Matt Holme
Transcript
Danielle (Scrunch) (00:10):
All right, Matt from upi, I am so excited to have you on the Scrunch Creator Economy Show. Welcome.
Matt Holme (00:18):
Great to be here, Danny. I've been looking forward to this, so let's do it.
Danielle (Scrunch) (00:21):
Awesome. Well, let's start by giving everyone some context into how you got here. So we'll talk about you Payne a second, but what's your backstory? So Korea, other businesses, how did you kind of get to sparking the idea of upi?
Matt Holme (00:36):
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm the, your classic overnight success story. It's taken me 25 years to get to where I am today. <Laugh> awesome. I'm definitely aging myself a little bit there, but the story does start 25 years ago, 1997. So yeah, back in the nineties I learned about, I became, I guess in theory an entrepreneur before I even knew what the word meant. Awesome. so I was 15. I started a website about a video game that I was right into at a at the time, which I think a lot of people still are. My son is 12 and he is definitely into this game. It's a FIFA soccer video game. So it was big back then, just like, it's just as big today. So I was right into playing that game. And a few of my mates at school were starting websites. They told me about this place you could go to called geos.com, where they would give you two megabytes of free space and back in the nineties, <laugh>
Danielle (Scrunch) (01:31):
Believe it not, what is in, what even is that? Oh
Matt Holme (01:33):
My God. I know exactly. No one speaks in megabytes. Cause today's, there's just always enough space on your devices. Well, I don't know, maybe like, people look at 64 gigabytes of space or 1 28 gigs of space on their phone. Mm. Well, believe it or not you could have two megabytes of space and a website for free and you could start your own website. So I started learning how to build websites and came up with this concept for making it possible to modify this game I was playing. Because the logic behind it was that back then in the FIFA game you, you couldn't actually, well, you didn't get the proper jersey. So if you were playing with Man Fest United you'd get a Red Jersey, but you wouldn't get all the authentic badges and logos and the Umbro and the Sharp sponsorship, all the cool stuff that us kids, when we were trying to create this authentic experience, they didn't get.
(02:21):
So I, I created a website where people could pack the game like mods and, you know, still, still common these days. And ultimately that website bonded into what became the world's largest sports video games community. So I think, you know, being here today to talk to you about influencers and community and social commerce, et cetera, the whole social aspect of thing is, is probably been in my DNA from day one when I just almost organically created a massive community based around this video game. So then fast forward a couple of years, I'm in my early twenties. The company that makes the game called EA Sports actually end up headhunting me and getting me over there to Canada to become a producer on the game. So that was amazing. Holy
Danielle (Scrunch) (03:02):
As a holy crap. I didn't know that about you, <laugh>,
Matt Holme (03:04):
Did you know that? Ok. That's awesome. I thought it was just kinda running through the motion here.
Danielle (Scrunch) (03:08):
No, I I I had no idea. That is so cool. <Laugh>.
Matt Holme (03:12):
So yeah. I, I did. So when over there it became a producer, actually part of the team building the game. So real you know, dream come true for a young person who kind of idolized the game and it became part of the people actually designing the game. So great way to, you know, travel in your twenties as well as also learn a lot about corporate culture, working at a large publicly listed company like ea. You know, EA has come a long way. Like there, there's a lot of things that have changed since that was 2004 through to 2008. A lot of things that have changed in company culture a lot. So I learned a lot of good things, a lot of things as well in relation to do how to drive a team and get the best performance out of a team.
(03:51):
But that doesn't necessarily mean you have to have people basically sleeping under their desks. So the thing about building that game as, as a young person, it's interesting because at EA sport, certainly back then as a publicly listed company, they're very dependent, of course, of delivering on their earnings and, and hitting their revenue forecast. So the game I was working on actually delivered a billion dollars of back then their $3 billion in annual revenue. So Wow. And the game also happened to ship, so in other words, would be released mm-hmm. <Affirmative> pretty much on the last day of September. And as we, we know in the world of finance, the last day of September for most companies also happens to be the last day of q3. Mm. So of course it was very important that this billion dollar product came out on time, because if it didn't come out on time, the company would have to say they've missed their earnings by $1 billion.
(04:42):
Wow. So as a result, huge amount of pressure on the team to deliver it. Mm-Hmm. so for me it was a great eyeopener, a lot of exposure to, to how to build a high quality, quality product on time and on budget, but a great way to learn of the good and the bad things about bu building a company culture. Mm-Hmm. So brought that mindset back to Australia and around about 2009 when my my, was my girlfriend, then became my fiance, and then became my wife in that period of time, crystal and I moved back did the whole start of family thing around about 2010, settled down, and I started a a web development company. So a web design company called My Work. I'm still, I I think now looking back as an older person, looking back on my youth, yet again, I think kind of community driven, because the logic of the name my work was actually stemmed from MySpace to still kind of being locked
Danielle (Scrunch) (05:29):
Back of course, yeah.
Matt Holme (05:31):
At the time. So the thought process then was, well, look, if a lot of individuals like to connect in the world of MySpace, why wouldn't a lot of small businesses like to connect in the world of my work? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it, it, it kind of just morphed into, instead of being a network of businesses, which now in hindsight could have actually been amazing if I'd have stuck to it. Totally.
Danielle (Scrunch) (05:52):
Yes. <Laugh>,
Matt Holme (05:53):
There's a couple of you, you know, a couple of companies that have done quite well, building out connected business networks, <laugh> and, but we actually ended up just designing a whole bunch of small business websites and still becoming effectively a network, but just becoming almost a subscription model website company. So we were, we were selling website packages $150 per year sold, you know, close to 10,000 of them in the last 10 years. And this, this web design company's still, you know, doing terrifically well, it's still up and running today. I started that business with my brother-in-law, Dan, and we've, we've always worked together since. And yeah, still still a a, a business that I'm a part of in relation to being a director. But if we fast forward that another 10 years, we get to YouPay, we get to the, my kind of aha moment of coming up with the concept for YouPay and coming up with the idea and knowing that this isn't what, what not just, it's not just another one of those hair brain ideas that you can't execute on. It was actually one of those ideas where I had the resources, the knowledge, the merchants and everything at my disposal to actually execute on the idea. And that was around about, about two years ago now, about June or July, 2020 when that idea became a reality. So there you go. There's a 25 year overnight success story
Danielle (Scrunch) (07:09):
<Laugh>. It's so good. And I love it because I think so many people think you've just gotta have the fir like the brilliant idea, the one thing, and you just know it and your life is mapped out, but it's never that way. It's always a series of experiences, contacts then the brilliant idea, then a whole lot of work, then it's wrong. Then you try something else and you try something else and then it kind of comes together. So I, I actually love that you have that story cuz it's like everything was building up to this point.
Matt Holme (07:39):
Yeah, I think so too. And I actually think if we fast forward another five or 10 years, if I'm still relevant, I'll, I'll then say, and it turns out something I didn't even know at the early stages of YouPay led to this scenario as well. So yeah. Constantly evolving and learning. And it's only actually been in recent times that I was able to look back and piece together because the, the story of YouPay, which I know we'll get into further shortly, has been how we've started to, and actually really found product market fit in these connected communities. And it's almost just like this realization that when I looked back and I started answering questions like this during pitches or interviews that I went, oh wait a second. I think I've kind of been building community products for the last 25 years and maybe that's actually what I have a skillset set for. Yes. But it's almost like it's not a fluke that YouPay happens to have been embraced by connected communities. It's been built by me. And it turns out that's something that to give myself a pat on the back is amongst many things I might not be great at. There's clearly one thing I do well at that, so. Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle (Scrunch) (08:40):
No, that is so good. Okay, so then for everyone listening, what is up? Pay <laugh>.
Matt Holme (08:45):
So up pay makes it possible for, for someone else to pay for your order at the checkout. So that's the simplest, logical step of one person creates the cart and another completely independent person from anywhere in the world, be it a family member, a friend, or even someone completely anonymous. And we'll talk about that a bit more and create a commerce can then pay for your cart. So that's the that's the how it works. The big, you know, elevator exciting pitch is that it's the third payment segment in world commerce. So by third, I mean the first payment segment in World Commerce was instant payments like Visa and MasterCard and PayPal. You just pay for yourself. And then after pay and buy now, pay later came along and made it possible to split the transaction and by now pay later became the second payment segment and World Commerce. And now where the new third one, the shared multiplayer payment segment where a real person, not even just potentially one real person, maybe multiple people can connect and pay for your order. So that's, that's the exciting thing. It's much more than just a, a cool product, which is it's sure is. It's actually a whole big kind of cultural shift that we are trying to push out there and having a little bit of success along the way doing that. It's all about a, a new way to shop.
Danielle (Scrunch) (09:59):
I think it's so cool because for me personally, I see it on a few levels. So obviously, you know you know, you just take, when your bloody partner asks you <laugh> what you want for your birthday, how much easier just going here, I've put it in my cart, you pay for it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and sending them the link and having them actually pay for the thing. Like, that's the most simplest thing that I think of as you know, a person in a relationship. And then I think about the same, like literally my mom is already asking me what I want for Christmas mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, so you know, how easy for me just to go, I want that you pay that link that you pay that link you that pay. So from a consumer level, so cool. Mm-Hmm. But I love, you know, we've been talking a little bit about how it impacts influences and the creator economy and that I think is where it's got this huge, like this community element that it's really gonna make a cultural shift in the way that people actually make money in a, in a completely different way.
(11:03):
I'd love you to chat about that.
Matt Holme (11:04):
Yeah, that's, that's so true. And it's good. What you've just used there is your own use case. And that's the exciting thing about you payers that every person I talk to is, is able to, in some way, give me an example of how they could use it. Whether it's the, the gifting element of partners connecting there. Whether it's someone like myself with three kids and my boy going to say Culture Kings or ls, K d and saying, dad, I need all this stuff and <laugh> even when
Danielle (Scrunch) (11:30):
I need the newest stuff, dad <laugh>,
Matt Holme (11:32):
That's it. And, and the benefit there is that I can see where my 12 year old boy is just about to become a teenager and being influenced et cetera by society. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I might go, wow, I didn't even know my son was into this particular brand and style and now I'm chatting to him about lifestyle choices, potentially all born from him being able to connect to me and say, dad, here's the stuff I'd like to buy at a certain store. So that's how I, I that's the benefit for me. So, but then where we've really started to see real global scale is in this, this creator social commerce space. So the underlying feature that's driving this is the privacy element of you pay. So every YouPay card doesn't deliberately keeps all of the personal information of the person sharing the card completely private.
(12:20):
Mm-Hmm. So obviously in your use case, in my use case, you know who your partner is and I know who my son is. So that's not the underlying feature there. But in the creator world, of course, when you've got fans and followers saying, Hey, I love your content, I really want to contribute, can I buy you a present for your birthday? If you've got 10,000 people watching your live stream mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you certainly don't want to say to the 10,000 people, well, here's where I live so you can buy me a birthday present. So normally it would have to be maybe an Amazon wishlist, it could be a cash donation. Yep. it could be a getting a PO box to maybe even then it's still a PO box inside a city, so you'd still be revealing the city Yeah. That you live in. So our, our product's designed so that I could right now in theory drop a you pay cart if anybody's watching this and say, Hey, buy me this pair of shoes from Culture Kings. And I think people would probably know my name's Matt home, but would not have to know anything else about where I live and would have the ability to see exactly what they're purchasing for me, where it's coming from, how much, and go ahead and make that payment. So that, that's the real thing. It's the privacy element mm-hmm. Of it. That's, that's driving the the adoption.
Danielle (Scrunch) (13:31):
Yeah. Well I love the privacy element, but I also love just the creative way that influencers or creators can, can kind of make money mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So it's not, obviously no one's paying them cash, but if you think about the fact that they're able to subsidize lifestyle items through their community, that's huge. Like so many influencers and creators rely on sponsored posts from brands mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and sometimes the brands send them free stuff, you know, it might not even be stuff they really want <laugh>. Yeah. But you know, they're just trying to get the work and then other times they do get paid. But if the creator was actually able to say, you know what, like a part of my living is, you know, these lifestyle items, I want these whatever items, and I can put that up out to my fans and my fans can actually finance some of my life in return for being an amazing creator and whatever content and whatever way they structure it like that is so cool.
Matt Holme (14:28):
Yeah. It's very powerful when it's, it's it's a genuinely different way of, of giving like just genuinely gifting and giving to someone who you want to support. It's a very tangible way. So you'll literally see the product. So next time you tune in, there's the product called being held in your favorite creator's hands. And they're, thanks, thank you Matt, for buying me this. And I'm like, wow, wow. They said my name. Yeah. and that's, you know, that that's the gratification on both sides of the, of the marketplace, that you've got the shopper, the person who's ultimately receiving the item, the creator, getting something in return, and then also the payer, the person making the payment, the gifter really getting some self worth out of, of seeing their creator say their names. That that's great. And there's so much more, you know, without going too deep into what we are building.
(15:16):
But it's really exciting because you know, think of how a cart doesn't just necessarily allow for a creator say, Hey, here's something I want for my birthday. But it would also inspire the people who look up to that creator and like potentially that person's style to say, well, not only would I like to buy that pair of shoes for that creator, cuz I like to gift, but given that that creator likes that pair of shoes, well I want that pair of shoes for myself. Yes. So our product can then benefit the merchant and then become an additional level of revenue source for the creator because they know that not only would they get the pair of shoes for themselves, but potentially tens of thousands of people who they influence. Yeah. Can be term influencer will then go ahead and end up saying, well look, if she buys those shoes, I'm gonna buy 'em too. And that is all stemmed from that our product being used as the, the place where everybody store those products in the very beginning. So there's, so as you can see it, there's a, there's a long way where that can go. Yeah.
Danielle (Scrunch) (16:14):
And it's so much more powerful than just, you know I've just purchased this coffee cup, here's my review. It's like actually getting your community involved. So it's saying, I've seen this, I want this, you know, someone gifted to me, they go out and buy it and then they go, well I just bought that for them, but I want one too. And like getting the whole community involved in commerce, creativity and brands and products, it's just next level. It's just actually opening up the conversation about commerce, which is so exciting.
Matt Holme (16:45):
It is. Yeah. And, and I think that the great thing about our product that I always like is that it's different in the sense that there's a lot of great creator commerce tools coming out and Shopify's doing them with YouTube. And a lot of it's aligned with almost like an outbound push of like, Hey, you like my content? Why don't you buy my merch? So here's, here's my hoodies that I'm selling, and if you'd like to buy the hoodie that I'm wearing right now here's a link to make that possible, which is very valuable and that's terrific. Whereas ours is more of an inbound, like well actually I'm a, I'm a micro influencer and I'm just kind of scraping by hearing and getting by and I'm not making much money from my huge v bad revenue. So as a result, why don't you buy me a hoodie? So it's, it's a, it's a different way of looking at from a, a revenue perspective, whether it's outbound merchandise, merchandise sales, which is definitely being catered for now and our product's about more of an inbound flow into the into the creator.
Danielle (Scrunch) (17:41):
Yeah. And I love that I, you've just made me think of a and creator that I follow who is very much a micro influencer. And when you just said, you know, that might be a micro influencer just scraping by. And I was like, I actually know someone. And she, so she ha struggles with like an illness and she often posts, she says, Hey, you know, the way I make money is through branded content. If you can go and like it cuz that helps me get more engagement so I can get more work. And I was like, she doesn't have to do that anymore. She can actually say, Hey, can you help us out with these kitchen things or these lifestyle things, or whatever it is. Like that's so powerful for her community to actually be able to tangibly help her without it being like a charitable donation.
Matt Holme (18:21):
Yeah. That's it. You, you've sold it for me right there.
Danielle (Scrunch) (18:25):
I don't need to sell do.
Matt Holme (18:28):
That's so cool. I completely agree. And is there's these underlying kind of really good moral values and, and you know, what excites me about the product is no matter how it's used in the world of creator economy it, it's, our product is the underlying connector between these two entities that exist, the, the creator and the fans. And the, the primary solution or service that we deliver is that privacy, that peace of mind that you can just openly say if someone wants to buy. It's like you've got that new freedom to be able to say, look, you don't have to, but if you would like to support me, you can buy this for me. And it's safe and secure. No, no kind of privacy risk. And it's, it's really, you know, kind of humbling and exciting for me to be seeing the product literally used like that every day now, which has been very cool to go from. Yeah. Just a, a kind of an idea literally two years ago to it literally being utilized in the way we're describing every day. Yeah. Great.
Danielle (Scrunch) (19:22):
That's so, that's so cool. So have you got any interesting, like, brand examples where this has kind of been working really well?
Matt Holme (19:31):
Yeah, well look the, the oth the one brand we are or I would say industry where this has been really eye-opening is in the world of alternate fashion and, you know, to, to give it another term gothic clothing to, to use another example. Yeah. And the cool thing about the use case there is obviously there's, there's plenty of creators in that space and they're using it in exactly the same way that we've just described. But the other space where this has been really powerful is more of aligned with social commerce. And the way I like to describe that is even as, as a micro influencer, which I think thanks to our friends at Link Tree, they might define that as having 1000 followers. Mm-Hmm. That kind of, you, you're well and truly nice. I think that's kind of your threshold for when you start to become internet famous a little bit.
(20:13):
Yes. <laugh> the cool, the cool thing about our product is even in Facebook groups where you are not internet famous, you're just a, a regular person with a group of connected people, we are seeing people in these connected groups. So let's say there's a, there's a great brand in Australia called Berserk, which is the one of the largest alternate fashion brand. I think they're the largest alternate fashioned door in Australia. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and they've been great partners, awesome to work with. And what they have is this connected community Kansas, thousands of people who are right into alternate fashion. They're all part of this, this Facebook group. They've been getting to know each other for a period of time and as soon as you pay was introduced, now they can gift each other because although you are feeling comfortable and you are trusting these 10,000 people who are part of your world still though you're not gonna tell 10,000 people where you live to receive a gift.
(21:02):
Cause maybe somewhere inside the 10,000 people if someone you wouldn't wanna know your place of residence. Mm-Hmm. Whereas yeah, as once again, our product drops in there, then all of a sudden someone could say that as group hey, it's my birthday. Or someone says, oh Matt, we've heard it's your birthday. And everyone replies back with birthday wishes and when someone says, what do you want for your birthday? You share your, you pay card, everybody jumps on it and buys you your stuff. That's so yeah. That, that's been amazing that always knew there'd be the kind of creator commerce aspect, but I never thought the everyday person who's not internet famous could be using the product too.
Danielle (Scrunch) (21:36):
Yeah. And I love that because that's extended beyond. So, you know, I guess I gave the, this is how I'd use it with my family and then we went all the way up to creators, but this is like that place in the middle where people are part of communities mm-hmm. That, you know, are interested in something similar and how they connect and oftentimes online rather than offline. Mm-Hmm. and how they can actually yeah. Start gifting or exchanging products. Mm-Hmm. That's such a, it's like a one-to-one level still, but this, this community, it's really exciting.
Matt Holme (22:08):
Yeah. And so, and so it's just been that classic case of releasing the product and then letting your customers kind of show you how they want to use the product. Mm-Hmm. It was actually a little bit of a smaller brand called tragic Beautiful in that gothic alternative fashion space who kind of just dropped you pay into their Facebook group and off it went. And we're even having community leaders inside these groups creating group funds as they call them. So almost doing like a crowdfund where they'll say someone in our group you know, will keep her anonymous if she's having a really hard time at home and she needs some new needs a new bedspread for the, for the kids room or something. So here's a, a high ticket item, it's about $250, but if we all chip in maybe 10 25 of us put in 10 bucks, I'll go ahead and make the payment. So they're actually dropping their pay ID or their PayPal me address. Yeah. Cause this person's a community leader, they've got trust and people go, okay, I've just given five bucks, I'll give them 20 bucks and before the end of the day they go, well done everybody, we've all contributed. I've gone it, it's a receipt receipt to show that I've paid for that person's cart. Yep. And everybody feels great cuz they've all chipped in to help out a community member.
Danielle (Scrunch) (23:15):
Wow. That's awesome.
Matt Holme (23:16):
Awesome. Remarkable. Yeah.
Danielle (Scrunch) (23:17):
And such a cool like thought for, you know, when you think about it from a charity point of view, you know, oftentimes people don't know how to help other people. You know, when we have major flooding events or you know, ma major weather events, everyone kind of goes into how do I help mode? And, you know, you, you run to the store and buy the tin food or whatever, but how cool now that families could actually go, you know what, the tin food's great, but what we actually need is these three things. Cuz yes, it's, you know, my kids are cold or we've, you know, the clothes got lost or this got lost in, in the event. So being able to actually ask for what you really need and so people can jump on and just give in that way, that's awesome.
Matt Holme (24:02):
Yeah. That's great. And, and yeah, it kind of solves that problem of potential skepticism that if I give a $50 donation to a Salvation Army, who's obviously a terrific charity, but I don't get to see where that money goes, that's just a fact. But if it was a, you know, a $50 gift hamper of breakfast cereal, I would literally know that there's gonna be a retailer tipping 50 bucks worth of breakfast cereal to a family in need. And then I go, that's so cool. 50 bucks worth of cereal for some kids and that, that makes me feel good. And they get, they literally get the, the boxes of cereal delivered to their door.
Danielle (Scrunch) (24:38):
That's so cool. I love that there needs to be like a marketplace for these links where everyone can just jump in and go, I wanna help you
Matt Holme (24:46):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Well, you know, that's so, so true. Like that's, that's the kind of the end game as to where we are going. So you're right that, that what we're ultimately gonna be building here is the central destination or the platform for everything you want in the world. And that can be for That's cool. Yeah. You know, this could be like more of a selfish approach of like, I want these shoes cuz they're so cool and I love this style through to, I actually genuinely need this stuff because my house flooded. But it, it can be then, you know, so imagine you, you go into this destination and you are filtering through wow, this person who's actually internet famous, a celebrity influencer needs this, this is my opportunity to gift an influencer. Or here's another category of the Salvation Army has partnered with upi, they've put together a series of carts that can really go to people in need.
(25:30):
And for each person who may wish to give it, it will be exactly that. And it will be ways to then log in and have your friends. That might just be my, my family members are in a certain group. I've curated my own wishlist, not because I'm greedy, but because I'm actually gifting time back to my my family because when my cousins or brothers or sisters or mum or dad say Matt for Christmas, I just dunno where to start. I'll say, don't worry, just go to, we're calling it up uk.me. So you can actually kind of see version one of it now for, it's actually, but we're just about to release it in our VIP group, our kind of Facebook group got about 5,000 people in this. If you go to youpay.me, you type in your email address, any shopping cart that you have created is all now in one place.
(26:14):
Oh, cool. And the idea here is that, you know, by this Christmas must have expanded that feature further instead of me saying, Hey Danielle, what do you want for Christmas? And so where do you live again and what's your address? And oh, that thing comes in about 15 different shapes and sizes. Which one's the right one for you? Yeah. I could go to youpay.me/danielle or whatever you've decided to call your page. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you've created a little area called work colleagues. And I go, oh, turns out that you want this and I'll buy it for you. And you get a little notification on your screen saying someone just bought you this item and you're like, oh wow. And then three days later there's a knock at the door with a, a gift and a message from Matt saying, thanks for the support in 2022 and Merry Christmas. So,
Danielle (Scrunch) (26:52):
Oh my God, this is so cool.
Matt Holme (26:54):
That's a big picture play.
Danielle (Scrunch) (26:56):
Yeah. I just hope from now my doorbell keeps ringing with people buying the presents. <Laugh>. That's the dream. <Laugh>. Yeah. Awesome. So then if I'm a creator and I want to find how I can kind of get started, you know, integrating this into my content, I guess the place to start is which retailers are actually on board. Do you have a list that people can find who they can connect with?
Matt Holme (27:21):
Yeah, exactly. So yep. So youpay.co/stores or just go to go to the u uk website. Yep. so it's what you pay like Y O u like U YouTube, so yeah. U u pay.co. Yep. And and then click on stores and there's a directory there. Like I think we're at about 180 now and shooting for 200 very quickly. And that's growing. That's growing because we're a merchant, we're a, we're a Shopify public app now. Makes it really easy for the retailers to integrate our public, our, our product, which is excellent. But that's it. So that's how, how it works today is exactly that. You kind of filter through all the different stores and you say, I'm an influencer in this particular area of fashion. And so you might filter for that and say, okay, great, well I'm gonna start creating shopping carts and distributing them across my content mm-hmm.
(28:07):
From these particular retailers that I'm really into. But then as this starts to evolve, what what we really want people to be able to do is almost start with us. So instead of having to go to, you know, eight different retailers to create eight different carts, you just go into, you pay, it's keen to make some cuts for this particular style of shoes. And then, and then all the retailers products are kind of curated together. So you can see kind of how as a business, it's really exciting how far we've come, but there's still a long way to go in relation to building up the product to be everything it can be. But that's the, that's the journey where we're going on to, to make sure we good. It's
Danielle (Scrunch) (28:41):
So cool. Well, I think you'll always be thinking of new things, right? So, you know, as, as more and more merchants get involved, as more influencers and creators user, everyone's gonna be giving you feedback and brilliant ideas. So that's so cool. So why don't we wrap with one last question. So obviously you are very deeply embedded in communities and social commerce. Do, do you have any thoughts on what's coming next? Like any sort of trends for the space that you're finding interesting?
Matt Holme (29:09):
Yeah, you've put me on the spot with that question.
Danielle (Scrunch) (29:12):
Yeah, totally. Totally.
Matt Holme (29:13):
And I,
Danielle (Scrunch) (29:14):
You know what, maybe you're actually setting the trends already, but I just thought I would ask.
Matt Holme (29:19):
Yeah. I think like, I think actually, even though it's already defined, I think create commerce as a whole is just, it's just so early days. Mm-Hmm. You know, isn't it? So it, it's like, I don't necessarily think we need to come up with something completely new, we just need to understand it. There's, there's so much more opportunity that exists for the creators or the product creators like ourselves, the networks, the platforms. Yep. There's just so much opportunity there. So and I think the, the opportunity then is just as you alluded to really genuinely listening to the creators and the customers mm-hmm. And just seeing the trends of how people are connecting and then then tailor making your product to suit, you know, making that even easier, making it quicker. So, you know, it might previously have taken eight different steps to get something done.
(30:11):
And then someone sees that as a company like you paying says, oh, wait a second, why don't we make that a feature of our product? And now it can be done with one click. So I think the opportunity, there's maybe then in summary I've kind of come to my own conclusion that might be optimizing Yeah. The processes and making things quicker and easier for these communities to, to get the most out of their their followers and, and the fact that they've clearly got something going on there where you've got potentially thousands if not millions of people who wanna watch your stuff is just so much ways to make it easier for your community to kind of give back.
Danielle (Scrunch) (30:44):
That's so cool. And I love that because I think you're, I think you're spot on to be honest. You know, we're, we've been working with influencers and creators for like a decade now, and literally this year we have sort of changed the way that we do business and we're really advocating for helping creators become business people. Mm-Hmm. And get off that sponsored post stamp ster wheel. Yeah. Yeah. So I absolutely love that there's products like yours that are you know, and feels like whilst it's established and awesome and it's so good, but I feel like you just have like such a huge vision and are really gonna change the game for creators. So yeah, so stoked to speak with you and, and share that with creators and, and the community as well. It's, it's absolutely awesome what you guys are doing.
Matt Holme (31:32):
Oh yeah. Thanks so much for saying that. Great. You know, really validating to hear people like yourself say it, because like you've said, you've, you've, you've seen this kind of from the very beginning all the way through to now and Exactly right. It's, it's crazy to think it's it's been a 10 year journey potentially, but you know, there's just so much opportunity right there and it's almost like having to figure out which ones to do first. And and you know, I'd love to be able to fast forward and have all this ready tomorrow, <laugh>, but I'm excited and privileged to be in a position where, yeah, we actually have people using our products. We we're starting that process now, so just pumped to get stuck stuck back into it. Yeah.
Danielle (Scrunch) (32:08):
So, cool. Well, congratulations and thank you for sharing your story on the Scrunch Creator Economy Show. We'll absolutely link up everything so all of our creators and brands can find you and, and get started.
Matt Holme (32:22):
All right. Well thanks so much for the opportunity, Dani. I've really enjoyed it.
