Shuang: It feels like anytime we see a major social creator launch merch, it's always with Fanjoy. So it's hard to imagine that you guys actually only started in 2014. Take us back. How did this all begin?

Chris: Hopefully, eventually, every creator flows through Fanjoy. That's the goal. But going back, 2014 was the start of Fanjoy as a business. Just going back into those early days, we definitely have evolved since then. We started out basically as a music merchandise care package company, where you could subscribe to your favorite musician, and every three months you receive a care package in the mail from your favorite music star. Then I think even in 2014, we used my brother's band as the catalyst to launch the company. I was at all my brother's shows, the music venues, selling t-shirts to the fans night after night. And I really just saw the passion that the fans had for my brother and the band. Obviously, they share that same passion that I had. So I was wondering how else we could connect them with the band, A Great Big World, on a more personal level. We launched the care package around them, using their favorite items. Also, exclusive merchandise, signed items, backstage passes, things like that, to get the fans really engaged with it. 2014, we launched the first package with them and it did great. I think we did just over 200 subscriptions, which from going from zero to 200 subscriptions, and I think it was over 10,000 in sales within a few days. That was just a really cool moment for us to be like, "Wow, maybe there is something here, and maybe there's a bigger business that can be made around these music stars. So yeah, I mean, that was the initial selling point for Fanjoy of like, "Can this business work, and where else can we take it from here?"

Shuang: Even currently that's a super new concept, subscription boxes for your favorite celebrities. But then you also decided to pivot and actually start working with YouTubers and social creators. At what point motivated you to make that pivot?

Chris: Yeah, from 2014 to 2016, I think we really saw the rise of the influencer creator. The talent that we were working with, they were all always social and growing on social.I don't think we were actually searching for influencers or creators. They just came to us. I would see likes from these kids from like 16 to 20 years old is getting like a hundred thousand likes on pictures on Instagram. And that was what was sparking my interest of like, "Okay, these kids are obviously getting some engagement. Can they sell product? That was what was really curious, in my mind. I think in 2016, we actually worked with Maddie and Mackenzie Ziegler who were popular from Dance Moms. We did a package with them and they crushed it. They had large followings on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram. And then, I was like, "Okay, maybe there's something else here." So I started reaching out to some random Instagram influencers. And yeah, basically for us, we started signing a lot of them. The initial one was... I'll go back. So yeah, I started reaching out to a lot of these Instagram creators with large followings. And launch after launch, they just kept selling hundreds, and then eventually thousands of units. So from 2016, when we were working with maybe one creator to 2017, we actually jumped from one million in sales from 2016 to 30 million in sales in 2017. That really just turned the switch on. I was like, "Okay, this might make more sense than trying to sign these musicians who were hard to get in touch of, Go away for a little bit while they wrote their next album. These content creators were constantly creating YouTube videos and putting out posts where the ability for them to sell product was just so natural because the abundance of content allowed for them to have those moments of plugging their own products, which traditional celebrities have always been a little bit more cautious of the amount of times that they're promoting something. These kids really started generating revenue for Fanjoy. That's when we leaned into it a little bit more since 2017 and really pivoted to a merchandise experience company.

Shuang: Yeah. I feel like, to your point, creators, there are no seasons for them. There's no albums. There are no breaks. Also, they come with a very large following that's super supportive. For yourself, when you do see new platforms like TikTok or new creators on different platforms, what are you looking for before you reach out to a talent to approach working with them?

Chris: Well, I think since 2017, we've had our fair share of talent that's come in with six million followers on Instagram, but their ability to sell products is difficult. So six million followers, they sell 20 t-shirts. Something's not adding up. I know in the social world, numbers can be a bit of a fluff or fake. So it's really trying to find who really has these hardcore and loyal fan bases. So on our end, we're really looking at the data. I think data tells a story every single time. Every creator has data on the back end of all these platforms that they're using. So from YouTube, to TikTok, to Instagram, you're able to get some data of the demographic, the swipe-up data from Instagram, because as a creator, if you can drive traffic, ultimately you're able to sell product. On average, we see a conversion rate of two to 4% for each creator. So we just do backwards math of every creator that we work with and ultimately make an estimated guess of like, "Can this person sell product?" if they've never done it before. Sometimes creators come to us and they're like, "Hey, I've done a million dollars in merchant sales in the past year. I want to start to scale that." And then, for us, it's a no brainer for us to work with them. But new talent who might have just emerged on TikTok, who hasn't grown their Instagram or Twitter following yet, sometimes those kinds of creators have difficulty selling product because they haven't just generated the loyalty with the fans just yet. So might take a little bit more time. For us, I think, yeah, we always look at the data when trying to work with any talent on our end.

Shuang: I'm always curious on how you guys promote, because these social creators are promotion channels in their own right. They'll be driving back to their Fanjoy page. But do you actually do paid ads in addition to that, to see if you can amp up sales?

Chris: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I think for a Fanjoy, we try to handle like 90% of the workload for the creators that we're working with. So everything from design to production, all the fulfillment, customer support. We do a ton of email marketing, product shots, photoshoots, paid advertising. Everything that it takes to build a brand is what we take on. So we're definitely looking at paid advertising to help boost and just generate additional profit for the creators. We see, on the paid side, it's very cheap on our end to acquire a customer, because we're already targeting a built-in fan base that is looking to buy products, or is at least looking to engage with this specific creator. When we do any kind of paid advertising, we're making sure that it's in the voice of the creator that we're working with, but also making sure that we're targeting with the right offer and the right promotion. So we definitely lean into paid ads on our side, only because we have that target audience for us use for that. At the end of the day, it's going to reach more fans and more customers, and hopefully build a bigger brand for the creators that we work with. We definitely have seen the Shopify-TikTok integration has been a really cool platform and integration for us to work with and play with, because our talent is so heavily involved on TikTok that we're seeing very cheap conversion costs when we do the TikTok paid advertising. Same with Instagram and Facebook. We have the target audience. So it just makes sense for us to lean into those paid ads for the right creator, not every creator wants to do the paid advertising. They think they can reach all of their fans on organic basis. I think we all know that the algorithm definitely does not reach all of the fans, especially when somebody has 20 plus million followers on Instagram or TikTok. So, for us, it's also educating our creators and clients of like, "Hey, if we put a little bit more paid ad spend behind this product launch, ultimately you're going to make more money." I think at the end of the day, the creators love... They're not making money, but also they love building their brand more than anything. So that's where we try to come in and educate and support them in whatever ways they need.

Shuang: Just speaking of TikTok, it's amazing because, obviously, since the beginning of COVID, we are just consuming TikToks a lot more. So it's no surprise when I look at Addison Rae's merches with Fanjoy, I got really into watching Newton's Food videos, and surprised his merch is with you guys. I'm assuming, is there people in your office just constantly consuming content and seeing who is the next person to work with?

Chris: Yes. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I think, and also there's a lot of tools out there now that give you a good amount of data, the growth rates of these creators, like who's the top of the list on the trending charts on YouTube, who has the fastest growing TikTok accounts. That way, we're able to really target the people that have the potential to sell product eventually, and also start with the top. It's hard for us to just randomly search on an explore page and find somebody. Usually, there's a lot of collaborations happening that we're able to just get a good idea of which creators might pop off next. But there's always the unexpected ones. Newton is a very good example of a creator where I was literally just scrolling on Twitter. Somebody I think liked a tweet of Newton's, and I started looking at Newton's videos on Twitter. He was getting like a hundred thousand plus views. Some of them are I think over 500,000 views on Twitter alone on his videos. I had never seen that before. I had never seen somebody just really own Twitter. That's when I reached out to Newton and I was like, "Hey, you have really cool videos on Twitter. Do you want to launch product?" On his end, he was always thinking about it. Didn't really have the partner for it. And then, yeah, we started launching Newton's products I think mid last year.I think that's also a really good example of also there's so many different platforms that you can definitely just own one of them. But I think with Newton specifically, he was able to kind of port over his fans to TikTok, to Instagram, and now we have multiple platforms to promote and sell product, and also to distribute his videos to continue to grow his brand in a bigger way.

Shuang: I just love how beautifully it ties in with his merch because it's like for a long time, he always says he adds parsley to everything, and it's just an ongoing inside joke for whoever is watching his videos. It just worked beautifully when his array of parsley merchandise launched. So yeah, I love that.

Chris : Totally. Well, I think that also just brings it more of the community element to the products that we put out with our creators, because I think at the end of the day, these fans want to be part of something. And that's what these creators allow. They allow a community to be built. And when you can tie in those inside jokes to that, so that way, when you're walking down the streets, you might be like, "Oh, that's a cool parsley hoodie." But on the inside, the fan knows that, hey, this is Newton's product. I'm supporting him in his entrepreneurial endeavors with his cooking shows, and also supporting him by buying these products. So, yeah, I think community has always been what's driving sales. And on our end, it's like, how do we bring that out of them? So I think even on the first calls with potential talent, we always looked to be like, hey, what are those phrases? What are your fans going to want to buy, and what are you known for in your community? Because what might be cool to them might not be cool to the people that are watching their videos. On the music side, there's so many people involved, outside of the management and the labels. There's business managers, and the attorneys itself, it's also a big challenge. So there's so many layers in music with the talent. Sometimes we're dealing with parents. Sometimes these kids are just starting out. They might be 16 to 18 years old. They don't have managers yet. But obviously, once they continue to grow their brand, they get management.For us, we have a lot of relationships already with the bigger management companies out there, even the small ones, and also even the agencies. So WME, CAA, UTA. We have these relationships already built. So that way a lot of the agents and managers already know Fanjoy. They know our process. They know how quickly we can get things done and get the brand launch for the talent. But yeah, musicians compared to, I guess, the social stars, they're definitely evolving. But I think also we're starting to see a shift where now the social media creators, content creators, are starting to get a little bit more structure on their end as well, where they have the management, they have the agencies, they have the lawyers. So it's evolved in that way where, as I think like three years ago, it was much easier for us to get a talent signed within four days and then get them launched within two weeks. But I think that just shows that the industry is growing as a whole, is getting more mature. I think there's more money also being thrown around in the creator economy. I think once money comes into play, more and more people try to get involved.

Shuang: Yeah. How about the operation side? Because I think I vividly remember a photo of you in your own apartment, 2014, packaging things by yourself. How did you go from that to now having an infrastructure that is able to, to your point, launch something and sign somebody within a matter of weeks?

Chris: It's funny. I actually keep the picture right here. I always keep it behind me, just remember the early days when we started and why I started the company. I think back then initially doing the product packaging and fulfilling myself with my wife and our roommates at the time, I think that just put it into perspective of like, "Hey, this is a lot of work, but if I didn't do it, I wouldn't have understood that process as well." So I think by doing basically every role within the company, as we were starting out in 2014 and obviously up to now seven years later, it's something that's given me an appreciation for each of the tasks, but also the ability to, I guess, grow each of these areas because I've done it before. So really finding the areas that need to be catered to, or fine tune, that way we can create the best process to support our creators and our clients. So yeah, I mean, it's really cool to see. We now have over 40 employees at Fanjoy. Huge emphasis on customer support. I think we saw in the very early days that fulfillment and customer support was something that needed to be addressed and something that was a big obstacle in the very beginning, especially as we were growing so rapidly. Going from like one million to 30 million, a lot can happen in that timeframe, good and bad. Obviously, I think it's like when you do scale that quickly, things break. It's really good to see what those challenges are, really build a foundation for each of these areas of your business, and then hopefully build something that's sustainable and scalable as you continue to grow. I don't think we're 100% there yet. I think as we continue to grow, passed that 30 million mark in 2017 and we're growing year over year, things will probably break along the way. But I think our ability to adapt, and pivot, and really just fix things as they come has been what's gotten us to where we are today. We don't have any outside funding. We bootstrapped the company since day one. Maxed out my credit card for that first product launch out of our apartment. Basically, we don't have anybody that we're reporting to on our end. We're able to pivot and shape the company and adapt to what the creators need on a daily basis. So yeah, I mean, I think with any situation, I think, for now, it's like, how do we create the best possible company and team to support these creators? Yeah, as we grow, we're going to need more brand managers, work with our creators. Our creative team is probably one of the most amazing assets that we have as a company, because they're able to create brands from ideas that these creators have. Then also on the production side, scaling quickly from the manufacturing domestically to now manufacturing some of the products overseas. We're doing a lot, which is also really, really exciting because, as a whole, the creator economy is booming. So we're just trying to keep up with the pace.

Shuang: Nice. There's so much to unpack here. I wanted to touch on the fact that you guys have over 40 employees now. When you are expanding the team and essentially they are the extension of Fanjoy now, what is the process for you when you're hiring and what do you look for when you're building out your team?

Chris: That's a great question. I think hiring, I mean, it's one of the most important parts of growing the company, especially now, I think seven years in. We've had our ups and downs as a company and our obstacles of, how do we get from one million to 250 million? What is going to happen along the way? I think what's really happened over the last year and a half, two years is just really finding, yeah, really amazing people with the experience that can help lead us to the next level. I think the team that got us from one to 30 million, it might not be that same team that gets us from 30 to a billion dollars. So I think along the way, we're going to need people who have that experience with scale. I think at the moment, what we've done a really good job at is just finding just good people that are able to adapt to any kind of role within the company, and also people that fit our culture and who can understand and accept feedback, and give feedback as well. So I think, for us, that's been a really big change, bringing on leadership early last year. I think for me as a first-time founder, scaling a company is something I've never done before. So getting people in place who have done that has definitely helped us grow the foundation of Fanjoy to hopefully take us to that next level. But I think, ultimately, finding really, really good people, letting a lot of people within the company talk to them, hear what they have to say, understand their mannerisms, how they talk, how they're able to articulate their ideas, things like that always help. For us, We're working with people who have massive platforms. Especially, As the content creators become larger, they're like celebrities now. So they expect the best of the best when they're working with somebody like us at Fanjoy. Ultimately, I think we have a really solid team at Fanjoy, but always looking to improve on the experience that we have within the company, because, we want to grow this to a billion dollars plus, and yeah, I think we're just going to eventually need people that have been there before.

Shuang: Does it feel scary to let go of some of that control? Because you're saying that in order to scale, you need to trust those who have been scaling before, or had leadership experience and you're trusting them to take Fanjoy to the next level.

Chris: 100%. Yeah, I think for me, especially, because I was doing so many of the jobs in the first four years alone before we started bringing on team members in 2017, even at the very beginning, even now, I think I still struggle with that, of trusting the team members. Even though I know nothing's going to happen. The website's not going to crash. The design process is all fine. I think, for me, because I've done it for so long, the initial let go period,for me, it's definitely a struggle, but something that I definitely have overcome over the last couple of years. I try to step back when it's not my area anymore. So I think finding those leaders within these areas of the company, that I was really hanging on to, has definitely helped let go. I'm sure I'm not the only founder that feels that way, because it's like your baby. This is something that, over the last seven years, this is all I've really focused on. Obviously, my wife, in 2016, 2017 came on board to help grow the company as well. It's a family affair. We have a lot at stake here personally. But also, now, we're responsible for over 40 employees and their careers. So there's a lot of, obviously, a lot of pressure. But I think as I've let go as a founder, I've seen that, okay, things work perfectly fine, and now I'm focused on the bigger picture of what is that overall strategy and how do we take Fanjoy to the next level? I'm not 100% consumed by tedious tasks that I have a team in place to help take care of. it definitely has been an obstacle on my end, but I think becoming aware of the need to potentially have some control over that and just let go, that's basically worked wonders for the company now, as my focus isn't in the areas that it shouldn't be.

Shuang: Sounds counterintuitive, but sometimes letting go actually allows for things to grow on its own. So yeah. On the flip side of scaling is the fact that, I'm assuming, your manufacturing or production had to be able to be keeping up with the demand. Talk us through your initial manufacturing or printing partners and how you were able to find new partners to work with and develop new products together.

Chris: For us, when we started really hitting a stride in 2017, a lot of our products were print on demand. So we weren't really holding much inventory on our end. But I think as we saw the shift from the creators to being more like cheeky merch, maybe around their name or their image, to more fashion, we saw the need to really start doing more full production manufacturing with our creators. In 2017, we really made more of a shift to domestic production, out of Miami, and also in Los Angeles, and really just finding a really good network of partners that can help with scale. So manufacturing partners who were already doing million-plus units per year on their end, to help take on the capacity that we're going to be now giving these manufacturing partners. So finding a really strong network of partners has definitely helped take us to the next level, and also sourcing the right partners overseas. Because I think that, for us, initially, 2015, 2016, we were on Alibaba just randomly picking, manufacturing partners that we saw there. But I think that's not probably the best way for us to move forward in a 2021 world. So then we brought on a sourcing expert in our production team now, is able to create any kind of product that a creator really wants. But yeah, in manufacturing, in the very beginning was always a little bit of a challenge until we had that strong network in place where now I think last year we ended up shipping over almost two million packages, two million items, and this year, on track to doing over three million. So as we scale year over year, it's really important that the manufacturing partners that we have are able to keep up, but also that we're not solely reliant on one partner. I think in the very beginning, that's what happened. We got pigeonholed with one partner doing everything, and that's where if something happened within the manufacturing process, we really had no other options. So I think always keeping the options open with manufacturing definitely helps, but also understanding the expectations of both sides. That way, we have a clear, concise process in place to hopefully scale without any interruption.

Shuang: This is so inspiring because I think a portion of Shopify users, actually, they test out a business idea with print on demand initially. And it's just so cool to hear that you were able to grow with that concept and actually find additional partners and just grow into the Fanjoy that it is today. So very cool.

Chris: Totally. Yeah. I think in 2017, we didn't really see ourselves as a merch company. But we also didn't know what that even meant. So I think we really had to just pivot and redefined our business in who we are and what our capabilities are. So really understanding the entire merchandise production process in 2017 helped us go more into the full production type products that we're selling now. But yeah, the print on demand resources that Shopify has, like you said, allows anybody to get something up and running in no time and really just test the concept. And for us, we tested it and it worked. So we just leaned into it a little bit more.

Shuang: Do you remember some of the early apps or print-on-demand tools that you really enjoyed?

Chris: I think in the very beginning, Scalable Press was one of the ones that we were using for the apparel in the very beginning. And then, I mean, there's a whole bunch that we tried out. Printful was one of them. Yeah. I don't remember if there's any other ones. I'm sure there was, maybe teelaunch. Yeah, there's a whole bunch. I think back in the day, we were on the Shopify app store to seeing what else is out there, like what other products can we just connect and try out? Especially because like 2017, going from that one million to 30 million, we were at a point where we were doing like $150,000 in sales per day. We couldn't put products up fast enough. So I think, for us, we were always searching the app store to see, what else could we sell? That's when we came across all these apps that Shopify had, not on just the production side, but how do you make your store work better? How do you compress your files? How do you do all these things to make your store function a little bit better? Which is really, really cool to see in us, we utilize Shopify in a bigger way.

Shuang: Amazing. Great to hear. I would love to talk also about the designing process. You mentioned, there's designers on board within Fanjoy. How does a typical creation process look like with a creator?

Chris: Great question. I think with each creator, every creator that we work with is different. Same with the designers and the creative team that we have in-house. They all have their own skillsets things that they are amazing at. So when we work with any creator, we try to just get as much information from them as possible. So really getting a mood board, a design aesthetic, anything that they can reference to the design styles that they're into, to give us as much information to start designing. In the very beginning of Fanjoy, they were like, "Hey, make me something cool." We would design something, but then they'd be like, "That's not what I see as cool." So we try to just really extract as much information on our first creative call with the talent before we even start design, so that way we're all on the same page of like, "Hey, this is what we're hearing and understanding of what you want. This is the direction that we're going to go with the creative process." Until we have that mutual understanding, we don't really dive in. But usually, the creators are able to give us some general idea of what they're looking for, or even provide references so that way we can dive in and hit it on the head fairly quickly. So yeah, I mean, some creators approve it on the first go, some approve it on the 10th. I think for us, we're trying to always fine-tune of like, how do we get the deck created within the fastest amount of time without as many back and forth revisions? But I think it comes with the territory. I think all people are different. So we're able to adapt a little bit and keep going until we have a product that the talent loves, because ultimately if they don't love it, how are they going to sell it on our end?

Shuang: You guys moving away from print on demand and having these production partners, does it also mean that you need to invest in inventory for specific creators? I'm assuming there's also this gymnastics of balancing cashflow and inventory and investments. How has that side of operations played in the scaling as well?

Chris: I think early on that was a really big challenge for us also, because we're not venture-funded, everything is solely cash. Cash and credit. So for us, really understanding inventory levels was huge. About two years ago, we brought on somebody who's very, very experienced in inventory and planning, to just get the basics down now because we've had our fair share of over-ordering, being stuck with product, and nobody wins when you have product that's not moving. I think that's probably the worst case scenario for anyone. These creators come to us to have that expertise of like, "Hey, how many can I sell? What is the best process when I start?" And on our end, I think we don't want to put ourselves in any risky situation of being stuck with product at all. So yeah, we definitely have found that we're able to also move very quickly with production. If a talent or a creator is launching on a Friday, we really don't need to go into production until Monday. We let sales come through over the course of 72 hours and then we move product into production. That way, we're really just doing more of a pre-order period that eliminates a lot of the risk that comes with the entire process. Some of the talent that we have worked with, who has a lot of historical data that we can pull from, some of those creators, we're stocking product in advance of a launch only because we know that they're going to dominate and crush these numbers that we have projected. But we always want to keep the talent's profit at the forefront where we're not limiting them to the number that they can sell. So always keeping some kind of buffer in there, or a plan in place for us to sell additional units if it comes to it. But yeah, I mean, the pre-order model and the drop model has definitely helped alleviate any kind of risk on our side, and also kind of fine tune the manufacturing process. To be able to turn around products pretty quickly has also led to a really good process, and that's not having to stack so much inventory and sit on it for too long.

Shuang: I think one of the things that people notice with Fanjoy is that things are in limited runs. Does that help you guys predict how things perform in the future? But also, does it help in the relationship where you can probably have an agreement to only work for this certain drop, and then if it does perform out, then you'll continue the relationship later on?

Chris: Absolutely. I think also, when you do these limited drops, as a content creator, their whole business is around telling stories and storytelling. So if they're able to hype up the drop, hype up the demand and build up the hype for the product launch, selling out is probably one of the best things for them to do because now they're able to convey that message to the fans, "Hey, we've sold out. Thank you so much for supporting me." And then, on that next drop, as a fan, you're not going to want to miss out on another drop. It's the supreme model. You're building up the sense of urgency. You're creating the demand for the product and you're moving on because only some products, maybe a stable collection or a core product can have a pretty long shelf life. But in this creator world, things are moving so fast that the limited runs actually work in their favor. So once you launch a product, it sells out. In the next couple of weeks, maybe four to six weeks, you're already dropping your next product. So there's not too much time in between product drops, and storytelling for the content creator to continue to generate sales and have a pretty steady stream of income. But I think the drop model, going back, just also alleviates any risk for anybody on either side.

Shuang: It looks like a lot of creators also want to move out of the traditional merch categories, outside of sweatshirts or t-shirts, and they want to move into new products. How has that side of finding new production partners for that and new designers... Like I see plushies and things like that sort.

Chris: Totally. Yeah. I mean, we know that these creators can sell anything. So I think it's really just about, what is that right product for them. So looking at the content that they create, looking at their demo, and really just finding new product categories to venture out into. On our end, we have a whole sourcing team that their whole job is to find new product categories and present them to talent. A lot of the talent who has been with us for a while where we have a historical data, we're always open to investing into these outside categories, products that we might not have done before, only because we know they have the sales history to clear it through them. I think a lot of times as a creator, they might think they can sell anything. But sometimes the product doesn't match with the demo that they're talking to. we're definitely looking into different product categories, even outside of just soft goods or plushies.I think creators as a whole have the ability to grow and build their own brands. So from food and beverage, to games, to really anything, I think Fanjoy wants to take that stance so that if anybody with a fan base comes to us and wants to go to brand in any category, we can be that go-to company, almost like an agency to go out and build it with them. We have a lot of really cool projects coming up this year and into next year that we can't just announce just yet, but it'll be really, really cool and interesting to see how we take a creator who sells merchandise really, really well, but how do we build-out of a much larger brand outside of apparel and scale that from 10 million to 50 million? Like how do we grow the brands of the creators in a bigger way, and not just have t-shirts and hoodies available for their fans, because these creators are amazing at what they do. And we just want to support them and all their entrepreneurial endeavors.

Shuang: Yeah. I'm excited to hear more and see the news as it comes to light. But one thing that we can talk about is your partnership with Mad Engine and how you guys are bringing these merchandise actually into retail, so outside of the online sphere. Tell us more about this partnership.

Chris: I think with the Mad Engine partnership, the goal there is to eventually scale creators' businesses at retail. I think the pandemic definitely put it on a bit of a pause, because, obviously, retail got hit as a whole. But we have a lot of the data that is able to be translated into retail because we know which creators can sell product, and we also know where they can sell product. So obviously with the Shopify dashboard and the reporting, we can get all the analytics that's needed to present to any retailer and bring them to retail. But the ultimate goal, I think, for Fanjoy and Mad Engine is, is there a possibility for Fanjoy to have a shop in a shop? Like could we have a Fanjoy shop within Target, or within another mass retailer, where now we have a huge cycle of creators merchandising products inside of a mass retailer. And instead of solely being reliant on DTC, we now have a huge retail partner to help push and spread more awareness about the brands that we're working on. So yeah, we're excited to get some more of our top creators into retail, which now we're working on, potentially like fall activations with some of our content creators, which is really, really exciting because they have the fan bases and they're able to mobilize their fans to a physical location. We've done pop-up shops in the past that absolutely crush it. So we know that the need and the want for retail is there and just a more physical experience would definitely do really, really well. So we're excited for it.

Shuang: Exciting. I definitely feel like, for COVID, Fanjoy, it actually worked for the fact that you guys were direct to consumer, you guys were online. So it feels like, especially the boom of TikTok, it was crazy to see that your model actually works pretty well in this COVID situation. But has there been challenges that COVID brought up that you guys had to face behind the scenes as well?

Chris: I would say, like last March when COVID started, coming to the forefront of like, "Hey, this is actually serious." I think the biggest impact was probably the unknown in the very beginning of like... Especially that we'd just signed a new lease on our office. We were all about we're going to have these team meetings and these events at our office. And now at a standstill, everyone has to leave the office. We're fully remote. I think that's more of where the concern might have been last year. But I think come last April and last May, like what you referenced, sales started booming. I'm not saying we're pandemic proof, but we definitely were able to still grow the company while being remote and while selling product DTC. I'm thinking about any other challenges that we might have had last year. Yeah, I think it was mainly the concern of the unknown and also some manufacturing partners unable to ship product blank inventory to our decoration facilities. ultimately, as a business, we were fine. But this distress of a pandemic I think is probably on everyone's mind, and especially as our team was remote. No one was seeing anybody. Everyone was seeing the transition of in-person meetings to zoom, which I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But it's just a different way of working. The last year as a business we grew, and now it's like, well, how do we continue that momentum post pandemic? What does that look like now moving forward as vaccine start to come into play? Do we go back to the office? Do we have a hybrid model? There's still a lot of unknowns that the pandemic has caused. But yeah, I mean, since the very beginning we've always adapted and adjusted. So this was no different.

Shuang: Looking forward, are there any goals or projects that you can share for this year and beyond?

Chris:I mean, I don't know when, but obviously I think going back into getting more into physical activations with our creators, we've just had such really good success with these popups that we've seen the loyalty of the fan bases and the thousands of people that show up to the pop-ups, just creates a really exciting energy around the creators that I'd love to start getting back into. I don't know exactly when, but we're trying to get that on the roadmap. And also just try to find other ways to support creators. I will definitely share, when the time comes, the other products and brands that we're looking to create. Maybe I'll come back on the podcast and share it, and share some learnings. But yeah. I think for right now, it's just transitioning back to normal type of work and eventually going back and do the popups at the moment.

Shuang: Well, very exciting. Yeah. I'm excited to hear... I envisioned Fanjoy as a brand building machine. But yeah. I definitely asked you all the questions that I wanted to, but is there any areas that you wanted to highlight that we didn't get to chat to yet?

Chris: What also makes us different from any other merchandise company out there, that I think a lot of people overlook, is that Fanjoy as a whole, we're a creator marketplace. So you're able to shop multiple creators in one cart, whereas other merchandise companies that might be out there, they are building standalone stores, which we also do, but they don't have that central hub, or almost an Amazon-like product like Fanjoy where we are now an online digital retailer that you can browse and shop content creators' products on. I definitely want to see how we can get Fanjoy as a marketplace more on the forefront, and eventually onboard more talents because we have a lot of great data. So that way, when a new creator comes in, we're able to use the data that we have from other sales and other customers to potentially sell more products. But it's really a big focus for us to shift it. How do we become that urban outfitters of the digital creator world? That's where we want to live. But yeah, it's definitely an exciting space as a whole. If you go on Twitter, people don't stop talking about the creator economy. I think that's a good thing. I think that's good for us. It's good for Shopify, and it's good for the creator because they're creating movements from their bedrooms. They're creating movements from just holding a camera. So it's really cool to see and really cool to be a part of.

Shuang: I did want to ask. There are creators who actually build their own stores and you guys support them with merchandise. Are there creators that actually don't have the catalog with Fanjoy, but they have their separate store and they actually get their inventory through you guys?

Chris: The way we work, I mean, we definitely have talent that we build and manage their own storefronts, and their products are not on Fanjoy. We have talent that power and manage their own storefronts and they are on Fanjoy. So Addison Rae is on shopaddisonrae.com. That's where she's pushing a lot of her fans to. But we also sell Addison's products on Fanjoy. And we also see about 25% of Addison's sales come from Fanjoy. So there's a lot of crossover in the products and the customers that we see people buying products on Fanjoy, compared to the talent's own store. So I think we can also look at Fanjoy as more of another distribution channel to sell products. So there's no risk or harm for a creator to sell products on Fanjoy. Hopefully just increases sales and revenue and profit for them. Yeah, all of the stores that we build are based on Shopify plus. I think at the moment we have about 25 stores that we manage and build and power. So yeah. We don't really leverage or partner with creators where they just buy product from us. We're usually, taking care of the entire process and package for them.

Shuang: Wow. Okay. That's super cool to know, because I wondered about that as well, the breakdown. But yeah, to your point, this is a marketplace for creators. Someone might be browsing some other creators and they see Addison's merch, and they might just add it to their cart. So super cool.

Chris: Totally. Yeah.
Shuang: Awesome. Well, thanks for chatting with me today, Chris. I feel like I've learned a lot, and I'm excited to see where you guys are headed to next.
Chris: Awesome. Likewise. Yeah. Thank you for having me.