Hunter Harris: Hey everybody and welcome to Build and Break Through. I'm your host, Hunter Harris, of Hunter Software Consulting. With me today is Hogan Trum. He is the co-founder of Pippa, investor at SKU and owner of a bird. Hogan, do you wanna introduce yourself a little bit? Hogan Shrum: Yeah, that was a good one. Happy to be here. Thank you, Hunter. you said, I'm co-founder of Pippa, AI animation platform. Excited to talk about that today. Come from an agency background, so bringing a lot of ⁓ storytelling ⁓ to in different ways these days. Hunter Harris: I love it. I guess let's jump right in then. tell us a little bit about Pippa, how you got the idea for Pippa and how you got started on this particular journey. Hogan Shrum: Yeah, so interesting story through my advising and and mentoring with the SKU community, which is the CPG Accelerator, a advisor and investor and I just kind of struck up a friendship and he showed me he's kind of an AI AI nerd and ⁓ bleeding always keeping up on the highest tact on that side of things. And as dad, and I'm a dad as well, he ⁓ would tell his kids bedtime stories at night ⁓ and his started contributing. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: He was recording them for posterity decided one day, I wonder if I could make these into a cartoon. And he built his own AI tool. This is before all the animation tools that you see out there coming out today, where could literally upload the audio of these stories and turn them into Pixar quality, anime quality cartoons. And he like, he showed me this as if it was kind of a toy for himself. ⁓ And I ⁓ I immediately you know, man, you're not a Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: filmmaker, you're not an animator. If you could build this, is there a world where this could be built where anyone could use it? Where they don't have to have the prompting expertise to use tools like Higgs Field and Mid Journey and SeeDance sort of their own? because in my I I this was a game changer. Like how if we could bring the ability for anyone, an eight-year-old, say for example. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: the ability to bring their imagination to life in the form of a a studio quality animation or cartoon that changes the game in terms of the types of content that can be produced forever. he believed we could do it. And that's what we set out to do in December of last year and started building this. And as who comes from the agency and creative side, I had very specific things that I I hate about AI, right? Especially it comes to creativity and design. Hunter Harris: Mm. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: You know, I don't like handing over creativity and ideation solely to AI. a great companion and assistant at times. ⁓ I still want to own the idea. And and my use of AI, say on the agency side, has always been, you thought starters perhaps, or helping me think through different options and builds. But as I go through the process, it gives me more ideas and it becomes more of a collaborative effort where I still feel ownership throughout. And the I had with Hunter Harris: Well said. Hogan Shrum: and still have with the platforms that are out there is it's still very much a sort of send and then receive economy, right? Like I upload a story, I upload a piece of audio, I upload some pictures, and I hit a button and I get a video. And whatever that video is, I'm kind of at the mercy of how A AI produced it. There might be some controls throughout, but I you know you're pretty disconnected from the final product. and it more often than not, it doesn't match your vision. And then you end up in the spiral of Reanimation, re-render, tokens, tokens, tokens. Sometimes never really getting what you want. And so when we were building this, it was all about creating something that was was was fun, interactive, and collaborative in the process of creating, as opposed to it just being about the final product. It's how do we create something that's actually fun to produce? Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: Because it gives you this back and forth and helps op unlock other ideas and other creative things that you may not have thought of that come up during this process. And and that's how we've structured it. And then the final bit was again coming from the agency background, on top of the fact that my co-founder Sean has a sister who is a professional animator for well-known content series. we don't want to steal from artists. And Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: It's super important to us that artists aren't left behind in this new world of AI that we live in because we actually believe it creates a ton of opportunity. So we've layered in mission that our is all of the styles of animation that you can choose on PIPA as we continue to grow will primarily and almost entirely be artists licensed styles. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: So anytime that someone, any user creates an animation with a particular artist style, that artist receives royalties and commissions all of the revenue earned just in the generation. And then as we continue to grow further and our PIPA channel becomes a larger community, there are additional streaming opportunities and revenue opportunities. Much like a musician makes money off of Spotify, the radio, what have you, we envision world where content creation pays the artists behind the work. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hogan Shrum: in all capacities. And that is, in a very long way, PIPPA Hunter Harris: Very cool. want to come back to the AI art protection angle, but before that, I want to dig into something that you said earlier, because it's in line with a lot of my thinking recently. you mentioned that typically using these platforms, you have to put a lot of energy into prompting them. In this particular prompting Midjourney. I think the technology you mentioned was prompting Higgs. not familiar with Higgs, definitely familiar with Mid Journey. What has it taken and how do you identify the opportunity to move beyond prompting? Because a lot of the startups that I talk to, there is kind of like a ladder of AI skill AI nativeness that really starts with prompting, with context, with harnesses, et cetera. But I see a lot of people stuck with really forcing the UX of having the user own all of prompting versus having the company have the expertise of owning the prompting? How did you identify that and how are you thinking about structuring with AI to get a better user experience for your users? Hogan Shrum: Yeah, good question. So and it it's it's one of those tough nuts to crack. ⁓ but I feel we've we've so far done a pretty great job of that's that middle ground, right? Because right now it's either you're an expert coder, go on to something like a mid journey or whatever, you've the screen, you've got the toolbar, but you're starting from scratch. You gotta learn how to write what you want it to do. You learn by doing, making mistakes. That's how how it works. Same goes for a lot of these platforms. Then on the on the yeah, really expensive. Hunter Harris: Absolutely. Extremely expensive too. Hogan Shrum: And then the flip side of that is we're gonna take prompting completely out of it for you. Just give us an idea, we'll do all that work, and here's your product. Whereas where we've bridged the gap is the system is programmed and continues to learn different content Are you making ads or commercials? Are you making animated shorts? Are you doing a narrative story where there's just a narrator talking over animation? Are you gonna have like live characters, like a cinematic film, for example? ⁓ there are different best practices and ways to prompt within tools like SeeDance and others in order to achieve different results. And so we've we've programmed for these more common uses. ⁓ But as produce more types of content, the system continues to learn based on what they approve. Because they're involved in the process, you have an opportunity to say, you know what, that rendering didn't come out right. Gives a thumbs down, it gives you a free re-render to reprompt it. We also have a prompt doctor. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. That's cool. Hogan Shrum: Which allows you to open it up and say, look, it got 90% of this image or this video right, but here's what it got wrong. And you can y say it in your own words. This is what it should have done. I wanted to see this. Use the prompt doctor, it will revise the prompt to make those corrections for you and automatically regenerate that animation or that image. And if you think about it, the more you're playing in this production process, the more you're learning. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: So what we found as people spend more time in PIPA, they actually get more interested getting in there and starting to tweak the prompts themselves. ⁓ it ⁓ it works because ⁓ all aspects, it always provides you with a starting point, right? Based on your idea. You're you're not looking at a blank screen with an idea in your head. You're able to communicate and share what that idea is in whatever format you like, and then it will set up a storyboard with. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Right, exactly. Hogan Shrum: starter prompts, if you will, that are going to be pretty accurate, that you can either and and see results and use something like the prompt doctor to fix. Or ⁓ you get better at it, you may start picking up on, ⁓ I want that line to happen a little bit faster. ⁓ I want the cadence of this delivery dialogue to be different. ⁓ And know how to just jump in there and edit it. But editing an already existing prompt that's structured properly is far easier than building from the ground up every time. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. It's the what is it, the blank page disorder or something that. And I know I suffer from that, where if I have ⁓ staring at a blank page is much more difficult for me than just starting from something. So actually in my own individual workflows, it's very common what for me to copy a file or otherwise just start from something already written, even if I end up replacing everything inside of it. There's just something about ha starting from somewhere that makes it much easier. Which is ⁓ something that I really appreciate about this sort of design specifically, but as I feel like so many products, they put so much of that burden on the user and put the the burden on the user to kind of cold start in a way that is not especially helpful. about that too. ⁓ Hogan Shrum: Well and that and that applies because of who they're looking at as their target customer, right? ⁓ it's funny. I was talking to my co-founder this morning, he used a great analogy. He's like, know, the economy of of flight, plane travel, flying on planes. You know, they make the majority of their margin on first class seats, which are of which there are four to eight on a plane, right? Maybe ten. The majority of the seats are coach and those are what they make the least margin on, but they need to fill them because that pays the bills. But where they make the profit is on first class. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: Well, the way the AI video generation economy has worked is all of these companies primarily the ones that can produce high quality content. They're focused on first class only, the producers of the world, the people that don't have a blank page problem that come with an idea, they have exactly in their head what they want to the the film or content to do from minute to minute, second to second. They understand prompting and they're willing to pay a lot of money to be able to produce exactly what they want with that level of expertise. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: What they're what those companies are ignoring the general consumer, which is backing coach. And those models are not sustainable long term if you don't have a path to the cons those consumers, right? and so our goal is to kind of go the other way. It's to invite people into coach, expose them to business select pretty quickly, and then if they want. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: they can and are able to level up to first class at no real increased price just through their experience with the platform. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. And I I mean that's something that is very interesting and compelling about this too, is really going back to what you were saying about the application to educate people about prompting to a certain extent via tools like the Prompt Doctor. it allows you to I mean I would articulate it as get people in coach and then manufacture them into your ⁓ first class type customers. It allows you to actually help them ⁓ build the skills and build the knowledge, also to properly appreciate the product and its capabilities and what they could be doing with that, and see the upgrade path to naturally transition up, up, up, and also have the skill set to take advantage of that, which is a very interesting opportunity. feature that I wanted to ask a little bit about in terms of this too is one that I a gap that I see in a lot of generation with AI is Essentially like a history where I'll generate something and I'll ⁓ it'll be 80%, right? And I'll generate another thing and it'll be eighty-five percent. But actually there like even though it's eighty-five percent, there's a fifteen percent there that maybe I could have derived from the previous one. So is there a part of the interface that allows you to kind of hop between versions what you're generating and say, Like let's say you generate three, four, five versions, you're like, okay, take like the dialogue from this one, take the character designs from this one, take the setting from that one, and let's kind of stick it all together and see what we get, or something like that. Hogan Shrum: a degree. this is just based on what AI general is capable of right now. But the and easiest answer to that is we do have, so it's built for series as well. So we created a library that allows you anytime you create characters for your stories, for example, you're able to those, those permanently live in your library. And let's say, ⁓ I made this a perfect example with I may I've been working on this educational series. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Perfect. Hogan Shrum: And it's it's called the tiny body crew. And it's a it's for kids. It's about, you know, the cells in your body as cartoons think inside out, but like teaching about anatomy. and so I'm working on one right now that's like ⁓ versus the common cold. And it's you know, meant to be funny and fun. And the one we did was called Why Farts Exist. Of course that was popular because farts are funny. And ⁓ Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Okay. Of course. Who doesn't like that? Hogan Shrum: And ⁓ but I'm able to save those characters because it's gonna be a recurring series. And so anytime I start a new story with the Tiny Body Crew, I'm simply able to import the characters that I've created into that story, and they're automatically referenced in the new story that I'm writing. the same also applies not just to characters, but scenes, objects elements as we call them. So let's say, like in in the tiny body crew versus the common cold, I've got a sneeze cannon. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: And maybe that comes up in a different story that's saved somewhere for continuity later. the the one area that's call hit or miss depending on the model that you're using, although this likely to be fixed by C dance two point five, which is coming out now. when you're using C dance models for audio and you're not uploading your own, it can be a less consistent on nailing the sounds of the voices of the characters. Very good at at the d at the visuals, but Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Make sense. Hogan Shrum: It has limitations. That said, think one of the most fun things about Pippa is being able to use your own voice ⁓ and have it lip sync and do all of that. In those cases, it's it's consistent. And then you're also able to create own AI voices within Pippa that you can save and use for future. ⁓ so, in all of what's cap what AI is capable of now, all of these of things can be saved within the platform. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Very cool. Very interesting. I guess this is a great bridge point actually to talking about how you're protecting against AI art theft ⁓ what we discussed on the pre-show about the ⁓ content creator marketplace. So with what you're building so far, given that there's this concept of a library that provides these potentially reusable assets, is that directly patched into content creator marketplace? is this more like vibes based? Like how how does the system work? Because I I I find the idea of marketplaces always fascinating, because they represent such an incredible opportunity for not in in these cases, not only the founders and the businesses that they're building, but for the people using the marketplaces as well. Hogan Shrum: Yeah, so it's ⁓ there's a few layers to that. So just as as a general sort of overview of how we protect against AI or or or certain IP infringement, for example, obviously there are already layers built into models that are plugged into PIPA like SeeDance, Happy Horse, and others that are pretty effective at scraping for any IP related property. It even and then our system also checks prompts again any against anything IP. ⁓ Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: So for example, if you if you wrote Superman in your prompt but didn't use a Superman image, it's still going to flag it and automatically change it. so that's just sort of the blanket IP protections. And honestly, that's as much protection for our users as it is for us. Like they say, you don't mess with the house of mouse. I don't want someone going and making an inappropriate video with Mickey Mouse. Like that would be the worst thing ever on the planet to happen to Pippa. So ⁓ yeah, yeah. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Of course. Mm mm. Yeah, that's gonna be bad for everybody involved in that one. Hogan Shrum: And then as far as the artist marketplace goes, and this is where it's interesting. So as as a call it a regular user at any tier, have your library, you're able to save all of these things, but those are always private to you. Those cannot be licensed out. The only way that we allow art artwork or characters or whatever it may be to be licensed out is by verified artists. And so we have an artist platform that that Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: An artist has to go through a pretty significant vetting process. It's not just about, hey, upload your portfolio and here's your style. We we do the due diligence of confirming ownership rights. this person a real artist? Is it confirmed to be their work and not the work of someone else? Thankfully, thanks to AI, you can do scans on this pretty quickly now. ⁓ but ⁓ approved artists, once they get through that vetting process, are allowed to then Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. ⁓ cool. Hogan Shrum: License those styles out publicly on PIPA. when you select, when as we start onboarding more of them, you'll see when you select styles, whether it's an AI art style or an artist licensed style, it doesn't change what you as a user pay. It just gives confidence as a user if you want to support artists that you're choose choosing an artist licensed style. Hunter Harris: Very interesting. and at point, given that ⁓ one the hardest parts about a marketplace is is the cold start problem. Essentially, how yeah to if have people ⁓ that are content, how do you get them on the platform? If you have people licensing content, how do you get them selling their content the users essentially? So without essentially one of already present, it's very hard to get the ball rolling. How have you been thinking about that and how have you been attacking that? Hogan Shrum: It's a lot of outreach storytelling the mission and what we're doing, explaining how this platform works. But you're right. I mean, the and is a big cold start problem to be transparent, because we're talking about a community that is passionately against AI and they're it together. And so the idea that someone would get on Pippa and license their artwork to an AI animation generator. Hunter Harris: quite Hogan Shrum: Is basically crossing the picket line in the most dramatic way possible. said, every artist that we have talked to is like, ooh, I would love to do this, but I'm not gonna be the first one. Right? they all secretly want it, but they're not gonna like be the person. the good news is, is so we're in the process of a fundraise right now that's going very well. Have you know, several different parties kind of vying for for being ⁓ the one. a couple that we're obviously most interested in for this reason. Hunter Harris: Course. Hogan Shrum: Are the firm true believers in this artist marketplace and have communities of artists that they are going to bring to the platform? So, truth be told, we are selecting strategic partners that can accelerate this cold star problem that we have by breaking the seal and showing all the artists out there look, we've got verified, legitimate artists that are behind this that can validate we're walking the walk. Hunter Harris: Absolutely. And that's an interesting call out too, because I feel like a lot of founders think about fundraising and VCs specifically just in terms of cash not about all the other capabilities that know advisors, investors, and other personalities can bring into organizations. In this sort of situation, I mean obviously the dollar amount is incredibly significant, but being able to solve the cold start problem is probably longer term more valuable than whatever cash they're bringing to the deal, right? So mean and this is the sort of thing that seems obvious, I guess, to me, probably obvious to you, but for the founders that might be listening to something like this, how should they be going about thinking about analyzing those sorts of capabilities for potential investors and other personalities when they're out there, you know, Not selling to customers, but selling to potential advisors and investors. Hogan Shrum: that's a probably a big answer, but you I can use us as an example. I think the reason we believed we could do this and stand out from the rest from the beginning was that we had this clear mission of creative control, artist protection, and artist And so for any business, think as as someone that comes from an agency that works on brand strategy and getting brands to to be successful over others. Whatever the product is, you have to have a clear point of differentiation and you have to have a clear line of sight on who your ideal customers are. And it's not everyone. And you have to understand that. And no matter what amount of money you have, you don't know those things, you will not succeed. Period. If you do know those things, then you have more to bring to the table in investor conversations because it's not just about the money. It's about all the resources you have at disposal, at your disposal, and how you use them to achieve these key points of differentiation and the reason for your existence. And so how you should think about looking at investors is there's this fine line between, you know, I want the money, but I want to retain control. You know, ⁓ that's another thing to be cautious of because sometimes people believe in the mission so much they make it their own and they change it and then they want to own it. And you've got an investor that's suddenly trying to steer the ship that. in different in possibly different directions than you had initially envisioned. that's a critical thing too. Yeah. like you gotta find the people that believe in the mission, that believe in you to achieve and have the to accelerate your ability to achieve that. ⁓ now some founders come with that, right? Like Hunter Harris: Very dangerous. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: I'm doing this because this is the background that I come from. I have all the connections to achieve this. I don't ress necessarily need strategic advisors from my investors. I just need the money. And okay. But I would argue, as and I'm sure many have said it, a a good founder, a good CEO surrounds themselves with people smarter than them. Even though I think I have this perfectly clear vision of what I want it to be, and there are certain non-negotiables for me, I'm also humbly aware. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Hogan Shrum: That there are like the way we've thought about this artist platform's probably not perfect from an artist perspective. We're not we're not artists. And so what better way to make it succeed than to bring in investors that can bring in the artist community and allow them to play a role and have input into what this is so that it's truly built for them. That's how you achieve it. I don't know, it's a bit of a tangent there, but hope that answers your question. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. It is No, no, no, I I think it's fine. one thing that I'd like to highlight there too is competitive advantage. L let's say that you are like the Uber Mensch CEO, You're the best at sales, you're the best at marketing, you're the best at technology, you're the best at product, the list goes on. Even if you are the best at all those things, time is limited, attention is limited. It's not possible to direct all of your energy at all of those all at the same time. So just the act of surrounding yourselves with talented people that you can delegate things to allows you to then hone in on what you individually can do best, what you individually can execute on, and then let other people handle all the other stuff. I mean, ⁓ i i is better if they're more talented than you, but just competitive advantage aspect there a significantly more sustainable business. And also, I mean, if you're doing everything and you catch a cold for two weeks and you miss out on particular investor call, that can be the whole kit and caboodle right there if you don't have any redundancy built into your organization. So PIPA, you're at this particular state, you know, you're building up the ⁓ artist marketplace. What's next? What's on the horizon? What what are you excited about in the upcoming future? Hogan Shrum: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so the ultimate vision for this is that, like I alluded to at the beginning, I genuinely believe this can be. And not this is not meant to say high fruit, like like don't know what the word is. It's world changing in this in the sense that. If we can essentially unlock 10x, 20x, 100x more creative ideas from the world. What types of content and what types of and ideas will we start to see? And I think that's something that's an argument for AI in general, not just animation, not just filmmaking. In general, those that are thinking about AI right, in my opinion, are those that are saying, what these efficiencies ⁓ Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: And these automations and these tools allow me to do more efficiently, allow me to do better, and allow me to do more of, or even discover things I can do that I wasn't able to before. We're unlocking human capability across a wider group of people, which think about crowdsourcing. The more you source from the group, the more the cream is gonna rise to the top, the more cream there will be. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: And so, know, our vision is that PIPA is is a community and an ecosystem for creative expression and consumption. So much like YouTube at the beginning and where it's gone today, we see that as the same opportunity for us in the world of animation and AI, where we're suddenly unlocking creative expression for millions upon millions of people that didn't have this tool before to tell stories, create content, whatever that may be. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: The cream will rise to the top. And on the Pippa channel, which I, you know, the goal is it's an app on your TV, just like YouTube, you can look through vast array of user-generated, ⁓ content by genre, by type, whatever it may be, as channel where you consume content, ⁓ share content, amplify those you believe in, amplify the artists that help create it with their styles. Hunter Harris: Mm-hmm. Is this Hogan Shrum: That it's a shareable sort of give and take, and that those that consume suddenly, in the act of doing so, discover what ⁓ that's something I might want to try on Pippa. And then they be they too can become a creator, and that the creators consuming content, other content created by Pippa are inspired to do different things within the platform. And it it really truly becomes this of creator-led and creative, creatively inspiring platform and community that. Hunter Harris: And Mm-hmm. Hogan Shrum: continues to grow and bring about the best ideas. Hunter Harris: I love that. I I love the idea of just democratization building and democratization of creativity is a thing that I'm very excited about. but Hogan, we're getting towards time. Do you want to plug your pluggables? Hogan Shrum: sure. Yeah, thank you. if you'd like to try Pippa, visit us at gopippa.ai. You can also download our app on the App Store. ⁓ we should be live on Android within the next week. And then your users, happy or not your users, your listeners, ⁓ happy to offer 25% discount on whichever plan you decide to try. so just use Hunter26 and you can get a nice little twenty-five percent discount on your first month. Hunter Harris: Okay. Hogan Shrum: start at fourteen ninety nine, so it's not meant to be expensive and you can get a lot of content produced with that. There is a freemium tier, you can definitely try it out without a commitment. But please give it a try. Hunter Harris: Love that. Well, Hogan, thank you very much. ⁓ Hogan Shrum: And to all the artists out there, check out our artist portal. Sor sorry. To all the artists out there, check out the artist portal. We'd love you we'd love your feedback as well. You think it can be better and you support this and but you want to see something different? Let us know. Hunter Harris: Yes. Boom. Absolutely. Yep, it's all about the user feedback, right? Well, Hogan, thank you so much for joining us. This has been fantastic. I'm super excited to see f what you're what you've already built and also what you're in the process of building with this artist marketplace and with this product. And for everybody watching at the moment, I hope that you're inspired to build. I hope you're inspired to create. go check out PIPPA and I hope all of you have a fantastic day. Peace. Hogan Shrum: Thank you.