In case you didn’t know, Spotter partners with content creators on YouTube in order to help them better succeed by giving them up-front cash. According to Tech Crunch, Spotter “help creators scale their channels faster by offering them large sums of upfront cash in exchange for the future ad revenue from their existing uploads.” At Vidcon, we got the chance to speak with Nic Paul from the startup about the future of Spotter and why you should be interested in working with them if you are a creator. With them working with creators like Mr. Beast and Deestroying, they’re definitely growing in popularity.
Shout out to all the amazing people that helped us support Ukrainian refugees! We all have to do what we can to help ????https://t.co/IVD6rmCrQY
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) June 18, 2022
Q&A with Spotter
Q) What is Spotter’s initiative right now being at VidCon? Is this your first time here?
A) So it’s not my first time here. It’s Spotter’s first time here because actually, the first year we did something, we were on a panel, it was the pandemic. So it was all virtual.
Q) Is there a goal specifically that you have, after being given a greater space, trying to meet more creators trying to get more about your initiatives coming up?
A) What we’re doing here and kind of what we’re always doing is how can we amplify and educate creators on the opportunity they have with Spotter. So right now we have a lounge in the back of the house, to which only creators and featured creators have access. So a lot of those creators we have done deals with, some of those creators we haven’t done deals with. So it’s about seeing our existing partners, how can we be better partners, but more importantly, educating all creators on the opportunity of hey, Spotter is here to unlock growth capital for me, so I can fuel the future of my business.
Q) And for people who aren’t familiar with Spotter, why should creators be interested in a model like this?
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A) YouTube has done an amazing job of actually allowing creators to make creating content their full-time job. I know if I spend a week making a video, I kind of know how much I’m gonna make, right? Where, if I’m on TikTok, that’s not really the case because of branded content, and it’s not really predictable monetization. So our capital is not alone. So you don’t owe us any money back. It’s also not equity. So you’re not giving up any of your business. It’s for a five-year term, we are licensing the past content for that future revenue, and they’re keeping the new uploads. So for example, we’ve done deal number two’s deals Number three’s, and even deal number four with creators because it’s all about their new content, and how can they unlock more value.
Q) How do you work with creators to realistically set expectations about their new content coming up?
A) When we do a deal with a creator, we do show them a lot of data like, what does new content mean to you. And by the way if we do the deal today, and you upload for another six months, the same way you are today, here’s probably what that content will make, but kinda to your whole point. So I think from your question, we are launching a community, on top of creator community on top of doing deals with creators, and that’s about how can creators have access to other creators to learn.
Q) And obviously, the market is changing. Is there going to be any market in the future where Spotter is working with the new territory? Whether it be a market like TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook?
A) We are hyper-focused today. So like getting an A in one thing, versus you see other companies that are in the greater economy, like, I want to offer you this. And in X, and Y, and Z and all these other things. We do want to get an A in one thing and do it really well. The other thing I was mentioning before is there needs to be this predictability of how we can predict the future performance of the content. S It’s like a career goes, Hey, if I spent a week building my TikTok channel, how much will I make? I don’t know, maybe I’ll be part of the fun. Maybe I won’t, I gotta do branded deals. So we’re waiting for those platforms to potentially kind of get more of that predictability part of it. And we would love to do it.
Q) What is next for Spotter? What is the next thing we can look forward to?
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A) We can’t give you all the secrets. But so it is this focus on the creator community. And so you know, we’re continuing to push ourselves to be able to deliver more products. So like, we do have our, you know, library products, which is our traditional form of capital, hey, we licensed your back catalog, you get upfront capital today. Creators have lately specifically said look, I know that the data and the science says what the numbers should be, but I need more capital because I have bigger ambitions. There is no playbook out there for CEO creators building businesses. They’re building it now, and we want to help make sure that everyone’s educated on how other people are doing it.
