The founder of casual sex app Bang With Friends is trying to launch the next generation of influencers with a new live-streaming app called LiveAF

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The founder of casual sex app Bang With Friends is trying to launch the next generation of influencers with a new live-streaming app called LiveAF

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liveaf livestream app

LiveAF

  • LiveAF is a social app that launched this week in the US. It hopes to give aspiring artists and influencers a platform for live-streaming and a way to launch their careers. 
  • The company's CEO, Colin Hodge, is the founder of the casual-sex app Bang With Friends, which rebranded to Down in 2013 after a few controversies.
  • The app, branded as 17 Media in Taiwan, has signed thousands of streamers worldwide to contracts, which gives them a way to make an income from livestreaming and grow their fanbase on their way to "making it big."

For aspiring content creators like Daisy Marchesi trying to make it big on social media, it can be difficult to break into the industry - especially when platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok often devote their resources to already-popular influencers.

Marchesi, who goes by the username "dazedbabe" across social media, has had trouble finding a platform where she can best show off her skills as a contortionist and follow her dream of becoming a circus performer.

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But then she was contacted by the team at LiveAF, a live video streaming app that was looking to launch in the US market.

"Other platforms didn't emphasize having the ability to showcase my talent, which is what draws me to LiveAF," Marchesi said in an email to Business Insider. "I've always been in love with circus performance: the talent, majesty, and magic of it. I'm basically getting paid to do a version of that, which is a dream come true for me."

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LiveAF officially launched this month in the US (the name stands for "Live Artistic Freedom," before you make any assumptions). It's a rebrand of a live-streaming app that's incredibly popular in Asia called 17 Media, which has more than 40 million users worldwide. The app is now available for both iOS and Android devices.

LiveAF is essentially a platform to watch live-streamed content, where users and creators can interact through comments, "pokes," emoji reactions, and virtual "gifts." The platform is extremely gamified, so live-streams can get a little chaotic with all the icons and clickable items that pop up.

liveaf app livestream

LiveAF/Business Insider

LiveAF draws comparisons to live-streaming apps like YouNow, Twitch, and LiveMe. However, LiveAF's CEO Colin Hodge told Business Insider that LiveAF fills a void existing in the US app market, and provides a unique mix of features missing from those apps: it's more mainstream than Twitch's gaming-centric focus; LiveMe isn't so popular in the US; YouNow doesn't give streamers a clear way to profit from their content.

LiveAF says it puts a heavy focus on curating, then investing in, the streamers on the app. The app aims to feature aspiring actors, models, musicians, and personalities who want to "showcase their talents," Hodge said. The app's team talks to talent agencies and gets audition tapes to select their content creators. Chosen creators are then given contracts with LiveAF, which allows them to monetize their streaming and build a devoted fanbase, all in the interest of helping artists with "real career intentions."

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"Our goal is to make them bigger and help them along," Hodge said. "People assume you aren't making much money … but for us, even beginning stars are able to quit their day jobs." 

Over 10,000 content creators globally are signed on as LiveAF streamers. Streamers are paid base salaries when they sign contracts, which say they agree to "exclusively" stream content on LiveAF's platform. Hodge says these base salaries vary by creator based on "talent and potential," and then creators can earn additional revenue based on user engagement and referrals to the app.

'My plan is to be on as much as I possibly can'

For the launch, LiveAF has started with 150 US-based content creators. One of them is Jeiris Cook, a singer and guitarist, who hopes the platform can help to supplement his income as an aspiring full-time musician.

"My plan is to be on as much as I possibly can between gigs," Cook said. "Ultimately, I want to build a following and this is a good way to do it."

Creators can choose how often they want to stream content, which they can also put on a public schedule so users are notified when their favorite streamers are about to go live. Marchesi, the aspiring circus performer, streams for one to three hours a day. Although she's only in her second month of working with LiveAF and is still trying build her fanbase, she anticipates she'll be able to make a "full time income" at some point strictly from LiveAF streaming.

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"LiveAF gives bonuses to streamers and invests in us," Marchesi said. "When I was trying out another platform prior to LiveAF, it was almost like they didn't want you to know you may be getting paid, and if you didn't mention it it wouldn't happen."

Content creators are given additional opportunities to garner fanbases with monthly contests, where streamers compete (based on a metric called engagement points) to win expensed trips, bonuses, and exclusive opportunities. Five streamers who recently won such a competition were featured on three billboards in Hollywood that advertised LiveAF.

One of these winners was Sayda Hartoonian, a model who goes by "Sayda Word" on social media. Unlike Marchesi, Hartoonian came to LiveAF with a pretty significant Instagram following already, but uses the streaming platform to better communicate with her fans.

"I have formed a great bond with the community who watch my streams and we even sometimes use the term 'streaming family,'" Hartoonian told Business Insider. "I'm inspired by the idea of reaching more and more people and finding ways to make a difference in people's daily lives and provide comedic relief when needed."

'Massive potential to blow up'

LiveAF recently celebrated its US launch with an event in Los Angeles - where LiveAF's US operations are based - and invited the "who's who" of the digital influencer community. Hodge says he chose Los Angeles as the US hub, because it's home to "the potential starlets of the future" that LiveAF wants on its app.

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"All of them have that massive potential to blow up," Hodge said. "It's an even higher bar."

The launch was done in partnership with Arsenic, a talent agency advertised as "a community of models and creators." 

In exploring LiveAF, there's something pretty noticeable about the app's most popular streamers (and of the launch party's guests): an overwhelming majority are incredibly attractive women ready-made to thrive on social media. Like popular fitness fanatics, fashion bloggers, and travelers on social media, these women are on track to become major "influencers" - a term that made both Marchesi and Hartoonian balk at.

But as many women online can attest to, this social media presence opens them up to explicit comments and abusive language from followers hiding behind their phone screens. The live-streaming aspect makes monitoring such behavior even more time-sensitive. 

LiveAF doesn't allow for 1-on-1 chats for that exact reason, Hodge says. The app employs a 30-person team that's working 24/7 and watching "screens with tons of different streams on them" to monitor such behavior, Hodge says. Creators can report users and block them from their streams if needed.

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Additionally, LiveAF also monitors the streamed content itself. The monitoring team watches for or anything streamed "in an especially dirty or sexy way." LiveAF does not sign anyone under 18 to ensure no underage laws could be broken, Hodge said.

"We do have guidelines in place that are probably in line with PG-13 content," Hodge said in an email. "LiveAF is a positive, clean community, so we turn off NSFW content as soon as our monitoring team notices (which is usually pretty quickly)."

colin hodge bang with friends cofounder ceo

Business Insider

Colin Hodge, the CEO of LiveAF.

Road to LiveAF

Before LiveAF, Hodge cofounded an app called Bang With Friends. The app launched in 2013 as a way to match people looking to hook up, but its success in attracting hundreds of thousands of users was marred by a quick ban from Apple's app store and a lawsuit from Zynga over the "with friends" trademarked term.

The app was relaunched under the name Down, and Hodge later sold the app to a Singaporean dating company.

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That company soon merged with 17 Media, and Hodge was named chief growth officer for the merger's parent company, M17 Entertainment. The company, based out of Taiwan, has raised more than $130 million - its latest funding round brought in $25 million.

The company projects a revenue of $180 million this year, Hodge says, which doubles its revenue posted in 2017.

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