Casin Ward - Co-Founder of Hoo.be Speaks on The Creator Economy

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by a good friend of mine, Cassin Ward, the co founder and CMO of Hubie. Thank you so much for coming to the show. Kassin.

Thank you for having me, man. And welcome to Las Vegas.

Thank you so much, brother. I know, you know, we're here at the Blue Wire Studios. Your first time here. What do you think?

It's epic, man. I'm looking around and honestly, I mean, the amount of times I've come to the win and you know, late nights, fun business dinners and lunch, I've never seen it. So it's really cool to have this, this here in Las Vegas. And I mean, again, I've seen your podcast here. It's an incredible space.

We're excited to dive in. So, you know, we've known each other for quite some time and I've been, it's been so incredible to see what you and your team have built at Hubi. When we were running media kits, we were, we partnered on so many things that we'll get into. But for those that might not know what Hubi is, I'd love for you to give a high level overview for the audience.

Yeah, for sure, man. So Hubby is your home on the web, you know, especially if you're a content creator, you know, an athlete, a celebrity, anyone who's creating a lot on social platforms and, you know, also have, you know, a website of their own with their own clothing products and merch lines or products that they're selling. Anything that you're pushing and promoting online is getting very, you know, fragmented and a lot harder to find, including your audiences. Right. So you might have an audience on Instagram, you might have an audience on TikTok and on Snapchat, and they're all digesting and absorbing the content you're providing on those platforms. But where else are they going to go and find everything else that you have going on? Especially, you know, if you look at someone like yourself, Right. You're a busy guy, you've got a podcast, you've got a number of different social channels with, you know, high followings, a lot of audience members to keep up with, and you also have your businesses as an entrepreneur. Right. So where do you keep all of that? And, you know, it almost goes back to the old days, if you remember the About Me pages.

Yep.

But it's got, you know, a little bit of almost like your online resume part of it. It's your home on the web. Right. So put that link in your bio, you can, you know, share it in a newsletter, you know, in your email signature. You can tweet it, put it on your stories. It's really just kind of your corner of the Internet.

I love it. And I mean, since we've known each other, I've seen it grow and evolve so much as someone that again, like, we were partnered on media kits and different integrations and. And for those that might not know, you guys are more than just home on the web. You're the home of the web for so many top creators, athletes. I mean, you have people like Jeff Bezos as a user of Hubby to Tom Brady, and I'll let you name a couple more people just to give context to the audience, but you have some incredible, not only just notable people, but people that are using it for the purpose in which you guys want it to be used to, like, help aggregate your home on the web. And I'd love for you to just talk about some of the high level. I don't. I guess, but the users you have on Hubby, just to give context to the people that, you know, might not know what it is.

No, for sure. So, you know, when we first came out of the woodwork here and, you know, launched a company, it, you know, was really based on, you know, what we saw working with, you know, other platforms, right? We saw linktree coming into the market during the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. And we also saw a really big hole in the market where, you know, we felt we could do it better, but not just because, you know, there was this gut instinct telling us that, but because we were friends with a lot of top creators, right? You know, the vlog squad kids and, you know, David Dobrik, Scotty Syer, Todd Smith, you know, all those kids, right? We've been hanging out with them for years. And not just them, but, you know, again, they're. They're names that you can kind of lead back to, to understand how we got here. And we just saw a need for, you know, all of the content, all of the businesses, all of the online work that they were doing and how we could house that better for them. So we were building, you know, these almost like landing pages by hand at first.

And what year was this in terms of, like, the origin story of how Hubie came about?

Gotta be 2020.

Okay.

Yeah. So 2020, you know, we're in Las Vegas for the pandemic and, you know, we again, are just almost like focused and dialed in on building these, you know, landing pages for these Big names. And one of them actually at the start was, was 50 Cent. And you know, that's really when we began to see, you know, this is something that I think more and more high level creators and kind of the top of, you know, the line type of creators, in addition to celebrities, musicians, athletes, you name it. This is a need, you know, within, within the market. That link tree obviously wasn't filling and so we wanted to, you know, kind of use that as our, as our, you know, a mile marker for us. Right?

Yeah.

And so we wanted to build for that unique demographic people. Right. So top name individuals.

Yeah.

And so we really spent, I guess the first year doing that is building specifically for them. And you know, as we started doing that and keeping it, you know, more invite only and exclusive, more and more people wanted to be a part of it. So it was almost like this, this secret club that, you know, people didn't know why they wanted to be a part of it, but knew that they wanted to be a part of it.

Yeah.

And since then, you know, we really again have seen the need expand not just from the top, you know, best names in the world, but, you know, if you look at the rise of the creator economy, you know, small creators, including people that may just have, you know, a few thousand followers on Instagram, are becoming businesses. And so this is a place for them to again call home and build their online empire.

I love that. And when you were launching Hubie, you know, as you said, like you had a lot of these top names on the platform at the beginning and for a lot of entrepreneurs, like that's the epitome of what they would want. Right. Like at first you want anyone to use your product, but when it comes to a launch strategy that involves top 10 talent, talk to me about, you know, you, your co founders past and like how the relationships were, you know, such a part of the strategy and how you guys executed that successfully in the early days and really just like what that whole strategy was overall.

Yeah, for sure. So I mean, myself and my, my co founder, our CEO, Jordan Greenfield, neither of us are product guys. Right. We, we've got zero background in terms of, you know, writing code or even understanding necessarily how to map out a vision board for product. Right. It's something that, you know, in, in our past where we've, you know, tried and failed a number of times. And one of my other best friends, Nick Perolo, who's our now cto, he was a big dog, especially for his age at First Republic Bank. He was a CTO over there. And I had been begging him to come write code and build products for us for a while. And finally when he kind of saw some of the traction that we were building, you know, again, with our own hands, yeah, I was creating like, WordPress website landing pages for these kids. And so he jumped in and he really, you know, took lead on the actual product side. But, you know, in terms of getting these big names on and the reason, again, I mentioned Nick and I mentioned the lack of experience that we have on the product element, we all really, you know, essentially flattered each other, right? We're able to build off of each other's backgrounds and experience and knowledge. And, you know, Jordan and myself have always been very heavily, you know, kind of on the same page with how we feel about, you know, relationships and relationship building. And so for the last, I want to say, at this point, six to seven years, it's just been a focus on grow your network, build relationships, do right by others, provide as much value by others without asking for anything in return. And, you know, living by the lesson of, you know, no one owes you anything, right? And you kind of one of the coolest things that I've seen, you know, from the start here is you. You get to have this feel and understanding and you're definitely, you know, someone that fits in this bracket of there's people that, you know, you can do favors and provide value for who are going to reciprocate that, you know, at the right time if, again, you kind of go into that situation without. Without feeling like you're going to get anything out of it, right? And there's going to be a lot of times that you do provide a lot of favors and values and you get nothing in return. And either you can sit and be patient or, you know, continue to move on, right? And so Jordan and myself have both been doing a lot of favors and a lot of values for a lot of big names for a long time. So when we did come out with this, you know, platform, you know, we. We would see some of these people using a competitor and we'd say, hey, can you throw this in your bio? The coolest part is at that point, they weren't doing a favor necessarily. They just loved it. Right? But I will say, you know, the thought process we had with starting with these top names, these, these, you know, kind of almost like larger than life figures was the idea that, like you just said, everyone kind of wants that as their goal. And the reason for it is, why do you want these people on Your platform. Well, because they're going to be the ones that migrate the audience. Right. They're going to migrate their people. And so instead of starting from ground up, you start from kind of the top down. Right. And so that's really where I think, you know, that that kind of core concept came. But as we had it, you know, invite only for so long, and it still is, you know, for the most part, you know, there's times where we talked about getting rid of that and just completely opening up floodgates and allowing it to be a thing. But.

Yeah, why is that? Because. And I think there's so many positive aspects of invite only, and you guys have done such a great job at that. But thinking about if there's an entrepreneur out there, when they're thinking about, you see things like Clubhouse in the early days that went super mega viral and it was invite only. Everyone bought it, everyone wanted in. And that created this effect of exclusive access and made you want it more. And I think the same thing, you know, it's for Hooby, where I'll have some friends that are like, hey, like, I know you connected with Hooby guys. Like, how can I get a Hooby link? And there's that level of want because you can't have it. And it's powerful. What made you guys launch it that way and continue to keep it that way?

So, you know, especially at the very beginning, we had no. And. And it's. We had kind of an idea of it, but we had no monetization model. Right. And everyone wanted us. You know, if you. You're thinking about investors to just start charging a monthly subscription. Right. And for us, I mean. Right. Well, that's not going to be cool. One, but two, it's like, you know, when we're building a business for some of the biggest things in the industry, do you think we want to ask them for $10 a month? Right. Yeah. And so, you know, the idea was to keep it invite only, to create kind of more of, again, something that. That was unique, especially in a very crowded online world. Right. You know, there's so much out there, and there's a link tree for everything. There's an Instagram for everything. There's a, you know, TikTok and this and that. And so being able to see something, especially what you're looking at now with like, Twitter and Instagram getting kind of rid of the blue checks and just opening that up to subscription. Right. What's going to help you stand out where people kind of know that you're a more serious or more refined creator in the space. Right. And so for now, you know, in terms of the way that we're opening it up is not just looking at, are you, you know, a superstar, mega, you know, rock star? Are you, you know, Tom Brady? But it's, are you someone who's creating quality content and, you know, not just somebody who is just, you know, again, going to use and abuse this for what it's not necessarily built for? Right, Totally.

And I know, like, you guys have so many great people on it and not even to just talk about them, but I'm curious to know you as a founder. Right. Someone like Tom Brady puts your product in his Instagram bio or across all social channels. How does that feel individually as well as from a company perspective when some of these big names, again, Tom Brady, Jeff Bezos, you name it, are using your product. Cause again, I know that could be such a highlight for so many founders and you guys, it seems that are getting some world class people on the platform every day just because they love the product. But talk to me about how you feel individually when you see someone like Tom Brady using ubi.

It's so funny, man. I was just talking to, I want to say, I mean, probably just someone on my team about this other day. I'm like, do you remember when we used to get excited? You know, it's so funny because especially the very early on, I mean, like you said, it's a dream. It's a dream to be able to create something out of nothing and then have your childhood heroes or people that are even still considered your heroes today be using it and like actively loving it. Right. It's, it's bizarre. It's a really bizarre thing to see and it's a crazy feeling inside, for sure. But yeah, early on, I mean, we would, it would just be like that was our day, like, like we'd see this person come on and it was just like, we need to go celebrate.

Yeah.

And, and especially if they're like a musician, we would just be jamming their music in the office or, you know, obviously trying to tell all of our friends about it. I mean, it's the coolest thing ever. But you know, that momentum and that word of mouth, you know, drove it to so many people's hands and we have so many amazing, amazing, talented people on that. Sometimes now it's like we get excited because we just find smaller people that are just extremely talented. We're discovering them just because of our platform and it's Cool to see their uprise. But you know, I will say like it's always at scale. Like, you know, the first, you know, time you start anything or it's like the first person with 100,000 followers that starts using it, you're going to be ecstatic. Right. And then, you know, that scales up to now, someone with a million followers just started using it and you're even happier. And then 10 million, then you hit this bracket where you really can't go any further. So you have to look for other things that, you know, drive that excitement. And it's, you know, how are we again providing value to the users that we have now? But you know, there's, there's definitely some people that, you know, I'll be personal fans of that might not again be so, you know, popular and huge and I'll see them start using it all. I'll freak out and yeah, I'm listening to that song or whatever.

There's still that aspect of, you know, that the people that you admire using your product is exciting. When it comes to your background prior to hubby, I'd love to dive in. Like, where'd you grow up? What was some early childhood experiences like in your life?

Yeah. Super unconventional background for sure. I'm not sure if you and I have ever dug into it. We haven't deeply either. So I was originally born and raised in small town Durango, Colorado. Durango and Telluride. Some people are more familiar with Telluride.

Yeah, I've been to Telluride.

Yeah. So gorgeous, gorgeous place.

Yeah.

Very small town kid. You know, my dream growing up was to be an Olympic skier. I did not know any of this.

Yeah.

And so that was, that was what I was gonna go and do. And you know, I want to say when I got to around like eighth grade. You would if you had like a three, five, you could take off the winter semester of school. And I was on the ski team to try to get again as far as I could in two year Olympics.

So when did you start skiing?

Oh, two years old. Yeah. Yeah, definitely, man. And so, I mean, I took it very seriously at the start. But it's funny, when I got into high school, we'd have that winter semester off and I didn't do my online school and just kind of started messing around a little bit. So I kind of got to a point where I'm like, there's no way I'm going to, you know, be, you know, Gus Kenworthy, who's on the painting out there. And I grew up skiing with or, you know. Really?

No way. Yeah.

As a tyrant boy. Wow.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, you just kind of start to understand it. And what for you?

Because I think as an athlete myself, right. I, you know, I'm 5 foot 6 and I had aspirations to be in the NFL, right. Like, there comes a time and for me, I ended up unfortunately getting injured playing football. Neck brace for six months. And that dream of whether that's playing college lacrosse or football just kind of got stopped from a physical limitation. But I think so many times it's more mental than it is physical in terms of your own self limitations or also you just change focus and it's not a priority anymore.

Right.

What for you, like when did that change of priority when it comes to skiing Olympics? And what was that mental journey like for you? Because I think it's not an overnight shift. It's more so something that you learn to realize the different thoughts that you're either accepting or going through.

No, it's a great question. And I can look back on it and say it's for this X, Y and z reason. I think I didn't have probably the best group of friends around me to continue to push me to not quit. Right. But once I did, and you know, again during this time, I had dropped out of high school.

Wow.

So didn't have enough credits to graduate, which was what my guidance counselor is telling me. So she's saying, you know, you're gonna go to summer school until you graduate or you're gonna be a fifth year senior. And, you know, I thought long and hard about all of this and, you know, again, still kind of stuck to the skiing thing. Well, if I'm not gonna be on the team and be competing like that, I'm going to go work up the ski area. Right. And then skiing and work became kind of one of the same.

Yeah.

And so I thought long and hard, you know, because obviously I was crush inside. I'm like, well, do I want to, you know, continue to work at ski resorts and like, not be kind of the, you know, the athlete behind it, but, you know, still enjoy it? And, you know, I thought back to what does everyone want to do when they grow up? And it's, you know, what you want to do as a kid. And I had to think long and hard. Like when I was a kid, you know, like a young, young kid, like eight, nine years old, I wanted to be a rock star, right. And I'm like, well, I'm obviously not going to be a rock star. But that world looks so interesting to me. And so when I finally was out of school and I was working scary, and I was miserable, I was like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go figure out how to break into this world of being a rock star. So that's when I ended up moving out. Moving out of town.

When you say rock star, like, what. What was the mind frame of what you wanted to go do? Did you have a exact idea when you say, hey, I want to go be a rock star? Was there a plan or what were you riding on? What was the inspiration that led to that move?

I didn't know anything. And again, you've been to Telluride, such a small town, that, again, thinking of the idea of somebody like Tom Brady or Jeff Bezos. So, like, that's like alien level, because you're in such a bubble and so far removed from, like, big cities that you don't see a lot of that stuff. Right. And so I had no idea how any of this stuff worked. I thought, like, I'm gonna go be a producer engineer. I didn't know what that meant. Yeah, right. And so I found this internship in Boston. I was 17 years old, and so I moved from Colorado to Boston by myself.

Wow.

Yeah. Wild.

Just by yourself? 17. Where were you living?

I was living. My first apartment was in Beacon Hill. In Boston? Yeah. It was above the train, the subway right there, like, shake.

Did you know anyone in Boston?

Didn't know anyone.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

Wildest year of my life. I mean, I was just. I didn't know what to do, so I just poured myself.

And you. So you dropped out of high school and never went back?

Never went back, yeah.

Wow. I did not know that.

Yeah. Dropped out when I was 15. I lived on my own since I was 15, and then.

And was that due to the skiing in. Which led to, like, lack of going to school or like, what was the core reason?

Yeah, I got into some trouble, too, during that. During that period. Yeah, definitely got into some trouble. Got arrested a lot. Wasn't the best kid after that. You know, I. I think the. Again, the. The sports and, you know, being part of. Of any team or like an after school, you know, club or anything like that. I mean, that keeps you out of trouble. And. Yeah, you know, once that was kind of, you know, I just started running around like a wild kid.

Yeah.

So definitely got in some trouble. And, you know, everything kind of combined just led to me saying, I don't want to. And it's not that my parents were Just kind of like there's whatever feels right, which is cool to see. But yeah, I mean, when I moved to Boston, I didn't know what I wanted to do in terms of music. I thought I did. So I got this internship for audio engineering and music production and I'd do this one on one mentorship with someone in the studio once a week. And then I'd go and kind of sit and check out studio sessions. And this studio was super interesting, man. Is they had a sister studio in la, it's called Sanctum Sound. The one in LA was Serenity West Recording. So all the big names, while they're on tour, would come stop by the studio to, you know, finish up an album or something. And so we'd have like Justin Bieber down there, maroon 5.

And you were like, in these rooms or.

Yeah, so just, you know, shadowing in the back. Not doing much, but that's powerful.

Like, coming from a small town, like, I can relate, right? Like when you were like coming from a small town in Virginia, like I did, and either when you're at an event and you, you see someone that is just this larger than life figure in your mind, you kind of just take a step back and realize like the rooms you're in and it, it starts to change you in terms of either what's possible or just makes the world seem more like more human and more real. And just your, your world shifts and your perspective changes so quickly. So, like, you're in these rooms, you're shadowing these figures. How did that change your perspective coming from a small town? And how did you end up not maximizing that, but just cultivating these relationships in an organic way? Because I know you've been so great at doing that.

Yeah, I mean, I think it definitely teaches you one of the big lessons, which is, you know, don't just jump up and ask for a picture all the time. You know, I think it also teaches you lessons that, you know, these people are human, you know, they're, they're not some mythical creature that's kind of out there. Which is again, what you think when you come from a small town and you're young and all you, all you have access to for, you know, seeing that type of stuff is, you know, through a TV screen or something. Right. But yeah, I mean, I, I still didn't really. I remember when I was learning, you know, audio engineering and production, I'm like, this is not what I thought I wanted to do. I wanted to like, do the business stuff, like almost like the A and R stuff or like the relationship driving stuff. Right. And so funny man, I remember the studio manager came to one of the one on one mentoring sessions I was having, which is, you know, again, I'm sitting at the decks and like learning all this stuff and he's like, yo, Cass, can I talk to you in the hall real quick? And I thought for sure. I was like, this dude hates me. He's gonna fire me or something or tell me to leave. And he starts talking, he's like, yo, you're really bad. You're really bad at this. I don't know if this is gonna work out for you. And I was like, oh man. Man, I knew it. I knew it. He's like, but you're really great at talking and I'd love to actually give you a job, hire you as my assistant studio manager. Nothing crazy. I think it's like 25 bucks an hour or something like that. And so that's when I started to really kind of learn the differences and what's what in the space. And I did that for a couple years and definitely, I mean, help me get to know people, help me get to understand. I think a lot of, you know, the world that we're in now for sure.

So how did you and Jordan meet such.

Yeah, it's so. We, we met. It's so funny. We always, we always joke back and forth about it. So I guess to back up a little bit, right when I kind of finished up working in music and this was around the time so I, Charlie Puth and all those guys were going to Berkeley and that was my group of friends, you know, like Ben Lusher from Third Story. Now Charlie.

Charlie Puth. You guys were friends?

Oh yeah.

No way.

Oh yeah, big time, man. And so in.

Wait, in what setting you said?

I mean, in and out of the studio. Yeah. So one of, one of the kids I was managing, Harry. Harry Dunkley, we called him DJ Chop a Dunk Shout Out Harry. Him and him and Charlie, I think went to high school together. So we were, we were all still, I mean, funny kids. But yeah, I mean that it was around that time that I started to kind of understand startups. And this is, I mean Charlie was still, this is way before, like see you again and all that. Right. I think it's right around the time that he had signed with Ellen. But yeah, so I had started managing some kids and started understanding and hearing the word startup here and there. And then, you know, I ended up getting pulled into a couple of different projects. One of Them was Fasten, which was a ride share company similar to Uber and Lyft. We raised about 28 million for that. We were in Boston and Austin, and that ended up getting sold to a company in Russia. And so I had this kind of interim, but during. Around that kind of in between of trying to figure stuff out. I was working a little bit with Forbes. They were doing their Forbes 30 under 30 summit in Boston. And one of my good friends, Julian Fialco, really great kid. He's in the venture capital space.

Yeah, I know Julian.

Yeah. Do you know Julian? Yeah. Great kid. Really great kid. I was actually friends with Julian before Jordan.

Okay.

And I had, you know, an all access pass to Forbes 30, I think Zed was playing that night. And Julian and I both went together, and he gave me a call. He's like, you know, gonna be going. Don't know if, you know, you know anyone there, come stop by. And so I think he ended up getting me backstage or something. So we started hanging out all night, right?

Yeah.

And he's like, yo, my buddy Jordan's gonna come pick us up and take us back to essentially my place is having people over there. So Jordan, funny enough, came and picked us up, me, Julian and a couple girls. I was just, you know, having fun, being young and dropped us off and didn't come inside. That was the first time I met Jordan. I always tell people I met Jordan on a boat, but he always goes back to us. I drove you and Julian home. You guys are drunk. It's so funny, man. But the next day, I was with. I was with the Mari Stodemeyer. Yes. Jewelry. Julian Fialco and Aisha Curry with Randall Lane, who's the editor in chief of Forbes, and Steve Bertone. We're going over to the vip, I think, food festival, like the last night of Forbes 330. And funny enough, Sam Swan, who's now huge part of Hubie, you know, our chief creative officer. Everything you see online, you know, whether it's social, which is phenomenal social content. Yeah. All of that.

You guys are so on it.

Sam is such a beast, dude. Such a beast. But funny enough, him and Jordan went to high school together. And so we were walking on this boat, and Jordan's like, Sam Swan. And I was like, oh, Jordan. So Jordan had started Hubie at that time, and he was like, dude, you got to come to the office and. And hear all about it. And I think it was a couple weeks later I walked into the office and is a lot different than what it is today. But you Know, I was like, this is awesome. And you know, I was trying to start a company at the same time. And he's like, let's, let's throw this in the hat, do it together. I had been spending money like I still had a job. And so finally he was like, dude, throw your mattress on my floor and let's grind it out.

Wow.

So we lived in a studio apartment for a little bit and grinded it out.

That's incredible. And I know just from that moment though, and just for the sake of time today, I know we don't have too much time in the studio when it comes to Hubie in the early days, from going from like, hey, you're grinding it out on, you know, one one bedroom studio apartment to then having like these big names come on and like an incredible creative director and just like really building the brand, putting it out there. What was the, what has been the transitionary process of the business when it comes to just, you know, you guys working on it together, to building out the team, to then raising capital and to really getting the brand known? Like, I'd love to just go through some of the, the key points in your mind that occurred throughout the journey thus far and what's led you to where you guys are today.

Yeah, I mean, so we ended up, I want to say this was Thanksgiving of 2020, going into 2021, and we were sitting down at Thanksgiving dinner, we got a phone call from, from one of our lead investors who became a lead investor who essentially said he was wiring us, you know, quarter million dollars the next day to go and build this and launch it. Right? And like that first iteration, and that was the first glimpse of hope I remember. I mean, we've had in years. People don't realize it took two years before that. I didn't make a single dollar. Jordan didn't make a dollar. We lived in one bedroom together. Nobody believed in us. We had thousands of investor meetings. Thousands. We had thousands of nos. Thousands. And so that even just it was a quarter million dollars that changed our lives. And then we went and debt did everything we said we were going to do with that small investment. We built the product, we launched it with a couple big names and went back and said, hey, we did it. Now what? And they ended up giving us millions of dollars. So that was the other pivotal point is that probably the spring going, that spring coming or following, and so that was where our lives really fully changed is when we had enough capital to go, you know, hire people to go, you know, market the Product to get more and more people on here to do our own thing. And then, you know, the, the next step was probably 50 cent at. In David's backyard. I don't think you came to that. I know. Kieran.

Yeah, Kieran was there. I was not at the event. What about that event specifically?

It just, I mean, that was kind of like our, you know, we put the flag on the moon, like, hey, we got here, we're here now. Right. And that just kind of solidified, I think, for us and gave a really warm, welcoming intro to a lot of other big names out there.

Yeah.

And then, you know, as we kind of push forward, you know, we've hit a lot of roller coaster moments. I don't think a lot of founders fully understand until you kind of get past, you know, a few, a few rounds of capital where it's like you get these really strong ups and downs. Right. Totally. And you know, we're in a really interesting place right now with, you know, the markets and where the world's at that, you know, there's been a lot of oh shit moments. And I gotta be so, you know, thankful and grateful for those oh shit moments right now because, you know, if you continue to push and push and push and don't ever look at it as something that you know you're going to quit on.

Yep.

You're always going to come out on top. And so I want to say these last six months have been probably the most changing in a. In a good way for us. That took a lot of stress and anxiety in order to get there, but I could not be more excited about what's to come and where we're heading.

I mean, what's your. There's a couple more questions I want to ask, but just overall, all things creator economy. Right. Like I. For those that are listening that may not know, I built a company media kits. Easiest way for creators to create a media kit, real time data and analytics. And I mentioned it a little bit before, but when we were running it, prior to us getting acquired, we were integrated with Hubi and like just the way that I learned how to speak to creators and about creator tools, creators needs like there's so many different tools out there. The creator economy is shifting so fast, you know, with you know, the verifications shifting with Elon running Twitter with just all these different things that are happening across meta, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, you name it. And it's just a very fast paced, changing environment. I would love to just get your thoughts and just the Hubies Team thoughts on just all things creator economy. Where you see it going where it is today because you guys talk to and work with so many high level creators that are, you know, really at the forefront of change when it comes to like what happens top down. So let's talk about it. Like, what are your thoughts and like where do you see the creator economy right now? Whether that's from a funding perspective, just a creator and creator businesses and everything that you know is within that.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think as more of you know, you have more and more of these platforms opening up, right. Which just is propelling the industry, the creator economy to grow and it's going to propel individuals to grow. What you have in a unique world right now that we live in is so far different than just four or five years ago. And because of these massive global changes, right. And again, the reason I kind of circle to that is people no longer want to work a 9 to 5 job, right. And there are a lot of people out there, you know, including myself, who have this grand vision and can find people to latch onto that with them and build together. Right. And that's not like again, I don't look at Hooby as a job, I look at it as a lifestyle. Right. This is, you know, we sleep and breathe this. Right? But as an, like if I were, if I were just starting out right now, right, If I was a 19 year old kid, I mean the power, the ability that you have to just start making money and running your own business as a 19 year old kid is just like it's never happened before, right? And so when we talk about the creator economy, I mean it's just again, no one wants to go and work for someone else anymore. They can just do it themselves. So that's been the biggest change and difference in the world. I think that's, you know, you've seen kind of stem from what we're now calling the creator economy is more and more people that you're going to see are again, not going to want to go and work. They're going to want to go and do it their way, which is awesome. Right? And I wish I had that luxury right at the very beginning. And I think, you know, looking at other platforms and you know, where everything's moving, you know, again, relating this back to, you know, being a business, that's what a creator is, is, you know, at the end of the day, paywalls, right? There should be a paywall on everything. And you're starting to see that with.

Instagram and with Snapchat, Twitter, micro payments, everything happening there. It's so fascinating. And we could talk all day about that. And I know just in regards to today's conversation, we'll definitely have more time to dive into all things creator economy here in the future. But last question before we wrap up here, Cassin, is just when you think about the future of Hubi, the future of the creator economy, what gets you excited and what are you and the team most excited about moving forward?

So I think a lot of people that know what Hubi is, right, I think even them, right, they bunch us up into this category, which is quote, unquote, link in bio, right. Where I get excited about Hubie is what we realize is that starts with real estate, right. And that's kind of phase one. So we wanted to build in, you know, an ecosystem, something that helps creators not only, you know, become more successful, but helps them, you know, essentially start earning money. Right. And there's direct monetization features and things like that that we've already brought into the platform. But one thing that I've never seen anyone do in this space, right. Is the marketplace. And so, yeah, if you're hearing this, here's your first hint that next couple weeks we got something big coming out on that front. And I think that's going to take us from, you know, one direction everyone sees us in, and it's going to allow us to veer off where no one's going to be able to kind of really box us there anymore. But most importantly, I think it's going to be such an added value to the Hubie community and to everyone that continues to join and, you know, be a part of this awesome thing that we got going on. Totally. So, yeah, next few weeks we got some pretty big announcements and the next few months are going to be definitely life changing.

Well, I am looking forward to that. For everyone that's watching or listening, if they want to learn more about hubby, stay connected with you, even potentially get their own Hooby link. What's the best way to connect with you, the hubby team, and just everything you have going on?

Yeah. Any questions for me, feel free to reach out on Instagram. Asin Ward C A S I N W A R D. Sure, Casey will link it. And for hubby, just at Hoo, Be everywhere, TikTok, Instagram, all of that. If you want your own Hooby, best bet is to send us a DM and just say, you saw this podcast. Use keyword Casey. We'll make sure you get taken care of. And, you know, right now we are doing a subscription, but we'll make sure we knock that subscription off for you, too. So just keyword Casey.

Love that. Well, Cass, and thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been such a pleasure seeing how you and your whole team at Hubby have continued to grow. And for everyone watching or listening, thank you so much for tuning in. Make sure you subscribe, and I will talk to you guys soon.

Boom. Thank you, sir.