I had Sam on the show in early 2021 where we dug into e-commerce, the hypergrowth of user-generated content, and OOOOO’s plans to meet audiences at the intersection of video and retail. In this episode we dive into his evolving plans for building a technology platform that helps brands and entrepreneurs share their products and services through live, interactive, shoppable videos. I’m a small personal investor in the company, and hope you’ll be OOOOO so excited about the future of the live-stream economy as I am.
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For more details on today’s conversation read on below…
Guest: Sam Jones
Profile: Cofounder of the social commerce app OOOOO.
Where to Find Him: LinkedIn, Twitter
What’s Sam Panicked About?: The future of retail.
The Takeaway:
There’s been an explosion apps in China over the last five years or so, and the reason is a massive explosion in consumption upgrade –people who never had a fridge or motorcycle or a laptop, all now have smartphones. Because of that, all sorts of wacky applications seemed to come out of nowhere; most notable where the video applications, and video shopping apps in particular. And the West is still playing catch up.
The entire live-stream economy is currently worth about $3 billion a year, but in one of the craziest statistics you’ll ever hear, a streamer in China, Austin Lee, did a show that was twelve hours long and racked up sales of $1.7 billion! Only five years ago Austin was working behind the beauty counter in a department store. Today, he’s known as the ‘Lipstick Brother’, and he’s doing approximately 400 live shows a year. He’s got a team of people around him who are assessing different beauty and skincare products for his live-streams. But there’s a dark side to the live-stream economy as well; it’s easy to make live content that sucks. Without the studio and cameras and producers and creatives, you can destroy your brand in about five minutes.
Favorite Quote:
“The nature of mobile video commerce is the person on the other end can and often is using a mobile, so the freedom that you have to create content anywhere you want. Whether that’s hanging off a cliff in Yosemite, or in a vineyard. or in a fish market. You know the content is wildly different. You’re not sat on a sofa selling a vacuum cleaner.”
