How CFO Systems Can Centralize the UGC Economy & Scale Creator Marketplaces with Princewill

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0:25 No complicated formats in no design headaches. Just clean modern presentations that communicate your ideas clearly and professionally. If you want to present like a pro, Sign up today using the tool stack link in the description below and start creating smarter camera. Wow, so a little bit color. We've been speaking about creator hub like for us to have your Co founder on board to talk about the journey of this solution that you've created.

0:57 So ladies and gentlemen, please make welcome. I call him different titles, but I'm just going to call him Prince. The Prince will the Prince of Ireland. Everyone, Sir, I'm good. I'm good, I'm good. Lovely to be here. Thank you for having me. Wow, wow. So Olumka has actually said a lot of great stuff about me, but why did you decide to jump on board the Creator Hub journey?

1:23 Interesting question. I have answered this question loads of times and I think I give different variations to to it right? But I think for the sake of this interaction I might try and go a little bit in depth. I think I'll talk about myself before jumping into creator as well. I think I don't like seeing people in pain in general. I try to want to solve.

1:46 If I can't solve minds of theirs, if there is a lack, I want to insert myself to see how I can help. Might not be able to help you 100% but is searching the right direction to go. So Olukala obviously is a creator and has been having the pinpoint of trying to find businesses to work with. Spear in Ireland for a pinpoint of you take a lot of time to find the business to work with, then it's that is a free collaboration, not the paid 1.

2:10 So that's another pinpoint as well. Second thing is it collaboration but the cost, the money is too small. The top thing could be is a put collaboration and the percentage of fees being taken from PayPal or whatever platform the brands or businesses are using is a lot as well. So, so many problems as well.

2:32 Also it disjointed probably when it comes to centralized system for user jointed content creators in Europe, A disjointed system for getting the jobs, a decentralized system for working with agencies. So many issues going on with with that with which we disadjointed content community. I have a background, I have a technical background.

2:57 I have been in my net to five. Typically, I would be probably looking for ways to bring data together in a centralized system, given a holistic view of how to see things and how to get metrics to leadership if needed to make business decision. Again, back to my bargain of trying to solve everybody's problem. I like, you know what, why don't you beat something and let's see how it goes.

3:16 So we talked about that for it was 2024. We talked about that first half of 2024. Even before December, we wanted to work on Creator Hub where I started looking at the name. I started looking at all the wrong things, right? Looking at the name, it is quite exciting. But when we never got to it, I spoke to a couple of friends that I wanted to do this because again, maybe I was, I didn't like working 95 at the time, maybe due to burnout, and I wanted something exciting and I found it. So I spoke to a few of my friends, someone who was a who knew Python but was a pattern developer to understand what's going on.

3:52 But it seems like most of the people around me were still on their 95 rat race and maybe we're not thinking in that direction. So that was a pain then where we live as well. We had a a a couple who were, and I hope maybe they see this as well, a couple who one was a mobile developer and the wife was a software tester.

4:11 So I like tell you a little bit about good. Let's go pitch to them and see what they can do for us. Again, I don't think I understood the scale of what crater could be nowadays in the process of building. I'm telling that where you start from is nowhere. You finish and there's loads of of yes and iterations.

4:29 I have the day and loads of because I had to in this process get a new Instagram that just for business completely just to understand how business works. My wife wants me to read books, but I don't like reading books. I'm a visual person, so I like watching videos and stuff. I had a new Instagram that was just clearly on all things entrepreneurs things have products, businesses and all of that.

4:51 So I started learning, understanding and the most common thing they'll talk about is just start. And from there, eventually it will open models of iteration. So the couple we pitch to them. But again, everybody is at different stages in life when you want to do stuff or do things. So that didn't fly.

5:07 So this was around probably March, April 2024 up until again towards the end of 2024 around November. Then I'll have it's time to pick this up again. I reached out to a friend of mine. So I, I tend to know people, so I tend to ask people how to proceed. So one of my friends, younger brother who is a junior developer, I said, OK, this is what I want to do. How do we do this?

5:28 And what a domain from GoDaddy and oh, maybe you can use another situation, use another platform, that kind of thing. So this is really going wrong for the very beginning. It got to the point where he now said, OK, I need AI, need you to get me a designer who will build and design the prototype that I can develop. Cool, that makes sense.

5:47 So that moves to my wife's cousin Toby, excellent guy as well, helped us put structure on what kind of is Creator right now. I spoke to him, he said he gave us I think a designer, He gave us a product, a product person as well and he gave us a project manager and he gave us the developers. So we started that.

6:10 So why are you trying to build Creator Hub without understanding what's going on? He provided a lot of insight into you want to keep people in the community. So did the definition of report type of critical is have a way of catering to the UTC committee in Europe in general wanted the words, but we know there's a market for everybody, but we knew the American macro very saturated, which was the issue.

6:33 Reason why I wanted to do this for Europe, because from Europe couldn't get businesses or brands to work with her from the states, maybe due to shipping the product. It was a software product. It made sense you could go to the App Store and you couldn't get it done, but it was a physical product that didn't ship to you that was a problem and they probably didn't want to work with logistic issues outside the United States. So it made sense that they, they had their own committee who are trying to have one committee.

6:57 Then before that there was buzz about TikTok shop, right? But TikTok shop was in the UK, which angered us more because Ireland seemed to be the one to get lost of everything. And I was like, no, that doesn't make sense to me, right? The Irish economy is growing. We could tap into that as well. And from there tap into Europe. Yes, Ireland, they do care about businesses as well. So we try to go through that, that, that route. Obviously we're bootstrapping.

7:21 There was no money on board, so we had to find a way to make things work without designer. So holistically, the aim of Creator was to get a, a, an application that caters to a community for UGC creators. I kind of want to mirror everything LinkedIn does because you can connect to professionals, you can find jobs, you can get business opportunities, you can get referrals and everything else.

7:45 So what better way to mirror than mirror something that already works and try and put that in a niche that's UGC. So from there had a design I wanted to mirror the entire life cycle of UGC, right. We all know the minimum of our products need maybe 1 features to get it done. But this was not just as an industry that is starting.

8:07 So the industry that's already there, we've seen other products that are not finding exactly what Yeah and creator could be. So it wasn't a situation where the MVP was going to be small, which way I didn't want to call it an MVP, but it's still your first, your first situation, your version 1. So it is what it is, regardless of how many features we had.

8:26 Now, the features we had, those people were telling me that they were too much. Yeah, but the features were very important to the entire user life cycle. They couldn't be disconnected. They couldn't be a situation where you wanted a contract part and not have an invoice part. Now an invoice part comes later. That couldn't work The the project was quite interesting because the entire life cycle had to be built in one which was the MVP.

8:51 So because of that it was loads of features and loads of people telling me including this is too much. If I understand your problem correctly, which is the entire UGC life cycle, then all of this needs to be there not in the most the greatest way. It is of time, maternal functionality at the very core. That is what creator can be and which way from there. So I sat down with Ubukala and told me she she create. She explained the UGC life cycle from beginning to the end. End.

9:15 What step do you need to take? What Who does this? When does the creator do something? When does the business do something? When are the the content exchange As a creator they are trying to solve things for the creator point of view. You don't you want the fact that we can put that one in escrow and you want creators to see that money in their wallet even if you can't access it, at least to know that they will get paid and you want a situation where they can get paid quickly.

9:40 You don't want a situation where the fees are too much. You want businesses to be happy way, instead of providing up and down, finding agencies and finding different people to get them talent, you can just walk into creator hub. You can put a job out there and let people know they can apply. We try to make that better because you don't want it to be a proper job interview, right? So put a video resume, talk about yourself and why you think you're the best person for the job and put your portfolio out there.

10:07 And again, you try to convince people why you think you're a best fit because it's both ways, right? So situations like that, we're trying to look out, look out for how to solve the problem for both businesses and for both creators. So I think that is the main point of what I jumped into Creator Hub.

10:23 Well, interesting. So what I love very much about Creator Hub and of course the expose that you've given us is the position and you're different from the competitors. You actually incorporate the whole life cycle of fugacy into your platform, right? But you would agree with me that it is very difficult when I say balancing trust and efficiency in business, right? Because in order to achieve trust, sometimes you need to have certain bureaucratic processes, right? So like how are you guys going to balance efficiency and trust, building trust with this platform? And that's a very good question.

11:10 It's very, I'm happy you use word trust. I have six years of background in Amazon and the first leadership principle that you learn is customer trust. For example, when I have to work as a customer support and cloud engineer, when the customer comes to you with their problem, it's maybe it's a issue of their production servers are down and they're losing money. That kind of situation you your your your aim of being efficient can lead to trust.

11:37 For example, you can calm them down. You can get on it if it was a chat, you can get on the call quickly to more efficient and get on the screen share. You can do things within how you work your ways of working to make sure that your efficient and solve their issues, which brings trust. For example, you could say, hey, I'm going to take a look at this.

11:57 Give me a SEC. I'll come back to you and not just run and not come back. Or you can say you're going to follow up and you do follow up, you don't just discard. So you're aware of working, which brings efficiency. We lead to trust to mirror that to Creator Hub. The aim is to make sure that I'm a soccer for details, very detailed oriented. I want this to work a certain way. Obviously, I'm always ready to pivot when I think it's time to pivot.

12:23 The aim for efficiency and trust for Creator Hub is 2 things, right? Or two ways from both the creators and both the businesses. Once you have the escrow payment for me, which one? The biggest way of trust is to say, hey, we are going to mediators between both, bridge the gap between both creators and both businesses. Hey business, you can pay us the money then to pay the creator the money, right?

12:44 Once you can agree there's quality of work both ways, you can release that money and goes to them. And if there's an issue, we can arbitrate on your behalf. And arbitration can be a situation where the brands, maybe the creator didn't meet the deadlines on time and the brand pushed the deadlines forward and they give the creator time to create the content or asking for too many iterations and taking advantage. So solving that problem brings of it in an efficient way can lead to trust on that situation of balancing efficiency and trusting greater.

13:15 Obviously situation where we've introduced collaboration at every point in the in the UGC life cycle, there is a place where a chat system that for example, is when you've been offered a job by business, you can say, hey, this doesn't work for me, how can we do that? Instead of having to find ways of reaching out to them, emailing, you can use that chat system and send it to them. That brings collaboration, that being efficiency that leads to trust.

13:40 You can have that aspect in the offer page and have that aspect also in the contract page, which are very important, right? You also we have the ability to have a calendar management system that can probably be available through the entire life cycle of that job in Creator Hub where you can schedule a meeting with the business as well to get clarity.

13:59 All of these simple features that lead to efficiency of getting the job done between both parties definitely can lead to trust. It's not even the situation of the aim of trust. And Creator Hub is not for us as founders, but for the system itself. People trust in the system to do the work efficiently for both between the brands and the creators without us having to interfere. So the system of Creator Hub is built on trust and hopefully, hopefully the features that are efficient enough can lead to the trust that we're.

14:30 Talking about but interesting stuff, you know, there was a millionaire on this podcast that told me something He says the defense between successful people and not so successful people is the the time between idea and execution. And when I look into my screen, I see Hollywood color as the idea. I see you as the executor.

14:51 So how are you guys able to balance that time span between idea and execution And yeah, definitely there I want. To take this one. There will be clashes between idea and execution. You got that right. I think I want to take this one because it's something to today we're currently struggling with. I'm a passionate, very creative person. So I see things from the creative side and it sees things from the, you know, business logical side. So when I'm like, oh babe, OK, for example, the landing page or let's change this.

15:22 Let's change that. You'll be like, did the landing page for now, functionality, functionality. Let's focus on the web app. OK, what are the bugs? What do we need to fix? It's true because I'm so good shot. I'm not saying so I take information from so many places, right? I'm taking information from Y Combinator, from YC, from NYC founders, my I call you my school of Instagram with my Instagram page of just loads of businesses and general page.

15:50 And at the very beginning it's about getting your product added to solve the issue, right. But at the very beginning, I will, I will admit to Bukola that I was very let's let's get the court in which is important as well. But because this is a creative space as well, want to be careful. I understand, understand that that now that you you need to do certain things in in this in the landing page, for example, to each to show your story, because you are a creative space. You don't want your landing page to be so serious that it doesn't reflect exactly who you are.

16:21 So I I understand that. Yeah, go ahead. So, so back to idea, but let's give it back to the idea. So like what are the clashes between idea and execution? I think there's so many, I would say because I'm always thinking about the customers. I'm very, I'm very customer oriented, very I'm thinking about the problem and the solution we're doing to solve the specific problem, right.

16:43 Most of the times I try to avoid distractions where we need to do that. I'm like, how does it help the customer? Have the customer actually asked for that? You do not want to build something or keep a feature that doesn't help them and becomes useless. Time, money and resources. I would say bookie, the core obviously issue and problem that Kritov is trying to solve for some bookies problem, But I would kind of say I'm the ideal person because at a random time at night, I ask random questions around 2:00 AM, three AM, Hey, what do you think about this? What I think about that?

17:13 This will help this. Is constantly thinking of new ideas there's new ways we can solve the problem and I keep telling him you know well so husband and wife like so this time frame, you know, I want to set boundaries let's not talk business let's just be husband and wife. But then he'll be like no no, no, we're building our face baby. It has to be like this, you know, we have to talk about it all the time.

17:36 And I'm like. OK, no, I agree because I still maintain that now because it's a startup again, like I said, I've been certain myself in that startup consumer information to understand what what this entails and I tried to put myself, I tried to leave it. I can't remember his name. The former CEO of White Combinator that created Twitch, that sold it. He will always say a startup is a situation where you quit a job for one year, You, you eat ramen for one year and you stay in one.

18:07 You, you kill yourself basically, right? You deny yourself. And if you are really serious by your startup, you have to do that because you have to devote your all into that to make that happen. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Of course, I'm thinking of the problem, right? And and because like I said, the problem, one of the problem we're trying to solve is the decentralization of UGC in general. Yes, we still agree that we platform like Twitter and or X where a lot of creators will go to find jobs or people take advantage to find people, which is disjointed. And it asks me, because I'm like, how can we find a way to get these people to create a hub where this way they're communicating, they can

18:43 communicate on our feeds page, they can meet people who are clearly UGC creators from different parts of the world, right? That can solve their problems, get the businesses there as well. Have a pick with, based on the advanced features and filters we have to pick creators from different countries and different skill sets and different experiences and different niches, right, to get your job done.

19:05 So I'm always constantly thinking about that. I'm thinking about next step or how can we introduce our tenures to help maybe businesses get more, get their jobs or get more talent for their jobs quickly or in a quick, quick and efficient manner. How can we make sure that we give creators the best chance of being able to pitch to businesses and get jobs? Because most of these creators, they do this full time and which means they live on this.

19:28 So we need to put our best foot forward to make sure the platform is good enough to give them the ability to be creative. Because Bucola does TikTok shop as well and I've seen her do video and it's actually quite cool, right? It's not maybe sometimes into voice something I understand right And I'm based on that I can understand which is coming from in terms of when she has different ideas on how to take those ideas and use them from creator.

19:51 Hope I don't know if that helps as a big struggle we still have today. Let me also add this. That that I totally understand. In terms of ideas, a very good example is when we're building Creator, I wanted it to be 4 and I wanted it to be you know and have and everything you know, something you can just pick your phone like.

20:10 Maybe an Instagram or something. It was like, no, this is a SAS product, this has to be structured. I was like, babe, you're creating a boring product. I remember that like, it's boring, it needs to be fun. It's like, and now I actually love products because it does solve the problem and it kind of bridges the gap and kind of centralizes the old UGC cycle and it makes it so fun because at the end of the day, my branding came into play.

20:43 So that is like the fun bit of it. And then kind of we kind of, you know, complement each other in the processes as well. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. It used to new processes. It was successful. It's just this stuff, but sometimes I find myself conflicted, like feeling like, oh, maybe I'm like a hybrid of the tool of you because I'm a content creator.

21:02 However, like I have a corporate background. I have a technical background, finance tech and like meeting a person like Olu book color, like she she had to start pushing the creative side of me more like, for example, like this geographic is rubbish. What makes it interesting is you know, somebody telling you very calmly, but in my head I'm like, oh, do you think about the structure of the content?

21:29 Do you think about the best? I'm more concerned about the message than the the cover, right, because you know, for a person who would I say ease more premium to structure the feel like, OK, ensure that the core is actually functional. Get it, Because when you actually place premium on function, you can actually change the aesthetics later.

21:51 But if the core function is actually compromised, it's just like what the Bible says. If the foundation to destroy what kind of righteous do over time these actually discovered that you need to balance actually need to balance both both worlds, right. But I'll put the two of you on the spot right now. And of course I know that you guys are very busy. I will need to go pretty soon, right. So we have business and creators that is brands and creators and that is what you guys do right.

22:22 So I'll let Buki take the part of convincing the creators and I'll let Prince will take the part of convincing the brand. So if you had just 120 seconds to give a teach right now to the people listening to this podcast today, right, Bookie, what are you going to tell the creators, right, To convince them to use Creator Hub? Why Creator Hub?

22:49 Why are you different from the others? All right. So talking from a creator perspective, because I myself, I'm a creator to this date, I didn't, you know, give up on being a creator. I would say this, it really helps you streamline the process. It makes it easy for negotiations because we have a negotiation chat box and it makes it easy for you to live your life.

23:09 Creator Hub is an only one marketplace platforms that caters to the entire life cycle of AEGC project. So we're talking from discovery, the brands discovering you. We're talking delivering the content, negotiation tracks, voicing literally everything. You don't need like 7 apps to use Create Hub. All you need to start one app, Create Hub, that one web app, that one page that was software and your life is easier. And think of when all those admin is gone, all that time that is left, how you can use it to get more jobs, make more videos and even go ahead and technics your income well. Thank you very much.

23:50 And now, now I feel, I feel convinced as a creator, but as a business. Time starts now. Why should I? You use Creator Hub and probably there might be investors, you know, watching these. So, so why, why should why should, why should you know the investors invest in Creator Hub as well. Maybe you chip that in? Yeah, big, big question though.

24:13 Hopefully I can talk about, Bucola said. If you have, if you don't have the skill sets right and you want to advertise right, distribution is very important. We are actually trying to distribute for Creator Hub distribution and marketing. If you do not have the skill set and you have social media pages and you want to get your brand out there to millions of people, you need the best people who can embody your brand and put your message out there.

24:36 That's what creator will do for you as a bra, as a business. If you want a situation where you don't have to deal with agencies, I'll deal with so many people. I'm not comfort agencies. But you want just a 11 shop place, right? You can find creators for different countries, different situations.

24:51 You can negotiate where you your rates, what you want and you can pay them off and you can get your content and you can put that on your platforms. From an investor point of view, creator market is I think the last I check is more than 10 billion markets and still growing and way different aspect of of being a creator is coming up.

25:07 We want AI ads as well coming up as well. Regardless of technology used to be a creator, you need a place to source for these creators and that is one of the values that's creator room for you when you do invest in creator. Fantastic. I think at this point I'm actually convinced already. So before I let you guys go, I'm going to put you through the Pacific Ring of Fire.

25:27 That is the quick fire round section. So very, very big thank you to both of you. I always say this, that when a person shares their time with you, they share their life with you. Because the SI unit for measuring life is time and of course, brutal to you guys for creating an amazing, amazing product. I can very much relate to it.

25:44 Being a content creator, you are making life easier for millions of people across the world. So those to you. So Are you ready to rumble? So I'm number one question, who's going to take this? OK anybody can take it #1 What is 1 mistake you would avoid E founding creator hub again. I will try and get my customers very early, get that wait list, that waiting list, we did that as well, but we didn't do it that efficiently. So get that waiting list from both businesses and both both creators.

26:15 Start shouting to the rooftop about your project and the problem itself is very important, but does. Bookie have something to say to that question because I thought, I thought principal would say the mistake you'd avoid is arguing with Bookie too much on the creative process. No, it's. Good. You know, it's, it's yes, frustrating, right?

26:33 But if you don't have someone who can bring you down to earth, I'm a big dreamer, I can dream. If you don't have someone who can bring you down to earth and challenge you, then you will not improve. Actually, let me just quickly add to that. The thing is the way Prince and I argue, it kind of helps because we find out, OK?

26:52 It's kind of like proof testing. Creator hope you challenge me and give me this question and giving this issue and I'll challenge you back. And then, you know, we rub off and learn from our experiences. In that moment. It might be like, why in the heat of the argument? But later we go back and we think it true.

27:09 And then you come to me and I'm like, oh, you were right too. I shouldn't have done this. And I'll be like, I hardly do though. But in my mind I'll be like, oh, freezes, right? But I hardly do it physically. Oh yeah. I know I'm right too. Working on that. Whoa #2 question is what is 1 metric that you now obsessed over?

27:29 I think Princeville is the best person for this question. This song is actually better then. So, okay, let me see. Okay, So what is 1 metric that you obsess? Over that's a good question because when you process of distribution and marketing after it, you said one bar, can I give you 2? I think the first one is obviously trying to get people to use Creator Hub. That's so getting users which are both businesses and both creators to use Creator Hub.

27:56 That's my #1 metrics to get their feedback to see, hey, does this actually proper solve your problem and what what is not working? I love that word what isn't working? Wouldn't you like I don't want you to feel my good and telling this is good. I want you to tell me what's not working. First metric is obviously getting people in to test it.

28:12 Sub of that metric is what you like what you don't like to validate to move forward. And I think the third part sub of that metric is are the features breaking? Are they helpful to you? Are the the aim of how we've done things right? Does that work for you all? Would you like to see things in a different way and for us to implement? That So what is 1 task that you would say you delegated too late in terms of operations?

28:40 That's a good question. I'll say hiring the right person to do the job, yes, you might have the skill set to do it for this, only somebody better than you. So if you feel you need to go hire the person to do that skill set right, do that for you, I would say go delegate quickly and do that because it frees your time down struggling to implement it. Get an expert to do it for you.

29:01 You can get a UGC creator to do it for you to create a hub, right? So you're struggling to do the content yourself, and you can have time to focus on other things as well. I think the next question will be for bookie What is 1 belief about the creator economy that you consider to be untrue? The popular belief about the Creator I. Think the point but still the popular belief is a lot of people think what we're doing is a joke. A lot of people don't think this is a source of living. I have creators that you know they've told me you know not directly what three life platform that someone called them out.

29:34 I was like, go get a job. But then what she did was screenshot that Annie's. I sent it to the person. So that's literally the belief. They think it's not a job. And it was a huge number. It wasn't a small number. Creators are making more than us, I. Think my final question is in one word, one word and that's what both of you, what do you describe the future of Creator Hub as in one word? Mind blowing good.

30:02 Queens will always be the Oliver Twist. He he chose a compound word, mind and blowing. But it's fine. It's fine. Thank you very much, love and respect to you guys. And of course, I'll catch you guys. We'll catch you guys soon. And of course, to the audience, always go for something in your lives and see if the leaves try to thrive. And of course, go achieve.

30:21 God bless guys.