Invest in Paid Exposure

Our Story

We wanted to get some exposure for our apparel company by paying or giving products to people who have a lot of social media followers to post content about our products but it was a lot harder than we thought!

It was such a painful experience finding influencers and getting them to respond to our messages. Then after connecting with them, it took weeks or months just to discuss and negotiate the details of the promotion.

But the biggest problem is when influencers don't even promote our brand because there's really nothing that keeps them accountable for their services and even if we had a contract, it would cost us more to get our products or money back than it is to let them go.

After these experiences, we were very discouraged since it's difficult to trust them!

We did some research and found that all of the existing platforms didn't really solve our problems and they were too complicated or too expensive.

There must be millions of business owners that are going through the same exact experience, so we decided to try and solve this problem...

Problem

It's getting more and more difficult to get people's attention, so businesses are always looking for different ways to get more valuable exposure. Currently, most businesses are relying on paid advertisements through social networks or Google.

Influencer marketing, where people with a lot of social media followers get paid to promote businesses, has gotten very popular because it's an effective way of getting the attention of their followers.

But because of the lack of trust, the influencer marketing process is very time-consuming and nothing really exists that helps influencers build trust and run their own business.

• No Transparency
  Influencers rarely provide any information about their influencer marketing services and because of the lack of transparency, influencers always try to get as much money from each sponsor by negotiating prices based on their budget.
• No Credibility
  Even if influencers provide their information, how do we know the information is true? Some influencers have been known to promote brands and pretend to be sponsored.
• No Accountability
  There are zero consequences for their bad behavior because nothing holds influencers accountable for their services, which is why it's common for influencers to run with the money or products.

Because of everything above, a lot of time is being wasted on negotiating the pricing and details of the promotion. Without any tools available to help influencers consistently get sponsors, it makes it very difficult for them to monetize their followers and for sponsors to do business with them.

Competition

Even though all of the problems stem from influencers, existing platforms are geared for sponsors, where influencers have to bid for sponsorships OR hope sponsors choose them.

Our competitors don’t help influencers proactively grow and manage their own business, which makes our platform more defensible because our features help keep influencers from leaving our platform.

For example, influencers will be less likely to leave our platform because they can't bring their history of sponsors along with their ratings and reviews that would help them get future sponsors.

Other platforms are way too complicated and too expensive for small and medium-sized businesses to use, which is why there are very few competitors focusing on the hyperlocal market.

Learn more about our top competitors: Top Influencer Marketing Software Tools for 2021

Solution

Our mission is to empower anyone to get paid for promoting businesses looking for valuable exposure within their own communities.

Paid Exposure is developing a marketplace to help businesses of any size to get valuable online and offline exposure by building their own team of promoters within their own community of supporters.

By creating a trustworthy marketplace, anyone can gain more credibility with their sponsor history along with ratings & reviews that can help them build trust to get future sponsors.

Our unique system allows businesses of any size to book influencers the same way we book rooms or flights, where promotions are automatically scheduled on specific dates and include all of the sponsor’s campaign details.

We make the influencer marketing process more effective and efficient. Now, transactions that typically take days or weeks, can be finalized within 48 hours.

We help businesses build their own team of promoters, even at a hyperlocal level, which can really help small businesses with the effects of the pandemic.

How It Works

Step 1: Find Promoters

Sponsors can filter their search for promoters based on keywords, location, prices, and other relevant information. All of the information comes directly from the promoters.

Step 2: Review Profiles

Once sponsors find potential promoters, they can review the profiles that contain detailed information about their background, links to social media, prices, and everything else sponsors need to make a decision.

Step 3: Book Promoters

Then, sponsors simply book the promoters on available dates, where they can view their basic promotion prices per day and include any add-on services that can enhance their promotion.

Step 4: Review Campaigns

The promoters will get a notification about any offers from sponsors and have 48 hours to accept or decline the offer. This allows promoters to control who to promote and once they accept, the transaction is processed.

Step 5: Launch Promotion

Once promoters accept, they'll be able to maintain communication through our internal messaging system, so that both sides know all of the deliverables for the promotions without any confusion since each message is linked to specific dates.

Step 6: Review Promotion

After the promotion has been fulfilled, sponsors can give their ratings and reviews about the quality and effectiveness of the promotion and the communication with the promoter.

This increases the quality of our promoters since it is in their best interest to strive for 5-star reviews that can help them get future sponsors.

Market

The influencer marketing industry is expected to reach $15 Billion by 2022.

Micro-influencers, who have less than 100K followers, are estimated at $2.3 Billion just on Instagram alone.

According to a Yelp report on September 2020, 60% of small businesses (a total of 97,966) that closed during the pandemic have permanently closed with restaurants being impacted the most.

Because of this, there has been a huge increase in support for local businesses to help them stay alive.

By capturing 10,000 influencers averaging $20K per year, which is about 6-7 sponsors @ $250 each per month, we could reach $200M in annual sales.

We can also achieve this goal by expanding to 250 locations and capturing 100 local businesses spending an average of about $675 per month.

Notable Highlights

• Influencer Marketing Industry is set to grow to approximately $13.8 Billion in 2021
• The majority (59%) admit to having a standalone budget for content marketing, and 75% of them now intend to dedicate a budget to influencer marketing in 2021
• 90% of our survey respondents believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing
• 83% of firms take their influencer marketing spending from their marketing budget

Learn more about the influencer industry: The State of Influencer Marketing 2021: Benchmark Report

Revenue Model

The way we make money is by taking a percentage from promoters based on their total monthly transactions, where our percentage decreases from 25%, 20%, 15%, and 10% of commission if their sales equal <$5K, $5K+, $10K+ and $20K+, respectively.

Promoters with a lot of followers are more likely to charge a lot more for their services, which justifies why we take less from them.

And we charge sponsors a 15% service fee.

Traction & Added Value

• Money Court on CNBC with Kevin O'Leary
  We received national TV exposure on an episode of the brand new show called Money Court on CNBC with Kevin O'Leary (aka Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank) on September 8th, where my partner and I discussed our go-to-market strategy for Paid Exposure.
  
  Kevin O'Leary's verdict was for us to pursue the hyperlocal market since there are less competition and it might give us the first-to-market advantage.
• https://www.cnbc.com/money-court

• Founder Institute
  We graduated from the largest pre-seed startup accelerator, where only 9 startups out of 24 graduated from our cohort. As a Founder Institute graduate, we have the benefit of reaching out to a network of hundreds of mentors and founders.
  https://fi.co
• Inked Magazine
  We've partnered with Project M Group, which acquired Inked Magazine, to help them build their own team of influencers that they can offer to their advertising sponsors by inviting them through their social media channels with more than 15 million followers.
  https://www.inkedmag.com
• A3 Athletics
  We've partnered with this agency to add their clients, who are NFL athletes, as promoters on our platform and offer them to advertising sponsors who are interested in booking them to promote their brands.
  https://a3athletics.co
  
• Roxer
  We've partnered with Roxer to integrate their app into our platform to increase the communication from promoters by monetizing calls from sponsors without having to provide their private contact information.
  https://roxer.com/
• Influencer & Creator Facebook Group
  We've been accepted as a moderator of a Facebook Group with 4.5K+ members to educate their members on using our platform to build their own business and to connect the sponsors/agencies with the influencers in the group.

Go to Market Strategies

Our plan is to start by connecting local businesses with local influencers, increasing liquidity by promoting our users on influencer community groups, and signing up talent managers and marketing agencies to connect influencers and sponsors.

We’ll also be doing paid advertising to acquire users and to connect sponsors and promoters with each other.

Hyperlocal Market

We've decided to pivot our go-to-market strategies at the hyperlocal level because we believe we will have a better chance of success by growing our business geographically starting with local businesses and nano-influencers who have less than 10K social media followers.

PROS

• Lack of Competition
  There is a lot less competition at the hyperlocal level since most of the existing platforms are too complicated and too expensive for small businesses.

• Local Niche
  It will be much easier to connect sponsors and promoters since the most important qualification most of the sponsors will only require is being local. A restaurant owner can work with anyone in fitness, beauty, fashion, or other niches.
  

• Local Trust
  Businesses will be more likely to trust local people in their area who they can meet in person and promoters will be able to build credibility and convert more sponsors since local businesses are familiar with each other.

• Geographic Growth
  It is more effective to scale a marketplace geographically, like Airbnb and Uber, where we can grow our users by simply adding locations.
• Nano-Influencers (1K - 10K Followers)
  Nano-influencers have the highest engagement rate, which is very attractive for any size business. If nano-influencers can make money, it will be a lot easier to attract bigger influencers who may find it difficult to get sponsors consistently.
• Access to Decision Maker
  Unlike bigger companies, it's very easy for promoters to connect with the decision-maker at small businesses, who are usually available at their business location.
• Community Support
  With the impact of the pandemic on small businesses, more people are more willing to support their favorite local businesses.
  
• Goodwill
  Businesses allocating their advertising dollars by giving back to their local supporters would increase even more support from their own communities.

CONS

• Lower $ Amount
  It would require a lot more transactions working with small businesses than it would be for companies with bigger budgets.
• Acquiring Local Promoters
  It is a lot more difficult to connect businesses at different locations with promoters, which is why we added the feature for them to build their own team of promoters.
• Lack of Experience & Quality
  Most of the people with less than 10K followers are not as experienced in promoting brands and creating quality content.
• New Strategy for Small Businesses
  Influencer marketing is a relatively new marketing concept and it's definitely going to be a challenge persuading them into trying something new to grow their business.

Team

• Ricardo J. Zulueta, Jr
  

• Kristen Zulueta
• David Olaniyan
• Jay Gould

Milestones

• Mobile App Development
  We plan on using the funds to develop and improve our Android and iOS mobile apps. We have already started developing our mobile apps for promoters, which we plan to launch in September.
  
  It would really increase the transactions on our platform by developing mobile apps for our sponsors and agencies that will improve the communication and responsiveness within our marketplace.
• Web App Development
  We will simultaneously develop and improve the user experience on our website that will increase conversions and sign-ups
  
• Account Managers
  We plan on hiring account managers who will help us with the onboarding process for new users and guide them on implementing influencer marketing strategies or showing tips and tutorials that will help them understand our platform.

Links to Relevant Information

• The State of Influencer Marketing 2021: Benchmark Report
• Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report
  
• What are Nano-Influencers?

What is a SAFE? [Watch Video Below]

Our investment terms are based on a SAFE agreement, where our valuation cap is at $3 million, but only $2 million for the initial investors of $100K.