Did you know that the Grammy Award-winning rap star Chamillionaire is also a successful startup investor?
He has been involved in several startup successes including Cruise, which sold to General Motors and Maker Studios, which was bought by Disney.
Now he is the founder and CEO of his own startup — Convoz. A video-based social media app, it had a soft launch last summer and now the team is ready to get the word out to the world.
Convoz: an app for creating public collaborative conversation through video, which is what we call a convo. — Convoz.com
Chamillionaire recently unveiled Convoz to investors and entrepreneurs at the Upfront Summit in Los Angeles. They were wowed.
From Tech Crunch. Story by Katie Roof.
Chamillionaire tells me that the video-centric platform aims to be “the place where you go to talk to people.” He wants Convoz to be an app where people converse face-to-face with stars like Shaq or find new friends with common interests.
He was inspired to create an alternative to Twitter, which he feels is overwhelmed with trolls. “I just wasn’t happy with the communication channels that are currently existing on social media,” said Chamillionaire.
Convoz allows people to upload 15-second clips, often addressed to particular celebrities. They can then watch and choose which ones they want to respond to, sometimes broadcasting a message for all to see.
He hopes that users will be less likely to bully or harass others when they show their face and aren’t hiding behind an anonymous digital persona. And unlike Twitter, where everyone can see people’s mentions, Convoz users are able to approve what’s being said about them publicly. It “gives the curator of the conversation some level of control.”
Building a social media platform isn’t easy. Other than the biggest networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, most have flamed out.
But Chamillionaire isn’t deterred and has put a lot of thought into his approach. He was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Upfront Ventures where he regularly sat in on startup pitches and learned firsthand about what worked and what didn’t. He also did this so that potential partners would know that he’s committed and is not just another celebrity with a side project with his name attached. Convoz is a clear priority.
Above all, the Houston native said that he wants to send the message to others from a similar upbringing that they have more options for a successful life than being a rap star or a basketball player. “I want to change the narrative.”
Read more at Tech Crunch.
