Vlogmi

Note: CLICK HERE if you would like to know more about our Monetization Plans, Marketing Strategy, Burn Rate, Competitors, and more.

In a Nutshell: Our Story

When our founder Luke Thorssen began to notice the negative effects social media was having on his mental health, he decided to figure out a better way to stay connected with friends and family.

While coming up with an idea for a new school project, Luke saw a growing trend with in-the-moment content, particularly with Snapchat's brand new story feature. He liked the idea of seeing a snapshot of his friends' everyday life, but he wanted to be able to go back to these posts on any day instead of them deleting after 24 hours never to be seen again.

Luke took it upon himself to develop his own Social Media App; one that he could see himself using everyday. So after a lot of research and a quick domain purchase, Vlogmi was born.

What is Vlogmi?

Vlogmi Corporation is a family owned tech startup developing a brand new social media platform based entirely around the concept of sharing genuine, authentic, and original content in daily "story-like" compilation posts called Vlogs.

Check out the video above to see our Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Luke Thorssen, open up about what Vlogmi is, how it relates to his personal life, and his vision for the future.

"I can't even remember a time when I wasn't on social media. It's really important for us to change the way that we use it so that social media has a positive impact on our digital wellbeing and mental health."

-Luke Thorssen, Founder & CEO Vlogmi

Social Media and Mental Health

Vlogmi is a platform based on genuineness and authenticity. While platforms like Instagram focus on disingenuous content and obsessing over “picture perfect” posts, Vlogmi will effectively make social media a healthier place by promoting and regulating genuine and authentic content.

Content on Vlogmi will primarily consist of Story-like posts called Vlogs. Vlogmi combats the issue of fake/unrealistic content by promoting the idea of original and unfiltered content. To achieve this, users will only be able to post pictures and videos taken within the app, rather than uploading from their camera roll or other sources. This feature alone removes all reposts, and edited posts from the platform. As Vlogmi focuses more on the everyday lives of the user base and keeping up to date with loved ones, it is very likely that it will provide users with an increase in digital well-being, while rewarding users for routine use of the app.

"[R]outine social media use—for example, using social media as part of everyday routine and responding to content that others share—is positively associated with all three health outcomes (social well-being, positive mental health, and self-rated health)."

-Mesfin Awoke Bekalu, research scientist, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Is social media bad? No. But as it becomes more integral to the way we relate with others, it is important that we acknowledge its potential harm so we can make conscious efforts to avoid the pitfalls. Digital wellbeing is a term that refers to creating healthy tech habits – whether it be through unplugging often or improving focus. Vlogmi will allow some of this pressure to be alleviated and help users to become a part of a more inclusive environment where everyone is sharing raw and real content.

The Rise of Behind-the-Scenes Content

Vlogmi takes advantage of the immense popularity of the “Story” feature seen on many current social media's, implementing it as our main type of content. We also plan to implement livestreaming in the near future, which will allow our users to get a true, uncut look into the lives of the people they follow.

Behind the scenes or live videos let the audience get a glimpse of what’s going on behind the scenes. It allows for increased credibility and humanization of personalities and brands that seem so distant in the minds of viewers.

Vlogmi Vlogs provide a personal and natural form of communication due to the authenticity and realness of what it portrays. Every day, people prefer to share more real-life moments, behind-the-scenes, and unedited content. These stories are far more effective at eliciting emotions than the standard edited posts – joy, anger, happiness, hate.

Meet the Team

We are siblings. We live together, work together, and depend on one another. We can drive each other crazy every now and then, but our differing perspectives and the fact that we consistently challenge each other is what makes us such a great team. We keep each other in check!

Luke Thorssen, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Luke is an online content creator, social media influencer and millennial marketing specialist with over 9 years experience in content development and several in marketing. Victor Cui, CEO of ONE championship, nominated Luke for the "Global Top 35 Under 35 Game Changing CEO's in Esports". In 2017-2018 Luke was working as CCO of the popular Filipino record label "Careless Music Manila" (now the #1 independent record label in the Philippines), developing content and doing social media marketing and consulting for the artists.

LeRoy Thorssen, Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer
LeRoy is a young entrepreneur and international traveller. As the young Marketing Director of Flexifill Bulk Solutions Ltd. LeRoy developed their corporate website and marketing portfolio. In 2011, he was a member of the Marketing Department of DIRTT Environmental Solutions Ltd., redesigning and editing web pages for the company’s website. In 2014, LeRoy moved to Victoria, BC, where he co-owned and managed the Mayflower Caffè. While travelling through Europe, LeRoy worked as a bartender in London. His job also entailed designing new menus, creating promotional materials, and managing the company’s social media pages. As COO, LeRoy oversees managing and coordinating the tightly scheduled work of the development team and guiding the administration of Vlogmi Corporation.

Rafaella Thorssen, Co-Founder and Vice President Design
Rafaella studied at a multimedia arts school as well as graduated from an accountancy/business management course. She is also a TEFL certified teacher of English. At Adapt Architectural Solutions, Rafaella created marketing materials and communication templates for the company’s clients. She previously was an intern at a local NGO to support students and educators in lower income areas, creating marketing materials for the company along with event planning. Rafaella has also worked with many volunteer and charity causes/events in recent years, helping out in anything from graphic design to managing a team. As Vlogmi’s Vice President Design, Rafaella has developed and documented the Vlogmi Bible that guides our development team. Rafaella and her graphics team have established the branding and created all the finished graphics for the app’s screens and icons.

The Competitive Landscape

What is the size of the competition and who are the main players in the space?
Although Facebook's monthly active user count breaks new highs globally, it has lost market share for several years in the USA. Starting from nearly 70% dominance, now this number has dropped to 36.64%.*

This is seemingly because people are diversifying their social media use to other apps.

*Sources: Dreamgrow; Statista

So, what does this tell us?
Even though major corporations like Facebook and TikTok have massive audiences that continue to grow day by day, there is always room for a new player to join the game. Vlogmi doesn't need to STEAL users from Instagram (at least initially), because studies show that users are happy to use both. We don't expect people to delete their other social accounts when they download Vlogmi, although that may eventually happen organically over time.

Case Studies:

How did we get to our valuation?

We put a lot of time and research into the social media space, and particularly into how we compare ourselves to other platforms; established and brand new. After several raises, we believe our pre-money valuation of US$4,959,000 is accurate and fair. In fact, in most cases we are several million dollars lower than competing start-ups. We don't need to be greedy, nor do we want to be. Below is a quick breakdown of our competitors and their valuations:

So, what's the plan?

Even though Vlogmi will be available worldwide on release, we will focus our advertising efforts in lower-cost areas to maximize the amount of installs we get per dollar. Once we tackle the lower-cost geographical locations, we will focus on accumulating and growing our North American user base.

A huge benefit of having lived in Southeast Asia for over 4 years is how aware we became of the global market. North America is absolutely our primary focus to develop a loyal user base, it is just not our first. By promoting in areas of a lower cost, we can grow our user base significantly. So, by the time we start heavily moving our promotional and advertising efforts to North America, we will already seem like a "giant" in the industry. With this strategy, we will have a major upper hand against other competing startups in this space by having credibility and a large active user base on Vlogmi.

PHILIPPINES
Launching in the Philippines will allow us to build a very Americanized and English user base on Vlogmi. The cost of advertising and click-through-rate in the Philippines is significantly more cash-efficient than any other place with a substantial English speaking audience.

INDIA
Next for us is the giant population of India. Focusing on capturing everyday users, as well as fans of Bollywood stars. With TikTok being banned in India, it is a primary target of ours as there is a large gap in the market for an app like Vlogmi.

BRAZIL
In 2021, there will be over 145 million social media users in Brazil. With such a large population using the internet and social media, and a very low cost of advertising to them, this makes Brazil a perfect market for Vlogmi to tap into.

This does not mean that we won't be promoting in any other areas; we will just be advertising primarily in the target market of focus. Vlogmi will be available for download Worldwide on launch. You can check out a more detailed rundown of our marketing strategies in the attached documents.

How do we make money?

Even though in-app ads are the most obvious and simple way to monetize Vlogmi, they are one of the most effective ways of monetizing any mobile app. There are a few key types of in-app mobile advertising commonly used today:

Vlogmi will initially not support advertising on day one. Our goal is to reach a significant number of users prior to introducing advertising. This will help with retention of users by providing the best possible user experience. Once we have a solid dedicated userbase, we will introduce support for Native Ads that will fit seamlessly with the main concept design and appear within the app as its natural element. However, we plan to phase out this form of advertising once we finish development of our proprietary monetization technology called Support Creator.

The issue with the types of advertising mentioned above is that they can take away from the overall user experience. No one wants a whole bunch of ads getting in-between them and the people they follow. And, although Vlogmi will actively take steps to make our advertising as unobtrusive as possible, these types of advertising will always be somewhat of a nuisance.

SUPPORT CREATOR
Our Support Creator feature is our breakthrough proprietary technology that we believe will revolutionize Social Media monetization. This feature will allow users to support their favourite creators without having to spend a dime. They can do this by watching/playing (engaging) with Incentivized Ads. Incentivized Ads are OPT-IN advertisements that give a reward to the user after the advertisement is completed. The ads can be 30 second videos, or even interactive mini games. We will reveal more information about the Support Creator feature later this year!

Learn more about our monetization strategies and projections in our attached Monetization report above, including how we will use Sponsored Filters and our breakthrough proprietary feature, Support Creator.

Become a Founder Today!

When you invest in Vlogmi, you get first dibs on your username via our Exclusive Pre-Launch Beta, a luxury that only ever comes at the beginning of any platform's lifecycle. Other perks include:

• Exclusive access to our Pre-Launch Beta
  
• Electronic Souvenir Share Certificate sent to your email ($250+)
  
• Limited Edition Vlogmi Dog Tag ($500+)
• Founders Verified Badge ($1,000+)
• 5% Share Bonus ($2,500+)
• Invitation to a lunch cruise with the founders ($5,000+)

But, our favorite has to be the highly exclusive Founders Verified Badge

Designed to not devalue the iconic "Verified" checkmark, we created the "Founder" checkmark.

Looking identical to the "verified badge" with the original Vlogmi gradient colors, only a select number of users will ever have access to this one-time-ever badge.