December 17, 2025 • 32 mins
Today on The Breakfast Club, Isaac Hayes III On The Rise Of Fanbase, Microdramas, Owning Our Content. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Wake you up. Wait that ass up programming your alarm.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The power one oh five point one on iHeartRadio Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Everybody is DJ n V Jess Hilarious, Chelamagne the Guy.
We are the breakfast Club. Laurel Laurrela Roses here and
we got a special guest in the building. If Isaac
is the third, Good morning, brother.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
What's up guys? How you doing good?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Look favorite you my brother?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I am excellent, I am highly favorite, blessed us. Well,
so what are.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
We doing today?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Either what we're doing? What we're doing?
Speaker 4 (00:30):
What do you mean when we're doing We're closing this
round for fan base. We're closing this equity crowd funk
for fan base. It closes today. I feel like this
is a great opportunity for everybody to give an investment
as a gift for people. You know, I've been here
before talked about importance of investing, but especially with social media.
(00:51):
I think we really need to galvanize right now at
this time because the world is shifting, and so I'm
telling everybody go to start engine dot com, slash fan
base and invest to own equity in the company. Three
ninety nine is the minimum investment, but it's a bigger
story than just investing in fan base.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So when people ask the question, they say, okay, you
know you raised You've raised millions of dollars for fan base.
You know, they may want to invest Walk us through,
line by line how that capital gets deployed.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So Number one, infrastructure.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
So we just built a brand new algorithm, you know,
we spent almost half a year working on that. We
have some new key hires. All this capital gets deployed
in hiring better people, like really people that used to
work at Meta, that used to work at TikTok, they
used to work at Snapchat, and those salaries aren't cheap.
(01:42):
We also have to hire engineers to build what we're
building and develop those products, and it takes time. Honestly,
the amount of capital that I've raised over a five
year period. Some people get deployed five times that capital
in one year and they earn it all and they
go out of business. And so we've had to really stretch,
(02:04):
you know how they say, you know, I'm gonna say
you make the make the money stretch, make the food stretch.
We've had to really make this capital stretch with this company.
But it's a testament to our ability to spend wisely,
higher effectively and continue to build the best product.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Now, I agree with you because you know, we see
these tech companies they get you know, crazy donations all
the time, raised a lot of capital, a lot more
capital than you have. How much have you raised over
the last what five years?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Twenty twenty three million dollars?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Twenty three million dollars? Like, yeah, that's I mean, I'm
not gonna say that's nothing because it is something, right,
but compared to the other tech companies, you know, they
get a million dollars in a month.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Man, Listen, some of these Charlemagne, some of these companies
have raised like one hundred and fifty three million dollars
and have not built but one feature, and they're not
even around anymore. And that's because they blow the money.
It's really a it's really tough for black founders. People
don't understand, like black founders get less than half of
one percent of all capital rates. They don't want DEI
(03:07):
they're not trying to give us money, and especially someone
like myself that is disrupting the tech space in building
something that we can own. And then you know, black
people are on the side of ownership like you know,
we don't own nothing. I know, we talk about a
lot of this, you know, a lot about building generational
wealth and you know, those types of things, but we
(03:28):
don't own the sports teams, we don't own the record labels,
and we don't own you know, Hollywood, And we help
build up all of these infrastructures and we don't own them.
In social media, we help build up social media, and
they tell us the kids stay behind and they don't
want DEI and all that kind of stuff. And so
for me, this is a mission. This has been my mission,
will continue to be my purpose of my calling to
(03:49):
continue to build this company, allow us to finally have
the infrastructure of something that can be worth hundreds of
billions of dollars and pull us all up and give
us opportunity.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
We do have to acknowledge the black people who do
own things, though I think I've heard you say that before.
But you know, I think, okay, you know the urban
ones of the world, you know, Kathy Hughes, you know
worldwide technology. You know like there's you know, you play
things like Uncle Nahris, Like there's a lot of things
that black people do own.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yeah, but look what's happening. But it looks what happening
in a lot of these spaces. A lot of these
companies either don't get the capital that they need, they're
tried to, they're you know, handcuffed and what they're able
to do. And you really just name like three businesses
out of like you know, half a million.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Oh, I got it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, I can keep going. I mean there's there's hundreds
of black owned businesses, and I'm just saying like we
I think sometimes we put that narrative out there, and
I think we got to be more specific, like black
people can own more in the tech space. For sure,
we do own things.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, But the biggest problem about it, Isaac and Charlamagne,
I feel is sometimes we talk to people like they
should know, right. A lot of these businesses that are
getting these millions and twenty million and fifty million and
raising one hundred and fifty million dollars are in vestors
that have the money and know why they're investing and
hopefully know where their money's going. But for like somebody
(05:05):
like you, Isaac, who you know, who's been on the
Breakfast Club but numerous times and asking for money for crowdfunding,
I think people want to know where that money is
going and why break it down on a level where
people will understand it and what's next for you based No, No,
the reason I'm asking and break it down for what
fan base is and how much money is needed to
make sure this gets to the place of a matter
(05:27):
or a Twitter or Facebook or you know, Instagram, because
you have to tell people like what's the overall goal
and what's needed this to fan base is self sufficient?
So we don't have that or will it always be
a thing like that for people that don't understand it,
don't know?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
No, I think to explain how capital is deployed is
you know, it's kind of what I said earlier. Tech
companies are not social media platforms are not cheap, right, correct,
And so there's two things. It's how fast you can
build how well you can builds, you know what I'm saying.
And so if you don't have capital to build the
(06:03):
right product, then it's not gonna it's not gonna happen.
So we have salaries, we have infrastructure, we have all
the tech stack, you know, all the things that we do.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
We employ about forty people.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
We have a lot of C suite executives that are
that are working and all this stuff is built and
rolled into a company that is trying to fight the
fight against major tech operasion. Now to explain what fan
base is and understand why that it that it costs
what it costs. Fan base is basically social media through
the lens of black ownership. But the functionality is the same.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Right.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
We do have posts, we have stories, we have live,
we have short form, we have long form, we have
audio chat, we have an algorithm, we have dms, we
have subscriptions, we have tipping. All of those parts are
put together in one platform, right, and integrate it so
that people can have the ability to monetize their content
from the moment that they sign up. Build community. And
(06:58):
when you think and when you compare like and I'll
tell anybody to do this, compare fan base to your
experience that you get on a TikTok or experience that
you get on the Instagram, and just grade us based
off that. But remember that those companies have thirty thousand
engineers and have you know, billions of dollars of capital
And here we are, you know, building up from the
ground up, from scratch with a small team, and we're
(07:22):
still here. And I think that's really the most important part.
And then the things that we're things that we're actually breaking.
We're actually breaking the opportunity for black people to get
into the microdrama space, for users to actually monetize their
data and have it trained by AI if they want to.
But on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, they're training off your data
(07:43):
right now and not paying you anything. And so this
is a real challenge. But it's a lot of moving
pieces in parts that come together to make this machine run.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
How many months of runway this fan base currently.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Have we have about eighteen months of runway, a little
bit longer than that. So you know that gives it
and you understand like even in that amount of time,
there's so much that you have to accomplish in that
in that period of time because you're always going to
be raising capital. I think the difference between what I
(08:13):
do and what everybody else is you publicly hear that
I'm raising all the time, but startups are raising all
the time fifty million, one hundred million, two hundred million,
three hundred million, but it usually comes from vcs and
private equity, and those deals aren't always made public. This
has made public because the people that are investing. Are
not the rich guys and the billionaires and the oligarchs,
because you it's means the people that we know that
(08:34):
are putting their money into the business. And so that's
why it's so public and you see everything all the time.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
So when you say people are investing, so you say
the minimum investment is three ninety nine, So if somebody
invests at three ninety nine, what percentage are of the
company or how much of an investment are they getting?
What's the ROI on that for somebody who you know,
because it's tough out there. But so if somebody wants
to give three ninety nine, they want to know what
they getting back.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yeah, So every investment that you make, especially in the
early stage company, you ride the life of the investment, correct,
So you're here from the beginning all the way till
we either ipo or somebody acquires the company. So you
see like like if Warner Brothers is about to get
acquired and that that's a different scenario. But when that
company is acquired, the shareholders in that company will all
(09:18):
be bought out right and then Netflix or whoever will
acquire that company. So when you do early stage investing
like that, in seed startups, that's what you get. And
so for three ninety nine, you're getting a small, small,
small piece.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Of the company.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
But the upside of what I tell people is that
the value in which these tech companies get to is
where you see a return on your investment. So we're
valued at one hundred and sixty million dollars right now.
I want to put that in perspective of what Meta
is value. That Meta is a one point nine trillion
dollar company. So you think about one point six billion,
sixteen billion, one hundred and sixty billion, that's a thousand
(09:56):
x return. So someone that invests three ninety nine, even
if we get to something that is ten times less
valuable than Meta, five times less valuable than TikTok and Instagram,
that's still a thousand extra return on the type of
investment that you're putting in there. And that's the part
that people do't understand. When you invest in any business,
they tell you like, fifteen percent is an amazing return
(10:16):
on an investment. And I didn't raise capital this way
to give somebody fifteen percent back. I didn't want somebody
to put in four hundred dollars right and give four
hundred and forty dollars back. I'm not doing it for
that or four hundred and forty five dollars back. That's
not why I'm doing I'm investing in. I built a
tech company so that people could put four hundred dollars in,
two hundred and fifty dollars in, and together we build
(10:37):
something that could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars
that's still far below what other tech companies have, and
exit that company, and then at that time, you know,
we're distributing generational wealth to our people because it's tech.
The fastest way to grow wealth right now currently is
in the tech space, and you can't save your way
to wealth. You have to invest. We don't think a
lot about investing nowadays. We're not really thinking about, you know,
(11:00):
putting our money into things that we can see a
long return. They will tell us to go do prize
picks and gamble and play the lottery and go to
Vegas like that's all that. All of that is the
stuff that they push on people of color. No one
in these other rooms, people are getting together quietly and saying, hey,
put your money in this startup, put your money in
that startup. And they're not telling the average person to
(11:20):
do this kind of thing, because that's the lockout. They
want the access to the best deals. All the VCASON
investors want the access to the best opportunity to invest,
and so that's why this is important. This is breaking
a whole system down that a lot of people don't.
I've seen more people now use equity crowdfunding, especially people
of color since I started, and I was one of
the first people to really start doing is to have
(11:42):
major success at it. Now everybody does equity crowdfunding. I've
seen startups and I've introduced multiple people to equity crowdfunding
because it's a way to circumvent the racism, the discrimination,
and all the things that exist.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
And so that's why it's important.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So when should investors reasonably expect the return and in
what form?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
What that ROI look like? So that ROI would be
probably eight years.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I always say, like, you know, six to eight years
is when you invest right and you see a return
like Prime example again, like Uber had seed investment in
twenty ten and twenty nineteen, they went public, so it
took nine years, but the people that invested in that
nine year period saw five thousand x return. Right, on
those on that investment. And that's those are people that
put five thousand dollars in and so twenty four million
(12:28):
dollars come back.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
And so any early stage company you would think between
you know, six to nine years, you would get a
return on your investment. And then how that happens is
through a liquidity event. And the liquidity event is somebody
either buys the company, like somebody says, okay, we're gonna
buy fan base at a higher evaluation than it was before,
or we go public, which is still selling the company.
And that's when you know, you ring the bell on
the stock market and everybody can sell their shares that
(12:51):
day or and that's what money comes in in people
and buy shares.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So so that's how it works.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Hold on now that you said five to six years,
so you know, people are gonna be looking like, wait
a minute, I put money in back in twenty nineteen,
twenty twenty, So you sure.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
When we didn't raise didn't we didn't really raise capital.
We didn't close our first round till twenty twenty one. Okay, right,
so that's what I'm saying. We didn't close our first
round till twenty twenty one. And again, but again, and
also those are people that get like VC dollars Charlottgne.
That's what I'm saying, Like this is people don't understand
how incredibly hard this is. But I love it because
it's the It's the biggest challenge of my life and
(13:28):
we're being successful at it and will continue to be successful.
But man, like this is like, you know, this is,
this is, this is an amazing a journey and process
for me.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
But yeah, this is.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
It's also it's also teaching because we talk about generational
wealth and it talks about some of the times where
people don't understand because we've never been taught. It's not
like we've had millions and millions of dollars passed down
from generations like you know, other backgrounds have. So it's
also a teaching method, right, So you're teaching people what
it means to crowdsource and to get money and to
put money down and how much money you can get back.
(14:01):
So it's awesome matter of teaching. So answering the question
shouldn't be really a problem because you're teaching a generation
that might not know.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
No.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Absolutely, That's why I consistently have you know, told other
people to actually invest, right, and I mean other people
to use equity crowdfunding. I've helped like five or six
other companies raised through equity crowdfunding and told them about
equity crowdfunding. And that's a really good thing because it's
an alternative to black people going to banks, an alternative
for black people trying to get loans and trying to
(14:29):
ask venture you know, go for venture dollars or angel investing,
where those deals can be predatory. A lot of what
I do is disruptive because of what I knew coming
from the music business, right, So I knew that I
had to create two classes of stock and made sure
that no one else has voting shares because that's when
people try to force you out of your company, right.
(14:51):
And I knew that the deals that you get from
angel investors are sometimes predatory. So somebody gives me two
hundred thousand dollars to invest in things base when I
first had the idea, they get twenty percent of the company,
and I put my own two hundred thousand dollars in it,
so I save that twenty percent. So those are the
things that most people don't know because a lot of
my friends that are founders got forced out of their companies,
(15:12):
they got taken advantage of, they got in bad deals
that don't allow them to raise capital from other people.
So it's real. It's a dirty game. It's not as
dirty as the music business. But for me, it's something
that I was very, very familiar with because I know,
you know a lot of founders just come in with
a great idea and then they get some guys in
they're like, yeah, here's half a million dollars, but I
want a board seat and XYZ and all that kind
(15:33):
of stuff. You get vote out of the company. As
Stacy Sparks, I don't know if you've ever seen movie Pass,
but the guys that invented movie Pass for two black guys,
they took in capital, they had board seats, they got
voted out of their own company. The guys ran up
a huge bill on movie Pass and destroyed the whole
companies and white dudes. And that's what I'm saying, is like,
that's what happens when when we try to build our businesses.
(15:53):
It's very very predatory. But it's gonna take it's gonna
be harder, and it's gonna take longer, but it's gonna
be well worth it because people can follow my book
print and do exactly what I did. And I'm paving
that way so that you know, you can own your company,
not get voted out, have as much equity as you
possibly can to give yourself more, the ability to raise
more capital. All that stuff is important.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
It so you're because you're not doing it the VC way, right,
you have everyday people giving like smaller amounts of money
when you do scale, right, So after you hit that
profit margin and people, maybe some vcs or whatever come in,
how do you stay connected to the everyday people like
people that are listening to the Breakfast Club who might
not understand what it means when a company goes public
or when they're acquired, like anything that you plan to
do once you hit certain points of you know.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Return, well, you're connected. We're connected to our investors all
the time. We have, like you know, over twenty nine
thousand investors in fan Base. We have communications that are
updated all the time. We send our newsletters, we talk
on the app, we send out updates through the starting
your page where when you invest in fan Base, that's
where you can always find your shares.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
So we're in constant communication with our investors.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
They see the progress of the company, they see new hires,
they see new releases, they see everything that's going on
or what we're doing. We have to be extremely transparent
about all this stuff because this is an SEC regulator.
Raise all these things, you know, are above board. So
they follow the journey and then a lot of them
use the app. A lot of them are on fan Base,
And that's the really cool part about it too, because
a lot of them are using the platform and a
(17:15):
lot of them have used fan Base for what it's
intended to do, which is to passively make money by
using social media, and have actually made the money back
from the money made the money back by using fan
Base that they invested in the company. So people have
made thousands of dollars, you know, just getting loves and
getting subscriptions on fan Base, and they've already invested in
the company for free. Because I mean, that's the future
(17:35):
of social media. Social media is the new TV, right,
and we are all our own channels in these communities,
and that we'll be able to monetize without disruption, without middlemen,
and be able to scale our businesses or scale our pages,
or scale our talent or our platform or our ideas
without people interrupting. And that's the disruptive part about social
(17:58):
media and fan base right now, to ask a.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Question, ask if no clear liquidity event is on the horizon,
why should investors, you know, stay in Well.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I mean, I'll say this, a lot of platforms don't
have liquidity events. They can't guarantee when they will go public, right,
But that's what an investment is.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
It's limited risk.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Though, when in these other instances, when people are putting
their money into these companies and they're investing, especially at
credit investors, they have to put ten twenty five thousand,
fifty thousand dollars just to be allowed to sit on
the cap table, and they don't get any guarantee on
when that liquidity event is going to happen. They don't
know if those businesses are going to be successful, and
they still put that money in because the upside is
(18:38):
that's the risk. Now, if you want to put your
money into the stock market and let it sit and
maybe double and triple over the next twenty five years, yes,
but if we want to escape the generational wealth gap
that exists for people of color and black people in
this country. We have to aggressively invest in tech startups
that can scale to hundreds of billions of dollars. We're
not getting out if we don't do that. I'm just
(18:58):
I'm being one hundred percent. Can't you can't retail invest
your way about it about a lot of stuff. The
people that put their money into Nvidia fifteen twenty years
ago are the people that are sitting on hundreds of
millions of dollars and people never saw in Nvidia coming,
but somebody believed. And those are the people that are
just believers in fan base. The same way anybody that
you see that exits a company like this and that
(19:20):
makes millions and millions of dollars, they're the people that
are like, man, that's a dumb idea. You shouldn't invest
in that. Every corporation that you can think of, every Uber,
every Instagram, every Innvidia, all of them where people were like, man,
that's not gonna work, that's stupid. But that that small
group of people that believe that actually had the opportunity
to invest are the ones that wind up winning in
(19:41):
the long term. So that's what it is. There is
no no platform, no startup what ever. Gu guarantee you
a liquidity event. Like to this day, the Byte Dance,
the parent company of TikTok is still a privately held company.
They've never gone public and they're worth four hundred billion dollars.
Now that means people probably found a way out somehow.
You exit, But I don't plan on keeping fan base
(20:02):
a privately held company and perpetuity because of the fact
that we have investors that can see a return. So
the company at some point will go public or will
get acquired. And that's the energy behind it. It's taking
our it's taking our capital and our culture and then
scaling it to a point that we can exit.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
That's so if it does not reach profitability or the
liquidity event within whatever amount of years, what is the
plan B for the investor capital.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
It's still it's it's to continue to raise capital until
you until your eclipse. That the unfortunate part about that
is is that other other businesses will get funded infinitely
until they raise that capital, right they'll get They'll keep
putting money into it. Even like you got to think
about this, even something like Netflix, I'll Be, I'll Be.
Netflix is about to acquire Warner Brothers. Right for eighty
(20:48):
billion dollars. They took out a sixty three billion dollar
loan just to acquire that. A lot of these companies
aren't necessarily proper when you dig into what it is.
That's why for me it's harder because I'm doing it
the right way. I'm doing it the way that's actually harder,
and we're not playing games with investors. It's like you really,
you really have an opportunity to sit and scale the
business right by being part of the company. So for us,
(21:13):
every person that's actually using fan base and on fan
base has the ability to scale the company too. It's
if it doesn't. If it doesn't happen, you raise more money,
you raise capital, you continue to do that. That's why
I say, for me coming on here and having public
conversations about raising capital, there are there are people that
are in round J right, Series A, Series B, Series C,
Series D, Series E, right, and it just continues to
(21:34):
raise and raise and raise and raise. Right and so
this is really our first this is still our seed route.
We haven't even raised a series. When I when I
do a series A, A Series A is when I
raise fifty million or one hundred million at one time, right,
someone cuts to check for fifty million, one hundred million,
or a group of people. That's a series A. Now
we're now, we're talking. Now we now we got engineers
working around the sun and building and I'm really competitive,
(21:56):
especially with agentic AI and agents and being able to
code AI is really helping us actually stay competitive. Without
it, it would be a lot harder because now we can
use AI to code AI to do qa, AI to
develop all those things, and so it's a lot it
gives us. This is the time for us right now
to actually be involved in scaling the business because we
have AI to help us scale. I'm not big on
(22:17):
AI content creation, but scaling is important.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And what do those micro dramas look like? That's gonna
start on Q one and fast.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
So if you don't know what micro dramas are, micro
dramas are movies that are chopped into two minute segments
with cliffhangers at the end of each of these. They
are very popular platforms in China. The micro drama industry
has the clips to film and television industry. And when
I started looking at this about eight nine months ago,
I went on these microdrama platforms and I noticed they
were owned by Chinese corporations and all the content was
(22:47):
white content.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And I said, if we.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Don't come in and distribute micro dramas and make it
so that multicultural people can distribute Michael drama, So we
have Black micro dramas, Latin micro dramas, African micaro dramas,
somebody's gonna corner that more that doesn't look like us
make billions of dollars. And these are the same people
that said they didn't want Dei and they didn't want
black people, and they didn't want diversity, and they didn't
(23:09):
want equity and they didn't want inclusions. So for me,
I said, it's easier for us to distribute Michael dramas
on fan Base because we already have the components of
what a micro drama is. Micro drama is just vertical
short form video currency that unlocks episodes, subscriptions, and an algorithm.
We already have all four of those, and so it
made perfect sense to partner with ty Walker and Keisha
(23:31):
Perry Walker with Wild Peach Studios to produce They're going
to produce micro dramas and fan Base will distribute those
micro dramas. And when I tell you, my phone has
been ringing. I went to Tyler Perry's Christmas party this weekend.
Everybody that I talked to that was black there was like, yo,
what's up of these micro dramas? Because the micro drama
industry is going to be a multi multi billion dollar industry,
(23:52):
But the question is who's going to own it and
who's going to own the infrastructure of the platforms that
actually produce industribute those microdramas and fan base is going
to be one of those in twenty twenty six, and
so it's it's just just don't don't even listen to
me research microdramas. I just got like Kim Kardashian, all
these everybody's getting into microdramas. But there's one thing that's
(24:13):
different is that they're building microdrama apps. And all those
microdrama apps have a retention problem. Once you see a microdrama,
you leave. What gets people to stay. So when micro
dramas are built into an app that's already built a
whold all media, then the retention is a lot higher. Right,
and there's more things to do. You don't want to
watch watch a microdrama than leave. Right, You can watch
a microdrama and then get right back over to your
(24:34):
feed and see news, or see your friends, or see
all you know, the content that you see, or create
content yourself. And that's what we're doing and make it,
make it. You know, be very very clear that social
media is the new television. If you do not think
that all media will be distributed through large social networks
in the future, which is almost now, you're sadly mistaken.
And so that's why I build families. I build fan
(24:56):
base to contain all media. I built this platform so
that can hold podcast, it can hold music, it can
hold audiobooks, audio rooms, short form, long form, that's the
long game, because that's where everything is going. Like a
TV on the wall is done for these days, right,
you know what I'm saying. It's either your phone, your tablet,
(25:16):
or your laptop because the screen is mobile and you
can watch the content when you want, not at eight
o'clock in front of my living room. That changes everything
because now your content could get billions of views as
opposed to millions of views because you have to be
somewhere at a certain time, in front of a certain device.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Do you think Quibi was too early when they lost.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well, Quibi wasn't micro dramas. It was.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
That's the thing about it. That was vertical series, right,
Quibi was not micro dramas. And be clear, micro dramas
are an art form. So anybody out there that's interested
in doing micro dramas, don't think that just taking a
movie and chopping it up into segments is what a
microdrama is. You have to study the art form. They're written, right,
They're produced, written and directed a very very specific way
(25:59):
that keeps the audience engaged. Is not just taking a
movie up and chopping it up. So it's not just content,
that's just short form content and the other platforms that
have been doing that, but.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Michael dramas are beat and they've been popping up. I've
been seeing them on different fees and they're very interesting, right,
very entertaining. The only problem I have with it, and
this would be good, is they usually just pop up
on your feed, right, and they're very entertaining, but you
never know how to get back to it, right, So
you'll watch two minutes and it'll be something very stupid
or very simple, but it'll be entertaining, but then you
just never know how to get back to it, you
(26:31):
know what I mean? So the fact that you can
get back to it and understand it is dope.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
You just said something key, right, you just said something
really really key. You have to leave wherever they advertise at.
So let's say you're on Instagram or TikTok, you have
to leave TikTok or Instagram, go download the micro drama
app and then finish watching the rest of what you're watching.
You're not gonna have to do that on fan base.
It's going to be in the feed. So if you
see it, if you see a micro drama in your feed,
you can watch it and you're already inside the app.
(26:58):
That's what I mean by these apps have a retention problem.
That's why I was like, okay, good. I want everybody
to go out there and make another forty forty microdrama
apps and split the audience in a million different directions.
While we have micro dramas built inside the community of
people that are already.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
There, Well, how do you compete with it? Because I
can't think of her name right now, trying to text
my friend to get her name. I followed girl. She's
been doing it for almost like six years in it
like skyrocketing her Now she's working with Eastern Ray. She's
been doing microdramas just on Instagram, like before rules were
even a thing. It's just literally about how you cut
your content and make the episode the next one, the
next Well, how do you compete where people already are
(27:31):
with making them come over the fan base and do it.
They're already on platforms doing it, like a lot of
creators do it.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
No because because again specifically the micro drama industry, they're
next to no black micro dramas.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Like I'll give you, I'll give you.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
I've never seen the black microdrama.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
This girl, she's fine. I know eas works with her now.
I just don't know her Instagram name. But she was early.
She has a micro drama. It's about it's kind of
like Devil Worre's product. But it's like the young Black
girl moves to LA version of it and it's like
episodic and every like.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
But yeah, that's but again, that's a vertical series. Again,
that's different. That's like taking a TV show and making
it vertical. When I mean Michael, dramas are an art form,
I promise you it is not. It is like very
very specific. They're shot in these two minutes every two
minutes is a cliffhanger. Every two minutes, something dramatic happens
and it escalates over the course of the hour hour
(28:23):
and a half that that happens. And so the Michael dramas,
like these Michael dramas are getting two hundred million views. Right,
Like the most watched movie on Netflix this year was
was the K Pop Demon Hunters anime man right, people,
that got one hundred and forty million views. Right, I
got one hundred forty million views. The number one Michael
drama in Asia and China in twenty twenty five got
(28:45):
five hundred million views, right, five hundred millions. That means
like like half a billion people watched a Michael drama
in China one show. Right, And that's what I mean
by the art form is it's a lot different. Like
if you go to if you go to any of
the Michael drum apps, just listen to what I'm saying,
Go download any other apps, real short drama box, all
of them. Right, go on there, you'll see all white
(29:06):
people are all Asian people. And my point is is
that nobody You're not gonna see a bunch of black
micro dramas, right, And the point that I'm making is
that they're gonna start producing micro dramas, But who owns
the actual production company of the micro dramas? Like when
you get on Real Short, Real Short looks like a
white company, it's Crazy Maple Studio Real Short that's owned
by a Chinese company. It's the same thing they did
(29:27):
with TikTok. It's like who owns it on the back end.
And we're at a point right now in society the
nutrition facts matter who owns the platforms that you use.
We know that Fox owns two B. We don't, really
we don't. World Star Hip Hop is not owned by
anybody black, but black people are on there every day.
And so when we're creating content and entertaining the masses
(29:49):
right who sits on the cap table and who owns
it is also very very important. That's why I say
I'm making sure that black people own the infrastructure of
microdrama distribute because if not, we're just gonna be giving
our content back to other platforms again, and then when
they get big enough, they'll stop making our Michael dramas
and tell them tell us the kiss there behind, like
(30:10):
they did on TWOB, like they did on the WB
like they did on upn the CW, like they did
with blaxploitation films right in the seventies, blaxploitation films, Save Hollywood,
right Chaff the Mac Superfly. They brought Hollywood back from
the brink of bankruptcy, and then when they got back
on their feet, they didn't make those movies anymore. Thank you,
Thank you for saving us boom. So I'm intentional about
(30:31):
the fact that we have the only infrastructure of the
micro drama community of social media because we contribute so much.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
I just wanted to mention your horneting because I didn't
say earlier. Her name is Candace Banks and it's called
Thanks Candace Banks. But I don't know if it's considered
a Michae drummer now, but I thought it was what
you were talking about.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
But just want to know, like even like even as
successful as Country Wayne is, he's that's like a that's
like a micro soap opera, like you know, to put
to put what he's doing in perspective. In the month
of November, Tree Wayne showed that he got a billion
views in the month of November all all his content
on Facebook a billion views, right, And so what I
(31:09):
mean is the ability for large amounts of people to
consume content, multiple different types of content, especially in the
micro drama space. Uh in twenty twenty six, we have
to own the market, you know, because Country Wayne doesn't
own Facebook. He's making money off the ad revenue, but
imagine he owns the actual productions and the infrastructure of
what he's doing on those platforms. Again, I tell him
(31:29):
to stay on Facebook because he's so successful. But there
are a lot of people that have been reaching out
that are saying, hey, look a lot of people that
you know, we all know that are in TV and film, actors, producers,
writers that are like, yo, I need to we need
to talk about this because we have to own these industries.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
So how did they invest in it?
Speaker 4 (31:46):
They go to start engine dot com slash fan base
to invest that's a you know, start engine dot com
slash fan base. The minimum of three hundred ninety nine
dollars are raised closes today. Raise is over. It's it
after the raise close today. I've been here before and
been able to raise an enormous amount of capital, especially
on my first time here, and so I'm letting people
know that the importance of investing and had platforms like this,
(32:09):
and thank you guys for allowing me to come on
here and inform the community about the opportunity to do
this is important. So start engine dot com slash fan
base to invest the Minimus three hundred nine nine dollars,
you get sixty shares of stock and fan base, and
you will own the infrastructure of social media and microdramas
in the future.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
All right, well, thank you Isaacs. The third regulation and
it's the Breakfast good morning.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Hold on every day. Up wait the Breakfast Club, y'all
finish for y'all done.
Wake you up. Wait that ass up programming your alarm.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The power one oh five point one on iHeartRadio Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Everybody is DJ n V Jess Hilarious, Chelamagne the Guy.
We are the breakfast Club. Laurel Laurrela Roses here and
we got a special guest in the building. If Isaac
is the third, Good morning, brother.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
What's up guys? How you doing good?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Look favorite you my brother?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I am excellent, I am highly favorite, blessed us. Well,
so what are.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
We doing today?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Either what we're doing? What we're doing?
Speaker 4 (00:30):
What do you mean when we're doing We're closing this
round for fan base. We're closing this equity crowd funk
for fan base. It closes today. I feel like this
is a great opportunity for everybody to give an investment
as a gift for people. You know, I've been here
before talked about importance of investing, but especially with social media.
(00:51):
I think we really need to galvanize right now at
this time because the world is shifting, and so I'm
telling everybody go to start engine dot com, slash fan
base and invest to own equity in the company. Three
ninety nine is the minimum investment, but it's a bigger
story than just investing in fan base.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So when people ask the question, they say, okay, you
know you raised You've raised millions of dollars for fan base.
You know, they may want to invest Walk us through,
line by line how that capital gets deployed.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So Number one, infrastructure.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
So we just built a brand new algorithm, you know,
we spent almost half a year working on that. We
have some new key hires. All this capital gets deployed
in hiring better people, like really people that used to
work at Meta, that used to work at TikTok, they
used to work at Snapchat, and those salaries aren't cheap.
(01:42):
We also have to hire engineers to build what we're
building and develop those products, and it takes time. Honestly,
the amount of capital that I've raised over a five
year period. Some people get deployed five times that capital
in one year and they earn it all and they
go out of business. And so we've had to really stretch,
(02:04):
you know how they say, you know, I'm gonna say
you make the make the money stretch, make the food stretch.
We've had to really make this capital stretch with this company.
But it's a testament to our ability to spend wisely,
higher effectively and continue to build the best product.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Now, I agree with you because you know, we see
these tech companies they get you know, crazy donations all
the time, raised a lot of capital, a lot more
capital than you have. How much have you raised over
the last what five years?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Twenty twenty three million dollars?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Twenty three million dollars? Like, yeah, that's I mean, I'm
not gonna say that's nothing because it is something, right,
but compared to the other tech companies, you know, they
get a million dollars in a month.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Man, Listen, some of these Charlemagne, some of these companies
have raised like one hundred and fifty three million dollars
and have not built but one feature, and they're not
even around anymore. And that's because they blow the money.
It's really a it's really tough for black founders. People
don't understand, like black founders get less than half of
one percent of all capital rates. They don't want DEI
(03:07):
they're not trying to give us money, and especially someone
like myself that is disrupting the tech space in building
something that we can own. And then you know, black
people are on the side of ownership like you know,
we don't own nothing. I know, we talk about a
lot of this, you know, a lot about building generational
wealth and you know, those types of things, but we
(03:28):
don't own the sports teams, we don't own the record labels,
and we don't own you know, Hollywood, And we help
build up all of these infrastructures and we don't own them.
In social media, we help build up social media, and
they tell us the kids stay behind and they don't
want DEI and all that kind of stuff. And so
for me, this is a mission. This has been my mission,
will continue to be my purpose of my calling to
(03:49):
continue to build this company, allow us to finally have
the infrastructure of something that can be worth hundreds of
billions of dollars and pull us all up and give
us opportunity.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
We do have to acknowledge the black people who do
own things, though I think I've heard you say that before.
But you know, I think, okay, you know the urban
ones of the world, you know, Kathy Hughes, you know
worldwide technology. You know like there's you know, you play
things like Uncle Nahris, Like there's a lot of things
that black people do own.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yeah, but look what's happening. But it looks what happening
in a lot of these spaces. A lot of these
companies either don't get the capital that they need, they're
tried to, they're you know, handcuffed and what they're able
to do. And you really just name like three businesses
out of like you know, half a million.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Oh, I got it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, I can keep going. I mean there's there's hundreds
of black owned businesses, and I'm just saying like we
I think sometimes we put that narrative out there, and
I think we got to be more specific, like black
people can own more in the tech space. For sure,
we do own things.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, But the biggest problem about it, Isaac and Charlamagne,
I feel is sometimes we talk to people like they
should know, right. A lot of these businesses that are
getting these millions and twenty million and fifty million and
raising one hundred and fifty million dollars are in vestors
that have the money and know why they're investing and
hopefully know where their money's going. But for like somebody
(05:05):
like you, Isaac, who you know, who's been on the
Breakfast Club but numerous times and asking for money for crowdfunding,
I think people want to know where that money is
going and why break it down on a level where
people will understand it and what's next for you based No, No,
the reason I'm asking and break it down for what
fan base is and how much money is needed to
make sure this gets to the place of a matter
(05:27):
or a Twitter or Facebook or you know, Instagram, because
you have to tell people like what's the overall goal
and what's needed this to fan base is self sufficient?
So we don't have that or will it always be
a thing like that for people that don't understand it,
don't know?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
No, I think to explain how capital is deployed is
you know, it's kind of what I said earlier. Tech
companies are not social media platforms are not cheap, right, correct,
And so there's two things. It's how fast you can
build how well you can builds, you know what I'm saying.
And so if you don't have capital to build the
(06:03):
right product, then it's not gonna it's not gonna happen.
So we have salaries, we have infrastructure, we have all
the tech stack, you know, all the things that we do.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
We employ about forty people.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
We have a lot of C suite executives that are
that are working and all this stuff is built and
rolled into a company that is trying to fight the
fight against major tech operasion. Now to explain what fan
base is and understand why that it that it costs
what it costs. Fan base is basically social media through
the lens of black ownership. But the functionality is the same.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Right.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
We do have posts, we have stories, we have live,
we have short form, we have long form, we have
audio chat, we have an algorithm, we have dms, we
have subscriptions, we have tipping. All of those parts are
put together in one platform, right, and integrate it so
that people can have the ability to monetize their content
from the moment that they sign up. Build community. And
(06:58):
when you think and when you compare like and I'll
tell anybody to do this, compare fan base to your
experience that you get on a TikTok or experience that
you get on the Instagram, and just grade us based
off that. But remember that those companies have thirty thousand
engineers and have you know, billions of dollars of capital
And here we are, you know, building up from the
ground up, from scratch with a small team, and we're
(07:22):
still here. And I think that's really the most important part.
And then the things that we're things that we're actually breaking.
We're actually breaking the opportunity for black people to get
into the microdrama space, for users to actually monetize their
data and have it trained by AI if they want to.
But on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, they're training off your data
(07:43):
right now and not paying you anything. And so this
is a real challenge. But it's a lot of moving
pieces in parts that come together to make this machine run.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
How many months of runway this fan base currently.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Have we have about eighteen months of runway, a little
bit longer than that. So you know that gives it
and you understand like even in that amount of time,
there's so much that you have to accomplish in that
in that period of time because you're always going to
be raising capital. I think the difference between what I
(08:13):
do and what everybody else is you publicly hear that
I'm raising all the time, but startups are raising all
the time fifty million, one hundred million, two hundred million,
three hundred million, but it usually comes from vcs and
private equity, and those deals aren't always made public. This
has made public because the people that are investing. Are
not the rich guys and the billionaires and the oligarchs,
because you it's means the people that we know that
(08:34):
are putting their money into the business. And so that's
why it's so public and you see everything all the time.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
So when you say people are investing, so you say
the minimum investment is three ninety nine, So if somebody
invests at three ninety nine, what percentage are of the
company or how much of an investment are they getting?
What's the ROI on that for somebody who you know,
because it's tough out there. But so if somebody wants
to give three ninety nine, they want to know what
they getting back.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yeah, So every investment that you make, especially in the
early stage company, you ride the life of the investment, correct,
So you're here from the beginning all the way till
we either ipo or somebody acquires the company. So you
see like like if Warner Brothers is about to get
acquired and that that's a different scenario. But when that
company is acquired, the shareholders in that company will all
(09:18):
be bought out right and then Netflix or whoever will
acquire that company. So when you do early stage investing
like that, in seed startups, that's what you get. And
so for three ninety nine, you're getting a small, small,
small piece.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Of the company.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
But the upside of what I tell people is that
the value in which these tech companies get to is
where you see a return on your investment. So we're
valued at one hundred and sixty million dollars right now.
I want to put that in perspective of what Meta
is value. That Meta is a one point nine trillion
dollar company. So you think about one point six billion,
sixteen billion, one hundred and sixty billion, that's a thousand
(09:56):
x return. So someone that invests three ninety nine, even
if we get to something that is ten times less
valuable than Meta, five times less valuable than TikTok and Instagram,
that's still a thousand extra return on the type of
investment that you're putting in there. And that's the part
that people do't understand. When you invest in any business,
they tell you like, fifteen percent is an amazing return
(10:16):
on an investment. And I didn't raise capital this way
to give somebody fifteen percent back. I didn't want somebody
to put in four hundred dollars right and give four
hundred and forty dollars back. I'm not doing it for
that or four hundred and forty five dollars back. That's
not why I'm doing I'm investing in. I built a
tech company so that people could put four hundred dollars in,
two hundred and fifty dollars in, and together we build
(10:37):
something that could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars
that's still far below what other tech companies have, and
exit that company, and then at that time, you know,
we're distributing generational wealth to our people because it's tech.
The fastest way to grow wealth right now currently is
in the tech space, and you can't save your way
to wealth. You have to invest. We don't think a
lot about investing nowadays. We're not really thinking about, you know,
(11:00):
putting our money into things that we can see a
long return. They will tell us to go do prize
picks and gamble and play the lottery and go to
Vegas like that's all that. All of that is the
stuff that they push on people of color. No one
in these other rooms, people are getting together quietly and saying, hey,
put your money in this startup, put your money in
that startup. And they're not telling the average person to
(11:20):
do this kind of thing, because that's the lockout. They
want the access to the best deals. All the VCASON
investors want the access to the best opportunity to invest,
and so that's why this is important. This is breaking
a whole system down that a lot of people don't.
I've seen more people now use equity crowdfunding, especially people
of color since I started, and I was one of
the first people to really start doing is to have
(11:42):
major success at it. Now everybody does equity crowdfunding. I've
seen startups and I've introduced multiple people to equity crowdfunding
because it's a way to circumvent the racism, the discrimination,
and all the things that exist.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
And so that's why it's important.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So when should investors reasonably expect the return and in
what form?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
What that ROI look like? So that ROI would be
probably eight years.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I always say, like, you know, six to eight years
is when you invest right and you see a return
like Prime example again, like Uber had seed investment in
twenty ten and twenty nineteen, they went public, so it
took nine years, but the people that invested in that
nine year period saw five thousand x return. Right, on
those on that investment. And that's those are people that
put five thousand dollars in and so twenty four million
(12:28):
dollars come back.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
And so any early stage company you would think between
you know, six to nine years, you would get a
return on your investment. And then how that happens is
through a liquidity event. And the liquidity event is somebody
either buys the company, like somebody says, okay, we're gonna
buy fan base at a higher evaluation than it was before,
or we go public, which is still selling the company.
And that's when you know, you ring the bell on
the stock market and everybody can sell their shares that
(12:51):
day or and that's what money comes in in people
and buy shares.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So so that's how it works.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Hold on now that you said five to six years,
so you know, people are gonna be looking like, wait
a minute, I put money in back in twenty nineteen,
twenty twenty, So you sure.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
When we didn't raise didn't we didn't really raise capital.
We didn't close our first round till twenty twenty one. Okay, right,
so that's what I'm saying. We didn't close our first
round till twenty twenty one. And again, but again, and
also those are people that get like VC dollars Charlottgne.
That's what I'm saying, Like this is people don't understand
how incredibly hard this is. But I love it because
it's the It's the biggest challenge of my life and
(13:28):
we're being successful at it and will continue to be successful.
But man, like this is like, you know, this is,
this is, this is an amazing a journey and process
for me.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
But yeah, this is.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
It's also it's also teaching because we talk about generational
wealth and it talks about some of the times where
people don't understand because we've never been taught. It's not
like we've had millions and millions of dollars passed down
from generations like you know, other backgrounds have. So it's
also a teaching method, right, So you're teaching people what
it means to crowdsource and to get money and to
put money down and how much money you can get back.
(14:01):
So it's awesome matter of teaching. So answering the question
shouldn't be really a problem because you're teaching a generation
that might not know.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
No.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Absolutely, That's why I consistently have you know, told other
people to actually invest, right, and I mean other people
to use equity crowdfunding. I've helped like five or six
other companies raised through equity crowdfunding and told them about
equity crowdfunding. And that's a really good thing because it's
an alternative to black people going to banks, an alternative
for black people trying to get loans and trying to
(14:29):
ask venture you know, go for venture dollars or angel investing,
where those deals can be predatory. A lot of what
I do is disruptive because of what I knew coming
from the music business, right, So I knew that I
had to create two classes of stock and made sure
that no one else has voting shares because that's when
people try to force you out of your company, right.
(14:51):
And I knew that the deals that you get from
angel investors are sometimes predatory. So somebody gives me two
hundred thousand dollars to invest in things base when I
first had the idea, they get twenty percent of the company,
and I put my own two hundred thousand dollars in it,
so I save that twenty percent. So those are the
things that most people don't know because a lot of
my friends that are founders got forced out of their companies,
(15:12):
they got taken advantage of, they got in bad deals
that don't allow them to raise capital from other people.
So it's real. It's a dirty game. It's not as
dirty as the music business. But for me, it's something
that I was very, very familiar with because I know,
you know a lot of founders just come in with
a great idea and then they get some guys in
they're like, yeah, here's half a million dollars, but I
want a board seat and XYZ and all that kind
(15:33):
of stuff. You get vote out of the company. As
Stacy Sparks, I don't know if you've ever seen movie Pass,
but the guys that invented movie Pass for two black guys,
they took in capital, they had board seats, they got
voted out of their own company. The guys ran up
a huge bill on movie Pass and destroyed the whole
companies and white dudes. And that's what I'm saying, is like,
that's what happens when when we try to build our businesses.
(15:53):
It's very very predatory. But it's gonna take it's gonna
be harder, and it's gonna take longer, but it's gonna
be well worth it because people can follow my book
print and do exactly what I did. And I'm paving
that way so that you know, you can own your company,
not get voted out, have as much equity as you
possibly can to give yourself more, the ability to raise
more capital. All that stuff is important.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
It so you're because you're not doing it the VC way, right,
you have everyday people giving like smaller amounts of money
when you do scale, right, So after you hit that
profit margin and people, maybe some vcs or whatever come in,
how do you stay connected to the everyday people like
people that are listening to the Breakfast Club who might
not understand what it means when a company goes public
or when they're acquired, like anything that you plan to
do once you hit certain points of you know.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Return, well, you're connected. We're connected to our investors all
the time. We have, like you know, over twenty nine
thousand investors in fan Base. We have communications that are
updated all the time. We send our newsletters, we talk
on the app, we send out updates through the starting
your page where when you invest in fan Base, that's
where you can always find your shares.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
So we're in constant communication with our investors.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
They see the progress of the company, they see new hires,
they see new releases, they see everything that's going on
or what we're doing. We have to be extremely transparent
about all this stuff because this is an SEC regulator.
Raise all these things, you know, are above board. So
they follow the journey and then a lot of them
use the app. A lot of them are on fan Base,
And that's the really cool part about it too, because
a lot of them are using the platform and a
(17:15):
lot of them have used fan Base for what it's
intended to do, which is to passively make money by
using social media, and have actually made the money back
from the money made the money back by using fan
Base that they invested in the company. So people have
made thousands of dollars, you know, just getting loves and
getting subscriptions on fan Base, and they've already invested in
the company for free. Because I mean, that's the future
(17:35):
of social media. Social media is the new TV, right,
and we are all our own channels in these communities,
and that we'll be able to monetize without disruption, without middlemen,
and be able to scale our businesses or scale our pages,
or scale our talent or our platform or our ideas
without people interrupting. And that's the disruptive part about social
(17:58):
media and fan base right now, to ask a.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Question, ask if no clear liquidity event is on the horizon,
why should investors, you know, stay in Well.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I mean, I'll say this, a lot of platforms don't
have liquidity events. They can't guarantee when they will go public, right,
But that's what an investment is.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
It's limited risk.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Though, when in these other instances, when people are putting
their money into these companies and they're investing, especially at
credit investors, they have to put ten twenty five thousand,
fifty thousand dollars just to be allowed to sit on
the cap table, and they don't get any guarantee on
when that liquidity event is going to happen. They don't
know if those businesses are going to be successful, and
they still put that money in because the upside is
(18:38):
that's the risk. Now, if you want to put your
money into the stock market and let it sit and
maybe double and triple over the next twenty five years, yes,
but if we want to escape the generational wealth gap
that exists for people of color and black people in
this country. We have to aggressively invest in tech startups
that can scale to hundreds of billions of dollars. We're
not getting out if we don't do that. I'm just
(18:58):
I'm being one hundred percent. Can't you can't retail invest
your way about it about a lot of stuff. The
people that put their money into Nvidia fifteen twenty years
ago are the people that are sitting on hundreds of
millions of dollars and people never saw in Nvidia coming,
but somebody believed. And those are the people that are
just believers in fan base. The same way anybody that
you see that exits a company like this and that
(19:20):
makes millions and millions of dollars, they're the people that
are like, man, that's a dumb idea. You shouldn't invest
in that. Every corporation that you can think of, every Uber,
every Instagram, every Innvidia, all of them where people were like, man,
that's not gonna work, that's stupid. But that that small
group of people that believe that actually had the opportunity
to invest are the ones that wind up winning in
(19:41):
the long term. So that's what it is. There is
no no platform, no startup what ever. Gu guarantee you
a liquidity event. Like to this day, the Byte Dance,
the parent company of TikTok is still a privately held company.
They've never gone public and they're worth four hundred billion dollars.
Now that means people probably found a way out somehow.
You exit, But I don't plan on keeping fan base
(20:02):
a privately held company and perpetuity because of the fact
that we have investors that can see a return. So
the company at some point will go public or will
get acquired. And that's the energy behind it. It's taking
our it's taking our capital and our culture and then
scaling it to a point that we can exit.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
That's so if it does not reach profitability or the
liquidity event within whatever amount of years, what is the
plan B for the investor capital.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
It's still it's it's to continue to raise capital until
you until your eclipse. That the unfortunate part about that
is is that other other businesses will get funded infinitely
until they raise that capital, right they'll get They'll keep
putting money into it. Even like you got to think
about this, even something like Netflix, I'll Be, I'll Be.
Netflix is about to acquire Warner Brothers. Right for eighty
(20:48):
billion dollars. They took out a sixty three billion dollar
loan just to acquire that. A lot of these companies
aren't necessarily proper when you dig into what it is.
That's why for me it's harder because I'm doing it
the right way. I'm doing it the way that's actually harder,
and we're not playing games with investors. It's like you really,
you really have an opportunity to sit and scale the
business right by being part of the company. So for us,
(21:13):
every person that's actually using fan base and on fan
base has the ability to scale the company too. It's
if it doesn't. If it doesn't happen, you raise more money,
you raise capital, you continue to do that. That's why
I say, for me coming on here and having public
conversations about raising capital, there are there are people that
are in round J right, Series A, Series B, Series C,
Series D, Series E, right, and it just continues to
(21:34):
raise and raise and raise and raise. Right and so
this is really our first this is still our seed route.
We haven't even raised a series. When I when I
do a series A, A Series A is when I
raise fifty million or one hundred million at one time, right,
someone cuts to check for fifty million, one hundred million,
or a group of people. That's a series A. Now
we're now, we're talking. Now we now we got engineers
working around the sun and building and I'm really competitive,
(21:56):
especially with agentic AI and agents and being able to
code AI is really helping us actually stay competitive. Without
it, it would be a lot harder because now we can
use AI to code AI to do qa, AI to
develop all those things, and so it's a lot it
gives us. This is the time for us right now
to actually be involved in scaling the business because we
have AI to help us scale. I'm not big on
(22:17):
AI content creation, but scaling is important.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And what do those micro dramas look like? That's gonna
start on Q one and fast.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
So if you don't know what micro dramas are, micro
dramas are movies that are chopped into two minute segments
with cliffhangers at the end of each of these. They
are very popular platforms in China. The micro drama industry
has the clips to film and television industry. And when
I started looking at this about eight nine months ago,
I went on these microdrama platforms and I noticed they
were owned by Chinese corporations and all the content was
(22:47):
white content.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And I said, if we.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Don't come in and distribute micro dramas and make it
so that multicultural people can distribute Michael drama, So we
have Black micro dramas, Latin micro dramas, African micaro dramas,
somebody's gonna corner that more that doesn't look like us
make billions of dollars. And these are the same people
that said they didn't want Dei and they didn't want
black people, and they didn't want diversity, and they didn't
(23:09):
want equity and they didn't want inclusions. So for me,
I said, it's easier for us to distribute Michael dramas
on fan Base because we already have the components of
what a micro drama is. Micro drama is just vertical
short form video currency that unlocks episodes, subscriptions, and an algorithm.
We already have all four of those, and so it
made perfect sense to partner with ty Walker and Keisha
(23:31):
Perry Walker with Wild Peach Studios to produce They're going
to produce micro dramas and fan Base will distribute those
micro dramas. And when I tell you, my phone has
been ringing. I went to Tyler Perry's Christmas party this weekend.
Everybody that I talked to that was black there was like, yo,
what's up of these micro dramas? Because the micro drama
industry is going to be a multi multi billion dollar industry,
(23:52):
But the question is who's going to own it and
who's going to own the infrastructure of the platforms that
actually produce industribute those microdramas and fan base is going
to be one of those in twenty twenty six, and
so it's it's just just don't don't even listen to
me research microdramas. I just got like Kim Kardashian, all
these everybody's getting into microdramas. But there's one thing that's
(24:13):
different is that they're building microdrama apps. And all those
microdrama apps have a retention problem. Once you see a microdrama,
you leave. What gets people to stay. So when micro
dramas are built into an app that's already built a
whold all media, then the retention is a lot higher. Right,
and there's more things to do. You don't want to
watch watch a microdrama than leave. Right, You can watch
a microdrama and then get right back over to your
(24:34):
feed and see news, or see your friends, or see
all you know, the content that you see, or create
content yourself. And that's what we're doing and make it,
make it. You know, be very very clear that social
media is the new television. If you do not think
that all media will be distributed through large social networks
in the future, which is almost now, you're sadly mistaken.
And so that's why I build families. I build fan
(24:56):
base to contain all media. I built this platform so
that can hold podcast, it can hold music, it can
hold audiobooks, audio rooms, short form, long form, that's the
long game, because that's where everything is going. Like a
TV on the wall is done for these days, right,
you know what I'm saying. It's either your phone, your tablet,
(25:16):
or your laptop because the screen is mobile and you
can watch the content when you want, not at eight
o'clock in front of my living room. That changes everything
because now your content could get billions of views as
opposed to millions of views because you have to be
somewhere at a certain time, in front of a certain device.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Do you think Quibi was too early when they lost.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well, Quibi wasn't micro dramas. It was.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
That's the thing about it. That was vertical series, right,
Quibi was not micro dramas. And be clear, micro dramas
are an art form. So anybody out there that's interested
in doing micro dramas, don't think that just taking a
movie and chopping it up into segments is what a
microdrama is. You have to study the art form. They're written, right,
They're produced, written and directed a very very specific way
(25:59):
that keeps the audience engaged. Is not just taking a
movie up and chopping it up. So it's not just content,
that's just short form content and the other platforms that
have been doing that, but.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Michael dramas are beat and they've been popping up. I've
been seeing them on different fees and they're very interesting, right,
very entertaining. The only problem I have with it, and
this would be good, is they usually just pop up
on your feed, right, and they're very entertaining, but you
never know how to get back to it, right, So
you'll watch two minutes and it'll be something very stupid
or very simple, but it'll be entertaining, but then you
just never know how to get back to it, you
(26:31):
know what I mean? So the fact that you can
get back to it and understand it is dope.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
You just said something key, right, you just said something
really really key. You have to leave wherever they advertise at.
So let's say you're on Instagram or TikTok, you have
to leave TikTok or Instagram, go download the micro drama
app and then finish watching the rest of what you're watching.
You're not gonna have to do that on fan base.
It's going to be in the feed. So if you
see it, if you see a micro drama in your feed,
you can watch it and you're already inside the app.
(26:58):
That's what I mean by these apps have a retention problem.
That's why I was like, okay, good. I want everybody
to go out there and make another forty forty microdrama
apps and split the audience in a million different directions.
While we have micro dramas built inside the community of
people that are already.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
There, Well, how do you compete with it? Because I
can't think of her name right now, trying to text
my friend to get her name. I followed girl. She's
been doing it for almost like six years in it
like skyrocketing her Now she's working with Eastern Ray. She's
been doing microdramas just on Instagram, like before rules were
even a thing. It's just literally about how you cut
your content and make the episode the next one, the
next Well, how do you compete where people already are
(27:31):
with making them come over the fan base and do it.
They're already on platforms doing it, like a lot of
creators do it.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
No because because again specifically the micro drama industry, they're
next to no black micro dramas.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Like I'll give you, I'll give you.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
I've never seen the black microdrama.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
This girl, she's fine. I know eas works with her now.
I just don't know her Instagram name. But she was early.
She has a micro drama. It's about it's kind of
like Devil Worre's product. But it's like the young Black
girl moves to LA version of it and it's like
episodic and every like.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
But yeah, that's but again, that's a vertical series. Again,
that's different. That's like taking a TV show and making
it vertical. When I mean Michael, dramas are an art form,
I promise you it is not. It is like very
very specific. They're shot in these two minutes every two
minutes is a cliffhanger. Every two minutes, something dramatic happens
and it escalates over the course of the hour hour
(28:23):
and a half that that happens. And so the Michael dramas,
like these Michael dramas are getting two hundred million views. Right,
Like the most watched movie on Netflix this year was
was the K Pop Demon Hunters anime man right, people,
that got one hundred and forty million views. Right, I
got one hundred forty million views. The number one Michael
drama in Asia and China in twenty twenty five got
(28:45):
five hundred million views, right, five hundred millions. That means
like like half a billion people watched a Michael drama
in China one show. Right, And that's what I mean
by the art form is it's a lot different. Like
if you go to if you go to any of
the Michael drum apps, just listen to what I'm saying,
Go download any other apps, real short drama box, all
of them. Right, go on there, you'll see all white
(29:06):
people are all Asian people. And my point is is
that nobody You're not gonna see a bunch of black
micro dramas, right, And the point that I'm making is
that they're gonna start producing micro dramas, But who owns
the actual production company of the micro dramas? Like when
you get on Real Short, Real Short looks like a
white company, it's Crazy Maple Studio Real Short that's owned
by a Chinese company. It's the same thing they did
(29:27):
with TikTok. It's like who owns it on the back end.
And we're at a point right now in society the
nutrition facts matter who owns the platforms that you use.
We know that Fox owns two B. We don't, really
we don't. World Star Hip Hop is not owned by
anybody black, but black people are on there every day.
And so when we're creating content and entertaining the masses
(29:49):
right who sits on the cap table and who owns
it is also very very important. That's why I say
I'm making sure that black people own the infrastructure of
microdrama distribute because if not, we're just gonna be giving
our content back to other platforms again, and then when
they get big enough, they'll stop making our Michael dramas
and tell them tell us the kiss there behind, like
(30:10):
they did on TWOB, like they did on the WB
like they did on upn the CW, like they did
with blaxploitation films right in the seventies, blaxploitation films, Save Hollywood,
right Chaff the Mac Superfly. They brought Hollywood back from
the brink of bankruptcy, and then when they got back
on their feet, they didn't make those movies anymore. Thank you,
Thank you for saving us boom. So I'm intentional about
(30:31):
the fact that we have the only infrastructure of the
micro drama community of social media because we contribute so much.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
I just wanted to mention your horneting because I didn't
say earlier. Her name is Candace Banks and it's called
Thanks Candace Banks. But I don't know if it's considered
a Michae drummer now, but I thought it was what
you were talking about.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
But just want to know, like even like even as
successful as Country Wayne is, he's that's like a that's
like a micro soap opera, like you know, to put
to put what he's doing in perspective. In the month
of November, Tree Wayne showed that he got a billion
views in the month of November all all his content
on Facebook a billion views, right, And so what I
(31:09):
mean is the ability for large amounts of people to
consume content, multiple different types of content, especially in the
micro drama space. Uh in twenty twenty six, we have
to own the market, you know, because Country Wayne doesn't
own Facebook. He's making money off the ad revenue, but
imagine he owns the actual productions and the infrastructure of
what he's doing on those platforms. Again, I tell him
(31:29):
to stay on Facebook because he's so successful. But there
are a lot of people that have been reaching out
that are saying, hey, look a lot of people that
you know, we all know that are in TV and film, actors, producers,
writers that are like, yo, I need to we need
to talk about this because we have to own these industries.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
So how did they invest in it?
Speaker 4 (31:46):
They go to start engine dot com slash fan base
to invest that's a you know, start engine dot com
slash fan base. The minimum of three hundred ninety nine
dollars are raised closes today. Raise is over. It's it
after the raise close today. I've been here before and
been able to raise an enormous amount of capital, especially
on my first time here, and so I'm letting people
know that the importance of investing and had platforms like this,
(32:09):
and thank you guys for allowing me to come on
here and inform the community about the opportunity to do
this is important. So start engine dot com slash fan
base to invest the Minimus three hundred nine nine dollars,
you get sixty shares of stock and fan base, and
you will own the infrastructure of social media and microdramas
in the future.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
All right, well, thank you Isaacs. The third regulation and
it's the Breakfast good morning.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Hold on every day. Up wait the Breakfast Club, y'all
finish for y'all done.
The Breakfast Club News
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