Steven Galanis
Co-founder & CEO, Cameo. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestor@Mr312 ↗LinkedIn ↗cameo.com ↗
Steven Galanis is the co-founder and CEO of Cameo, a marketplace enabling fans to buy personalized video messages from public figures. Before Cameo, he worked as an options trader at the Chicago Board of Trade and as a Senior Account Executive at LinkedIn.
2shows
2appearances
38statements
6resolved
5supported
1contradicted
83%fully supported
Everything Steven Galanis said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Cameo was the fastest-growing consumer marketplace from 2017 to 2019
“In 2017 and 2018, 2019, Cameo was the fastest growing consumer marketplace in the world.”
Lightspeed pitched Cameo as an uncopyable, bigger Snapchat
“Jeremy Liu, who wrote the first check, walked in with Nicole Quinn, the partner that would join our board from Lightspeed. And you said, Hey, Steven, it's unanimous. You know, the Lightspeed partnership wants to help build Cameo. We're gonna offer you a term s…”
Galanis: Founders must quit their day jobs before seeking his advice
“When a young entrepreneur comes into me today at the office of Cameo, the very first thing I'll ask them is, have you quit your job yet? If they haven't quit your job, I tell them to leave and let me know when they have, because if they don't have conviction i…”
Galanis: Cameo has already won the US personalized celebrity video marketplace
“We, you know, we have really high conviction that we've already won this marketplace in the US”
Cameo reached over $100M GMV before spending on paid marketing
“We were doing probably north of a hundred million in GMV before we even really started spending money on paid.”
Talent makes more money per minute on Cameo than anywhere else
“One thing that I'll argue is that the talent on Cameo make more money per minute on Cameo than anything else in the world that they do.”
Cameo is more demand-side constrained than supply-side constrained
“We're probably more demand side constrained than we are supply side constrained. So we have plenty of talent that would do more cameos.”
Cameo achieved net negative churn on the creator supply side
“On the supply side. We had net negative churn. So not only were the, like, our talent cohorts were growing every single month when you looked at our waterfall.”
Creators finishing four Cameos in 14 days stayed for life
“We had a metric called four and 14, which was like doing four cameos in your first 14 days. Like that kind of, if you did that, you were basically like locked into our platform for life.”
Cameo raised at $1B post-money on $75M net revenue
“When we raised that a billion, businesses like ours were trading eight to 12 x forward net revenue. We were a seventy-five million dollar net revenue business. We got the 12 x multiple, nine hundred million pre, hundred million post billion. It wasn't even con…”
Cameo would have died without its 90% valuation down round
“And if we didn't take the tough medicine, like we wouldn't be having this conversation right now because Cameo would have been gone.”
Galanis: Only 3% of the world has the entrepreneurial gene
“I think that three percent of the world's population has that sick gene in their head. Their personality makes them an entrepreneur.”
Galanis: True entrepreneurs can never be happy working under others
“When you're an entrepreneur, there's literally nothing you can do to be happy in any other job, no matter how amazing the place is, and you can never be your best self unless you are running the show.”
Galanis: VCs should convince founders to take their money, not vice versa
“When you're fundraising, it should never be you convincing VCs or any investor to invest in the business. You want to find that investor that seeks you out and has so much conviction about what you're doing that they spend their time convincing you to take the…”
Galanis: Cameo spent $0 on marketing while growing 1,300% in 2018
“We don't spend any money on marketing. We grew the business 1300% last year because every single cameo is a commercial for the next one”
Top 1% of athletes capture 99% of all endorsement revenue
“The top one percent athletes make 99% of all the endorsement revenue.”
The selfie replaced the autograph for shareable social proof
“The selfie is the new autograph. When you see someone famous today, you pull out your phone and you want something to go on your, you know, your Instagram you know, your Instagram grid or your Facebook wall. Like that's what you wanted. Back in the day when yo…”
In Cameo's marketplace, supply should generate its own demand
“One thing we always had high conviction about was in our marketplace, supply ought to be able to beget their own demand.”
Cameo's 500% growth in 2020 was its slowest year yet
“When we grew 500% in 2020, that was the slowest we'd ever grown in a year.”
Traffic fell 60% as Cameo hit $6M monthly burn post-COVID
“We probably took about a 50% hit. Traffic was down maybe 60% and it's like from peak to trough, you know, and that's tough because OpEx went up three or four X in that time period, right? So that's where suddenly you go from being a profitable business in, you…”
Cameo achieved profitability for a full year after three layoff rounds
“And, you know, over three, like really painful rounds of layoffs. That's what we were able to do. And the business has now been profitable for the last year.”
Down rounds enable startups to reset employee option strike prices
“So one of the nice things about bringing the valuation down is it actually enables you to reset the strike price for all of your employees.”
Galanis: Entrepreneurs must love their mission, not their product
“It is so important as an entrepreneur to fall in love with your mission, but not fall in love with your product.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Steven's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 PRODUCT MARKET FITLEDGER | Co-founder & CEO, Cameo | 1 | 25 | 50% 1/2 | full record on A Product Market Fit Show → |
 20VCLEDGER | Co-founder & CEO, Cameo | 1 | 13 | 100% 4/4 | full record on 20VC → |