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What is Koji?
Koji is a powerful link in bio platform and leading app store for content creators. Koji offers hundreds of free apps that creators can utilize to engage with new audiences, monetize, and connect with supporters. Some of Koji’s most popular link in bio apps include Tip Jar+, Shoutout 2.0, Rares, Gift Me, and Cameo Live.
Today, we speak with Dmitry Shapiro, the Co-Founder and CEO of Koji, about the Content Drop app’s launch, what’s missing in the creator marketplace, and Koji’s future plans.
Before Koji, Dmitry was at Google for four years and worked as the Chief Technology Officer at MySpace Music. Before that, he built two venture back companies, including a cybersecurity company that raised $34 million for enterprise software.
The Content Drop App
The Content Drop App allows creators to supercharge their link in bio with hundreds of free app options that you can use to customize and monetize your account. With Content Drop, creators can release regularly scheduled content through their link in bio, prepare multiple drops ahead of time, access detailed view analytics, and share with fans when their next drop is coming.
Creators set the price of all content drops and enjoy a 0% fee per transaction. Customers using Content Drop can pay easily with a debit or credit card.
Dmitry shares, “Content Drop allows you to manage and schedule photos, videos, and audio clips to reveal inside your link in bio, and post behind-the-scenes photos, and early access to upcoming releases. With Content Drop, you can give fans more opportunities to connect [with you].”
Most importantly, Content Drop allows fans more opportunities to connect with their favorite creators and one more reason to regularly visit a creator’s link in bio, giving creators more opportunities to monetize their audience.
The content within the app is also only available for a limited time, increasing the urgency for fans to visit the creator’s link in bio regularly so that they don’t miss out on new, exclusive content.
What is Missing in the Creator Marketplace?
Dmitry explains that we are in the early days of content creation. Many creators frequently burn out trying to create huge amounts of content and post it to multiple platforms, often outside their regular social media accounts, such as Patreon or OnlyFans, to monetize their audience.
However, Dmitry explains that creators can avoid this burnout with new tools.
“All of those people that have struggled with all of this will move to this new way of doing things and start to enjoy their life and produce more content, which is really what they want to do: make more money, be more independent, do all of that.”
He adds, “We [Koji] are creating this next generation of tools for them. One platform to rule them all. An integrated platform – just one.”
Before integrated platforms, creators could waste hours bouncing between different platforms, uploading a large amount of content across these platforms, and generally burning out as a result.
Success Story: Kyle Smith
Dmitry shares a success story featuring a creator named Kyle Smith, a former cop working night shifts at a jail, a job he hated.
During his time as a cop, he gained a significant amount of weight and decided to get in shape and share his healthy meal prepping online.
“He started eating better and exercising and started recording himself making these meals, which are super high in protein, super low in calories, and super filling. He makes them for, he says, for dudes that don’t like to cook, and he posts them on TikTok and Instagram.”
Dmitry adds that Kyle had no audience at all when he began posting, but the algorithm picked up his content, and he was able to start monetizing. Kyle also created an ebook, which he shares in his link in bio and sells directly inside of TikTok and Instagram using Koji’s apps.
Recently, he’s made $45,000 a month from creating content and monetizing his audience through Koji’s apps in his link in bio. Previously, this was what he would make in an entire year working as a cop.
“He’s making $45,000 a month doing something he loves. He claims he’s stress-free because he’s not trying to play the old game of grow your followers and continue to grow your followers and hope that a brand shows up and gives you money. That’s the old way of playing the game.”
Instead, Kyle is monetizing himself by creating content he loves and using Koji apps to monetize the link in his bio.
Koji’s Future Plans
Dmitry shares that Koji is growing and hiring currently.
“While many companies are doing layoffs and slimming down, we’re in an opposite situation. We’re looking for awesome people to come join our team across all capacities. We haven’t been marketing. This has been organic stuff… We’re about to make some more noise and let more people know that this thing exists.”
He adds that they currently have 274 mini apps or “modules’ offered through Koji and just hired additional engineers to develop more.
Koji has also recently launched the latest generation of its dashboard, featuring integrated analytics that are more powerful than anything else currently on the market.
Dmitry notes, “To us, that’s just the beginning… We’re a tech company. That’s the other thing in the creator economy today. Most of these companies, OnlyFans, Cameo, Linktree, all these companies were started by creators, and they’ve sort of been creators building for creators. Not technologists building for creators and therefore they built fine products, but they were never able to really leverage the power of technology.”
He adds that Koji’s team is not made up of creators but tech nerds who are great at building tech that can enhance a creator’s experience and make their work easier.
Amy DeYoung is a freelance blog post writer covering influencer marketing and business topics. As the daughter of two business owners, she’s been fascinated by all things business from a young age, which led her to graduate from college with a bachelor’s degree in business. When she’s not typing away, she spends her time reading nonfiction books and mystery novels, baking scrumptious desserts, and playing with her dog.
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