Swaaag & Brand Experience | Tommaso Di Bartolo

Around the release. This is what I did with Swag. So what's Swag? Christina— where is Christina? She left. Christina had mentioned it. We are a video messaging app for teenagers. So at Swag, we actually focused on creating a venue, an app where kids in the age 8 to 18 can express their excitements, their moods, and their love the way they do when they meet offline. How did I get to this idea? David, my kid, is 13 years old. And a couple of months ago, actually 23 months ago, he came to me and said, hey, Dad, I have to talk to you. I said, what's up? He said, you know, the way social media works today sucks. Wow, that's bold. I said, what do you mean with that? He said, well, it was not built for kids my age. I said, OK, go on. Sounds interesting. When we meet offline, when we are in a peer— he's 14. Imagine now 13, 14 years old together. We have a lot of emotions. There is this vibe, these hormones flying around, right? And who has actually teenagers? Nobody has teenagers. You have teenagers? Brothers. Brothers. Yeah, OK. That's valid, right? So you know what I'm talking about, right? There's this vibe. And I say, well, when I go online, the medium internet is a cold medium, right? was not built for kids my age. So I feel limited to express emotions. And I said, shit, that's a huge pitch right there. And by the way, sometimes— the last time I think he pitched with me on stage. Did you see the video? Did somebody see the video? Yeah. There is a video floating around. And so I said, wow, that's a cool value proposition right there. What if we can create a value proposition, a product where you can express emotions? So at Swag, We empower them to capture thrilling times, share it with friends. The friends can upvote it. They can upvote it by using emojis that have a value 1 to 500. So it's not just a visual thing, but once you drop a kiss, it has a value 1. If you love what you saw, you can drop an Oscar. It's a value 500. So the ones who receive it, they basically collect those values, and they get visibility on a leaderboard. So share thrilling times, get upvoted, and get visibility on a leaderboard. Now imagine in high school what this is all about. All about visibility, being cool, being connected. Now what I did is at the beginning to turn the loop to the fundraising is I created this value proposition. And I went to influencers that influence teenagers, right? Viners, YouTubers, Instagrammers, right? With no product. And I told them, how about you being more connected with your fans? How about you getting, receiving kisses rather than likes and comments, right? I mean, of course, not everybody was open to it because they were not able to see a product, but, you know, hustle, hustle, hustle, and I got the first one. And I got with him on a campaign and said, what if you pre-announce it, okay? You pre-announce it on YouTube, you pre-announce it on on Instagram so that your kids or your followers, your fans can actually pre-sign up, okay? He said, cool idea. I'm one of the first ones. I sold the picture of Silicon Valley, you know, saying, hey, imagine you being part of Snapchat early on. Fuck, huh? It was good. And that's exactly what happened. You know, he pre-announced it on his channels. He pre-announced it on YouTube, on Instagram, on Snapchat. Guess what? We prepared in the meantime an iOS and an Android version, but not of a product. We did a batch generator, what I call a batch generator. So what's a batch generator? Once you downloaded those batch generators, it was basically giving you just a number, you know, number 1, number 2, and it puts you just on a virtual line, right? Does it sound familiar? Have you ever heard of those strategies? You know, puts you in line. So basically we created a so-called scarcity strategy, right? Which technically doesn't make any sense, but it's all about marketing, right? So within 3 weeks, we had 5,000 downloads and no product. And I didn't even have a team. I did the badge generator, I did it outside, right? Because again, for me it was all about validating my assumption, okay? You can have awesome ideas, but how the fuck do you validate your assumptions, right? And I wanted to validate my assumptions in order to prove the value proposition because at the end of the day, It doesn't really matter if the product is there or is not there because you can already start your go-to-market. Do you understand what I'm saying? Say yes. Yes. I know, okay, cool, okay. So, and then what I did is I went back to the initial investors that I had contacted and said, hey, fear of missing out, look what's happening without a product. Fear of missing out, right? Can you imagine once I have a product what the hell I'm doing? Boom, and I raised my initial seed round, okay? And with the initial seed round, it was much easier to put the team together because it's challenging putting a team together just on equity only. You have to knock on 1,000 doors, okay? So that's I think a very valuable lesson learned for you guys. Did you— was it— is it something that you can apply in your business? Yes. Okay, cool. Yeah. Investor actually wants to put money in something which is cool, but if you just behave like the other is behaving, you have the same strategy, right? Then the probability of you getting money is very low. So you have continuously, not just in the product and in the go-to-market strategy, but also in the way you raise funds, enchant the others, right? It's time to take pictures, by the way. I don't see any phones. I'm not kidding. Take pictures. So brand experience. This is something that I'm big into it because— and I tell you details about it. So what does brand experience actually mean? Does somebody know or can somebody understand what brand experience means? Brand experience, brand experience. Why is brand experience, especially consumer, you guys in consumer, shit, man, you have really to listen now. Wake up and listen. Brand experience. How the process or the approach of how someone connects to a brand and connects to an idea behind that brand. Awesome, right. Exactly. How do you connect to the brand? Your end user, your client, your customer, He's not buying your product because of your features. Because if he would like features, he can also go to your competitor. Is that clear? So the reason why they actually should take your product is because what the product makes them feel. Okay, so what is that they feel about your product? In other, in other words, it's not anymore about creating customers. I have a customer because today you have a customer, tomorrow you lost it to your competition. It's about raising a culture within your company that creates fans around your product. I prefer having 100 fans that love my product than 1,000 users that just like my product, right? And because I'm doing consumer for the last 2 years, it has been very clear to me that it is amazingly hard. Who has an app business or who is planning an app or who is into app business? Me. Okay, so many are into app business. It's amazingly— and as a consumer, consumer app business, consumer, yeah? So it's amazingly hard for you to differentiate at app level, right? So what is it that you do? Well, I have this feature, my technology is awesome. Guess what? If I talk to the other founder, he will tell me the same shit, right? So it's not about what you tell me. It's not about what you think it is. It's about what the fans think it is. What do you— how can you make— how can you take a client, a customer, and convert them into a fan? This is what we did at Swag. Couple of weeks ago in the summer, you know, we did a lot of go-to-market strategies because, you know, targeting kids Teenager, 8 to 18, is very, very challenging because they're very opinionated. They know everything best, right? So if you talk with David and say, David, what about— Yes, I know it already. Oh, shit, you know? So it's very hard to bring a product to this target group. And I say, okay, how can you actually differentiate? How can you actually make them fall in love? Because if you wonder or not, my product, kids are saying it's like a mix between Snapchat and Vine. That's the best way of of describing my app. Because Snapchat destroys everything or it's ephemeral content, it's self-destructive. On Vine you keep on going, seeing the videos and then we have the leaderboards and the valuation on top of it, right? So that's our secret sauce. But I say it's not enough. It's not enough. Just features, it's not enough. Because when they wake up, they think of Snapchat, they think of Vine, they think of Instagram. So how can you actually take them— That's a good point. Beyond the fact of having a feature, right? And so we were in a whiteboard session with the team and I said, how can we make them feel our product? How can we make them say this is so cool, Swag, right? So we came up with an offline competition called Swag Times, okay? So this is the offline competition that we did. We focused on a geographical location which is here, Silicon Valley. And we invited 30 to 50 kids in the age 8 to 18 to meet offline. Just the fact of us reaching out to them— I mean, it took a hell of a time reaching out to them. That's a different story, right? But just the fact, you know, a brand reaching out— has Snapchat ever reached out to you? No. Instagram? So just somebody reaching out to you and saying, hey, We offer something beyond. So what is it that we offer beyond? We just focused on one thing. Forget Swag the App. And we want them to have fun. What? A tech company wants— Yeah. Forget the app. We want them to have fun. So let's invite them. What does it mean having fun? Let's put some— let's order some pizzas, some snacks. Put them together on a spot. Now when I saw 30 to 50, 8 to 18, So how many sisters do you have and siblings? Brothers. OK, now imagine that times 20, all in one spot. Can you imagine the vibe? And can you imagine how cool it is, people coming there and saying, shit, we go to the Swag Times. This was awesome around your product, even though you didn't push the product. Why? Because we said, number one, meet people that you don't know and have fun. There are some pizzas. Now, once they got there, What we did is we put them in smaller groups of 3, 4 people and said, hey, this is the competition. Capture and share thrilling times. Be very authentic. So they had to have their smartphones with them. Be very authentic the way you capture those thrilling times. We have chosen a very cool outdoor location that they loved, close to the shores here in Foster City. And— And the one— once you have those thrilling times, you share it with your friends and the friends can upvote then the thrilling times, competition. Why? Because the one who is in position 1, 2, 3 on a leaderboard, they get a Swag shirt. So it was not that much about the Swag shirt, it was not that much about the pizza, it was about the entire thing that we put together. And guess what? Do you see? So where is actually Swag the product? It's the experience. It was just a tool that empowered them to run this competition, right? So we didn't push any advertisement, any marketing on them. We just thought out of the box and say, hey, I care that if you come, that you have fun.