We had the opportunity to interview Danil Saliukov, CEO of Insense. The creative platform for custom content creation and paid amplification with professional and influential creators.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and Insense?
A: I was a mid-top manager at a payment company, that was listed on the Nasdaq, with quite a fascinating career path ahead of me. I joined as an international business development manager, became industry head after 3 months, and then head of department 12 months later with the responsibility of 13% of Net Revenue of a $1B public company. Anton and I are brothers, and Anton still says that it was the best sell in his life :) . Before joining Anton, I analyzed the video ad market and found it as a $90B+ market, with a strong trajectory for growth because of the digital video segment. Ultimately, the most important thing for me was my belief in Anton. We launched Insense in August 2016.

Insense is a data-driven marketplace for marketers and influential creators. Our marketplace makes it easy for marketers to create highly effective video content through a network of creators and data optimization of the ML engine. ML engine helps analyze performance data and historical results of paid campaigns to amplify it to the ML model and predict the potential performance for future campaigns.

All posting, tracking, and engagement takes place within our marketplace- making it a one-stop shop for advertisers looking to boost their brand or message.

Q: How did you get the idea for Insense?
A: My inspiration for founding Insense was quite simple-- our experience with advertisements in social media. While browsing Instagram back in 2016, we noticed that a lot of advertising was just disgusting-- content similar to banners from the early 2000s. 

Anton had his own social media boutique agency serving brands such as Uber (UBER) and McDonalds (MCD). He worked a lot with independent freelancers and creators to deliver great creatives for organic and paid channels. 

Some creative projects worked well, but many did not. The scale of 25 creators and over 50 projects made the process complicated at every step. Anton decided to build a platform to help other entrepreneurs, and presented this idea to me. 
 

Q: Did you hit any roadblocks that almost caused you to call it quits?
A: Yes, we hit many roadblocks starting with educating marketers about Instagram or TikTok as new platforms to work with, and fundraising for our venture. I heard the word ‘no’ hundreds of times before we raised our first check, and I still hear the word ‘no’, but luckily we have dozens of investors who share our vision and belief, and have given us the coveted ‘yes’. Both answers motivate and push us to strive for excellence even more. 

Q: Where do you see the company in 5 years and how do you plan to get there?
A: Our vision is definitely to build a $1B+ company. Within the video ad market, generally, many opportunities exist. Once we achieve a certain market share in the social video ads market, we are going to provide our solution to connected TV and programmatic markets as well.Be that as it may, if there will be a strategic player who can help us realize our ambition faster and evaluate our company accordingly, we will be happy to take a look.

Our goal is to be a one-stop shop for UGC (user-generated content production), video production and optimization, for any marketing channel. Imagine you are a marketer that wants to have ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) and spend less time for content production, but still be relevant and interesting for your customers, this is the situation we will ideally serve as asolution. Also, we dare to challenge ourselves. Therefore, we plan on going public within the next 5 years.  

Q: Is there any advice you'd give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?
A: Never give up and never settle for anything. Feedback is really important but ultimately it is your company, your team, your decisions. I love the story of AirBnB- how literally nobody believed in their idea, market, or business model, yet they rose to real success. So, forget when investors say “it's a difficult business model” or “there is a lot of competition”. Say thanks to them, analyze their feedback, and make sure you check these moments when you go on to achieve success.

Q: What has been the greatest award or achievement that your company has attained so far?
A: Insense recently became an official Facebook (FB) Marketing Partner in Creative Tech. Facebook recognizes that we are in the right direction. This was not possible without #insensefamily. Therefore, I would say the greatest award of Insense is our amazing, hardworking team. 

Q: What is #insensefamily?
A:  It is our value and an official hashtag of the team. It shows that we support each other and realize our potential together.

Q: How does being a Facebook partner help your company?
A: It gives us access to beta; advice and guidance for product development; leads and prospects from Facebook Sales teams.

Q: What kind of traction have you had since you first launched? increased numbers
A: Proven market fit: Since launch, Insense has grown over 2x YoY, every year. We are on target to hit $3.8M in gross sales by the end of 2020. We currently have 35k+ creators worldwide, with over 30 clients with 65 brands, including P&G (PG), Nestlé (NSRGY), and L’Oreal (LRLCY). We deliver video assets 4x faster and 10x cheaper than traditional production studios. More importantly, our method drives 2x better ROI in paid ads. Our MoM growth on average is 20%.

Q: How does your company generate revenue?
A: Our business model of a "marketplace" with network effects has great scalability and strong defensibility. Insense has two components:

• The content production fee (up to 30%), in which marketers add money to their balance to spend on content creation. Insense keeps these funds in escrow, and pays creators once the job is done.
• The premium monthly subscription (with three priced tiers) which provides users access to premium features and support.

Q: What makes your company different from others in your space?
A: We are one of the only marketplace’s that combines efficient video production with paid performance relevance. Off the top of my head, the only other ones are Vidmob, Vidsy or SocialNative. However, they focus entirely on enterprise clients, and our target is mid-sized businesses. Also, we invest in real tech that connects the performance world and creativity, not consulting or analyst work.

Q: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of business/financial advice, what would it be?
A: Test hypotheses even faster and respect your past experiences, but do not solely rely on them.
 

Q: Is there anything else you want to share with our audience?
A: You can take part in Insense’s success and claim your stake. We are currently fundraising on the Republic platform, where you can invest as little as $100. https://republic.co/insense.