Steven Galanis is CEO and cofounder of Cameo, valued at over $1 Billion. Cameo is an innovative marketplace allowing fans to book personalized video shoutouts from celebrities. He has been recognized as one of "Hollywood's Top Innovators" by The Hollywood Reporter, named to Crain's Chicago Business "40 under 40" and Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year for the Midwest Region. Today, Steven Galanis gave us an insider's look at building a revolutionary marketplace platform that disrupted the celebrity engagement industry. From their entrepreneurial journey to the platform's remarkable 500% revenue growth during the COVID pandemic, this episode offers a glimpse into the strategic thinking and core values that propelled Cameo's success. The conversation explores the fundamental nature of entrepreneurship, revealing Steven Galanis' belief that entrepreneurs are born with a unique mindset, and delves into how Cameo navigated critical challenges like the Brett Favre incident and post-pandemic market shifts. Through candid insights, Steven Galanis also shares how core values like 'Roll out the Red Carpet' have been instrumental in shaping the company's culture and driving its unprecedented growth. 📚 Interested in mastering sales? Check out Ryan's new sales course, "Master of the Close" at https://www.masteroftheclose.com 🎯 Takeaways: Embrace core values like rolling out the red carpet and simplicity for sustainable business culture. Maintain resilience and adaptability by learning from setbacks and crises. Create environments that foster diverse talents but align everyone under a unified mission. 💬 Sound Bites: Now one thing that I'll tell you is that entrepreneurs can be fostered by being around other entrepreneurs. I don't have any regrets, but, you know, I do tell people that I always knew I was gonna start a company. Are you learning? Are you growing? If not, find something else. 🔗 Connect with Steven Galanis: Website: www.cameo.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevengalanis 📖 Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 05:49 Duke Alumni Entrepreneurs Flourish 09:10 Fostering Future Entrepreneurs at Cameo 10:26 Finding Your Ikigai Point 14:44 "Roll Out the Red Carpet" 19:23 Radical Follower Ownership Solution 20:47 Non-Ad Based Revenue Model 23:53 Antisemitic Video Controversy Involving Brett Favre 27:08 Cameo's Unexpected Turnaround Moment 31:39 Cameo's COVID-Era Surge Explained 35:02 Achieving Profitability After Struggles 39:53 Rapid Growth and Cultural Concerns 40:48 Value of Loyalty and Resilience 46:37 Leadership Regret: A CEO's Reflection 49:39 Steven's Business Insights Inquiry 📌 𝗙𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗢𝗪 𝗠𝗘 𝗢𝗡: Website: www.go.ryanhanley.com Course Page: www.masteroftheclose.com Apple: www.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ryan-hanley-show/id1480262657 Spotify: www.open.spotify.com/show/5AZFuTiQsgS9hMQDDdtlOr?si=98432b7806534486 Instagram: www.instagram.com/ryan_hanley
Chapter 1: What is Cameo and how does it work?
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous conversation for you today with Stephen Galanis, co-founder and CEO of Cameo. Yes, that Cameo, the marketplace where you can connect with creators, sports, with athletes, celebrities, all kinds of different influencers, icons, and have them send personalized messages either back to you or to a team member, a loved one,
People use Cameo to send happy birthday messages, thank you messages, congratulations messages. It's a wonderful platform for connecting people with the individuals that they follow, that have influenced their lives, who've done meaningful work and building that business. While as Stephen will describe, Cameo had product market fit from very early on. Thank you so much for having me.
You are going to love it. and we pull off those questions in future episodes when we do our Q&A show. So love you guys for being here. Love you for listening to the show. With that, let's get on to this absolutely tremendous conversation with Stephen Galanis.
In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home...
Steven, it's great to have you on the show, man. I appreciate you making the time.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, there's a part super early in your story that I'm interested in because I think it's something that happens to a lot of entrepreneurs. And I just want to take you back. Like in college, you start this Spartan Entertainment. You're building this big community. You know, so far as I think I saw that you're nicknamed the mayor and all this kind of stuff, which is awesome.
So very entrepreneurial. And then your first job out of college is actually kind of going back into the corporate world, right? Like a trader for large finance. I'm interested in because I see this a lot in entrepreneurs journeys where early in life or college, they have this pull to build their own business. And it's almost like we have to try the other side.
Like, was it like a feeling like you needed to try corporate life? Or like, why not roll your kind of entrepreneurial spirit right into an entrepreneurial endeavor right out of college?
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Chapter 2: How can entrepreneurs be fostered?
And, you know, I think it is a very similar skill set. But in my particular case, I had built the moat of my business in college, which had gotten really big. And there's a little background. So Spartan Entertainment was a company I started with my co-founder, Zach Maritas, who's now running a really successful software company in the triangle in North Carolina called Teamworks.
The two of us started this business where we used Facebook in the OG days. This is still when you needed a .edu email address to even get on Facebook. to eventually aggregate a group of 17,000 college students at Duke, North Carolina, NC State, Elon, and the surrounding communities. This became the dominant force in nightlife in that area.
In that generation, by my senior year, we were throwing 17 recurring events a week. I'm getting paid cash every single time somebody's coming in the door. It was a great business, but what ended up happening was, right at that point, because I was the first like grade that had Facebook all through college. Eventually once people started graduating, they needed to get rid of the dot edu limitation.
So they ended up opening it up and then suddenly the bar owners and the venue owners, like anybody could kind of create Facebook events. It didn't just have to be college students. So we kind of lost our edge if that makes sense. That said, the network that we built was, you know, was pretty enduring.
In fact, the signature party that we started Wednesday night beer pong and shooters still goes on today. And I'm about to have my 15th year reunion. So this thing's going about almost 20 years strong now, you know, which is, which is pretty funny, but you know, really to answer your question, like, I think you also have to go back to that time period.
I graduated in 2010, which was right in the middle of the financial crisis. So, you know, you could imagine that, you know, maybe if I graduate three years earlier or three years later, you know, you're a sophomore year, junior year, you're interning on Wall Street or whatever. at a consulting firm, and then you're going to go work there.
And, you know, there was this whole cohort of people that were walking around Duke at that time that like maybe otherwise would have been at a Goldman or maybe otherwise would have been in a McKinsey that ended up starting companies like Coinbase and Plaid and Airtable.
You know, these are guys that were like all the same age, you know, as me in that cohort from Duke in that era was pretty incredible about the talent and founders that came out of it. But one thing that I feel really confident about is the time that I spent both trading and at LinkedIn were things that really did shape me professionally. Now I think in both cases, I probably, especially trading,
If I had done two years of it versus five years of it, I would have been better off. But at the same time, I don't have regrets because I learned a lot. I made a lot of the connections that ended up being those that were my early investors or early employees of the company. So I don't have any regrets, but I do tell people that I always knew I was going to start a company.
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Chapter 3: What are the core values of Cameo?
Chapter 4: What was the Brett Favre controversy?
Does that sound right? And maybe what should someone be considering if they have a similar entrepreneurial bent that you have? When they're coming out, like, how do you make that decision? Should I just press into more entrepreneur or whatever?
We'll start from the top on this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm a deep believer that entrepreneurs are born not made. I think you can become more entrepreneurial by being, you know, hanging, working at startups or being around other entrepreneurs. But, you know, most entrepreneurs that I know, like, they – They were entrepreneurs in kindergarten.
They were the ones with the lemonade stand or they were flipping baseball cards or pogs or whatever the fuck it was. Yeah, pogs. Oh my God. I just see that over and over and over again. You know, in fact, there's a personality test we used to make everybody take in the OG days of Cameo.
100%.
Now, One thing that I'll tell you is that entrepreneurs can be fostered by being around other entrepreneurs. And one thing that we've done, and I take a lot of credit and I take a lot of pride in is we've always like openly wanted to hire like future founders, like people that know they want to be an entrepreneur. They like.
want to get their feet wet and i i think there's probably over 10 people that have left cameo over the years to become you know venture-backed ceos including two that became unicorns right which is which is something you know i like think i'm a college sports fan i love thinking about like coaching trees and and you know like the ceo tree and the alumni tree of cameo has has really spawned some incredible founders that have that have come through and and you know try to do
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Chapter 5: How did Cameo achieve growth during COVID-19?
Things from pet insurance to NFTs to, you know, marketplace for art or, you know, different things in the creator economy. So like we we've kind of run the gamut, but you know, I think, I think that's, I think that's super important. And then the last thing that I'll mention is that.
If you are an entrepreneur and you know eventually you're going to start a company, but I really would say this is true for like anybody in any job. It's critically important to find the thing that's your ikigai. This is a Japanese philosophy that I really love. For those of you not familiar, imagine a Venn diagram with four circles instead of two.
And basically you're trying to find the intersection of what are you great at? What do you love to do? What does the world need and what can you get paid for? And if you find the intersection of those four things, you kind of get what I call like the iron man heart, right? It's like that perpetual motion machine. It keeps you going through the good times through the bad times.
You know, you could have the best ride up ever, but that doesn't mean the, you know, the come down is going to be anything but Rocky, but like, you know, 99.9% entrepreneurs. go through major, major adversity at some period. And you know, sometimes the sector that you're in is the hottest thing in the world.
And then other times, you know, nobody wants to touch it with the 10 foot pole, especially on the venture side. So ultimately the way that I've always looked at it is if you find the thing that is your key guy point, it allows you to keep going on regardless of what's going on around you.
And then the last thing that I think is really important, and this is, you know, when you asked me the first question, Ryan, like, do I regret you know, being in the professional world versus being an entrepreneur, as long as you're learning, you don't regret it. Right. But the big thing is like I see too often and I've been guilty of this myself.
Like I mentioned, hey, maybe if I just in two years of trading, I kind of got what I needed out of that and I would have been ready for the next thing. But I stayed for five. Right. And ultimately, I think I think that's so important, whether you're in a role and thinking about a promotion or at a company. Should I stay? Should I leave? Are you learning? Are you growing?
And if you're not, you should find something else.
Yeah, I completely agree with that. I also think one, just to build on top of that idea, even if you're at a job that's not your dream job, or maybe you aren't necessarily, you know, it's not your ikigai. I think oftentimes we then down throttle how much effort we put into it, right? We're like, oh, well, I'm, you know, an administrator in this company and it's not what I want to do.
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Chapter 6: What is the value of loyalty and resilience in business?
Chapter 7: How does Cameo's revenue model differ from social platforms?
Yeah, I actually, you know, when I'm talking to younger people or, you know, whatever come up and whenever you have a public platform like this, people seem to assume that you like have all these answers and, you know, sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. But, you know, so I'll get questions asked and stuff and I'll tell them like, look, I think for some people and probably...
my guess would be the majority of people actually taking that time, if you have an entrepreneurial bent or that is ultimately your goal, taking that time to go into the corporate world in some capacity and getting a feel for that side of business because there are a lot of really good lessons that you can learn and also you can learn a lot of things that you don't like, right?
And I find that my most successful entrepreneurial endeavor was actually the result of building I'm not going to say solely, but building against aspects of the business that I didn't like or I disagreed with and then building off of those. And I wouldn't have had that if I hadn't spent about a decade of my life in different kind of corporate endeavors. Does that play with you?
Does that sound right? And maybe what should someone be considering if they have a similar entrepreneurial bent that you have? When they're coming out, like, how do you make that decision? Should I just press into more entrepreneur or whatever?
We'll start from the top on this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm a deep believer that entrepreneurs are born not made. I think you can become more entrepreneurial by being, you know, hanging, working at startups or being around other entrepreneurs. But, you know, most entrepreneurs that I know, like, they – They were entrepreneurs in kindergarten.
They were the ones with the lemonade stand or they were flipping baseball cards or pogs or whatever the fuck it was. Yeah, pogs. Oh my God. I just see that over and over and over again. You know, in fact, there's a personality test we used to make everybody take in the OG days of Cameo.
100%.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can entrepreneurs learn from corporate experience?
I want to be over here. And then we spend half our day memorizing baseball stats because we can do our job in the first hour, right? I mean, that was like my career at American Express. And, you know, so it's like I'll ask people, you know, yeah, I get it. Like you don't love this thing, no doubt. But are you giving 100% to it to even see what you're capable of?
And I think a lot of times we get into these positions, and if it's not what we see ourselves doing for 10 years, we downshift and coast. And that just kills all our momentum.
Totally. And that's really what the whole premise of the Yuki guy is. you know, framework means to say, like, if you found that thing, then you are going to put the time and the effort because you love it. You're great at it. You know, you're, you're inspired by it. Like all those things, like you can get, you can make money doing it. Right. That's, it's so important.
Yeah. Now, do you think, I want to go back and double click on this idea of you having, you know, multiple successful startup founders coming out of your culture. And I saw that you have six core values. I'm going to read all of them, but there's three I would love for you to kind of expand upon. But I'm gonna read all six for the audience quick here. Number one, roll out the red carpet.
Two, act like an owner. Three, challenge assumptions. Four, embrace innovation. Five, fight for simplicity. And six, make it memorable. The three I would love for you to maybe expand upon in whatever way you see works because I think they're topics that to me are kind of a little different and I think very interesting are one, roll out the red carpet.
two, act like an owner, and three, fight for simplicity. Those three ideas immediately caught me as differentiators from what I've seen in other kind of corporate core values.
Well, I will tell you that those are the three that have stood the test of time. The other core values have been altered at different points, but those three along with run through walls, which is no longer a core value, but still like very much an ethos of Cameo are really the pillars upon which we built the company.
So the thing that's kind of cool, I mentioned there were like four kind of OG core values at Cameo. We have six now, but each one of the founders and then Arthur Leopold, who was our first employee founding COO, each one of us had kind of a value that we brought to the table that became the bedrock and foundation of our culture.
So starting with, you know, fight for simplicity, starting with Roll Out the Red Carpet.
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