Welcome to Behind the influence a production of I Heart Radio and TDC Media. There's probably some times where we were like, this is our last the last month, and then we get a phone call and a project will kind of come through, and we went from essentially selling twenty thousand units and we shift almost like eight hundred thousand. But we were able to kind of adjust, We adapted, and we just kept going and kind of kept pushing
every ten knowes we gotta yes. All those yes is kind of kept fueling us and kept fueling the company to the next level. Chris's company is a small, little company you may have heard of, called fan Joy. When I say small, I'm lying. It's basically the leading merch brand. That's what I would say. I say it's number one, Chris. We couldn't say anything less. No, it's something that's definitely
number one. It didn't just become number one overnight. And you also the path to getting to where you are today interesting story, and we want to dive into that.
With a lot of tech influencers and start up up phenomenons like yourself, we really like to get the backstory because there's a lot of people that are gonna be listening to this that want to start their own companies, they may be overwhelmed, intimidated and kind of hearing your journey and maybe the places you may have failed and then overcome those failures might inspire somebody to kind of take the leap like you did. So let's take your
way back. I don't think you went to school thinking I'm going to make T shirts for David Dobrick one day and be super successful at it. So what was the path? Yeah? I mean the path was. I think I've always had something kind of like an it or like a burn to like build something, and like want to build something big. I don't think I ever had the right concept or idea in the very beginning. My
my mom actually was an entrepreneur. She's always you know, started her own businesses, and I've kind of got that drive from from her and just seeing kind of her being persistent with the businesses that she had, mainly like the restaurant space. I don't know. I think I think for that, you know, being a CEO or a founder, you kind of have freedom to do whatever you want.
And I think I was really attracted to that, you know, growing up by I was like it was in like the hospitality restaurant industry, and then after college, you know, I really wanted to focus something that was outside of outside of that, and not knowing what I wanted to want to do, I moved to San Francisco with my girlfriend at the time, who's not my wife, who's about to have our our child any minute now, and we
moved to San Francisco. I took a sales job at just a random, random company, and during that time, my brother's band, A Great Big World. They had a hit song called say Something with Christina Aguilera that kind of blew up, and from there, my brother was like, Hey, we need to go on tour. Do you want to
come with us? And for me, I think that was kind of like a once in a lifetime opportunity just to say yes and do something different and kind of from there, you know, touring the US for six months selling merchandise on the road, I just I just saw, you know, the magic and like the fans eyes every single night when they saw them perform, and I was like, how can I capture this experience or even connect them in a more meaningful way outside of the venue, because
at the venue, everyone is super energetic, super positive, and I didn't want that to die after the venue experience, you know, ended. I wanted to keep keep living on in some kind of former fashion. So I was trying to brainstorm different ways to kind of connect musicians with their fans. You know, there are a bunch of subscription box companies out there, and I was like, can I build a subscription box company for musicians to their fans and would people buy it? So we actually launched in
twenty woteen. We launched with a subscription box from a great big World to their fans, and we had about two hundred fifty people signed up. And we we actually almost made like a care package from musicians to their fans. So we had five to seven different items in each package and every three months they receive a package in the mail. So we launched in January two subscribers. We
launched the second package in April two subscribe. Not that's pretty decent for no marketing or right, Yeah, I mean we use their social channels, right, their YouTube channel to kind of get the word out there people are signing up for a subscription. Yeah. It was good, it was great, It was awesome. It was great. It was kind of like you know, once you saw kind of like money come in, like okay, this this could work, this is working.
How do we you know, grow it from there? You know, for me, I wanted to kind of just get more musicians signed up, and I would talk to all of these you know, managers or agencies, and nobody wanted to do a subscription box. It was like the one thing that people didn't want to do. But I did connect with Hillary duffs manager at the time, and she had a new album coming out and I think it was her first album in eight years, and he was like, I don't want to do subscription box, but I do
want to do an album box. And I was like, okay, let's let's do that. So that actually, you know, when we watched that one, she sold thousands of units. And from from that moment on, we kind of just started doing more one off based packages, so around album releases or book releases, and we worked with you know, the Maria Maria Kerrey, the Elvis Estate, We worked with Pentatonics all time, low a bunch of different musicians, and you know,
it went well. First year, I think we we did ten thousand packages shipped, and then the second year, we did about twenty packages ships. So is this just you at the time or yeah, just beformer team. Did you call it a company? Was it a company? It was a company. Yeah. We actually had the paperwork filed, so we were actually company. You weren't just in your house like the first the first package together was actually in my house and then after that experience, I didn't want
to do that again. But it was really good to just kind of get hands on boxes everywhere. Yeah, I mean, when you have seven different items that go into package, it's just a lot of work that has to be kind of coordinated and figured out. It's so curated exactly how are you finding the what was going into the box?
Who was coming up with the creative for that? So a lot of it, a lot of it was kind of me giving suggestions to the to the talent, but really we're trying to use their life experiences and their interests in you know, what they liked and what they you know, wanted to share with their fans. Talk us through a box. I'm trying to wrap box. So it was like exclusive merchandise and then products from brands that
she loved. So we had that because we had brands kind of integrated into the packages that it maybe have like a strong message behind the product or just something that she used in it on a daily basis. I think that that's genius. It was awesome. Yeah, fans really loved it. It was just so personal and curated. I love that. Yeah, okay, yeah. We applied that to the different musicians that we kind of worked with, and a great idea of Chris, thank you, thank you. I was trying.
I was trying to make something work, right. I was like this, there's something here that is connecting with fans when they received the package, and you know, people love getting packages in the mail. I mean the surprise element. I think totally super fun and like this limited edition it's exclusive. Sometimes we had like signed albums in the box or just signed items, one off items, polaroids, so
we try to get really that custom with it. I guess for twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen years, you know, we we really just went and tried to scale this business. But it was just me in the company. So it's hard to just do it as yourself and do it by yourself. You know. We tried to raise money from BCS. We tried to get into accelerated programs, and every time they would just be like, it's not a scalable business,
something that's not for us. We even had a meeting with a big music company and we were pitching this idea for one of their artists, something that they weren't doing at the time, and they actually like blew up the meeting. Like as we were talking and describing what we're gonna do, they just had a massive, massive, you know argument in front of us, with half the team wanting to do it with us, the other half saying
they can do it in the house. And it was just like it was just like a big wake up call, being like we don't need you guys. Kind of kind of moment for it was. Yeah, even though there were, you know, people on their team that were like, this is a good idea, we should use fan Joy, you know, they kind of have the mentality we can do it ourselves. So it was fan Joy at that time. Totally. Yeah, same same name name. Yeah. I mean there's there's a
lot of ups and downs. In the very beginning. You know, we didn't raise any money, so a lot of it was just credit cards using one project to kind of fuel the next and some lucky breaks. There's probably some times where we were like, this is our last the last month, and then we get a phone call and a project will kind of come through, and we kind of they were one off projects. One off projects. Yeah, people would want to do a subscription and the economics
just weren't there. I mean, a box that you everyone wants to deal, everyone wants you know that the price point has to be a certain certain price for people to stay subscribed, and it was just it was just challenging. Yeah, it was hard. It was hard to kind of keep that going. But we did. We did test in just doing like one off merchandise pieces, so selling just T
shirts and hoodies. And this was still for musicians, so still for um well you were branching out, yeah, just random people that would reach out to us, you know, people who we did packages for, you know, box sets for They were like, hey, can you make a T shirt for us? And it was just me in the company at the time, so I was trying to design the shirt to myself. I'm in no way a graphic designer, but I kind of got start. I opened up Photoshop and kind of learned a little bit and try to
figure things out. It was always kind of just feeling like you you have a challenge that you can't overcome, and that was like kind of like what that time of my life felt like. But it was also rewarding knowing that, you know, once we did make it and we kept going, that there could be light at the end of the tunnel if I just keep trying. So yeah, for so we you know, started working with just different influencers.
I started seeing on Instagram just random teenagers with you know, hundreds of thousands of likes on pictures and I think even at the time when someone got like ten tho likes, I was like, whoa, this is big, Like this is this is big, and I would like keep researching on Instagram just seeing you know, sixteen year olds like twenty year old just getting massive, massive engagement online um and on their their social channels. So for us and for me, that was kind of like an opportunity to see can
these kids sell anything? Do they have the power too? Because they weren't selling it at the time, Like no one was really pushing merchandise or products or their own products at the time. Mostly brand deals, yeah, exactly, mostly brand deals, but no no, no, No one really had the aspirations to like build their own brand, or if they did, they just weren't doing it, or at least
not through T shirts and hoodies. Right. So I actually got a couple of influencers just via emailing them from their email listening their Instagram profile, saying, hey, my company's fan joy. We basically do all the work to create merchandise, packages and experiences. Do you want to work together? And this is still just Chris Chris. Yeah. And I had a couple of responses from from two people, one being Jake Paul him, Yeah, you've heard of him. He's actually
on this series. Nice, awesome, And and Jake actually responded to two of the Team ten members that I reached out to saying, hey, you know, I'm I'm working with these guys. We can we can chat. This is the end of okay, that makes perfect sense. And this is when he Team ten and Jake Paul were literally the top of the game. Yeah, just like started it. They just started putting out a ton of content and Jake
wasn't doing merchandise at the time. I think after about three months we kind of went back and forth and he was like, I want to do a subscription box and I was like, no, I think you want to launch a hoodie. I was like, it's probably a lot easier for us to just get started and just get a product sold and into the hands of your fans and them kind of you know, repping the community that
you're you're building. Did you know at that time how big Jake Paul was going to be or did did you see the trajectory, because obviously around that time his following was growing rapidly. Did you have any idea? I
don't think I knew the kind of scale. Um, you know, you saw all the the team members that he had there following, the views they were getting on YouTube, they engagement they were getting on their social channels, and I don't think anybody really knew what was what was kind of coming during that time or if it was just a trend right exactly trendy. And we launched at the end of sixteen going into the holidays a hoodie and it did really well. I still remember the first Jake
Paul hoodie. Yeah, it was just a Team ten hoodie. Was it just like a plane black hoodie with Team ten logo on it? Simple didn't have twelve different items in a box. It was just one hoodie that was being produced and then shipped to fans. And that process seems scalable, Like once we started selling thousands of them, it became a much like feasible task for us to kind of scale this business. But you didn't sell thousands right away? Was it right away? It was almost immediate?
So he puts out I guess a photo or whatever saying my marches available, or in his YouTube videos he often points to merch that people could buy. How are you able to even come up with a price point because they're not cheap. The march is not cheap, I think. We mean, in the very beginning, we kind of base it off of other like clothing brands and kind of
what they were selling hoodies and T shirt tour. You know, at the time, we weren't selling a ton of merchandise, so we really didn't have a good concept or grasp of what price people would pay for it. And especially the demo, for example, Jake's demo. It's a little younger, so where are they getting their money from? Obviously parents give their kids whatever they want nowadays assholes. Yeah, but
you have to consider that too. Right, so totally. I mean, we we priced it I think at forty dollars for a hoodie, just pretty reasonable. Now reasonable I'm thinking about that as a price point. It's great thinking about an eight year old. Yeah, for children's clothing is probably way way too expensive, which we kind of adjusted kind of as we started launching youth youth sizes. And but you know, the very beginning, we just we just sold adult unisex you know, hoodies, and you know, it did, it did
really well. And from that moment on, I was I was still in San Francisco at the time, and I was like, I need to build a team around this because as we continue to sell more and more products, I can't do it alone. So I actually hired two people January, and one was a graphic designer, one was a project manager, and we just kind of hit the ground running. We would essentially launch products almost weekly with with Team ten, and then we would just basically on
board new talent, new clients. Almost every other week we would get a referral, or we would get an incoming message, or I would reach out to them, and we just started on boarding more and more clients. In seventeen and we went from essentially selling twenty thousand units then seen we shifted almost like eight hundred thousand items. So with the strategy behind I always under this when Jake was
promoting his merch it was constantly changing. Was that a part of the strategy into making it feel limited release? And did you notice that that helped? Because immediately things were sold out and then there's this like you were left out feeling, so the next time you're going to jump on it quicker. What was the strategy behind that? Yeah,
a little bit of everything, right. I think at the very beginning, we didn't know what would work, what wouldn't work, so we tried everything that you can possibly think of to see what would basically convert to sales. And for us, I think we're now looking ourselves as we're an e commerce company, so we had to kind of optimize and figure out what strategies would work for for our clients
to make the most amount of money as possible. So for us, you know, we would we would push that limit edition message message as well as making sure that you know, fans just also just felt part of the community when receiving that product. So whether it's an insert with a note from their favorite creator or winning I don't know, a FaceTime after they purchased the product, whatever
it was. We just wanted to see what would work and what kind of what didn't As we kind of moved on and and onboard more clients and try to apply these same strategies to you know, their brands. So the supply and demand theory definitely works. It's you know, human nature to want something you can't have, so that was obvious and then changing it up making it more personal.
How is that process working with influencers because were they a part of the creative process, Because now you have a graphic designer chrisism In Potot, which is great cots on that. So how hands on were the influencers with
the creative process? They're very hands on. You know, all of them have kind of their own They're all creatives in their own way, so they all have their own you know, thoughts and ideas, and for us, it's kind of just taking their design direction and aesthetic and kind of running with it and hopefully creating something that they love. But ultimately they would have you know, final approval, and you know, they would give us most of the direction
of what we were actually creating. So if they didn't love the product that we made, we weren't going to sell it because they have to love the product and wear the product for to sell. You know, people watching, you know, consumers can tell if something is just kind of being plugged and not you know, and that and not like an organic or genuine way. So if they actually wore it in their videos, if they if they
forgot was going to say. So. A perfect example I think of what you're trying to say is when I first met Jake this is like three or four years ago, when he first moved to l A. He came to some set and he was wearing a tight eye shirt. Right. His merch includes tight eye hoodies. So basically, I think you're trying to say the people, the people creating the merch, it's stuff that they would wear basically, right, So we're taking trends that they might wear elsewhere and kind of
a plan to their own brands. They're making apparel that they would wear. Are you guys a part of the direction and kind of guiding trends as well? Absolutely? Yeah, So what we have a creative director kind of leads that charge and just helps them find a unique direction that can take inspiration from others, but kind of be their own. We don't want to copy be a copycat. We don't want to you know, step on any one other other brands toes. We want to make sure they're
unique in their own way. So so totally were involved in that whole design process, but for us, we also take care of basically everything else. So on Fanjoy side and helping build their brand, we look to the talent and our creators to promote the product and kind of give design direction and then FANJROI takes care of the rest.
So Fanjoy will take on any all the design, production, fulfillment, all the customer support, everything regarding e commerce, so website development, website management, we do email marketing, Facebook, Instagram advertising, everything that it takes to build a brand is what Fanjoy
takes on. So we try to make it as turnkey as possible for anyone with the following to kind of build a brand and not have any headaches doing So, Yeah, that was you kind of answered what I was gonna ask next, was it's obvious why you would want to work with influencers, why would they want to work with you? But if it's so turn key. It sounds like a no brainer. And then from a business standpoint, are the
influencers almost partners in the project with you? Are they getting Obviously they're getting a cut or I don't even know how to call it's not commission per se, but it's their likeliness, right, So yeah, I mean they're they're making it definitely is like a partnership model. You know, they're making revenue on every item sold. Obviously we take a small fee you know, of course per item sold, but that kind of covers everything else that we kind
of handle in the back end. So really with them the ones who are making pretty decent money with merchandise, the ones who are doing at scale and selling dollands of units kind of per month. And how many partners do you have right now that are in that category? Um, we have a we have a good amount. You have a good amount of good amount that do that that much. In sales, it definitely varies by creator and the amount
of kind of effort they put into it. So all of their fans are kind of watching their platforms, so if they're not pushing it or promoting it, it's really hard for them to generate sales. But when they do, you know, promoted on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook wherever
they'll see kind of return in sales. And then as far as expectations when you do and turn to these partnerships with influencers, is there on your end an expectation from them to produce a certain amount of merch per quarter, per or these all this is just like from a business standpoint, do they are they obligated first, because you have a business to run. At the end of the way, well, we have, you know, we have standards and expectations that
we hope they hit. But I think for us kind of something that we've learned along the way is that even with somebody with six million followers doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be able to sell a ton of merchandise and products. Who are the people who are selling not not names, but who what's the type of influencer who's selling the most. It's a good question. I think the ones who are super genuine and good at their craft.
So somebody who is a really good storyteller, Somebody who can who has created a community instead of just a following based on their looks, Somebody who's actually you know, having influence over their fans by developing a deeper connection that I don't know rises rises above just kind of what you see scrolling through Instagram. Somebody who can connect on a deeper level. It's not just the look at me influencer, it's the we're in this together influencer. And
it's kind of hard to differentiate as well. I mean, I think as many as people that you can look on Instagram and YouTube and see, you know, views or numbers, it's hard to see who's actually gonna be able to sell products. So that's interesting because you're behind the scenes, right, so you're seeing the inner workings and actually who has influence? In our trailer we say people of influence, the real kind because nowadays everyone is an influencer or a self
dubbed influencer. And I think your business model is like very black and white as to who actually has influence because if they're if they're driving sales, they have influence. At the end of the day, we are influenced every single day for what we buy, what we listen to, how we think, even without even knowing it half the time. Has there been anything that has surprised you in working
with influencers or their lack of influence or their power. Yeah, I think the lack of influences the surprising part, just because you see, you can see the engagement, and then when they tell someone to do a swipe up or click the link in my bio and they can't generate traffic. You just started a question kind of who's following them? Are they real people? Are they just way too young to buy anything? Almost like is is all this real? Like? What's real about this? That you can't get people to
click on a link and buy something? But obviously so much of it is real because you're your company has blown up in the last two years, right, like substantially blown up. It's it's always been successful and the things that you've tried, you know, but influencers kind of took it to the next level. So there there is some power to it. I guess it's just a matter of who, Yeah,
who has that power. But it's also I mean, on the other side, it's also very surprising of who who has that power and the people who do just the amount of influence they do have over there over the people who are supporting them. And I mean obviously, like I don't want to say numbers, but they're they're just being they're able to know. We want to know numbers.
You don't have to say names, but like because because you know, I don't think people really understand how much money there is in merch which is why I thought
this interview would be fantas stick. And I was saying before we went on air that a lot of these influencers are making most of their money from merch sales, not from YouTube views, right, I mean, for the ones who are doing really well with with merchandise and an apparel, I think there are a lot of their merchandise sales have surpassed any other stream of revenue they have, So some of them are making hundreds of thousand dollars per month, and you know, that kind of goes to tell you
that they do have power, they do have um influence, and they are like starting especially with the apparel, they're starting their own trends right that they're able to kind of use they're they're um, you know, they're kind of they're able to use you know, what they like in their personal life and what they would wear and translate that into their own products. And that's kind of when they when they start wearing their own products and the
videos when they're always wearing it on Instagram. That's kind of when fans are like, this is more than just a piece of merchandise. I want to be part part
of this community that they're building. I think that piece of merchandise to other people could be a T shirt, but to some it's just it's a It kind of gets them closer to the ones that they admired the most, and they're able to to feel a deeper connection by just owning a piece of their brand or something that says something that relates to their favorite creators, and that's special.
And we see, you know, we see unpackaging, like unboxing videos all the time of just fans, you know, crying when they receive a T shirt, and some of us
are just like, why are they crying? But it's just much more than that, Like they're they're they're impacting lives on a daily basis that that we kind of can't relate to because well, one they're probably younger than us and they just have um they're almost seen as like their best friend, and they might be to us might be people who are just making YouTube videos, but to others, they actually have this like friendship connection with something that
they watched, you know, constantly and consistently. What was the because obviously you've worked with musicians and now you've moved into this influencers base. Has that been the major difference that because I know, when we think of rock stars and they're on this, it's almost like they're on a pedestal above us. With influencers, like you said, it's almost like they're in the living room with you. So now they want to support and buy. And did you notice
a direct correlation in sales between the two. Yes, so I think, which is shocking because you look at musicians and you're like, oh my god, Drake, But then I wonder how much of his tour March sold versus David Dobrick, for example. I mean, I think with musicians they can sell the issue, and the kind of challenge there is that they're not always putting out content to be able
to promote products. So if they are only pushing merchandise or products on tour or on their socials because they know they're not putting out other things in between, it might just be seen as kind of like a money grab.
Whereas like these creators and YouTubers. You know, they're constantly now content and they're not afraid to plug the merchandise, whereas someone like, you know, a famous musician might be be seen as like that's that's tacky, that's cheesy, I'm not gonna push my own products, whereas this is kind
of the livelihood of a lot of our clients. So like this generates most of the revenue for them on a monthly basis, So they're gonna promote it and they are going to push it, which yeah, musicians kind of have there's they'll promote two times, whereas like a creator will promote twenty times, and that's kind of like, you know, it's all about traffic and click throughs and people who see the product pages to eventually buy. So it's just
more much more consistent and constant with the influencers. So when influencers partner with you, is this something that are you actively seeking out partnerships with people that you think are good for the brand or is has it been an organic thing? Because I'm sure a lot of people just make introductions and they're like, hey, you should meet
with this person, they'd be great for it. And what's the process like for you now now that it's super successful and you don't have to introduce yourself when you walk into a room. They know what FANJOI is. Yeah, I mean now we have a lot of incoming kind
of client client outreach to us. For us, I think we're at the point where, in the very beginning, we were saying yes to literally everyone, which it's probably a very bad thing to do, but I think it kind of we learned along the way of not onto the traps of onboarding somebody who's not able to sell something, and now we're much more selective of who we who we bring on and mainly looking for the top tier talent that can that can build a brand and not
just put out merchandise, because I think the creators that we work with have the ability to build a brand that kind of lives far beyond their face on a T shirt. And yeah, I mean for us on the outreach side, Yeah, I'm constantly d m in top talent. Yeah, you have to you have to be you kind of have to. You know, it's either their manager or their agent or them. And I don't think it's bad to go after all three and see who responds. In the very beginning, I was only getting responses because I was
cold emailing or cold calling. So it works. So I'm going to do it, and it's probably a little easier now that you have the roster that you do yeah, and you have Yeah, we have the case studies in place to show that we have the know how and the process is to help scale a company. And they're making they're making money. It's like who's going to turn
down revenue stream? That is basically you guys are taking all the work out of So you got into the influencer space and you have all these wonderful people working for you. Jake is kind of what spear headed, I would say, is that pretty true? Spear headed the huge surge and now you have this incredible roster of people that you're working with. Can you name some of the partners on Fanjoy totally? So right now we are supporting around sixty different content creators um with building their brands,
some like David Dobrick. We have Sam and Colby, We have the Try guys. We have Adelaide Morin, we have l Mills, we have oh Man, we have a lot, we have a lot. We have Tanna. We can't forget Tanna. I feel like I need to pull out, pull out my roster. But yeah, we have a good amount, and you know, all of them are kind of unique in their own way, and they're able to connect with their audience on a much deeper level and have continue to do it for years now, and I've kind of built
up that community that supports them no matter what. And a lot of them have, you know, strong messages behind what they do. And I don't know if I mentioned Adelaide Morn, but she has a huge, you know, girls supporting Girls campaign that she's done the last two years where every month she basically donates proceeds to a new charity. You know, people are really doing good in the world with the products that they're making, which we can totally support and give. I love that, so you do a
give back. They can do percentages based on and is that through fanjoy or they do it through their own Yes, it's do the FANJROI merchandise that they sell totally. Yeah, And you know, at the end of the day, it's it's kind of their messages whatever they wanted to be and if they're able to use it for good, then you know, we support. This is an unfair question to ask,
but I'm just gonna ask it. It's like asking who your favorite child is to a mother, is there a certain partner that you just have really enjoyed working with. It's no shade to anybody else. It's just, hey, I've really enjoyed working with this person. It's okay to have favorites. We have favorite ice cream flavors. Nobody gets no I know, I I really love David Dobrick. You know, David has you know, created an incredible community with his his fan base,
and it's all via four minutes and two videos. Everybody loves David. He's just he's just the golden child. Do you know why he's the golden child. He's very likable. David's very likable. If you don't know, if you ever met David, but he has a very strong personality and passion about his filmmaking, so that every time you see him, the only thing really on his mind is what can I film for the for the next video I'm making.
So he's very determined and very driven and being able to see the scale at which his merchandise has kind of reached. The brand has has grown that you know, the clickbait brand is kind of taking on its own its own best, so it's very it's very inspired to see kind of where he was two years ago to kind of what he's doing now and kind of that growth along the way. And he's on tour doing with Jason Nash. They have that views podcast tour they've done,
which also is very you know, it's very successful. I think it's the top five top ten podcast. So yeah, I mean, he has a lot of things in the works at the moment, and it's interesting to see kind of where our clients will be in a couple of years from now, because a lot of them are you know, when we started working for them, they were nineteen. Now they're twenty three, which sounds I mean, it's still very young, and they still have kind of a long ways to
go in their career. And you know, the ones who will succeed will do great things for hopefully hopefully for the world and kind of make a big impact. That's so cool. Is there somebody is there a certain brand or a certain influencer that you can't keep product because it just always flies off the shelf. Would be David
at this point. David is one of them. Yeah, we also work with the Try Guys, who are amazing group of guys who make amazing videos and you know, they really have built you know, their brand of the last two years using their YouTube channel and using their their comedy and their wit, and I've just been able to generate a really strong bond with you know, all the
people who watch their videos. So people like the Try Guys, people like David Dobrick, people like Sam and Colby, they're just doing really well right now, and they're kind of paving the way with a lot of like the more custom pieces that we're doing as well. So for us, you know, it's all about evolving the product. So if we're able to create a much stronger product and a much higher AUDI product, then the fans are going to kind of see that and you know, want more of it.
So for us, it's always evolving and always testing what works, what their fans want, what they don't want, and then kind of going from there. So our show, we have influencers on all the time, so I'll keep my eye out and see who's a good fit for fan Joy got to be top notch, top notch talent, authentic connect with their fans will I'll have them slide directly into your d I'll be there. Where do you see fan
Joy evolving, because obviously things change constantly. Is it the company evolves or is it the type of people you are reaching out to and partnering with? Does that evolve take a little bit of both. I think I think for us, you know, we kind of have the YouTube segment. You know, talent tapped in, tapped in, you have the case that he's there. I think, you know, obviously, beauty is a big space, professional athletes is a big space.
Music is a big space. So we have these areas that we can kind of grow out and continue to do merchandise with our merchandise four. But I also think there's a the ability to kind of work with our top tier talent and just build upon the brands that they have and see what other categories we can get into, or what other products we can make outside of apparel, outside of apparel, and trying to trying to follow what Kylie did with Kylie Cosmetics, using her we all want
to follow. Yeah, yeah, we all just want to building the company. So it's kind of taking learnings from that and seeing like who else we can kind of partner with and build something at a bigger scale. That's incredible, that's really cool. So to advice to somebody who wants to follow in the footsteps not necessarily exactly what you did, but obviously you heard a lot of nose in the beginning, and it had to have been a little bit depressing, right, but you just kept going and now you have this
uber six deskbul company. So what do you say to a young entrepreneur who wants to do his own thing or her own thing. The first thing to do is just start. Start, Like I know, it's it's always you know, you're always trying to look for like the right idea, the right passion project. But if you don't start and just continue to try and evolve, you're never gonna get anywhere. I also think making sure that you're able to adapt and adjust when you see kind of the market shifting
is super powerful. And you know, how do we never have moved over to merchandise in apparel after everyone was like, no, the markets too saturated. We probably would be in the same position that we were in, but we were able to kind of adjust, We adapted, and we just kept going and kind of kept pushing and you know, all those nose it hurts. But I think we kind of just we would take the note like every ten knows
we gotta yes, and we all those yes. Is kind of kept fueling us and kept fueling the company to the next level. And once you kind of find your footing and find your your passion and it doesn't feel like work anymore, that's kind of the ultimate goal. But I never said out to kind of just chase money. It was kind of that's a good benefit of it. But my whole thing was I wanted to build something that connected people, and I wanted to find a way
to do that at scale. So with that kind of being the foundation of the company is kind of what helped get us to where we are today. The other thing that really stuck out for me as we were talking is you did not have an ego along the way. It seems like you were, like I just said, in the trenches and you didn't have a problem. D m NG. People are learning how to use photoshop, and I think that that's something that I'm noticing. Anytime I am I'm
afraid to try something. It's the thing that holds me back. So it's like just getting in there and not and just doing it. It was just you for so much of this journey. Yeah, it's really inspiring. It's also it's I mean, it's gonna be tough, but I think that's kind of what builds character, that builds you into a leader. And then eventually when you're ready to hire people, you just hire the best people that you think are good for the job. But also remember that you have the
fire fast. Never forget fire fast. Oh my god, I did forget. Thanks for reminding me. Now I can go cry under my bed. It was so nice talking to you, Chris. Thank you so much for stopping in. We are going to be doing a giveaway with some cool fanjoy product, so make sure you guys check us out on our Instagram so you can win some cool ship. You know, you just so much and I'm excited to see where Android is going to go. So we will be keeping tabs on you and I'm sure you will be surpassing Kylie.
I like that you got to put things out in the universe, and I just put that out there, so give me a cut. I got you behind the influence of the production of I Heart Radio and t DC Media