
Cameo raises $50M to deliver personalized messages from celebrities, influencers - tqahhaar
http://techcrunch.com/2019/06/25/cameo/#
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mattzito
I hadn't heard of cameo before, but my wife and I went to a broadway show, she
very much enjoyed one of the performers, and afterwards she looked him up on
twitter and sent me his twitter feed to show me some tweet or other. On his
twitter profile he had a link to his Cameo profile, and for $20 I had him send
my wife a little video about that performance we were at, and to talk about
the show generally. A couple days later she got a 45 second clip he recorded
during intermission, he talked about the show, thanked her for being a fan,
and was generally very gracious. She was surprised and delighted, and I felt
like it was $20 well-spent.

So, while I'm super skeptical about the C-list celebrity market ($50 for Chris
Hansen? Presumably to make a to catch a predator joke?), I think there may be
an opportunity here for fans to connect with the long tail of artists and
celebrities.

~~~
clairity
your anecdote makes me understand a little bit of the value of cameo, despite
otherwise being baffled by the product.

celebrity culture is fascinating, not because i care much about celebrities,
but because its value seems on the surface of it both out of proportion and
hard to pin down. and our emotional and social systems seem to be subverted
somehow in the process.

the entertainment value of a movie, show or concert, and even their cultural
value, seems somewhat straightforward, but how do we (over-?)value the
entertainer beyond their craft skills? why do people so adore them from a
distance, enough for something like cameo to have a valuation in the hundreds
of millions?

~~~
mistermann
I think people might be underestimating how the meaning of celebrity has
changed - I have two kids who follow all sorts of different people on Youtube
and elsewhere from whom they would be far more thrilled to get a personalized
video message than from some "real" A-list celebrity, and I would even go so
far to say the same for myself.

$20 bucks for a 1 minute personalized clip for a special occasion is pocket
change (how many hundreds of dollars do we spend on toys that we know very
well are going to end up on the shelf with all the others), and for all but
the biggest Youtubers, $20/minute (plus overhead time, etc) is _easy money_.
Plus, 3 years later the kid gets to rewatch the video and laugh at how dumb
they were for liking that person!

It's a shame it's no longer an option to invest in startups like you could
back during the dotcom boom, although any of the big platforms could probably
knock off this technology in a weekend or two.

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bluetidepro
I'm honestly surprised Cameo is doing as well as it is. To me, I personally
find it sort of cheesy. I didn't purchase a Cameo or anything, but I did sign
up on the service to see what it was like, and who all was on it. It seemed to
be filled with quite a range of actors/actresses/celebs/etc. but since each of
them were basically just reading a cliché "happy birthday" type script with
insert {blank} name into the Cameo, it just felt disingenuous to me. A lot of
actors also seemed to really "phone it in" for it. I was surprised how much
people were paying for these, to be frank. If I received one from a friend, I
just don't think I'd see the value, and I'm even a big tv/movie fan. "So, you
just paid a celeb to say a few lines? Okay, neat, I guess?" I feel like it was
probably more unique at the start when X friend didn't realize you had easy
access to the celeb, so it felt like "OMG, how did you get them to do/say
that?!" But now that it's getting more popular, it seems to me the value of it
being unique would get washed out fast. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

I think the best way for Cameo to actually expand would be to open it up to
allow you to book a celeb for more than just a quick little video blurb. Like
being able to invite them to parties, or events, and pay them for an actual
true "cameo." It would obviously come with a price, but to me, that would be
much more innovative.

~~~
CyrusL
In my experience as a Cameo customer, the videos are received very well as a
gag gift. "OMG, I can't believe you got them to make me a video!"

To me, the open question is if the novelty factor will wear off. I don't think
I would ever get the same person a second Cameo. I'm not even sure if I would
keep buying Cameos if the service was well-known. A big part of the gag is
"How did you pull that off?!" Maybe there are enough birthdays that it just
doesn't matter.

~~~
jaredsohn
Also wondering if deepfake could eventually disrupt them

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giobox
Surely no one actually cares all _that_ much about the video itself? The
novelty is the fact the actual celebrity took some time to do something
involving you or someone you know.

You can already happily Photoshop a hugely convincing signed celebrity photo,
I don't see people who want such things affected by this or feeling the real
thing is worth any less. Giving someone a deep fake as a gift or novelty would
feel somewhat strange/hollow.

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sct202
People pay tons of money to take posed pictures with celebrities at meet and
greets all the time, so I think that Cameos at least have a clear audience. It
might not be for everyone, but I think it's kind of fun especially for minor
celebrities who are fairly affordable to hire for something silly.

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Jugurtha
On the one hand I feel the desire to drop a sighing Jesus as to how stupid
this is (how many companies/ideas were thought to be just ridiculous). On the
other hand I can't help but see the similarity with plain old advertising,
where someone gets paid to read lines to a camera and fake feelings on how
awesome/cool something is. We know ice cream doesn't provoke orgasm like
facial expressions in most people, but somehow the spots still get made and
sold. This could turn out to be _huge_.

For instance, there are night establishments that have entertainers (singers,
mainly) who get requests from the audience to say something, in exchange for
money. It gets pretty ridiculous like things that go like "Let those who come
from neighborhood X know that we have plenty of money and we made it ages
ago... Screw the new rich. Check out my {fancy_car} outside.. Die of
jealousy".

These people are considered stupid by almost everyone, however we're talking
about serious cash. Alcohol, women, drugs, and _egos_. Some individuals leave
something like $200k on the table on a given night. They want to be remembered
as badasses or something.

Then there's the give and take. The entertainer gets paid. Even poor people
put in money for their 15 seconds.

Ads are about products, in general. Cameo seems to be about people, and people
have egos. This could really turn out to be huge, despite the initial
cheesiness.

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navigatesol
> _Cameo has a roster of 15,000 celebrities that they believe could expand to
> 5 million._

5 million celebrities???

What does the platform offer the celebrities for the 25% cut? This is a cute
gimmick, but how on earth is it worth $300MM? Any value comes from novelty;
when everyone is getting a custom message from a "celebrity", how much value
is left? Are they betting that this society gets _more_ enamored with
influencers and celebrity? God, I hope not.

~~~
bluetidepro
On top of that, is there even _5 million_ celebs to begin with? That number
seems to high to me.

~~~
oh_sigh
If you count niche markets, then yes.

I just found out that a friend of mine is one of the best players in the world
of a certain card game similar to Magic The Gathering(but _nowhere_ near as
popular). I knew he played the game and was good at it, but only found out he
was 'famous' in the scene when someone came up to our table when were getting
lunch to take a selfie with him.

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andrewgjohnson
Will a funny 30 second video to kick off your fantasy football draft ever not
be worth $100?

~~~
fernandopj
Exactly. I'm really blown away at how others cannot see how this is a license
to print money, now that they have amassed such celebrities who are constantly
responding to fans.

Sure it might be a fad, but network effects are already kickin' and they might
just win this market. They might very well be cash flow positive and just not
lucrative right now bc focusing on growth/marketing.

Personally, like the first response above, I race in an amateur, local kart
league, which is not a cheap sport, and we have a site, instagram, video
coverage, everything. The list of F1 & Indy race drivers who could do a video
saying "hello" to our league, comparing to what we indulge on a hobby already,
is peanuts. I'm sure my friends would take doing a few proposals very
seriously.

IMO wannabe YT-IG influencers would FLOCK at the chance of having a celeb
saying hello to them and posting on their timelines ("look who just sent hi").

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nullandvoid
Whilst this market baffles me theres no doubht its massively lucrative when
you consider it can likely compare to atwitch service like twitch in a broad
sense

Pay a personality for a second of recognition except as an added bonus you get
some reactions in the chat

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brod
I used this service a while ago, when I saw the host of podcast I follow was
available as a "cameo", my request for the video was a in-joke from the
podcast, I was sent the video a couple days later, I watched it, laughed and
waited for the next podcast where I hoped he would talk about it, when he did
it was equally as funny as the original video and took the in-joke deeper
again.

I think this use case provided a lot more value and depth than a more
pedestrian "congratulations on graduating".

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iamben
Whilst I think 300mm is pretty punchy, I'm with a lot of commenters here that
they make an excellent novelty gift.

We used [https://www.celebvm.com/](https://www.celebvm.com/) (an English
competitor that doesn't seem to have taken off in the same way) a few years
back to get John Challis (Boyce from Only Fools, for the UK readers) to do a
message for a relative. Which to be fair was very good and absolutely worth
£20.

The relative was delighted - but I think a lot of that was "wow, how did you
get him to do that". If Cameo becomes as big as the valuation, I think some of
the magic sauce is lost. "Wow, how did you get that?!" becomes "oh, you paid X
to get me a video from Cameo."

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Zelphyr
Cameo is a competitor to a project I worked on that just launched called
Givvli - [https://givvli.com](https://givvli.com)

These platforms could be particularly fruitful for musicians and YouTube
stars. It's a fascinating space to watch.

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dpflan
“It’s a new way for people to connect and the delight generated from this
platform is unparalleled,” Galanis said.

This is interesting; I would think the wow-effect wears off the more celebrity
cameos someone receives. Clever way to make money using internet technology
and access to celebrities/influencers.

I could see a deepfake shadow business arising whose customers are the
celebrities -- now the celebrity can do many more unique Cameos a day

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aresant
If any Cameo employees are on HN please note that clicking "Visit Ice-T's
Page" is a broken link :)

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mavihs
If the celebs are just doing pre-scripted videos with fill in the blanks, how
hard would it be to alter the audio and fill in the blanks yourself using a
machine?

IIRC there was a Google deep AI project or something similar which was able to
"match" a human voice.

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smpetrey
Oh I remember this app:

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/celebrities-...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/celebrities-
white-supremacists-video-app-cameo-anti-semitic)

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lanrh1836
KP is a bit washed up at the moment, so I wouldn’t take them leading on an
investment as a sign this is an obvious home run. Feels very faddy to me.

~~~
itschekkers
agreed

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pjrynewicz
Oh heck yeah Cameo team, ya’ll are killing it!

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sonnyblarney
$50M means a valuation at least north of $150M I just don't see how this gets
to that sum.

How is this a sustainable business at the kind of scale needed to 10x a $50M
investment?

Especially by KP?

#Bubblesignal

~~~
dclusin
It's pretty hard to ascertain the value of a company and the required exit
size from a a single investment round's size alone. There could be warrants to
buy more stock, liquidation preferences, ratchets, etc. The math from this
alone can get pretty tricky.

This seems like a revenue generating company from the get-go, unlike something
like facebook, so I suspect they already have revenue and it's growing pretty
fast. Given America's (and other countries too) fascination with Celebrities,
I could see this as a pretty highly valued company.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Finding the 'technical value' of things can be tricky, as you say with all the
special features of a deal.

But in general, it's actually fairly straightforward.

Investors are usually looking to take x% ownership, ballpark in a round, and
they are all looking for at least a 10x return.

Technicalities of deals vary, but in the end, a 'round' of investors may get
10-30% and they have big expectations for returns, otherwise it's not worth
it.

Given the paths to liquidity are IPO or 'get acquired', I'm hard pressed to
see the logic on this one. How many pure media companies have done major IPO's
based on hard, forecastable metrics lately? And what kind of 'big pockets'
company would be interested in making a $500M-$1B acquisition of such a thing?
Disney? I don't think so really.

I can certainly see the founders making some kind of 'big story' about what
they are going to do, but the essentials of what they are doing is not great.
I don't see how the experience will be protected, I don't see a lot of
competitive advantage, I don't see how they get to the kinds of sales required
for those massive valuations, and of course this has a lot of 'fad risk'.

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dx7tnt
Another 50 million dollars of the world's hard-earned time and effort well
spent by the VCs there.

