Solving A Huge Problem Content Creators Are Facing Today

Market Disruptors Podcast. Today, I am sitting down with Martin Floriani from rock Finn, and we get into platforms, social media, content creators, etcetera. We talked about this growing niche, this growing area of content creation, the growing demand. We talked about the problems that content creators um face regarding that, and then we talk about how there are solutions for that today using blockchain technology. We talk about his company,

rock Fin what they're doing in this space. We get into lots of interests seen things including Facebook and Twitter, censoring what that means legally, and so many other good things. Is a really good conversation. Let's go ahead, just jump right into it, all right, guys, welcome to another episode

of the Market Disruptors Podcast. Today. I'm joined by Martin Floriani from Rock Finn and Uh, he's in a really interesting space and working on some really big problems that that are plaguing the industry, especially the way things are changed changing right now in the world. And so anyway, I'm excited to jump into this conversation. Martin, thanks for joining today, you bet. I love this. I love this kind of talk. All right, I love this kind of

talk to you. I'm really looking forward to this. So Martin, for those that are listening, why don't you just give us a little background on on who you are, what you've been doing, and then how you ended up kind of in this blockchain space. Yeah, so I I think it would start about thirteen years ago. So thirteen years ago, I decided to create a digital media platform, UH called flow Sports. At the time, it's called flow Cast. We

changed name, went to flow Sports. So co founded that, UH started that with CEO of that for about thirteen plus years, twelve, twelve and a half years, um and UM. And so essentially what we did is we saw a gap of right now. At that time, everything was linear, there was nothing digital. And what I noticed is that the big players, like the ESPN, the NBC S, they were a mile wide and inch deep across the whole

school of sports. So they were just becoming thinner and thinner across all these many sports, and linear UM made it so that they really had to fragment their time.

And so we I saw an opportunity. I saw an opportunity where saying, hey, let's let's actually be an inch wide and a mile deep within each sport, and let's go really let's try and go after all sorts of live right, let's go more in depth, in depth, authentic coverage of the sports as opposed to the surface level kind of It was basically bullshit, is what we saw. And so we decided to do that, and we called

those those inch wide, mile deep verticals. And what we found out is that by aligning ourselves with people's passions, we were able to drive a much higher lifetime value per subscriber and UM and that made them home economic model work. And so we we we took that and ran with it. And in sports that you wouldn't think that there would be an economic model like RASCU, track and field, all kinds of like these third er sports, because we couldn't go after football, right, we didn't have

any money. I was just we're just dudes, Right, we're just people trying to trying something and so um and so we just made it work and we grew the company from like zero to two fifty people. Um. They had really strong unit economics. We raised a couple of rounds of funding and uh, and so that was that was the start, And that's kind of a precursor to

what rockfan Um is. So thirteen years ago, I mean, that was still kind of in the uh early days of the Internet when really like video streaming and all that kind of first started coming along. So you're basically taking all these it's down sports that weren't really publicly accessible or available and then kind of bringing them out and then finding users that were interested in those things. Yeah. So it's funny people think like inherently there's some sports

that are better than others. But I wrestled in college. I loved wrestling. Yeah, better, better, better, Right, What does that mean? Yeah? Exactly, It's like there's just more storytelling around football, so it means more in our life. And so as this larger context people are betting on it, there's there's more social components and so that's better. But when I saw there was this wrestling community. I was like, this is awesome, and like, this is the most exciting stuff.

I'd rather watch this with the right context than football. So I said, you know, there's actually there's there's a lot of value with these rights. They just need the more of the storytelling with it. We need to package these rights in a way that that makes sense economically. And if we can do that, we can build this out and and start to actually grow this works that

were in through this storytelling. And so that's that's I mean, people say niche, but I just want to It's not like one's inherently better, it's just that one has not been tapped. And so that's kind of what our our purview was. Well, I think, uh, I think, you know, I I say actually quite a bit that I really think that the Internet is just now actually really starting to change the world. And part of that is because it's shifting our culture. And what the Internet is doing

is allowing these niches to to to come out. Right now you can have all these little different specialties and there's like a corner of the world for everybody now and so I think that's a big feature. That's a big benefit, right, Yeah, benefit also probably a liability if you're thinking like, yeah, I mean, as you get more into politics, you hear a lot about uh you know,

Ben Thompson talks a little bit about that. It's like you could find like the most perverse group and now they've got a community, right, So it's kind of like, yeah, the niches are all over good and bad at right. And so that's it's a really interesting dynamic with with the internet kind of what how it how it frat how it's able to create these communities across the world and make people feel comfortable within their own community good

and bad. Yeah, I want to talk more about that specifically, but we'll table that, So go ahead and finish and tell us how you get to where you are. So uh So, twelve and a half years at at flow Sports, huge success. Everyone's a big win from it. And and when I left flow Sports, I want to think about what I wanted to do next. It was I want to do something big, and I just as I was growing these networks, I was negotiating a lot with my friends,

people I loved in the industry. And when you do that, I'm very uh I I really could feel the leverage I had in these negotiations, especially after you do it like three times you touched start just having this gut feeling of like, wow, I have a lot of leverage here I don't have leverage. And because I was doing it with other people, it made me really the people that were my friends and people are respected, it made

me also kind of be empathetic to their side. More so I was naturally empathetic to who I was negotiating with. And so I started to realize is that it was

as an interesting dynamic. As we had more and more power in our network grew bigger and bigger, I had more and more leverage over everyone I was negotiating with, and I could extract more from them even as I was getting more and even as our valuation was going through the roof, And I was thinking, that's really interesting dynamic that the very people that have helped me build these networks. And I didn't really even formulate these thoughts until I after I left, But as I started to

think about them, I couldn't understood. I kind of felt like there's something here. But then as I was breaking them down and thinking about what I wanted to do next, I found that that it was a really interesting dynamic that this took place, that as there's exponential value in the network, that let the net work has more leverage over the people that have how building. And remember that network wouldn't even be there without those people their fundamental part.

But they're getting locked out of the increased all this increased value, and you start to I picked my head up from my own experience, started to look across the landscape. I mean, there ain't no clear example than YouTube. Sure, YouTube, YouTube, some estmates. Hundred billion dollars of equity has been built in YouTube, right, but what gets paid out to the creators is a fraction of that, and they they opt

to skate that. Like Google will never report on YouTube's YouTube stuff, on YouTube's earnings because they don't want to give that information out to people. Right. And so I think that advantage of network works, that's just a that's just a principle of life. Right. So for example, UM, I speak a lot about investing, and I say you should have multiple streams of income, right that way if

one drops off the of others. But also in like business, like as a business, you wouldn't just want one customer. The more customers you have if the big one leads you're not as affected. Um, and so obviously YouTube is the same, right, Like that that beauty pie or whatever left and he was like the largest guy. But like, does YouTube really care because that was in the big scheme of things. It was a small piece, right. Yeah, well I'd say I disagree. I don't think it's just

like the other thing. So with digital networks, there's essentially you can quantify digital networks through something called metcast law, right, which says the value the network equals the number of nodes and the network squared, right, but value of each average value of each one of those notes. And so that's that's like the most powerful, the most powerful force

in business. It's like it's like the next gen nuclear energy of all business models is uh model that leverages network effects, whereby a product or service becomes more valuable to its existing users the more people that use it. It's like if I had a T shirt business, right and selling T shirts, and I go out and sell T shirts, and every T shirt that I sell, all my existing T shirts that have already sold, get more comfortable, get a better like, get an update on the design, um, uh,

have UH feel better? Just like that that would be the most profound thing in the world. Wait, wait, your your T shirt company would explode because every time everyone knows is hey, every time I get an update here, this gets better. That's what happens with digital networks. It isn't just like any other business. This is the most The companies that have had the biggest impact and the biggest success over the last twenty years have been companies

that have leveraged digital network effects. Yeah, I mean the the Metcalfs law for those that aren't familiar with it, Like you're saying that the network effect. And it's basically like if I had a telephone and I was the only person in the world with a telephone, it's not very useful. I can't call anybody. Once there's two telephones, it's more useful. And when everybody has a telephone, they're super useful, which is like with Facebook. Now that everyone's

on Facebook, it's more useful, etcetera. Um. And and so anyway, for those that don't know, that's Metcashlon and you're absolutely right, uh it the network is no good if nobody's using it, and the more people that use it, the better it is, right, Yeah, And so this is a new dynamic that humans have have encountered over the last fifty years. So it's really brand new for us. The power of it and how

fast it moves. In the digital age, there's a different isn't just like what it was in nineteen eighty wasn't noways in nine This is a different force and the speed and power of it is completely unique. Now. It's interesting that the beneficiaries are the digital platforms and their stockholders. They get they get fucking rich, right, and then the content creator or the customers are happy because they get,

you know, a new service. But in each one of these scenarios, the content creators are one getting commoditized, right.

And so like that beauty Pie example you gave, oh he left YouTube, Well he YouTube can say that because they got a million know their content creators on the platform because of digital network effects, and they can start to leverage network against these content creators to say, hey, you know, you really want to stay on here and do some of your videos on here, right, to stay connected to your fans, to be found by new fans, to be relevant, and you don't want to just flat

out leave. And so these we call this the creators de limit because the creators want access to the network that they helped build, but at the same time they don't want to be leveraged by the network. And then the network will say, you know what, we're going to change the rules. We need change the rules. I just moved that, just did something new for this. You're changing the rules. Yeah, we're changing the rules. Why can we

do that? Well, because we own the network. We own we we own the data, and so they can figure out what does that and they don't. The content creators are not are not part of that upside. They're not part of the great aspects of network effects. They're commoditized

by and that's the problem. And that's what a lot of the tension that you're starting to see is around these digital networks is around these content creators and the fact that they're not necessarily getting compensated or they don't know if they're being compensated properly, and the rules can change on them and they have to follow these algorithms that are faceless, and they don't get it. They don't get us, they don't get any say in it. In the let's let's let's open this up a little bit.

So content creators which is what we're talking about at this moment, which is kind of this space that you're in. So content creators are anyone that's that's producing content, right obviously, um And and it's growing rapidly. I mean it's a it's a huge growing space because of the Internet. Like I said, right now everybody can make something for different niches and uh, I think it's really changed the world in the way that everybody learns, right and uh, it's

changing the education system, is changing everything. And um, I think it's been really cool where like you used to have to get on a bigger platform like be in a magazine or newspaper or on a network television. But now anybody could just start a channel and just start talking about basket weaving in Africa or whatever, right, or or large dogs in the Midwest. Right. So I could just create this this channel. I don't need a network

to do that. That's the content creators. And it's a rapidly growing space and I think it's only going to continue to expand. Um And. So you're saying there's a there's obviously, like with anything, there's there's problems in that, um and. And one of those problems is that those content creators are kind of trapped or kind of at the mercy of these these platforms that could change on any given whim. Right, is that kind of framing it up? Um?

One of the big one of the big things that I've been paying attention to in this space now, UM, is that we've seen the big platforms today where the content creators are, which is YouTube We've obviously mentioned, and

also you know, Facebook, Twitter, etcetera. Um, there's really just in the last like six months or eight months, there's been this massive push to d platform right, We've had the big one was Alex Jones with info Wars, but then Facebook kicked off like eight hundred accounts and not just right wing but right and left wing like anybody not toewing the line. We've seen it with Twitter and

so YouTube people get shut down, et cetera. And that's also what you're talking about, right where they just change the rules on you in any given time. Um, Is that is that something that you see as a problem. Is that something that you're trying to solve, Like I

guess is that like the censoring we'd call that. Yeah, So, so when you get you get into space that I'm in so I'm we leverage blockchain in a unique manner that I think is the one of the best use cases for actually using blockchain in a way that makes sense. There's a lot of projects out there now in that in that blockchain space, you get a lot of idealists who want to do everything decentralized and and create the perfect utopian product and and to me, it's just hard.

So what we took approaches is we said, you know, ultimately rock fin is a centralized, delaware c core company. We can we can do a lot of that stuff. But if we're gonna do it, it's gonna be painful, and it's gonna be painful because the content creators know their true value to the system and all throughout the process through getting the value that their content generates from the network. And so one they have the information, there's

no asymmetry of information. They actually know what what is going on in the platform, so they know their true worth and to UM they're getting the value that their content generate from the network and so UM so they have they have they have the piece of network. So if they move and leave, that will be more painful than what is the current UM. The current environment. So we're kind of set the stage. We can still do it,

but it's just gonna be more painful. It's gonna be more visible the impact that it's going to have on what we're doing, and then that visibility gives other people atunities to compete with what we're doing as well. Right, So, so we don't I don't live in a utopian world where it's like, oh, we're never gonna do this, because you know, um I was. I was the CEO of Flow Sports for twelve plus two years. I wasn't there for infinite years. I was there for twelve plus years.

A good day a right, but now there's not. Now there's someone else doing something, you might have different decision making, right, So that's gonna exist in everything. So our job is not to create utopian but just level the playing field, let it so that everyone can say, Okay, this is what's gonna happen. These are the these are the pain points that now the digital platform. We've introduced, pain points the digital platform is going to have if we don't,

if we don't act properly. So that's what I would say. Our solution is, it's not like a full solution it's a half solution. We're just leveling the playing field, so to speak, with content and and playing level in the playing field in in a sense where you're sharing more of the revenue with the content creators, not revenue. So what we do is UM. So this is how we how we um, how we do block chain. So we

give content. We're the first platform that gives content creators the full value that their content generates for the network and includes network effects. And so as when some customer comes down, they pay us nine dollars and cents to

access all of the content creators. When that happens, in the background, we have, uh, we're connected to the Ray ecosystem and we have to burn, which for people who don't necessarily know what block you know blockchain vernacular, that means we have to destroy nine dollars and cents worth of rate tokens. And there's only a finite supply of RAY, so there'll only be thirty four million rate ever minted. And it comes out at a at a minting schedule

that everybody can see and everybody can witness. So every customer that comes on, they pay us nine dollars with their credit card, nine dollars nine cents with their credit card. We go in the background, we burn nine dollars and cents worth of ray, and everybody can verify that we did that. Then what we do is is we look at the content that where and that's our way of transmitting value to the ray ecosystem and all the ray tokens.

And so if you look at the full value of the network, it is all of the ray that is in the ecosystem multiplied by the ray price. And so what that creates that very that burn process creates an absolute necessity that we need to have ray to distribute these content creators uh content. So if we want to take in the next nine dollars and cents, we need ray. We need to have ray. And so what that creates is a demand. So we have this inherent demand and

utility for this ray. And so as we get more customers, what do you think happens more demand? Hopefully we need we need more ray. We gotta burn more ray, right, and so that creates more demand on the system, and so we have to go out and get hey, we need more ray. If another digital platform wants to hook into the ray ecosystem, what happens to the demand for ray, it goes up right, And so this burning Mint system is the first of its kind that transmits the full

value in an open, transparent, transparent way to content creators. Now, when there's about a day's worth of work. Um, so it happens about a day, and I don't want to get into all the specifics, but you could understand what there. You can go deep, dig deeper and understand the mechanics

of of when the mints happened. But after day's worth of work, a mint happens, and a mint is introducing new ray into the ecosystem, and so that disdistributed to the content creators that helped acquire and retain the subscribers. And so then these content creators get this ray, and now they have an option. They can say, hey, I want to sell all my Ray, or they can say I want to sell half my ray, or they want

to say I'm gonna keep my ray. Right, so now they have this option of saying, I have the stake in the network. I can dis liquidate it all for cash or I can keep it. And I say I want to I want to keep it going moving forward. And and yeah, so they have that option, and so that is there some incentive for them to keep it,

there is a stake or something like that. No, So a key component of what we do is we keep it simple, keep it simple, We strimple, We try and strip away a lot of complexities and lect the model work for itself. And so their only incentive is this networks doing more. We don't create a vesting period. We don't do anything. We try to model. We also didn't we didn't do an I c oh, we didn't we we started with zero tokens, and we didn't give a

founder's reward. We didn't do any of that. All we do is that mint and we everyone's got to earn their take, everyone's gotta earn their their key. And we mint um ten thousand a day and then there's a half life of that. After four and a half years, that goes down to five thousand a day. And so what that does, that minting schedule does is it rewards the early adopters who come in early improb and help

bootstrap the network. So they have an option to they get essentially opportunity to earn um more ray because there's

less people on the network. If that makes them. So you had said, um, like with with the old company, UM, you felt that, um, with your position, you had this unfair advantage negotiating and you felt that with your friends and family and whatnot, and UM that that these content creators don't have this fair advantage because of this network effect that the company has, and you know that the company can then change terms and that the content creators

kind of stuck. Right, So, UM, you're I guess you're you're trying to solve that problem. And so how does this do that exactly? How does this give a more fair advantage back to the content creator just because they're earning more revenue or how do you see that? Uh, it gives them a more fair So in game theory, there's a cooperative game theory problem right where if there's ten people in the room, and if they all work together, they'll they'll get way more by working together than working

against each other. And so what happened, But there are a lot of these people are competitive, So sometimes these people don't like each other, they hate each other, but it's in their best interests if they work together in a certain manner, they would all benefit. And so in the past, what's happening is is there's this trust the third party that comes along and says, hey, you don't have to work with this guy, you just work with me.

You work with me, you work with me. They can create a consolidated offering, right which then um which which more people are are it's proven more people will then come subscribe to it. Then if you're just on an island. But then what happens is that all these people are going through trust that their party, this trust that third party has this incredible power, right because then they know all the data, they know the ins and ounces, and

they know the different aspects of each particular deal. They know where they're weak, they know where they're strong, and they know where everyone else is construct and they so they have this this really incredible advantage, and so they are able to extract more and more of the network, right, and they don't give any and ultimately what it comes down to is they don't give any of the network effects to the to the other players in the room, even though that's the whole network is based off of.

And so what happens with our systems, with our our our rock fin and the Ray ecosystem is that everybody's on the level playing field. Everyone knows the true value that they're bringing to the table. They know what everyone else as a whole is bringing to the table and where they sit in that ecosystem. And so based on and UM there's open and transparent distribution of the rewards for themselves and other people as well, and so that changes the whole game. And our goal is used to

be an efficient network. Our goal is to be and if we can be the most efficient network out there, and efficiency I would define as wording people for the full value they bring to the network. Our network will if our network will grow and explode. And because of the way metcast law works and network effects works, there's so much value to be had there by all parties, including the digital platform. So it's just a better way to operate. And it's all about transparency that solves for

this problem. And so by introducing that transparency and everyone knows the rules are and halfway through we can't change the rules because everything is embedded in a smart contract that allows people to buy into it easier. They go, oh, that's really interesting, I'm gonna I'm gonna buy into it because I know that these guys can't control it. They can't change it behind the scenes without me knowing it

and know why they're doing it or this. Then the other it would just be you can't do it with with with the blockchain, because once you set those smart contracts in place, those are there and everyone gets to see what goes on. And that's the beauty of what blocks introduced. I don't know if that made any sense or if you have Definitely I think, um, I think

I think it makes a lot of sense. Like I said, you know this, this the Internet has opened up this avenue where we have all these different niches and now we have everybody that wants to create content for these niches. So as I said, right, it's a really fast growing space. I mean I'm here producing content right, So it's a really fast growing space. And um, I think that's going

to continue to grow. And so giving those people an opportunity to earn more, I mean a lot of people can now start to earn a good living, maybe a full time living, off of creating content. So m anything that can return more money back to the content creator I think is a really good thing. Definitely, one of the big problems to solve. Um, there's other problems that

I think plague the industry as well. I'm curious about Um, we've I I kind of touched on like the d platform and and um, I want to I want to know, like with platforms like YouTube for example, or Facebook. UM, I believe they you know, I believe there's a difference in how the platform is set up. And I'm curious how you navigate this. So, um, if they're just a platform that allows people to post content, then they're not

liable for things that may happen on that platform. However, once they start to censor that, now all of a sudden, they can start assuming liability for content. Um, I believe that's right. Is that how you understand that? And how is Rock Finn going to be a fit inside of that? Yeah, so we're gonna, uh, we're gonna fall really stripped, Like we don't want to get into the mess. I think YouTube and these other players have stepped in and I don't know, we're neutral or you'll be Yeah, we're gonna

be more neutral. We're we're well, obviously we're gonna protect people so that they don't you know, they're if they're threats made against them, that's not appropriate. Or if you're you're caught, you know, you're you're inciting violence against someone. So we're gonna we're gonna be really thoughtful about those different components. And if we're not, and we're not gonna have no time, we're gonna have zero powers for that, frankly,

and we want people's safety to be protected. But you know the cover of hate speech, right, it's like hate speech, it's um, I think it's uh, what what is hate speech? Right? That goes back to your comment earlier about good and bad. I mean something good to me is something bad to you? Right? Like where do you draw that line? Yeah, so I mean that's what they you know, they use it to try and um invoke this um this reaction towards it, and and anything like that can be can be turned

on people. Right. So yeah, we can all agree on what this is and that's bad. But you know we're um, we're very much along the lines of free speech and free speeches about you know, being being an adult. Now we know there is there is there something legally though, Like I said, I was reading about Facebook and YouTube where um, if they allow it to be more open, they're just a platform. They're not liable. But once they start censoring, they take on some legal liability and they

could be sued for content. Do you know anything about that? So that's um, I believe that's part of the d m C, a Digital Millennium Copyright Act that was uh um introduced maybe or two you know of twenty years ago, let's just say years ago, which essentially gave these platforms. Um. Uh, they gave them they said, hey, you know, we're not gonna hold you liable in these certain circumstances, and so

they gave them immunity in those certain certaintances. There's a process that they have to go through to eliminate into reduces contrary content that might have copyright, and they have to follow these certain protocols. Um. But they're not they're not held liable to it. But now they're now they're coming in more like media companies right where they're coming in and saying this is what you can say, this

is what you can't say. And um, there's a political reaction to it because uh, well most frankly, most of it's happening on the right. You said there's someone on the loft. Yeah, there's something a lot a lot of it's happening on the right, and so what you're you're certainty have happened is that Frankly, the Republicans in the

government are saying, this is this bullshit. You've got immunity here, but you're not allowing certain spaces because you're just you know, you're saying that, well, that's fine, you can do that private company, but you don't get that immunity yet. And so that's kind of what they're hanging over their head and they're certain to see some pushback back and forth

on it. Said, Okay, this immunity doesn't apply to you if you want to affect this, so let's let's let's let's retract that immunity, or we say this immunity is based on the condition that you actually have free speech. So that's kind of like the chess game going on right now in d C of where that's exactly that's exactly what I was talking about. So rock Fan is going to stay on the more neutral side where you fit within that and not trying to get to the

censorship side. Hopefully. Yeah. I mean, well here's the thing. You know, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, they didn't dare do this when they're when they're bootstrapping their network. Of course, going

their network as big and powerful as they can. They created zero friction, right, there's zero friction around around um these problems right because they didn't introduce some Why because their goal is to get the next person on the platform to get those network effects, because there's consponential value when you can add, and then once your network is as powerful as it is, then you can turn, then you can switch and so and that's when they've changed

the rules, is when they've when their network has grown so big they can say, Okay, now we're gonna switch rules, and we're gonna go do this. And then somebody spent five years building a platform to a million people and then they just switched the rules. You're like, exactly exactly, and so now they now they've got all your customers on. Now they've got leveraged, right, And so that's the dynamic.

You know, if Facebook and Google or Facebook and YouTube and these platforms they did it from the get go, I don't think you'd get that reaction because people know what they're getting the fact that they switched the rules, um halfway through that is upsetting people from what from what I gather Yeah, cool, good conversation. Now I to wrap this up unfortunately running a little bit long here, but I'm just curious. Um, you know, we talk about

these different platforms. Are you like a video content platform rock fan or is what kind of content is there on the platform. So we actually just introduced written. We're content agnostic. Um, Like I said, customers can come on, they pay nine dollars cents, they get the access all of the content. And um, we we take creators that are written, podcasts or video. Okay, good, all right, Yeah,

interesting project. I think, like I said, this content, uh, the content creator space is going to be rapidly growing. I think it's just barely getting started. So it's a it's a great space to be in for you and um, definitely solving some real problems. So it's definitely something I'll be keeping an eye on. Where would people be able to follow to keep to keep an eye on it as well. Um, So you come to rock fan dot

com are okay f I n dot com? Um, if you're a creator, you want to apply, you can apply at creators at rock Fan dot com. Um. And yeah, we think what we're doing is transformed and so we're excited about the future. Yeah, awesome, all right, good talk. Thanks so much for taking the time as uh is great learning more about that, and we'll be keep an eye sounds good. Hey, if you like this episode of The Market Disruptors Podcast, please help us take this to

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