Recruit Rockstars 323: How a Hacker, Hustler, and Hipster Joined Forces to Build a Red-Hot Startup - a podcast by Strong Suit

Steven Galanis is CEO & Co-Founder of Chicago-based Cameo. (It’s red-hot.)

He’s convinced that a winning startup founding team consists of a Hacker, a Hustler, and a Hipster. In this new interview, he explains.

In case you don’t know Cameo, it’s the next-generation celebrity autograph. No more signed autographs. No more selfies. Now, you can get your favorite celebrity (Cameo has 20,000 athletes, actors, musicians, you name it) to record a personalized 30-second video. They’ll say whatever you want to whomever you want.

I’m a customer.

And I’m not alone. Their talent has produced nearly 500,000 videos so far. With 30% outside the US. And Cameo keeps a 25% cut of the revenue.

Like me, you’ll be impressed with Steven’s combination of IQ and EQ. He’s made plenty of recruiting mistakes & owns up to every one of them. As he says, “The first 50 hire the next 500.”

Steven’s also lined up top-tier venture investors with $65M from Chernin Group, Spark Ventures, Bain Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Pritzker Group, Chicago Ventures, and Origin Ventures.

Cameo is filled with celebrities such as Caitlyn Jenner, Ice T, Lance Bass, and even ‘Donald Trump.’

But the one I most wanted to interview was its CEO Steven Galanis. I hope you get as much from the conversation as I did.

Here’s the interview.

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