Web3 CMO Stories

Innovating Video Engagement with Blockchain and AI – with Anoir Houmou, CEO at RECRD | S4 E37

• Joeri Billast & Anoir Houmou • Season 4

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What happens when you combine blockchain technology, AI, and a passion for solving brand safety and monetization problems?

Meet Anoir Houmou, the visionary founder and CEO of RECRD, a transformative Web3 video engagement platform. Anoir shares the riveting journey of RECRD's evolution, from tackling brand safety for advertisers to empowering content creators to monetize their viral videos. Hear his personal anecdotes, including how a friend's viral video sparked the need for a platform that truly rewards creators. Discover the trials and triumphs that shaped RECRD's innovative approach, attracting a wave of users and investors eager to join the revolution.

In this episode, we delve into how RECRD leverages blockchain to revolutionize creator payments and ownership, enabling seamless global transactions with built-in wallets and real-world applications of NFTs. Anoir introduces us to 'rebounds,' a groundbreaking engagement method that redefines interactions beyond traditional likes and comments. Gain insights into the platform's unique mechanics that boost user recognition and engagement, creating a transparent and trustworthy ecosystem. Join us as we uncover RECRD's broader vision, set on turning ideas into reality through milestone achievements, and learn how you can explore its features and contribute your feedback.

This episode was recorded through a Podcastle call on August 27, 2024. Read the blog article and show notes here: https://webdrie.net/innovating-video-engagement-with-blockchain-and-ai-with-anoir-houmou-ceo-at-recrd/


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Anoir:

We don't do comments on our platform. We don't do likes on our platform. We obviously do shares, and we've created a new way to engage that we call Rebounce.

Joeri:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast and I'm your podcast host, and today I'm so excited to be joined by Anoir Houmou. Hello Anoir, hey, how are you doing?

Anoir:

How are you Joeri? I'm good, I'm good. How are you?

Joeri:

Actually, as I told you just before I hit the record button, I just moved to Portugal from Belgium, so I'm just getting settled here. I'm really excited too, because it's the first podcast episode I'm recording here in Sintra, in the Lisbon area, and now maybe my listeners are wondering who is Joeri talking to Guys? Anoir Houmou is a founder and CEO of RECRD. It's a pioneering video engagement platform utilizing blockchain technology to transform content creation and monetization. With over 14 years in marketing and advertising, Anoir blends technology and creativity, leading record to attract over 500,000 users. Pre-launch.

Anoir:

Wow, what an intro. Yeah, awesome intro.

Joeri:

These days I get a lot of people want to come on the show, but then I read what you are doing was like, okay, I need to get Anoir. And my first question that Anoir, because, yeah, record recently emerged from stealth with significant backing, including four million from major investors. Can you start me by sharing the story behind Recor's inception and what inspired you to create a social five platform, and how does it uniquely serve creators, users and advertisers?

Anoir:

Thank you, Joeri, for allowing me to come on the show and tell the story. Yeah, RECRD is a brand new Web3 video platform, which is obviously powered by SWE blockchain and AI. We initially started not necessarily as a video platform, which is obviously powered by swede blockchain and and ai. We initially started not necessarily as a video platform. The initial problem that we were trying to solve was actually brand safety for advertisers. Not too long ago, there was a kind of, let's just say, a pretty negative video on youtube and a major advertiser had their pre-roll ad on top of that video and then the people just went crazy and tried to boycott this advertiser and, yeah, it wasn't good at all. Youtube lost a lot of money and a lot of advertisers actually pulled their ad revenue because people weren't sure where their ads were being placed. So the initial kind of idea was how do we solve that? How do we solve ads being brand safe? And obviously AI is pretty much the key method to solve this, using video intelligence and so on. So we initially was doing that and then we built, like some interesting algorithms, used video intelligence that can watch the video before and then give a brand safety score to the advertiser and then the advertiser matches up what they're willing to place for their brand safety score. We started doing that and then a good friend of mine hit almost 50 million views on facebook. So when I called him up I saw his video went completely viral and I asked him. I was like oh, how much. You must have made quite a bit of money from that video and the guy didn't make a single penny, which I couldn't believe, yeah, which kind of led me down the record rabbit hole where content creators who are starting off, who go viral, who literally get the views, don't make anything, and one of the reasons for that is brand safety and so on. So I thought, okay, I've got a solution that can solve brand safety. Is there a need for a new video platform? So we launched it and it basically just went dead. It didn't. It didn't do. Well, yeah, absolutely. Now the reason for that was that you've got an interesting, an interesting solution for monetizing brands, monetizing videos, but 99 of the people who are actually using the platform are not content creators. They just watch content. There was nothing really in there that can drive that network effect, anything of that sort. It was just you just scroll and watch videos and it's like any other video platform.

Anoir:

Then we were trying to figure out a interesting, trying to figure out an interesting product that can solve this. At that time, money was completely drying up. I quit my job, I invested my entire life savings into this and then it was. I'll never forget this. This was like just over after covid. I got a job offer to be the head of digital marketing for a very large music company. Like huge dream job, really cool. I've got a failing product. What do I do? Do I take this job? Do I carry on with something that you believe in? You don't have the means to carry on. And I was still trying to figure out that solution, that product to drive that content network effect, because when we initially launched the initial version, we hit like 20,000 users but the drop-off was just insane. People weren't coming back.

Anoir:

And then I'll never forget this it was like Friday night, it was like 10pm, I get a text message from a friend on a whatsapp group saying that he took a date. He took a girl out on a date and during that day it was very expensive. And then, just when the bill was going to come, the girl told him that she had a boyfriend. He was lumbered with this very, very expensive bill for a date that wasn't really going to go anywhere. And when he posed and he actually posted that as a video on a whatsapp group when he posted that video you can see he looked, he looked destroyed. He really liked her. And then another friend of mine posted another video saying dude, I'm around the corner, from where you are, I can pick you up, just leave her with the bill. And then my other friend posted a video on the whatsapp group saying how could you do that? You can't, you can't do that to the, to the young lady blah, blah, blah. So if you saw the interactions with with these with my friends, it was just hilarious, it was really funny. And then that's what triggered the whole rebound idea and it was basically just video responses, everything monetized. I killed everything that I was doing previously.

Anoir:

And then and then I had I had to tell that company that I got a job offer, like yes or no, but at the same time I had another week's worth of investors lined up. So I said to myself I was like, okay, if I raise money, it's a sign that I have to do this. If I don't raise anything, then maybe I can try do this part on a part-time basis. I had three investors lined up and then the first investor didn't turn up on on zoom. The second investor he, as I was starting to to pitch the concept within three minutes in the conversation. He had a phone call and then he had to go. And then I had one last investor and I just told him I'm like look, told him the situation. I was like the pitch deck that I sent you. Forget about it. I've got this new. It's a new product. People monetize video content and people post video responses to video. And then told him that I got a job offer and looking for his advice as well. And then the guy was my first angel investor and then when he invested, he invested as the the first angel.

Anoir:

I turned down the job offer and then got to work my co-founder I was working with already who's the cto and co-founder, Dominic, and we just killed everything that we were doing, rebuilt everything from scratch, rebranded to recordcom and then, yeah, that was like phase one.

Anoir:

And then Web3 coming to the mix where, um, we launched record. When we launched record, we hit just under half a million users in about seven weeks, so people were rebounding, people were making money. It was. It was actually really interesting, but what we found was people was taking other people's content and we had to solve the. We had to solve the, the content, the ip issue, and that's what led us down the blockchain, the blockchain rabbit hole, essentially. And then, yeah, we spoke to all the pretty much every blockchain. That's what led us down the blockchain, the blockchain rabbit hole, essentially. And then, yeah, we spoke to all the pretty much every blockchain that's around and, yeah, we decided to go with SWE, purely because of the scalability of what the chain offers and what the founders obviously have been through as well. So it was just perfect synergy and it was just awesome. So, yeah, that's what got me here today.

Joeri:

What a story. Yeah, you mentioned already Blockchain. Can you elaborate a bit on the vision for RECRD and how you are empowering content creators through Blockchain technology and maybe how you're leveraging NFTs?

Anoir:

yeah, sure.

Anoir:

So, yeah, the blockchain was an interesting one in terms of and I'm not a native Web3 person. I've been in the Web3 space now for just a few years but when I started to really do the digging of what blockchain can actually do and many of the problems that it can solve for a company like ours, it was just, it was just obvious. Basically, the blockchain solution that we utilize the blockchain for is it fits into a number of buckets. The first one is payments. So it's very obviously easy to pay people around the world. Right, we were limited with one of the third parties that we use. We're limited to 54 countries and obviously it was just a fiat based model, so ad revenue comes in on the top and then we distribute that ad revenue into these kind of third-party accounts. We've completely scrapped that and now everyone who downloads record is automatically has a wallet on the platform. So now the ad revenue just goes directly into your wallet and then you can do as as you wish with it. You can off ramp here, you can send it to another wallet and so on. So payments was a huge, a huge solution with regards to the blockchain.

Anoir:

The second part was the as what you said, the nft sides and real true ownership. Now, in order to get real true ownership of content the blockchain doesn't solve for that there has to be a number of other of kind of third parties that has to be done in order that I know that this person owns this person's content right. But the blockchain solidifies that and that is like the final stamp of approval. Now, by doing doing that, it gives you more opportunities, because now, if I know that I own, if I know that you own this content, you, as the content owner, has the right to do whatever you want and also has the right to sell it. So NFTs has gone through this weird trajectory of this kind of short form burst of people instantly making money through FOMO and and collectibles, but there's nothing tangible behind it. Who's to say that if I own a, a Daft Punk right? Is it Daft Punk Right? I think that's what they're called. That's that? That proves how much I know about the art. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah. Who's to say that this picture is worth a million dollars? If I am willing to pay a million dollars for that piece of digital art, then it's worth a million dollars, right, that's it? Yeah. Now the thing is that I don't know if there's going to be a revival in that industry, but the underlying technology behind it, which drives the form of ownership, is completely different. When you can use NFT technology to buy a house, or it could even be used into passports or anything like that in real world cases, then you've got a real world utility for it.

Anoir:

Now, in the case of RECRD records, because every single video on our platform is instantly monetized, you will be able to sell or not sell your content on our platform. So imagine you, Joeri, right, you post a video of a podcast and, let's say, it goes completely viral. You post it on a Friday. By Saturday you have made $40 from that video. Right, ad revenue has gone into your account. You've made that money. By Sunday you've made $300. It's slowly going up.

Anoir:

Now, through record, you'll have the ability to sell that video. Right, sell that video for two thousand dollars, right, I buy that video off you for two thousand dollars. Then I can push your video to get more reach, to get more engagement. But now the ad revenue now comes to me. So basically, it makes content a tradable asset and that is how we're taking it to nft 20, where the ad revenue is associated with that piece of content. There's the IP owner and everything is done fully transparent. That's the beauty of it. So the blockchain basically just powers a lot of what we can do. That's the beauty, and you can't really do that elsewhere can do. That's the beauty, and you can't really do that elsewhere.

Joeri:

Now we're listening to you about all these different technologies coming together. Yeah, you're really providing something new, because that was, of course, the problem in Web2. You don't own your data, you cannot do anything, you cannot sell it because you don't own it. One of the features, or the standard features, in RECRD is that it enhances user engagement and interaction. Can you elaborate a bit about that?

Anoir:

Yeah, absolutely so. When we look at user engagement, it hasn't been changed in the past. What 15 years Likes, comments, shares, what we decided, what we wanted to do? We looked at the content itself and pretty much tried to pioneer a new niche of content. Well, it's actually not new, but it's a growing niche. So if you look at the content landscape, content can be or specifically video can be plugged in one of five categories. You've got highly produced content.

Anoir:

So these are your netflix movies, your amazon prime, your, to some extent, quibi and, yeah, so these are big budgets, 16 by 9, big videos. Your second form is your semi-scripted content. So these are like your 10 minute style skits, educational videos, videos, more YouTubey vlogs and so on. Third one is captured moments. So these are your videos where you're walking down the street and you see someone playing the piano in the middle of the street and you see someone singing next to that person. You film it, you've captured that moment, you post it, it goes viral and, yes, we call these captured moments. Then you have instant expressive content. So these are more your snaps, your tiktok. You're instantly expressing yourself to the world. Short form, less than one minute post. You have music videos and then you have adult content right now, every.

Anoir:

It will be stupid for us to create a video platform and expect to take market share from any one of that content, and that's where a lot of people fail. So what we've decided to do, we've decided to flip the switch. Look at engagement, likes, comments, shares. We don't do comments on our platform. We don't do likes on our platform. We obviously do shares, and we've created a new way to engage that we call rebounds. So a rebound is basically a video response, a video reaction or a video remix to that original video. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to carve out this new way of people engaging with content via reactions. So it could be literally take podcasting through as a as an example.

Anoir:

Imagine you. You're you have you're interviewing Elon Musk. Next week you will post a video to your community asking them to rebound questions for elon musk. Right, you could even showcase the questions and they're all videos. So that's one form. You have reactive based videos. So this is imagine that video that I posted of that beautiful person in the street singing with the piano. I can react in real time, similar to a du duet on it, but the videos are linked to the original video. The last one is remixing, taking the sound of that video and creating a whole new video um off that. Now, the beauty of it is that all these rebounds are connected to the original video, as I'm, and as I'm watching all the reb anytime there's an advert in between that feed, the original creator makes up to 100% of the ad revenue. So it's that, and that's what we do, to not manipulate our algorithm, but to really boost your revenue. Just create reboundable content and yeah, that's how we've looked at it.

Joeri:

I love it. It reboundable content and yeah, it's another way of looking at things, instead of chasing these likes and these comments now, in what you are building, ai plays an important role I in securing transactions and fostering interactive engagement.

Anoir:

Yeah, so AI is used mainly when it comes to brand safety, and so every video that's posted on our platform, it gets scanned through AI algorithms so we know exactly what's in the video and then it just clusters the videos, the video and then it just clusters the videos.

Anoir:

So, from a recommendation standpoint, from a brand safety standpoint as well, is a is another strong one that we use for ai. The goal and the vision is to have ai responsive as well as generative ai, and that's what we're working really hard towards, so you don't have to create a video. You can just explain what kind of response that you want to do and it will create a video on your behalf. And again, they are all monetized as well. So, yeah, the AI it plays a. It's a key infrastructure sorry, it's a key part to the infrastructure that can that helps us become safe and builds out our brand safety scoring system and our quality scoring system and so on.

Joeri:

What opportunities do you see for creators and advertisers in those emerging markets?

Anoir:

Yeah. So look, it's not necessarily just the emerging markets, it's any market. The market itself is dictated by how much advertisers are willing to pay. So obviously, markets in the US, in the UK, western countries the CPMs are a hell of a lot higher compared to other emerging markets. But what we do is we provide the opportunity for literally anyone to make money off that video.

Anoir:

Today you don't have to with RECRD, you don't have to build up a following base, you can have zero followers, have your video, get a million views and you can make five thousand dollars. That's the beauty of it. So we're really focusing on for creators to actually monetize their view count rather than their count of followers, where they have to go out and get brand deals and to have a million followers these days it's okay. Who cares? You know, maybe five years ago you, uh, it was awesome, but to get so many followers these days is a lot more easier and brand deals are not necessarily drying up, but there's a lot more competition. Let's just say, whereas now with record, you can focus on the quality of the content and get paid for it on directly on the platform and it's fully transparent. So, just to set into context, once you sign up to the platform, you're automatically a silver creator. Oh sorry, you post one video and then you're a silver creator.

Anoir:

Silver creators get 60% ad revenue from day one. So if there's a CPM of $5, which kind of that's what we've been testing with at the moment since we've been on beta then, yeah, you'll get 60 of that five dollars you will. If you want to be a gold creator, you get 80, but you have to do a certain number of kpis to hit that 80. Hit a number certain of watch hours, rebounds, videos, etc. Hold a certain amount of revenue in your account and then you can go up to a platinum creator and get 100% ad revenue. We don't make a single penny from you, where all the ad revenue just goes directly to you. So if you're getting I think it works out to, if you're hitting every 100,000 views, you get roughly $400. And that's short form content.

Joeri:

So yeah, yeah, I'm excited to test it out myself Now that you're here on the show, and I guess people listening are excited too. But yeah, as a Web3 project, Anoir, you obviously will be launching your token and I think you will be launching your token towards the end of the year. So what role will this token play within your ecosystem, and can you maybe give a glimpse into the future?

Anoir:

When we were debating to launch a token or not, I only wanted to do it if we can build out a real world utility for it. We felt that it was definitely the right thing to do. Only if we can crack it to put it in the ecosystem so effectively. We have three stakeholders you've got advertisers, you have creators and you've got users. So for advertisers and creators, it's pretty simple. Obviously, there's revenue attached. You could attach the revenue to the token, obviously, and I think the most important thing is that the trust is there that there is ad revenue and ad revenue is being paid out in token, so it's backed by the ad revenue.

Anoir:

Um, but the most difficult one was actually just the users. So if you look at most web3 social networks, it's it always plays down that same rabbit hole of watch to earn, play to earn, do this to earn, rewarding on decentralization, rewarding on your data and and so on, and no one's really it hasn't really picked up utilizing that, that, that methodology. So I'm coming from an advertising background, right. So everything that all the decisions I try to to do, stems from a right. So one of the biggest insights that we found and it's something so obvious but we just completely missed. It was that users want to be recognized by their favorite creator. It's something so simple. If I post a comment on my favorite creator's Instagram post, for example, and let's say I post it on Cristiano Ronaldo Cristiano Ronaldo, I think he's the most followed person in the world Him or Messi, I'm not sure but imagine I post that comment on his picture and he likes that comment. What do you think that's going to do to me as a user? Right, it's going to be completely euphoric. So, based off that insight, what we did, we linked that insight to record where. Imagine you, Joeri, okay, I'm going to do in a real world situation. Let's say now which I do.

Anoir:

I love your cmo web3 podcasts. I think it's great, it's growing, but you don't get the reach that you deserve. Okay, now, I follow you and I share your video. Right, when I share your video, I click on share and it creates a unique url to me, right? And what? The follower? When I share your video and someone and I share it on whatsapp, I share it on telegram, I share it on twitter or x, I share it on reddit. Anyone who clicks on that video. There's a pre-roll ads. Right, because it's a video landing page on web. You get that money, right, I will get 10% of your ad revenue, okay, but most importantly is you know that I get 10% of the ad revenue, so you as a creator, you can rally up your audience to basically help promote you and act more as an affiliate link to content, essentially.

Anoir:

So we thought, okay, that's, it's like affiliate fight, right? Someone said that to me the other day, which was an interesting, an interesting, an interesting word I never heard before. We linked that to the utility. So the utility is the ad revenue that comes in onto record. So imagine, a hundred dollars comes in from, let's say, coca-cola and we owe ten dollars to five different creators, right? So that's fifty dollars.

Anoir:

We take that fifty dollars, we use that fifty dollars to buy the record token and then we distribute the record token directly into everyone's wallets and then they can do whatever they want.

Anoir:

They can off-ramp it, they can use the token to boost their videos. Let's say I'm a user and I've just made 10 of that video. Maybe I can use that money to tip you to maybe buy a five minute phone call with you and so on, and we'll increase the the features as time goes on. And yeah. So by doing that, I think it integrates the token in the ecosystem, it'll become sustainable and it's linked to the revenue as well, and I think, when it comes to tokens, and especially in in social fi, it's building up that trust. I think that's like the main thing. I think one of the core, one of the core objectives that myself and the team have is to make sure that people actually trust our platform, that they're getting paid on time and everything is fully transparent, that they're making money, that the reach is real reach and so on. That's how we do it in utility wow, time is flying and I'm curious.

Joeri:

At this moment we are at the end of the episode. Is there a specific message that you want to bring to my audience, or maybe something that you want to share that you are excited about?

Anoir:

yeah, I think obviously I'm not just going to do, oh, check out RECRD. om and sign up and anything like that. But I think, look, anyone, everything starts with a dream, absolutely everything. Everything starts with one idea. But the challenging part is making that idea into reality. And if you look at the idea and making it into a reality, don't necessarily look at the spectrum of how long it's going to take to make that idea reality, just chop up, chop up the timeline, hit those milestones every single time and the next thing you know, when you look back, you're going to see you'll be surprised how far you've actually become. I suppose it collects for me. Yeah, and also check out recordcom I was just thinking.

Joeri:

the other day, before I I began with this podcast, I had opportunity to interview melanie perkins, the founder of canva, and and I remember when I asked her at a web summit some years ago, what is a quote that you love, what is something that you keep in mind all the time? And then she said you cannot grow bigger than your dreams, so you need to think big and go for that.

Anoir:

Exactly.

Joeri:

Yeah, and people that are now listening I think lots of them. They want to hear more about you, they want to find out about everything that you're doing with Record. Where would you like me to send them?

Anoir:

Please send them to Twitter. So our X is RECRD app, so it's R-E-C-R-D App. Join our Telegram. See the announcements. We've got an amazing for up and coming creators. We've got a really interesting academy that we're building out, called the Record Academy, and we will make you guys famous. So, yeah, feel free join and follow me on Twitter, and my DMs are open, so reach out if there's anything. Any always welcome for feedback and suggestions.

Joeri:

So, yeah, amazing and, as my listeners know, Anoir, for every podcast episode there are show notes which will have links to all, to everything that you have mentioned during the episode. Thank you so much, Anoir. It was really a pleasure to have you on the show.

Joeri:

Thank you so much, Anoir it was really a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much, Joeri. Guys. What an amazing episode. If you're like me, you really want to find out more, because I think it's a really amazing story and also an amazing solution that he's building. So be sure to follow him, be sure to follow the podcast. If you haven't done this yet, and if you think this episode is really useful for people around you, be sure to share the episode with them. And, of course, yeah, what I always love to do is ask you for a review for our podcast. If you give me these five stars, this will help me to reach an even bigger audience. Thank you so much for listening and hope to see you back next time.

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Joeri Billast

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