“How Cameo Turned D-List Celebs Into a Monetization Machine: Inside the Surreal and Lucrative Two-Sided Marketplace of Mediocre Famous People”, 2020-03-17 (; backlinks; similar):
These formulas have turned an obscure idea that Galanis and his college buddies had a few years ago about making more money for second rate celebs into a thriving two-sided marketplace that has caught the attention of VCs, Hollywood, and professional sports. In June, Cameo raised $50 million in Series B funding, led by Kleiner Perkins (which recently began funding more early stage startups) to boost marketing, expand into international markets, and staff up to meet the growing demand. In the past 15 months, Cameo has gone 20 → 125 employees, and moved from an 825-square-foot home base in the 1871 technology incubator into its current 6,000-square-foot digs in Chicago’s popping West Loop. Cameo customers have purchased more than 560,000 videos from some 20,000 celebs and counting, including 1980s star Steve Guttenberg and sports legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And now, when the masses find themselves in quarantined isolation—looking for levity, distractions, and any semblance of the human touch—sending each other personalized videograms from the semi-famous has never seemed like a more pitch-perfect offering.
The product itself is as simple as it is improbable. For a price the celeb sets—anywhere from $5 to $2,500—famous people record video shout-outs, aka “Cameos”, that run for a couple of minutes, and then are delivered via text or email. Most Cameo videos are booked as private birthday or anniversary gifts, but a few have gone viral on social media. Even if you don’t know Cameo by name, there’s a good chance you caught Bam Margera of MTV’s Jackass delivering an “I quit” message on behalf of a disgruntled employee, or Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath dumping some poor dude on behalf of the guy’s girlfriend. (Don’t feel too bad for the dumpee, the whole thing was a joke.)
…Back at the whiteboard, Galanis takes a marker and sketches out a graph of how fame works on his platform. “Imagine the grid represents all the celebrity talent in the world”, he says, “which by our definition, we peg at 5 million people.” The X-axis is willingness; the Y-axis is fame. “Say LeBron is at the top of the X-axis, and I’m at the bottom”, he says. On the willingness side, Galanis puts notoriously media-averse Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch on the far left end. At the opposite end, he slots chatty celebrity blogger-turned-Cameo-workhorse Perez Hilton, of whom Galanis says, “I promise if you booked him right now, the video would be done before we leave this room.”
…“The contrarian bet we made was that it would be way better for us to have people with small, loyal followings, often unknown to the general population, but who were willing to charge $5 to $10”, Galanis says. Cameo would employ a revenue-sharing model, getting a 25% cut of each video, while the rest went to the celeb. They wanted people like Galanis’ co-founder (and former Duke classmate) Devon Townsend, who had built a small following making silly Vine videos of his travels with pal Cody Ko, a popular YouTuber. “Devon isn’t Justin Bieber, but he had 25,000 Instagram followers from his days as a goofy Vine star”, explains Galanis. “He originally charged a couple bucks, and the people who love him responded, ‘Best money I ever spent!’”
…After a customer books a Cameo, the celeb films the video via the startup’s app within four to seven days. Most videos typically come in at under a minute, though some talent indulges in extensive riffs. (Inexplicably, “plant-based activist and health coach” Courtney Anne Feldman, wife of Corey, once went on for more than 20 minutes in a video for a customer.) Cameo handles the setup, technical infrastructure, marketing, and support, with white-glove service for the biggest earners with “whatever they need”—details like help pronouncing a customer’s name or just making sure they aren’t getting burned-out doing so many video shout-outs.
…For famous people of any caliber—the washed-up, the obscure micro-celebrity, the actual rock star—becoming part of the supply side of the Cameo marketplace is as low a barrier as it gets. Set a price and go. The videos are short—Instagram comedian Evan Breen has been known to knock out more than 100 at $25 a pop in a single sitting—and they don’t typically require any special preparation. Hair, makeup, wardrobe, or even handlers aren’t necessary. In fact, part of the oddball authenticity of Cameo videos is that they have a take-me-as-I-am familiarity—filmed at breakfast tables, lying in bed, on the golf course, running errands, at a stoplight, wherever it fits into the schedule.