HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.
My name is AJ Picard I grew up in Harleysville, PA a small town outside of Philadelphia. I ended up going to Goldey Beacom College/Cabrini University to play basketball. During this time I launched an app called GamingU, which helped gamers discover new games to play for the consoles they own. I closed that down in 2015 to try to go overseas to play basketball.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it. I came home and started selling Audio Visual solutions. After 3 years of that I quit to purse Clava’s original concept which was a location based chat app. That was in 2017, since then I’ve taught myself how to design & code. My cofounder and I since 2017 have been building websites & apps for people/businesses to stay afloat/fund Clava you can view our work here.
I also charged electric scooters, sold my shoes & car for extra cash. During the past year I’ve focused on creating content on Youtube around design/code, unfortunately after a year of creating content I’m still not eligible to make money on Youtube. That’s the main reason I pivoted with Clava - I wanted to create a platform that allows you to make money from the start.
What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?
My start up is called Clava. We allow you to go Live just like you would on Instagram/TikTok but instead you make money per minute from each viewer in your Live!
What is the origin story?
Like i said in my intro, I was creating content for a year on Youtube in hopes to start making money. Unfortunately this never happened, I started to do research to see if any other Creators were having the same problems.
I found out this was common problem and that most Creators don’t make money until they build a massive following. I saw what Onlyfans was doing with their features/business model which inspired me to create a product that was similar but in the App Store and not focused around sexual content.
What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?
I love my team because of how passionate we are about helping other Creators make money. We are all passionate about the Creator economy and where it’s going, these creators have massive communities and have spent hours building this community but aren’t making any money. Many small to medium size Creators don’t get the love they’re suppose to, I was one of those Creators and we’re passionate about helping them.
If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?
I would be focusing on my Freelance career and making content on Youtube.
At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?
We measure success based on the Lives that are happening in Clava. Our Lives not only pay us but bring us more users as well since the host of these Lives are promoting to their communities on IG/TikTok.
What’s most exciting about your traction to date?
We launched on July 1, 2021. As of July 27, every Creator that has gone Live in Clava has made money, there hasn’t been one time a Creator hasn’t made money. We had a Magician host a 30 Minute Magic Show the other day, he had 28 viewers in his Live and made $34.
Not only are we paying Creators already, but based on the research we’ve asked our users they all have said that the price point to enter these Lives is very affordable and that they would tune in again. Our goal right now is to continue to schedule Lives and grow our community.
What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?
I’m most excited about Live Stream, which is why I based Clava around Live Stream. Trends come and go.
Over the years we’ve seen apps focused around posting (Twitter, IG, Snap), then video became a thing (TikTok), the latest trend has been Audio thanks to Clubhouse.
The next trend will be Live’s (Live Streams), I’m excited about this because people are getting more comfortable around doing things in the moment and creating raw content.
What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?
I love HackerNoon because your team continues to focus on Startups and spreading news about the Startup industry. Our team loves how close the community of HackerNoon is since we are also apart of this wonderful community!
What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?
You’re taking what you have for granted. When I was 21 I was still playing basketball, I talk to my teammates all the time about how I wish we could all go back and do it over. I would be in gym working on my game way more than I did. I miss those 5 AM workouts/practices.
When you get into the real world it humbles you, being a college athlete was like having a job, but a fun one. Don’t get me wrong: I worked hard and had a great career, but I would just go a lot harder than I did.
What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?
I haven’t been on this journey long. But the one thing I did learn is you’ll need to realize that no matter how tough things are when trying to build your product/brand if your putting in the work things will turn around. For example, when I started pushing Clava I didn’t get any type of traction the first three years.
I was freaking out because I wasn’t making money and I didn’t want to go back to Corporate…
I taught myself how to design + code and by 2019 I had multiple freelance projects coming in that were funding Clava and my life. This wasn’t what I wanted, but it allowed keep this journey going and now Clava has the most traction we’ve ever had.
VOTE for Clava and check out more startups from Baltimore in the US at startups.hackernoon.com!