MEDIASCAPE: Insights From Digital Changemakers

From $19 To 15,000 Creators

• Hosted by Joseph Itaya & Anika Jackson

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What does it take to turn one scrappy UGC experiment into a creator marketplace serving 200+ brands and 15,000 creators? We sit down with Vidobo cofounder Elijah Kosovo to unpack the scrapes, pivots, and wins behind a creator-first platform built without venture funding and scaled through community trust.

Elijah rewinds to the moment a $50 video delivered 15 million organic views and changed his trajectory. From manually DM’ing early creators to getting stonewalled by 16 straight sales calls, he breaks down the turning point: pitching a half-built campaigns product that finally clicked with a brand worried about scale. We explore the systems behind creator vetting—reading comments over follower counts, measuring community health, and aligning a creator’s voice with a brand’s promise. The insights are tactical and timely for marketers who care about conversion more than clout.

We also tackle the rise of AI influencers. Elijah shares why AI-generated faces haven’t replaced humans for high-trust categories, and how teams can use AI as an amplifier for scripting, editing, and B-roll without sacrificing authenticity. Then we get candid about the realities of building: balancing UMass coursework with sales and ops, paying himself only after 18 months, and choosing patience as a strategy. Along the way, you’ll hear standout campaigns, including testimonial-driven approaches and a jaw-dropping ROI case that cemented brand confidence.

If you’re a brand marketer, creator, or student founder, this conversation delivers a playbook for modern influence: bet on micro creators for engagement depth, vet through community signals, embrace AI for speed not substitution, and let trust compound through consistent value. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s building, and leave a quick review to help more curious minds find the show.

This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to MediaScape, Insights from Digital Changemakers, a speaker series and podcast brought to you by USC Annenberg's Digital Media Management Program. Join us as we unlock the secrets to success in an increasingly digital world.

SPEAKER_01:

This is the type of founder story that we all should be inspired by and that I love to hear. Today I have Elijah Kosovo on the show with his platform, Vidovo. Elijah, thank you for being on Media Escape today. And I I want you to go back to two years ago when you launched Vidovo. What I'm reading on your LinkedIn is you were 19 and you had$19.12 to your name.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep. Thank you for having me, by the way. It's so it's so funny that story. Because some people are like, is that actually true? Because like you see double back-to-back 19s, but it actually was. I went back in my bank again. I checked because I knew I had no money at that time. Funny enough, there's a two-year cutoff. So when I went back to post, when I went when I posted on LinkedIn, I couldn't go back and get a screenshot because it was a day late, because I posted a day after our actual two-year launch. So I was like, oh my gosh, whatever. If people believe it, whatever. But yeah, my background, I started in high school. I, you know, did stocks and crypto. I had a passion for entrepreneurship since then. I grew a Discord server to 30,000 people all through TikTok. So I've always wanted to pursue entrepreneurship as a whole. I just I just loved building and creating things. Fast forward to Vidova. I mean, before Veneau, I tried like eight or nine different things, nothing was working. And I actually worked as a creator before. And this creator was like pitching me this UGC thing. I'm like, I'm not paying you for a video. Like I only pay you for sales that you generate, right? But he made the argument, like, no, it's UGC, like you get to keep the video, like you get to do whatever you want with it, you can run ads, whatever. I was like, okay, you know what? Fine, it was$50. I was like, you know what? I have nothing to lose with this, right? I uh ended up buying the video, posted on Instagram, and I got 15 million views organically. And I was like, whoa, like this is this is this is nuts. So I was like, wait, why don't I just go sell videos to other people instead? And that's honestly what I ended up doing. I had a group of 13 creators, two of them left me within a week. They're like, who is this guy, right? But it was a it was a tough start, pretty tough start because no one really knew what UGC was back then. So I had to sell UGC, then I had to also sell our service, whereas now it's like I'm more just selling like our tech. But yeah, that's kind of how I got into the industry. Had an agency, met my co-founder who him and I built Vidobo together. He's a tech guy, more of like the entrepreneur sales guy, right? And uh yeah, we've grown to over 15,000 creators. We worked with over 200 brands, and I'll never forget that launch time in July because it was it was such a new thing to me, like doing a software company at you know 19 years old. It's not really something you'd expect to do, right? And I it was very humbling, but it it you know, it molded me into a new character and I'm very blessed by it. So uh it was it was a fun time, very very brutal, but it was fun to learn and uh do something you know challenging.

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like we're seeing more and more of this though, because the tools are a little bit democratized. And I would say, and especially now we're living in the AI age, the agentic age, if you will, and we're able to know code, right? Vibe code, we're able to get information we need, certifications online, tutorials, learn how to do things and really get our hands dirty and create ourselves and and often not realize that we could be the founders of tech companies. Right. Yeah. And it's it's amazing that you created this when you were 19, but you saw need in the market after your own experience with it.

SPEAKER_02:

Correct, yeah. It was funny because I we we knew video was the answer to the product I was trying to sell. We just weren't capturing the right creator or the right content, right? We had no creative concept behind what we were actually making. So one time we actually came up with a concept was when I worked with a UGC creator. And yeah, it to me, I was like, whoa, this is a whole gap. Like all these people that just like me are struggling to find good creators, right? So I was like, why don't I just build something around, you know, having good creators? Funny enough, like the first group of creators I had were awful to work with, great people, but really a bad experience. It was you know, tons of horror stories, but that's just the beauty of it. That's the beauty of learning to be an entrepreneur. You have to go through those trials. But yeah, it was just finding that gap and kind of just attacking it. And, you know, now we're I think now we're doing really well in the market. So I'm uh pretty excited.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, 15,000 creators. Well, let's go back to that statement you just made because that was one of my questions. How do you decide who the right people are to work with? Is it strictly based on numbers? Is it you have to meet them, a little personality? I mean, 15,000 people, that would be a lot of people to meet and vet, right?

SPEAKER_02:

So I I always say, so yeah, we have 15,000 now. Funny enough, when we first launched Vidobo, I would manually DM every single creator. Um, because we weren't getting a lot of signups, anyways, right? So I would I would DM people on Twitter, on Facebook, like, hey, come join Vidobo. Like, I'm a founder, I just built this software with my co-founder. We're, you know, we're you know trying to do something new in the space. And what was interesting, you know, compared to uh most uh competitors, like they built for the brand first, and it's because they raised a lot of money. Since we didn't raise money, we know we couldn't really uh attack the market that way. So I was like, why don't we just focus on creator acquisition, right? So we focus on just getting good creators. And the best way I define I identified a good creator was you know chatting with them, uh hopping on a call, making sure they have good work examples. Do they actually care about the brand, what they're promoting? Like those are like the key factors I would say when it comes to influencer. I honestly think what's very underrated is like looking at their comments, like look at what the community is actually talking about and saying about them. How do people respond to what they're posting? Is it just all bots? Is it all hate? Is it all love questions, right? It's so important. Or is it nothing at all? Maybe they can they could have a hundred thousand followers, but seven comments, right? So it's like look at the comments, see like what type of community those people have built. Because I think that the community is like the strongest thing ever. And I think if Adobe, like that's why we've been able to, you know, be good at what we do is because of our creator community, because how much we care about those creators. So I think it's like, you know, having a great conversation, like can you actually resonate with the creator? Can they resonate with the audience that you're trying to target? And do they create good content? Like those are like the three things I look at. And typically you could you could find a good creator out of that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, nice. So you focused on creator acquisition, but it's kind of chicken and egg, right? Because then you also had to get brands on board.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, it's tough.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So to talk about the experience of getting your first brand deal.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh man, that was exciting. So we we had a couple that were referrals, like the like a two or three referrals. I don't want to talk about those because those had to close. The first one that I actually closed, I had through like 16 or 17 demos in a row. Everyone kept saying no. No after no after no. I just I couldn't get a yes. And I would hear the same feedback or you know, something new, something different. It was always something. But the number one thing that we heard is like, hey, like you're building a marketplace. You only have a hundred creators. And if I'm a brand and I go through all a hundred and I only like 10, what if I want to use your platform next month? So the biggest problem was scalability. Brands just didn't trust our platform here for scalability because we just had no creators, right? I'll never forget I hopped on a call with one brand, Nufix, very close to the very cool with the founder. Her name's Amanda, great person. Still getting concept till this day, right? And she I was selling her a product that we were building that wasn't out yet because we didn't we just didn't get enough love for the marketplace yet. So we were building something called campaigns where the creator would come on and launch a brief for creators to apply to, right? And we were gonna boost these out on Twitter, on Facebook so we could actually pull creators in so they weren't just signing up for a marketplace. And I'll never forget the only reason I pitched her that was because one of my friends was like, Hey, I'd love to jump on one of these sales calls with you. He's a developer, so developers aren't like the best speakers. I don't know if he knows, right? But he's like, Hey, I just want to learn like how you're talking to people, how you're selling them. And I was like, you know what, if he's gonna hop on, might as well just show the new product, right? I want to show off a little bit because I wasn't selling the other one. And um, I started pitching her the new product, and within I think seven or eight minutes, she was like, I want it. I was like, wait, what? Mind you, the product wasn't done yet. It wasn't finished. I was pitching her a product that was about 40% done. I didn't think the deal would close. I just really didn't. And she said, When can this be done by? I'm like, I I I can, you know, get you a note by hopefully tomorrow and let you know like when we can have it out by. I ran to my co-founder like 20 minutes after the call. I'm like, yo, we need to get this out right now. Like we have a real first customer. She wants to use it, she wants to get her content out. And she was pinging me like every day, like, hey, where's the update? What's the update? Right. Fast forward to Monday. I was like, hey, it's out, you can use it. So she signed on, got her content by Thursday, and that was when we finally found product market fit, right? It was a beauty because like landing that deal was like it made me so happy because when you hear no so many times, like you could just quit, right? Like you could just be like, you know what, this isn't working, I'm done. But it's the fact that I kept going and I knew eventually something would happen. I'm very happy that like I, you know, I took a risk and pitched something that wasn't even completed. But I think that's uh what a salesman does. So I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh wow, fantastic. There's an argument about micro versus macro creators and engaged audiences. And even in I have a podcast course that I teach to grad students, and I talk about and actually show them how programmatic advertising, depending on what platform you're on, can work really well for micro podcasters because they might have a really engaged audience. And I noticed that as my audience grows, right? I have some very dedicated people who do reach out to me, who tell me about the episodes, who will leave reviews and ratings, but the majority of my audience is pretty unknown to me at this point. They're not directly contacting me because that's a lot of people. And so it's also a thing that we see, right, with social in general. So I want to ask you about that. Like, what's your mix? And do you see what we hear about macro versus micro performance? Do you see that bear out in your platform?

SPEAKER_02:

I do. So we have a mix of both. I mean, we have mainly micros, like 10 to 100,000. I will say the brands love the micro creators. Like they it's their, you can't beat their communities. You just can't. Like people are so like hyper-engaged and so willing to follow and listen to what they're doing, versus like our biggest creators with over a million followers, right? And some brands are like, I'd rather pay, you know, a couple thousand for this creator than you know, ten thousand plus for that creator. It's like you get your money's worth, you get a genuine, engaged community, and they know how to sell, like they know their community very well, and they're not like you know, they're not being fake about it, where I which is like the best thing about it. So I I've always been a fan of micro, but I have to be a fan of every group because but I I will say the micro creators have have taken over in terms of popularity for our brands, and I'm very excited to see where it goes. Macro, don't get me wrong, still great, right? I feel like that's where bigger brands try to lean towards as well. But I've noticed you know they lean more towards micro than macro on our platform. So yeah, and at the end of the day, we're all influencers, right? I I feel like everyone has a level of influence, even us as nano influencers. Like I, you know, I have a couple thousand a thousand followers on Instagram. I go post a taco shop. Maybe I influence like five people to go to that taco shop, right? So everyone, everyone has some type of influence. Like people are gonna trust who they resonate with. And I feel like the micro communities have done a great job at that. Because once you hit that macro level, like some people try to question you a little bit, which is there's nothing wrong with that. You're you're big at a lot of followers, like, oh, is she getting paid for this? You know, there's a lot of controversy behind it at times, but it just really depends on the influencer. So as long as they're being their self and being genuine, no matter if they're micro or macro, they should see success.

SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic. Can you share one of the most successful brand deals that you've had with us?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Oh my gosh, there's so many. There's a recent one that's going on our platform with Olipop. I don't have all the details on that yet, but that's probably our biggest named brand. So I I can't I can't say much. I don't have all the details. But my personal favorite, this goes all the way back. Like we probably had way better deals in this one, but I'm gonna tell you why this one's my favorite. There's a brand called Physician's Choice signed onto our platform, half a billion dollar brand, huge, right? And they had no business being on our platform that early. And I was trying to pitch to them, like, hey, like we can have the creators actually, you know, do a testimonial style of your product because they sell supplements, right? It's not like you're fake UGC, like, let's actually have them do a 30-day testimonial using it. And we they chose five creators. I think four out of five saw positive, I had positive engagement with the product. The the fifth one, I don't know if she had positive or negative, just nothing really happened. She was also younger, so I don't I don't know if she was supposed to be taking it. Or she she should have, but I don't think she I don't know, you can't really tell that at her age. But I'll never forget one of the creators was so happy. Like she she emailed me out, she's like, this is one of the best collaborations I've ever done. And like you would you'd make the argument like, oh, I like I should be talking more about the brand, but seeing the creator have such a good experience, like that's what it's all about. It's like we I want them to have fun, I want them to enjoy what they're creating. Because if they do, the brand's obviously gonna be happy. The creator being happy indirectly, you know, helps the brand at all times, right? So that was one of my favorite ones, like a 30-day testimonial, all five creators, four out of five saw very positive uh engagements with it, and they probably are still using the product till this day, from what I know. But the brand was so happy, they've been with us ever since, and it's been over two years now, so over no, sorry, 16 months with them now. But that was probably one of my favorite because that's like one of my first bigger ones. But yeah, we've done so many at this point. Like, I'd like we've I think like in the past month, we've probably seen over a hundred campaigns launched on our platform, private or public. So there's been so many deals that I actually can't keep track anymore. I only keep track of the ones that I'm personally managing, but those are like the ones I I can definitely uh remember. But seeing our brands always email us or you know, shoot me a note on Slack, like, hey, this campaign did really well. This creator did awesome. This creator made us, you know, so like I'll never forget a brand was like, Hey, we paid this creator$800. She generated us$700,000. I only spent$9,000 on ads. I thought it was fake. I still think it's fake to this day, but then he told me that was so unbelievable. And they mean they they've worked with her every single month since this was in July of 24, right? So every single month since then, because I mean you get a win like that, it's like why not, right? That was a fintech company too. So they have a lot of money to spend. Um yeah, it's it's all over the place. So I've seen a lot of cool deals done on our platform, and it's great to see like what testament the creators are to uh the industry.

SPEAKER_01:

One of the current classes that I'm teaching, we usually we talk about it's digital content, right? So we talk about professionally produced content versus user generated. But this term I've had to also offer the alternative, which is AI gener ADC, right? AI generated content. And we see in some places AI influencers make more than humans. Have AI influencers changed the market for you at all?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Uh in a good way though. Oh. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried at first. There's a huge company that came out in February and they're going to produce tons of AI UGC, and everyone was talking about it, right? So it kind of had me on my toes, like, oh man, like they can get a video at like a fraction of what we charge, right? And you know, it's it's it's produced a lot faster because it's AI, right? So I was a little bit worried, but a lot of the feedback I've seen from brands and consumers, I'll I'll speak on both fronts, from brands, it didn't come off as authentic, right? And could consumers would obviously say the same thing to the point where brands it actually brought us more business. It wasn't working, and brands were like, hey, we want real people. Consumers are catching on, consumers don't like this, consumers don't really want to back the AI stuff. If it's unnoticed, well, then great, right? Like I would say, like in terms of unnoticed, I mean like B-roll clips, like me filming a water bottle. Like my face isn't really shown in it. That's okay. Like I've seen a lot of AI, you know, B-roll created, but you know, I don't think brands want to risk facing backlash. I don't think they want to risk facing, you know, their brand authority because they're using AI content, unless it's like, you know, very clear and honest that they're using AI in that in that production, right? So it's actually helped us out because brands are like, no, we don't want to do that. We want real creators, we want real content, we want someone really speaking to it. And we work with a lot of wellness companies, so like they a lot of them don't do that AI stuff because like they really need to connect with their audience and their audience, you know, a wellness guy or a biohacker, they're not gonna want to look at an AI person, right? So it's helped us out. But don't get me wrong, it's still very early, right? There's still so much that can be done with AIUGC. It's still very early. Give it a year, maybe two years. I really think it's gonna be you know super productive. But as of right now, I've noticed most creators, most brands have just been using it as an amplifier, right? Whether that's for editing, whether that's for briefing, whether it's for creative concepts, whether that's for B-roll, but we haven't really seen it fully take over a creative system yet. At least for the brands that we work with, you know, the partners that I work with, but their brands, I haven't seen nothing of it yet.

SPEAKER_01:

That's very good news for the human creators out there. You mentioned AI company in the context of competition. And I did want to ask because there are other, obviously, platforms that creators or influencers can go on and monetize. And there are some that have been around a long time. There are some that left the market and consolidated it. So did you find it that you had to really show your unique proposition to these brands?

SPEAKER_02:

So I think, and I'll say this when we were building, we were obviously at a disadvantage that we didn't take money. Majority of our competitors, I would say probably north of 90%, have raised money or they've, you know, taken dollars somehow. We didn't invest, we didn't do any of that stuff in the beginning. We still haven't. And I knew like their play, but like when you raise money, you're forced to follow these KPIs. KPIs lead to revenue, revenue leads to brand acquisition because creators aren't gonna pay you, right? They could, but let's be real, they're not. So the only way we could win is the building in the opposite way because it it sucks because we didn't make money for a long time. It took a long time to really make money because creators aren't paying you, right? But you're at least you're building community. And I knew like if we can just build that side of things, brands would find us. And that's what happened. If you actually go on Reddit, you'll see one of the UGC mega threads. We're actually mentioned on the bottom of the list. The bottom of like 20 companies, right? I don't know who wrote about us. This is like in our month, our month six or seven, I don't know which one. And it was a random creator she wrote about us. My co-founder responded to it, and then you'll just see hundreds of responses under my co-founder, like, we love your platform. Like, this is great. Like, I want to sign up. And that thread blew up to the point where like I think brands will read it and be like, if a creator's having a good experience, why wouldn't I? Right. So it's like, I I really truly believe in build for the creator, you're indirectly building for the brand, right? So our our value property creator is like, hey, we are building for you. We are for you, we are creator first always, right? And the brand's not gonna have a problem with that because at the at the end of the day, if the brand, if the brand's happy, like they don't care, right? I mean, obviously the it transitioned, like we obviously had to factor in building for the brand and always, you know, and then being brand first, but we're always we're very fair and flexible. And we're very fair and flexible on rates too, right? We are very fair to both sides. We're like one of the only platforms that allows both sides to actually dictate the rates. Like creator has leverage here, brand has leverage here, right? So I think the more you show creators we actually care about you, you know, the more they're they're willing to work with you. And there was a one creator who wrote on a tw a tweet about us in January of 24, and uh it blew up. We got a thousand signups from that tweet, and that's when we really started to take off. And that creator, she's great. Her name's Emily. I still uh keep in touch with her, awesome person. But I'm very thankful for her because she was a huge reason to our success because she had a lot of respect in the community, right? And it's like it's like you you you make relationships with those people, right? Because they will spread the word for you organically. I never had to ask anybody to post about us, never. You go on TikTok. Should you put up out? There's three TikToks about us. I think two of them have over a million views. One has like about half a million. Just creators organically talking about us. I don't know any of them, right? But it's like I emailed them out, like, hey, thank you so much. You're awesome. So it's like building a great community, being community first. Uh, community is like, I'm gonna always use that word because it's so important. I think it's overlooked. Like, I think people use authentic too much. I'm like, no, use community. Like that's the real word. Authentic is becoming such a buzzword, right? But the more you build for a community, I think that's a value prop to creators. And I think brands value that. They value companies that do care about their creators because if you care about your creators, you're gonna get good content and the brand wins at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. I love your attitude. How was it balancing? Uh because you were in community college when you created this, and then you aren't now at well, you just graduated or you're still at UMass?

SPEAKER_02:

Still UMass.

SPEAKER_01:

So, and how was it to balance starting a company? You have to spend a lot of of time with school.

SPEAKER_02:

So community college was not awful because we weren't that busy, right? We were fairly small. We didn't have a lot of customers, like maybe 10 to 15. It was easy to handle. Community college was like a side thing to me. It was like, okay, I'll do the homework every Friday or whatever, every Saturday, I'll like sit down and do the work. It was more when I got to UMass Amherst, because now I'm actually like on campus, right? And our business out of nowhere just decides to take off, which is a good problem to have, right? So last semester I transfit in, it was it was pretty fairly, it was fairly easy then. This semester was very tough. I won't lie. We've had our best, you know, September was an amazing month, October's by far. We blew the numbers out of September, and that was already good, right? So it's like we've had our best quarter so far, and it's really hard. I'd be I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard because I have to balance school. I have to also handle sales, and I have to also handle operations. I can't do all three at once. We are in the midst of hiring though, so I can at least cut down operations and focus on sales. But balancing both has been it's been difficult. I will I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to drop out, but I'm not going to because the finish line's right there. But I would be lying if I said I didn't think about it at least a hundred times, right? But I I I got uh interviewed by Fortune last month or two months ago. Hasn't come out yet. I can't wait till it does. And they were so interested in the fact that like I'm doing this while not being a dropout because most kids usually drop out. And I'm like, yeah, I feel like there's a story to that. Like it, you know, there's it shows grit. I I like to call myself gritty, and um I I think I can do it. And I truly do believe at times the pros do outweigh the cons for school. I I just do. I think social aspect, the networking aspect in terms of like meeting future marketers, right? Like I came in as a marketing major to meet marketers. If I really wanted to, I'd probably choose psych or like neuroscience, like something interesting about people, right? But I was kind of I came in with a calculated that's just like, hey, I need to meet other marketers, I need to help people, I need to provide value. I've helped some friends get internships, I've helped some friends get jobs, right? Like I really wanted to just help people because one thing I learned about being in community college, obviously I had the chance to travel. I really learned no one really asked your GPA, no one really asked where you went to school at times, right? It was more of like, you know, I just learned it was a game of connections. Like, who do you know? Right? It's always a game of connections. So in my head, I'm like, why don't I just go to school and just meet as many people as possible? Oh yeah, I went to school with that guy. Oh, yeah, I went to school with her. Like it's always like I can just relay back to that three years from now, five years from now. And I think connections are probably the most important thing. And that's one thing I tell our interns right now. I'm like, make sure you connect to at least five net new people every single week. Like, please just go out, message them. Thankfully, every intern I've had has gone on a job after. I'm very happy about that. But I really tell them it's all about connections. Like, please network, please talk to people because like the job market is really bad right now, and you don't want to be stuck there. So that's like the biggest tip I give my friends at school. Some listen, some don't, right? But so it's definitely something that I really tell my interns, like two things I always teach them. It's like one, learn how to use AI, and two, network, and you will be okay. Right. But yeah, balancing it has been tough. I'd be lying. My GPA has definitely dropped this semester, but that's okay, right? But as long as I pass, it won't go that bad. But I've I figured it out, I've met some great friends, and I've uh you know, I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it, so I can't complain.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice. We know how you know the brands are obviously making money, how they're paying the creators. We hear about your success, but let's talk a little bit about the other parts because you still have to work hard. And have you been able to reach your financial goals in the organization for you and your business partner?

SPEAKER_02:

As today, no, right.

SPEAKER_01:

And I wanted to ask you that because this is a thing people don't don't hear about.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, they'll think, oh, Venovo, a million dollar company. Yeah, but I don't make a million dollars, right? So like I I started paying myself this year, February.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

So I went about a year and six months without pay. Because we yeah, we launched July 23, but we we didn't really find that product till January, right, of 24. But yeah, I didn't start paying myself until this year, February 25. It felt really good to start doing that. It's like it like kind of lights another fire, and you're like, oh, I want more, right? Not because I'm not money hungry, it's just like it's really just it's just cool to see like you're getting paid for something you've built. We do not care about the money right now. Like, yes, we do. We care about our company's growth. Us personally, like, I think we're okay. I mean, I'm 22, my co-founder's 29. He's a very stable, like Walmart tech job. He's making a good amount of money. I'm in college, I live with my mom, I have no bills or kids to worry about, so I have nothing to lose. So we're very fortunate that like we're okay in that way. But I do think next year we'll be a little bit more like, okay, like this is good, like we're we're paying ourselves a lot better. But yeah, our goal is just growing, just grow, grow, grow. Because every everyone always asks me, like, do you guys want to exit? I mean, why who wouldn't want to exit, right? I hate answering that question because of course, right? But I it's not my mindset right now. Like, my goal is like to keep on growing. The exit will come if it comes. And typically in SaaS, people play that game, like, hey, our goal, like, we'll make the money when we exit, right? Because these SaaS multiples are great. Like one of my buddies sold his company for$35 million. He's 24. Same industry as us. 6.7x valuation. He I I I can imagine he probably didn't pay himself a lot, but now he's loaded, right? So it's like, just play the long-term game, a couple years, and I'm okay with that. But yeah, I have you know nothing to lose, no big bills. Next year we'll probably we'll both probably pay ourselves a little bit more. But um, I'm always for the team first. Team will get paid higher than me. I value the people we're gonna hire. I want them to be okay, I want them to be stable, and I can focus about me later. But no, I don't make tons of money, but I I I make it good enough for a college student. I'll say that. That's a better answer. It's good for college, but not good in in life, I would say.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but you're going about it very smartly. Yeah. So you're not worried about having a company and being out there with the flash. You're focused, determined.

SPEAKER_02:

Not at all. Yeah. And that it's funny because before Vidovo, that's all I really I like, wanted the money, wanted the flash, but it's like I've matured so much since building this company. It's really humbled me. I will not lie to you. It's humbled me on like the worst days, which is great because I've been able to grow from it and bounce back. But one thing I've learned is like just patience, right? And you can spell patience with a P A Y, right? Patience, right? So like I I can wait for it. I'll be okay. We have time. So I'm very optimistic about the future. I know my financial goals will be set fairly soon. So I'll be okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic. Now you're still an undergrad. This podcast, Media Escape, is is sponsored by the Masters in Digital Media Management, right? And I also teach for the masters in digital social media, where in both programs, students are coming up with a capstone idea. So a product they could take to market or website or a campaign for their the company that they work for, or many of them are looking at on the entrepreneurship route. What is a piece of advice that you would give to any student who's listening, or even a graduate who's listening, or an adult? Because I am also always starting new projects and I'm a very different demo age demographic than you. But what advice would you give to somebody who is taking that step?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I would say just keep going at it. Kind of what I just said before, like grit, resilience, the power to keep going is so important. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't days I wanted to quit, right? I mean, I looked at our stripe dashboard, it'd say zero every single day, and I still kept going. It's like if you really truly love something, you truly think you found a problem in the market, even on the bad days, just keep going. You know, your time will come. Like, like I said earlier in the podcast, I went 16 calls in a row, and this was spread out too. It wasn't like within a week, like this was a spread out time. So I was hearing no's and I would get another call like four days later, and no, and another call two weeks later. Like, you just gotta keep going. Keep your head down, stay strong, stay resilient, and you know, your time will come as long as you're consistent and you're doing the right thing, right? As long as you're doing the right thing. Be curious too. I had an ego, I will say, when I first launched Vidobo. I was like, oh, I ran this Discord in high school, I'll be fine, this will be easy. I was very wrong, right? Be curious and ask questions. I would reach out to as many people as I could on LinkedIn, met as many founders, like, hey, I'm a young founder. I always start with I'm a young, because they'll be like, oh, you're a young that guy, right? So use your age to your advantage. Because I thought at first that me being 19 was actually a disadvantage, but learn how to turn your disadvantage into an advantage. Like get help, talk to people, meet people. You will never know. Like the people I met in my first year or two, I didn't maybe I didn't see any results from it right away, but a year later they've sent me so much business, they've made so many introductions to me because they want to see that growth too, right? So it's like just be out there. And yeah, all I could say is just keep going. I think that's the best advice you could give. Like, please keep going. Your time will come. There, like I can I said kids on there's been days where I really wanted to quit and just throw the towel in, but I just didn't. And a lot of people do quit, right? And it's like just don't be one of those people, you know, your time will come. So I I hope that that's helpful. I don't know how how helpful it is, but I think I think uh keeping your gas on the pedal is like the best thing you could do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I think that's very sound advice. It's the reality of being a founder, of being a startup, especially when you're bootstrapped.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

You just have to keep going, you have to just believe in yourself and your product that there is a product market fit and just put one foot in front of the other.

SPEAKER_02:

And I would highly recommend bootstrapping too. If we raised money, I think we'd be dead in the water. I really do. Yeah, I think we would have spent all the money. And because like when you bootstrap, you're very frugal, and you're you know, you can take a little bit more risk. Well, not not as much as well, you can yes and no, I would say, but when you take those risks as a raised company is a lot different, like you could get in, like you get some trouble. Like us, it's like, hey, we lose 10,000 or whatever, right? Uh so it's like I think bootstrapping is one of the best molders for an entrepreneur. You learn so much about yourself, you learn so much about the industry, you learn so much about the company because you're forced to. You don't have money, right? You have to do things differently, you have to think about things differently. And I think that's the smartest way to do it. Maybe my next company, I raise money because I just I don't know how to do it, but I really, really advise for that first one or two, like just bootstrap, figure it out, learn, fail, trial and error. And I think you'll you'll learn a lot more than raising. I know a lot of people raised who regret it. They've always told me to bootstrap. I know a lot of people who raised who are starting companies that are they're bootstrapping and not taking any more money. So it's like just bootstrap. I think it's things very underrated nowadays. Hopefully it picks back up.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice. Elijah, thank you for taking time to be on Media Escape today. We will absolutely have Vedovo in the show notes and perhaps your LinkedIn profile so that people can reach out if they have questions or want to connect.

SPEAKER_02:

Please do.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. And thank you to everybody who's listening to this episode or watching it. Please leave us a rating review. Those are few and far in between. People don't often take the time, but they are very valuable for podcasts and podcasters for discoverability. And so that we get a finger on the pulse of how you feel about our content. Speaking of content creators, right? So this again is MediaScape Insights from Digital Changemakers. I'm one of your hosts, Annika Jackson, and have a lovely day. We'll see you back in a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_00:

To learn more about the Master of Science and Digital Media Management program, visit us on the web at dmm.usc.edu.

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