segment. But our core product set does mature with businesses as they grow. And that's some of the core products I discussed that we've mentioned. Also others that we're exploring new discovery. Amazing. And, you know, to wrap today, I would like also to see what are the other emerging trends that you foresee in the creative economy?

18:31Because, of course, you know, we touched base on, you know, many things that are like, you know, financially related. But is there anything else that yourself is very excited about? And in addition to that, also, like how Visa is preparing to that, right? Because again, there are so many things that is like all the discussion, of course, there is all the, again, all the, like, you know, the real time payments, things that we discussed. But is there anything else that we didn't touch based on that we'd like to address today? I think the last thing would be kind of a fourth kind of key takeaway from our next gen research, which was really around creators and Gen Z and millennials interest and high quality tools.

19:05And so what they're looking for is actually less around interconnectivity and interoperability. While that's still an advantage for them, they are willing to try new things, new tools that help them advance their business. And so for us at Visa, and I think for us, meaning the greater collective of financial services, it's incumbent upon us to really think through like, what does that mean? You know, when a high quality tool is defined based off the needs and demands they have. So that's one trend that I think was fascinating along with the other three, right? of like where their source of truth is, you know, their ability to obviously trust the fact that they're getting their information from media and social channels.

19:41They want that physical presence, the hybrid model of digital and physical and are willing to try new things. Fascinating. Again, I've been into the industry for a long time and I guess, you know, yourself as well and has been crazy how in just a couple, like past two, three years, everything changed, right? And everything getting more structured in the right way. So I'm very, very curious to see, you know, what is up there. We're going to put links to resources and financial tools from Visa to anyone that is listening to this episode. I'm pretty sure that is going to be very helpful. And I wanted to thank you, Jonathan, so much today for, you know, being with me, you know, sharing all your knowledge about what is happening in the creative economy together with all the, you know, financial items.

20:19So thank you so much for joining me. Of course. Thank you so much for having me, Alessandro. I look forward to the next time we talk. Fantastic. This was the Influence Factor by the Influencer Marketing Factory. I'll see you in the next episode.

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