By Riley Kaminer
As a marketing agency owner, a major part of Olivia Ormos’ day was managing a roster of influencers.
“It became overwhelming,” Ormos told Refresh Miami. “The biggest challenge I recognized was how manual everything was.”
At the core of this manual process for many companies like hers was an Excel spreadsheet that contained a list of information about where influencers were based, how much they charge, what it is like working with them, and more. The problem was that managing this spreadsheet became a major lift for the team – not to mention managing communications with these influencers across a wide range of platforms.
That’s when Ormos decided to build an internal tool to help her agency work smarter. “Because I was living it and breathing it and uncovered challenges and the issues, I knew exactly what I wanted this app to do.” Eventually, seeing the massive utility of the app, Ormos launched a beta version for the public on December 18th, 2022 under the name mavn.
The core value proposition of the platform is to connect influencers and brands. Influencers, once they are accepted onto the platform, provide a host of details about themselves such as where they are based and what their rates are. From there, brands are able to use filters to find the perfect influencer.
There is a diverse range of offerings influencers can provide through mavn, running the gamut from dining to paid experiences to gifting (receiving items to their house) to even non-profit opportunities.
Brands pay to join mavn and take advantage of the company’s white-glove service in connecting them with influencers. The pricing depends on how much the company is actually going to use mavn. But as a guide, monthly subscriptions range from $2,000 to upwards of $10,000. As of writing, there are 68 brands on mavn.
In the last 90 days, Ormos revealed that the platform has received 1,200 applications from influencers – 400 of which were accepted. Might you have a shot at getting on mavn? “A lot of people are heavily focused on followers, whereas I’m not,” said Ormos. She underscored the importance of investing early in pages with a lot of potential. The keys for Ormos when it comes to vetting influencers: great content and a focus on their particular niche.
At the moment, mavn is only active in Miami. However, Ormos shared plans to expand to Los Angeles and New York very soon – with additional luxury locations around Europe to come this summer. The company, which to this point has been bootstrapped, also hopes to raise a $1.5 to $2 million seed round in April.
Alongside two fellow full-time staff members and a software development shop called Flywheel, Ormos led the development of mavn on a no-code platform called FlutterFlow. “It’s amazing,” Ormos said of the power of no-code, “because my team and I can make the edits ourselves whenever we want rather than relying on a developer.”
Ormos, a Miami native and UF alumna, is excited to be building this platform in the Magic City. “There is no place in the country with the types of opportunities we have in Miami right now,” she said. “I’m making sure that we really conquer Miami in a smart, defined way so that we expand at the right time, correctly, with all our updates.”
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