Today we’d like to introduce you to John Robb.
John, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started growing social media pages in middle school, looking to build an audience that I could monetize. Although I mainly developed Instagram accounts that were focused on comedy or fashion, I also gained several million views on YouTube by posting sports and gaming videos. I’ve always been intrigued by how the internet grants anyone the potential to deliver content to millions of people, regardless of your race, gender, location, age, or income. My early experiences enabled me to discover and develop my passion for digital marketing.
By the time I was 14 years old, I had accumulated a couple hundred thousand followers across my various Instagram profiles. I was regularly doing promotion deals for different brands, working primarily with eCommerce stores. When I realized how much revenue these brand partners were generating from my audience, I thought I’d be better off starting my own eCommerce business to advertise to my audience and beyond; instead of acting as a marketing channel for other businesses to leverage, I was inspired to create my own.
I knew I could drive traffic and sales with my experience that I had gained from posting thousands of times on Instagram and generating hundreds of millions of impressions — I just had to figure out how to develop and fulfill a physical product. That’s when I discovered dropshipping, an asset-light business model in which I didn’t have to commit to placing upfront inventory orders or handling any of the fulfillment myself. Orders through my site would be directly forwarded to my manufacturer, who would then ship out the product to my customers. This allowed me to start my eCommerce store with an initial investment of only $8, just enough to buy a domain name. My Instagram audience was predominantly female, so I decided to sell women’s apparel. I set up the store on a free Shopify trial, designed a simple logo, and developed some ad creatives that I knew people would engage well with.
Winter break during my freshman year of high school started on a Friday, and right after classes ended I headed over to Starbucks to launch the store. I posted the product on one of my pages and made $50 in revenue within the first couple of hours. I knew that I had a winning formula so I reinvested the small amount of revenue I had generated into promotions from larger social media influencers. By the end of the first day, I had produced over $700 in revenue. I had set a conservative goal of reaching $5,000 in sales over my winter break. I was confident I could reach my goal considering I had previously experienced plenty of success selling other goods online, achieving up to $3k each week in purchases of digital products, software, and services. However, I quickly realized that this venture could and would be much bigger.
I continuously improved my store’s website, brand identity, and advertising strategy. Countless hours were spent creating and curating content for my brand’s Instagram page, where I developed a loyal community of over 50,000 followers within the first month. I worked with dozens of influencers, making deals with them to promote my store, and by the end of winter break, I had achieved $50,000 in revenue. I continued to grow and scale my store to the point where it was generating $3,500 per day.
Realizing the power in harnessing social media to drive traffic, I started InfluencerHive, a business that enables influencers to better grow and monetize their influence as well as helps brands to put their products in front of people the same way I did. In my time as both an influencer and a brand, I recognized a number of pain points and barriers within influencer marketing that I’ve sought to fix with the creation of InfluencerHive.
I developed InfluencerHive’s self-service marketplace which allows anyone to seamlessly buy promotions from social media influencers. We also act as a full-service influencer agency, helping both influencers and brands grow their online presence. We work with a number of brands and some of the largest pages on Instagram, helping them to grow their audience, develop their identity, and better monetize their influence.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I’ve had a number of obstacles in my work, but I’ve never let them define me or my potential. Too many people let obstacles stunt their desire and never pursue their dream business because they think they need to meet some prerequisite before they can build anything significant.
I’ve had no formal education in business, so I’ve taught myself everything “on-the-job” (mostly through google). I’ve also had to commit 8-10+ hours per day to school. Luckily, I graduated high school at 16 so I now have full control of my time. I’ve had to deal with the restrictions of being a minor, which has led to several PayPal accounts and other payment processors of mine being shut down or limited, thereby stunting the growth of my businesses. I also had to avoid voice calls with my partners or clients before I hit puberty, otherwise, they would have known I was very young and may not have taken me seriously. Lastly, I started with $0 in a PayPal account, but I worked hard to make money from nothing using a laptop, an internet connection, and a desire to build. There are a number of businesses you can start with little to no seed funding, and if your dream does require more capital, you can always spend less and work more until you have it.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with InfluencerHive – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
InfluencerHive is a multi-faceted business. We are a marketing agency that also offers a software solution (our self-service marketplace) for influencer marketing.
Our online marketplace, InfluencerHive.com allows any business, website, app, artist, YouTuber, streamer, etc. to pay social media influencers to promote them, their product, or their service.
We also act as an agency that manages influencers, helping them grow their audience, brand themselves, and make more money.
Our agency also helps brands create and distribute content, run advertising campaigns, and grow their influence.
I’m delighted that I’ve lowered the barrier to entry to influencer marketing so that any size business or individual is enabled to promote themselves using social media.
I’m most proud of the fact that I’ve built a platform that has enabled people to make income, which is especially important now as young people deal with high costs of living, education, and low wages.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
At InfluencerHive, we want to continue to help influencers and brands grow their digital presence. Personally, I’ve been taking college courses in finance, business, and statistics while building a new eCommerce brand, working on software projects, and learning new technical skills. My college classes have been cool, but I can definitively say the best way to truly learn about business is by running one. My big plan is to continue building stuff that people love.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.johnrobb.tech
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @Wizard
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