Behype — a startup for collaboration between creators and brands

Aigerim Beisembina, city — Almaty, founder and CEO of the Behype startup, @aigerim.beisembina

How It All Started

Since I was 18, I was interested in YouTube and blogging, but I didn’t do it consistently. I studied marketing, worked at a marketing agency, and interacted with influencers. I also had experience working in startups. Later, I studied digital marketing in France and completed an internship in Berlin at an influencer marketing startup. The COVID-19 period pushed me toward greater freedom, and I began focusing more actively on my blog. However, I encountered difficulties with promotion and monetization. This inspired me to try launching something similar in Kazakhstan. At first, I managed everything myself, and later I found a partner, but we went our separate ways. Thus, my journey in the startup world began.

About the Startup

Behype is a startup for collaboration between creators and brands.

Our initial product, which we launched last November, allowed us to attract our first clients, including giants like KFC and L’Oreal. We started with small amounts, but now our turnover exceeds $100,000. We aim to collaborate with major brands. We also establish partnerships with agencies.

We launch challenges. Challenges are trendy, viral social media campaigns that go viral due to the participation of a large number of bloggers and TikTokers. They create cool, creative content while promoting a specific product, post it on social media with a specific hashtag, and add a link to our app. We start counting their views, and then payments are made based on views. We have over 3,000 bloggers and TikTokers across Kazakhstan and 15-20 brands with which we work on a regular basis. Currently, we are adding new products such as CPC and CPA.

Startup funding mainly came from family, especially from my dad. Initially, he didn’t understand the essence of my activity, and even when I explained it, he didn’t always grasp it. I only learned to formulate our activity more clearly after several years.

Team

I made absolutely all the startup mistakes. In Telegram, we found a team to create a complex application with many features. We met with a guy who promised us a great IT team. We signed a contract and paid a 50% advance. But after a few months, it turned out that he had deceived us, failed to fulfill his obligations, and did not pay his employees. We had to work hard for a long time to get our money back.

Then I brought this team to myself. From the very beginning, we had a back-end developer and a UX/UI designer. After several months of working on the product, we attracted a front-end developer, and together we achieved certain results.

For two years, I tested everything myself, taking notes. I spent a year and a half and $120,000 on development, but we never tested the product. In June, we took a three-month break; I asked the team to wait so that everyone could focus on their own things because we were going nowhere.

But I decided to keep fighting. When we started helping bloggers and TikTokers earn money, I felt proud of our team.

Acceleration Program

I participated in the Scale Up Most accelerator in Indonesia. It was a one-week program during which we communicated with clients and built a team. There, I met an outstanding specialist who introduced us to leading companies and wealthy Chinese families who have huge businesses in this region.

When the app was not yet ready, and I was asking relatives for money, I felt embarrassed. I received special support from my family, and then from friends, mostly team members. We went through the Ksak Ventures accelerator. We started collaborating, but along the way, we realized that we had different goals and parted ways.

I also attended the Founder Institute, although I did not complete it fully. The program turned out to be more suitable for early-stage startups, while our project was already at the stage of app readiness and attracting clients. This experience helped me understand that it is necessary to focus on the initial product and then build an audience.

Target Audience

Our target audience is bloggers and TikTokers. Our product—challenges—is unique for our region—in Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and the CIS, we have no direct competitors.

Difficulties

The very first thing is when there is no money. When you have no money, you constantly think about how to get it. For two years, I worked hard on creating a product that gradually developed and became better. At night, I configured and refined it, sometimes just prayed and convinced myself that everything would be fine. The main thing is to maintain faith in yourself and try to avoid mistakes, taking into account the available knowledge in the market. It is important not to be afraid to ask for advice.

The second difficulty lies in the need to create an MVP and conduct quick tests. It is important not to be afraid if a hypothesis does not work and to actively check many different options. It would be great if startup founders thought about profit first, not just about attracting investments.

Competition can also become a powerful stimulus for development. It is important to remember that competition always educates the market and stimulates its development. At the moment, there are many free niches, such as the music industry and many others. Therefore, it is important to believe in yourself, create the right MVPs, test hypotheses, maintain communication with clients, and, if necessary, look for opportunities to earn money, not necessarily asking for money.

Achievements

I attended influencer events to recruit bloggers. At that time, I had an SMM specialist who also helped me recruit bloggers and handled other aspects of the project. However, we realized that this was inefficient because it was not always possible to find and convince bloggers on the spot.

After that, I realized that the most important thing was the final stage. We worked with my colleague; she focused more on social media, while I continued to recruit bloggers. One of my hypotheses was to write to all bloggers on TikTok and Instagram. I contacted 10 people a day, 5 of whom agreed to collaborate. In two months, I recruited about 30 bloggers and understood how it works.

We began attracting bloggers and our first clients, and now we have more than 15-20 major international and local brands in our portfolio. On average, we launch 5-6 challenges monthly, and we have already conducted about 60-70 challenges.

In a year, we earned about 260 million tenge and $500,000 as a startup. These figures take into account that for the first six months, we were just getting started. Our business began to grow, and since August, we noticed significant growth. These achievements confirm that we successfully work with top brands, agencies, and creators, while providing earning opportunities not only for ourselves but also for others.

Plans

We are actively working on developing a strategy. We have a clear idea of where we are heading, which markets we aim to enter, and what products we plan to offer. However, at the moment, we are in the process of gathering all the necessary information, communicating with stakeholders and teams.

Scaling. We want to expand into Central Asia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates. To date, we have partners and clients in all these countries with whom we have worked. We also plan to introduce new products.

We do not plan to attract investments. If such a need ever arises, we are open to it, but we are more in favor of earning good money.