The Exchanges

Q That's in the top one percent of the market, which typically is the percentage of the market that makes the most money. Um, with passes, you're, you're helping out creators from, like, All ends of the spectrum. So what, what does it take to make it to the one percent and how are you helping emerging creators get to that place?

A Yeah, so I think that content is king in this, uh, when it comes to making it to the top one percent, both on passes and on outside platforms. If you look at, like, the creators that are doing the best, uh, they're typically posting every single day on passes, but also every single day on Instagram Reels and TikTok. Uh, I would say that Instagram Reels and TikTok are probably the best for discovery, so if you're posting one Reel a day, um, or one TikTok a day, you really only need, like, one hit, for example, to suddenly go viral, and then you gain a bunch of new followers, which a percentage will convert into Super fans, and then you can monetize off them, um, with passes. Um, I would say, like, we actually try to predict creator earnings based off of, like, how much they're putting out on Instagram Reels and TikTok, and we weigh that more, because we know that, um, they're constantly gaining new subscribers, which means that even if their old subscribers churn, it's not as big of a deal, and we see that the creators that are putting out daily content are actually making more month over month, versus if you're not someone that posts content, like, you might get a wave of subscribers at first, But, um, you know, they churn, and then that sucks.

AI assessment note: “content is king in this, uh, when it comes to making it to the top”

Q So you are known for your parties and events. Um, Passes has thrown some big things. You've had big activations. I just saw that you guys did An event at the Jake Paul fight with better. How have you like, how have you managed to strategize at least brand activations and getting creators together and creating this flywheel of like hype and coolness?

A Yeah, so we try to not do big parties very often, because then it loses its, like, you know, magic to it, um, and the hype, but, uh, I've honestly given my marketing team, like, zero dollars, so a lot of, um, pretty much all our parties come out to break even, or, like, net positive, um, which is nice, and we can just do this based off of parties that, like, I've thrown by myself. I remember, like, our first party that, like, we actually You try to get sponsors for. It was because I had thrown a birthday party that I paid for by myself, and, um, we had insane guests, like insane musical performances, et cetera, and just based off of that, sponsors are willing to come in and do our next party, so every single party gets better, um, because we have more money to put into it, which is awesome, um, and then, yeah, like we just invite our creator friends, like usually you have special guest DJs, and that is enough to bring people out, um, I think that because we don't Throw a bad party, or we haven't thrown a bad party, um, people are just willing to show up, like, they beg to show up. Um, we've had people offer to pay, like, 10 grand for, to come. And they're not on the guest list.

AI assessment note: “sponsors are willing to come in and do our next party, so every single party gets better”

Q This might be a change in the subject, but What are the biggest misconceptions that you faced while building out passes? Is there like a narrative that you've been fighting against? What, like, what have you been trying to hold accountable to and like really strengthen so people don't miss, like there's no misconception around the brand?

A Yeah, I think that the main misconception around a brand is people think that you have to be a hot girl or a hot guy to like make tons of money on passes or that like you're doing like Nude content on passes to be able to make money, but, uh, I mean, like, that's just the biggest misconception, because we actually don't allow for any nudity, um, if you try to upload, uh, something, it will get taken down and flagged, and it's actually, like, the filters are maybe a little bit too strict. For example, um, we had a lot of creators have issues, because they were doing, like, cosplay outfits and bodysuits, and then that would get taken down, even though they were completely covered from head to toe. Um, people of, like, all different niches are making money, Right? Like, it's not just hot guys, hot girls. So, um, that's been a misconception that we have been fighting. Um, a lot of our creators will make money literally just doing, like, a neck up selfies, and they're still making, like, a 100,000 a month. Like, don't know what to tell everyone. Um, but we are working with, like, podcasters, musicians, athletes, etc. Like, we have universities signed to us, and we're working with their NIL programs. They're developing our own NIL fund with the university. Um, so there's so many different ways to make money on passes, and, uh, I think that, like, The message out there is just like, w…

AI assessment note: “the main misconception around a brand is people think that you have to be a hot girl”

Q Phenomenal. Okay, not bad. I can see that. Um, as we look back on your career, you're very well accomplished. You were a Teal Fellow, Forbes, 30 Under 30. You helped found Scale AI, and then you went on to found Backend Capital, HF Zero. You're now founding Passes. What are your long-term goals, and are you gonna continue building?

A I mean, my long-term goal right now, um, depends what you call long-term, but, like, for the next decade, I obviously want passes to go public, so working very, very hard on that. Um, I think long, long-term, I've always had this dream to start a non-profit, um, combating human trafficking, and, um, I go back and forth on whether it makes sense for, like, me to do it, or whether I should just do what I'm good at, which is making money and donating to it, because I think a lot of people, like, decide they want to start a non-profit, but they don't really know how to To do it, right? Um, but they do it out of ego, versus, like, um, other people realize, oh, like, this person might be doing it better than me, like, I should just donate, um, so I'm going back and forth on that, but, like, how I would want to do it is probably, like, use technology to help combat it, like, I read a story about how someone created a very simple website where you could just submit pictures of, like, hotel rooms, and they ended up collecting millions of images of hotel rooms, and, um, the police were able to use this, like, backtrack and find out which hotels, like, People were trafficked in, um, which is very cool and so simple, and I bet there's, like, a million other ideas that can be done, um, to help combat it.

AI assessment note: “for the next decade, I obviously want passes to go public”

Q around the table, it was full of creators, it was full of founders, investors, some crypto people, so we got a diverse set of opinions, and I'm curious from your perspective, being boots on the ground in the creator space, What do you think consumer social is going to end up like? Are we going to be VR? Are we going to be in real life? Where do we go?

A I mean, I'm very biased, but I think the future of consumer social is what we're building right now, because right now creators are finding that, um, they don't like the algorithm because it's so unpredictable, um, and that brand deals are just really disappearing. So creators are really trying to figure out a way to like make money full time. Um, I think we saw this during the pandemic where, um, creators realized that their income was more unstable than they had initially thought, um, and they had started seeking, um, their fans to, like, essentially support them, um, which is when, like, Patreon really blew up, right? They raised a four billion dollar valuation, um, OnlyFans blew up, et cetera, uh, and I just saw an opening in the market, um, for, I just, like, direct fan to creator interactions, um, so creators Can make a living and, like, really be an entrepreneur. Um, so here I am building passes, and I hope we are the future of the creator economy.

AI assessment note: “I think the future of consumer social is what we're building right now”

Q I guess going off of that, and what these traditional agencies offer, What is your end goal? Is your end goal to be one of these very large agencies? What is the billion dollar passes look like to you?

A I mean, I think the billion dollar passes is that, well, to be quite, like, if we're being very blunt, like, I think we will reach, like, a billion dollars doing nothing more except getting new creators, but obviously, like, we have bigger ambitions than that, right? So, um, for us, it's like, how do we create generational wealth for these creators? Like, the most common question I get asked is, how do I turn passes income into passes equity? Uh, which is very interesting, because we have created a lot of accredited investors, um, A lot of creators are making six figures a month, so you can imagine there's some pretty interesting things we can do there in terms of, like, fintech products, um, but then also we have more monetization data than, like, really any other platform, like, from other platforms you can see, like, how many likes someone's getting, how many comments, etc, but you don't really see the, like, conversion rate in terms of, like, who is willing to buy something based off of your posts versus we get the direct conversion of, um, creators, like, fans on Instagram to passes, um, we can see, like, what percentage converts, we can see, like, there's Spending power. Like, um, do these creators have fans that are willing to spend, like, 500 dollars a month, or is it closer to 20 dollars a month, or is it closer to 5000 dollars a month? Like, some creators, um, their m…

AI assessment note: “I think the billion dollar passes is that... obviously, like, we have bigger ambitions”