Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey everyone. Welcome to Creative Architects by Casts. I am your host, Angela Hollowell, and this is a podcast about the future of the Creator economy. Today I'm joined by Jennifer Fan, who is the founder or co-founder of Passionfruit, which is an incredible online marketplace for creators to talk directly with sponsors for their YouTube channels, their podcasts, or email newsletters, and so much more.
Speaker 2 00:00:31 So there was one creator, um, he, I think when I approached him, he said, look, I have, you know, like 10,000 subscribers on my newsletter. I'm not even sure if that's big enough for sponsorships. Um, but yeah, let's, you know, let, um, let me, you know, like onboard on Passion fruits or, um, onboard it. And now actually it's really, um, I think a multimillion, um, probably, um, company, uh, in terms of like sales per year.
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[email protected] or by clicking on the link in the description. Thanks for tuning in. It means a lot. I hope you enjoy the show. So I met Jennifer through emails. It was pretty organic. She reached out to me about passion fruit. She saw that I was a creator and, uh, invited me to just check out the platform. You know, no strings attached. I saw it. I fell in love with it. I feel like this is something that creators are really going to benefit from, especially if the mindset is to create something with monetization in mind. So, Jennifer, can you talk to me a little bit about how the idea for Passion Fruit came to be?
Speaker 2 00:02:09 Before I founding Passion Fruit, I had a normal job working actually as a early stage, um, VC investor, investing in, in, uh, startups and companies. And that was my day job. And, uh, my night job was actually being a creator. So I, I started 2020 with the Pandemic, right? Like writing a newsletter, um, building online community. And yeah, really loved it just to creatively express myself and share my learnings and, and things I'm interested in. And at some point actually really considered leaving my, my job and actually doing this full time. And I think that's where I kind of understood that. I think more and more we see the shift in our society, right? Like where people wanna, um, work on their own terms, sometimes kind of almost stumble into this creator path because you just share, right? Like what, what you love, what you're interested in, and at some point actually you are really able to build a business around it.
Speaker 2 00:03:05 So I started to talk with a lot of creators. So people have YouTube channels, write a newsletter, have a podcast, and just ask them, you know, how do you make money? How long did it take you? How do you actually manage, you know, your, your business? And, um, yeah, just, just try to evaluate for myself, you know, like, what's the best, best path here? And from all those kind of like user interviews, at the end of the day, I realized this is a new generation of entrepreneurs and they need software or tools to help them run their business. So for us, the starting point to really provide value and and help with is around monetization, uh, with brand partnerships and sponsorships, because we saw that even though there is this notion of, you know, a hundred true fans, which in theory sounds great, right? Like you only need a hundred people, uh, to financially sustain yourself.
Speaker 2 00:04:01 In reality, what we saw is actually really, really, really hard. 'cause what it requires is oftentimes massive followership, massive subscribers, because oftentimes then only 1% is actually then, you know, converting into paid subscribers and actually then paying you. So what was a more realistic way to make money is actually by building a portfolio of different revenue streams. And one of the biggest ones is still like sponsorships or brand partnerships. And that's kind of where we say, how do we make this much, much simpler, take off as much as possible from the plate of the creator so that you actually can spend more time on, on creating and less on, you know, like negotiation, admin, invoicing and, and all of this stuff. And that's how in the end, uh, the idea for Passion Fruit was born. So basically Big Vision is, you know, like the, the all-in-one platform to, to make money with. And in the, in the short term, we're starting with brand partnerships and sponsorships.
Speaker 0 00:05:04 No, I love that because essentially Passion Fruit is a place where you can go, you can put up, you know, whatever products you would like to have sponsors for, whether that's a newsletter, YouTube channel, a podcast, and put up to packages and different options for brands to see directly what do they offer, what can we collaborate with them on, and, you know, is there the possibility for us to do something unique within their sponsorship packages? So when you started to build out passion fruit and kind of test it out with different creators, what was the initial feedback that you were getting then?
Speaker 2 00:05:38 It was really interesting because I think what we're building in that sense is a new category, but it actually exists already in different or in other markets, right? So in the sense, um, how the first generation of online entrepreneurs, which was mainly e-commerce merchants, you know, use Shopify to spin up kind of like their, um, storefronts their inventory of products and sell online their physical products. We believe that this is just, um, a new generation, kind of like the second generation of online entrepreneurs and how you actually think about more creating a system, right? Like around your brand or your offering and kind of like productizing yourself and scaling yourself. So in that regard, what we build is, on one hand it's very complex for us to build, but it's in the end and very simple though to use. And that is like our main goal. So the feedback was, you know, like it's super clean, neat, super intuitive to use, and people really loved it, and they love it so much that they tell, you know, their, uh, in their communities about passion fruit, they share it on Twitter, they share it with their friends. So that has been really amazing to, to see so far.
Speaker 0 00:06:53 Was there a moment when you kind of got going and a creator came to you with a sponsorship that they were able to have through Passion Fruit, where you were like, oh, wow, like that's a big number. We really can, can create a really big impact here?
Speaker 2 00:07:05 Yeah, I mean, I think what's really, really amazing to see is we're on this journey with creators together, right? Like some of the creators we're, um, we're working with when we approached them. So there was one creator, he, I think when I approached him, he said, look, I have, you know, like 10,000 subscribers on my newsletter. I'm not even sure if that's big enough for sponsorships, but yeah, let me, you know, like onboard on passion fruits. So, um, he onboarded and now actually it's really, um, I think a multimillion, um, probably company, uh, in terms of like sales per year, within the last month. And he became one of the largest or fastest growing newsletters in the world. So in that sense, it's amazing to see how we're also growing or scaling together with the creators. And I think that's, that's been amazing to see just the impact of kicking off or enabling creators to kick off new revenue streams and also expanding revenue streams with, with that.
Speaker 0 00:08:07 Yeah. That's awesome. That's incredible, right? And I think like it goes back to these arbitrary numbers that we have for ourselves. We'll say, well, you know, I only need a hundred, or I only have a thousand, I only have 10,000. When in reality that's like such a huge feat in and of itself. Like, you know, if you have 10,000 people who are continuing to come back every week or every day to read your newsletter, that's insane. Yeah. You don't even have 10,000 people who read your tweets every day, you know, <laugh> like, yeah. It's, it's such a huge number that we take for granted sometimes. And, you know, especially with our own channels, whether that's a podcast or a YouTube channel or a newsletter, you know, that's something that's a lot harder to get rid of versus a social media account. You know what I mean?
Speaker 0 00:08:49 Yeah. Uh, not to say that social media followings don't matter, but it's, it's such a different ballgame, you know, when you have people who are, are willing to get off of social media and specifically go to watch you or read your stuff. So for people who are in different mediums, you know, we're, we've been talking a lot about, you know, audio visual written, but I'm sure there's people who are designers who, um, are motion designers, animators, illustrators, other types of creators that I'm probably not even thinking of that are also interested in saying, well, like, how do I monetize, you know, my content? How can I create something that, you know, people would want to pay to get in front of my audience for? What are some of the success stories you've seen with people who may be, have tried monetizing in other ways and maybe didn't consider sponsorships an option for them, but then join Passion Fruit and were like, oh, wow, like I was really missing out on this large revenue stream.
Speaker 2 00:09:40 Yeah, I think it's super interesting. So there are some of our users who basically never thought about it as you said, and set it up, you know, the passion fruit storefront, link it in their Lincoln Bio website and their newsletter. Say, Hey, do you want to get in front of, you know, like 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 people who are interested in, you know, a topic X, Y, Z could be mental health, it could be sustainability, productivity, whatever you're anyway writing, um, content about, right? And then suddenly actually, um, what was really interesting is that a, if you obviously don't tell, um, and share that you are open for sponsorships, then no one will know. So I think that was one interesting learning. The second one is that some of your sponsors are actually already part of your audience. So some of them are, you know, like working at companies, they are maybe marketers.
Speaker 2 00:10:36 There are maybe business owners and founders themselves who want to get their product or service or event or hackathon in front of the, the, the audience of like-minded people, right? So that's like the second big learning is that a lot of, of your sponsors or, or, or people who want to support you as well are obviously part of your audience and are actually the first ones who oftentimes then, then sponsor something. And then the, the third one, uh, is again, make it as frictionless and simple as possible for sponsors to just book something, right? So we've seen also approaches before where creators basically say, Hey, if you wanna, you know, if you're interested in sponsoring, just, you know, write me an email, but so much uncertainty behind that, right? Because what do I get for that? What do you actually offer? Who's actually part of your audience? Is that audience interesting for me as a business to get in front of? So then I need to reach out via email. Then there's this whole email thread back and forth, right? So how do you actually reduce that friction, make it just as simple as booking a table in a restaurant? That's kind of the same experience we're we're creating with, with passion for it. Right?
Speaker 0 00:11:52 No, I, I love that. That's a great analogy because honestly, it has literally never been easier to reserve a table <laugh> Yes. On Google. And that is great, you know, and so going back to kind of the way that passion fruit is set up, right? You people have, yes, like packages and services that they offer, but they also offer like time slots. So you know, you are setting, you know, giving the expectation like, Hey, if you need something today that goes out tomorrow, probably not gonna happen. But if you need something and to go out and a podcast up to two weeks from now, we can make that happen. So going back to making it frictionless, it's very easy for potential sponsors to see, like if the campaign they want to run works within your timeline, right? Yeah, yeah. And of course fits with your audience because you can kind of describe your audience, you give audience insights, and I think that data is such an underrated tool for creators.
Speaker 0 00:12:47 Again, like this is going past vanity metrics, but this is just going into the nitty gritty of kind of telling the story of where your creator business is and who you are and the audience that you cater to. My favorite phrase is what gets measured matters and what matters gets measured. And so I think like even the information that we choose to put out about our business and about, you know, the work that we're doing tells a story about what's important to us, you know, what to us feels like the greatest impact. When I have 10,000 impressions, when I have 10,000 email subscribers, when I have 10,000 podcast downloads, what is most important to us? When you have been working with creators to set up, you know, their storefronts, what are some of the ways that, you know, you've seen people communicate like what's important to them to communicate to a sponsor, right? Because there are times when people will say, well, I don't wanna just be judged by my numbers.
Speaker 2 00:13:39 Yeah, yeah. No, I, I think that that makes a lot of sense. So I think, um, oftentimes more important than, than numbers is making very clear or, um, sure, like that you translate who your audience is or basically, um, what's your niche or, or vertical, right? So let's say a brand is, um, building a software for, I don't know, like AI for marketing. So what they wanna see when they go to your storefront is also right, like, am I able to reach the people or my I C P or persona I need with partnering with this creator? So what's the background of them? Are they, you know, marketers? Are they head of, uh, marketing or growth? Are they decision makers? Do they have budgets? So the more information you can provide, the better. That's especially important for if we talk about, right, like B two B creators or like knowledge creators.
Speaker 2 00:14:37 So that's actually almost the most important thing. Then the second thing is obviously, um, still like, obviously numbers, but again, what we've seen, which is interesting, is that oftentimes you don't need huge numbers. So some of our creators who have like, you know, a newsletter at 10,000 subscribers compared to some newsletters which have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, but they're still able to consistently sell to brands because they make, again, like very, very clear who's actually part of my niche audience, and how can you know that audience basically benefit from your product. So again, like coming back, so audience or basically the profile of the audience, very important. The second thing is, um, still numbers, but again, like not as important as, you know, the only K p I, the third thing is previous brands. So do I have recurring sponsors that shows, you know, like that I am actually being able to generate impact or a return, right?
Speaker 2 00:15:36 For, for the sponsors. So they coming back who are actually brands I worked with already in the past. So that also adds credibility. That adds, you know, I have experience that that's also just for the brand to be able to understand, oh, you know, I know those brands. They're actually in the same industry like me. That means this creator is also relevant for me. So that's a third big thing. And then the fourth thing we've seen is also just, you know, more social proof, like adding testimonials to the storefront and anything, right? Which kind of just adds this, um, credibility. So those are four things we, we've seen working very while. And one last thing maybe, which is another interesting learning is that there are always ways to create packages or custom packages, right? Let's say overall your audience might not be super big. Let's say your podcast has maybe, you know, a few thousand downloads.
Speaker 2 00:16:32 Twitter, you have like 20,000 followers, LinkedIn 10, and your newsletter maybe 1000 by each itself. It might be not super, you know, like attractive to just offer one newsletter, uh, ad to a brand. But by combining that in the multi-platform package and saying, look, we can, you know, reach the audience, which is interesting, uh, for you across all those different platforms, and then suddenly it's not 1000, but actually, you know, in total 20, 30,000 you can reach through that. That's actually super attractive. And that's also I think a very, very interesting learning from, uh, from working with tons of creators.
Speaker 0 00:17:13 Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because I really wanted to ask, as you're building out this platform and seeing the creators that one you've invited, but two, the creators that have also signed up since the launch, they're not just on one platform, right? There's a lot of cross-promotion involved in building your audience across different platforms. And I think, again, like going back to social media advice that we see on Twitter, that is probably highly irrelevant because there's a new social media platform popping up every day. You know, they say, well, pick one platform, go all in, just focus on that one platform. But I think since the beginning of time, that has been completely unrealistic because a lot of your initial marketing, especially for an online business, for a creator business, is gonna be through social media. And social media can change at any time.
Speaker 0 00:17:59 And, you know, different segments of your audience interact with different platforms. And so, you know, there's some people that, you know, are still using Facebook groups because that's just what works. You know, that's where their audience is and that's continuing to grow, and that's proven to be a tried and true place for them, right? There's some people who swear by Instagram still to this day with every new algorithm change, right? Some people who are like migrating to LinkedIn, they're like, this is where, you know, the high rollers are the B two B business people are, that are super serious about their careers and creativity and entrepreneurship. And of course there's still some holdouts on Twitter that are just like, this is where I've been able to gain community. I can, you know, express myself, I can also become a thought leader and establish myself in that space.
Speaker 0 00:18:40 But ultimately, you know, the goal is to get them off of social media and onto their own original content. So for people who are maybe thinking, okay, well I have a big social media platform, but I haven't been able to commit to, you know, creating a YouTube video every week or every month, I haven't been able to commit to consistently releasing a podcast episode every week or every month. I haven't been able to find traction in creating an email newsletter that, you know, people engage with and they feel like they wanna read, and the churn is kind of feeling really high. In essence, they're getting discouraged, right? With creating original content. What advice would you have for people like that?
Speaker 2 00:19:18 I think one of them biggest things, obviously everyone is saying, is always, always around consistency, right? Consistency is super important. I think similar to investors in some sort, creators have multiple shots, right? So you build this portfolio of different like platforms. On one hand, what we've seen with, by working with creators, but also like by building actually media company ourselves, is yes, in the beginning it does make sense to, you know, focus on one or two things and do do those well, but at the end, I think you still need to pick, as you said, a platform to actually then just do the distribution, right? Because otherwise it's really, really hard to grow. So for example, with the podcast, it totally makes sense also for us not only having an on uh, audio version podcast, but turning that into a video podcast so that from there you have the podcast, which is the original content, but then you can break it and distribute it across YouTube, YouTube shorts, TikTok, Instagram, even Twitter into micro content, right?
Speaker 2 00:20:20 So I think that's kind of the strategy we've seen over and over again is that in the beginning you do focus on one or two, I would say platforms or ways or pillars where you create your main content. I think that's the make sense. And then think about how you break that obviously content down into micro content to distribute it across the different platforms. And then honestly, it's also to just an, I mean a way, I mean, experi experimentation around which, which platform resonates the most or what kind of format. I think it's very, very hard to have this, you know, one silver bullet answer depending really on the topic you're creating, uh, or you're sharing about and where it resonates the most. But again, like usually one or two pillars, and then basically, um, distributing and breaking it down across different platforms is usually what we're seeing
Speaker 0 00:21:17 Yeah. As people grow and have the capacity to, to create more from, from their original stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's an incredible note to end on. I really appreciate you sharing that with me and our audience, and I cannot wait to see how passionate fruit continues to grow in the future.
Speaker 2 00:21:30 Thank you so much.
Speaker 0 00:21:32 That's all for this episode. If you enjoyed it, please give us a five star review on your listening app, like this video of your tuning in on YouTube and subscribe for more episodes. In the next episode of Creative Architects by Casto, I'll be talking with Deidre Shin, the creator of Cap Show, and you won't wanna miss it. I'll catch you in the next episode.
