In conversation with Sanjay Tripathy, Celebyte

Sanjay Tripathy is the Co-Founder & CEO at Armsprime, a media and entertainment tech startup, a part of which is Celebyte. Sanjay is an industry leader with 27 years of experience in managing large businesses and setting up successful e-commerce, direct to customers, franchise, and other traditional verticals.

Agency Reporter- Could you please explain the concept of Celebyte to our readers?

Celebyte is an online entertainment tech platform that connects fans to their favorite celebrities. Fans want to access and celebrities want to monetize their time and our role is to cater to both while ensuring a seamless experience. Through our platform, fans can request various forms of interaction and engagement points such as video calls, pre-recorded video messages, and even chat with the celebrities.

AR- You tapped into a rather untapped segment in the digital space. What was the ideology behind creating a platform like this?

Our parent company Armsprime was initially launched to help to build personally-owned platforms (POPs) for celebrities so that they could monetize their interactions and engagements with their fan base. While on that journey, we realized that there was a larger segment of celebrities who may not want to commit to an app but still want to monetize their own fan base and thus, Celebyte helped fill this need gap.

AR- How does the revenue model of a platform like Celebyte look like?

Our model is based on a revenue-sharing arrangement with the celebrities on our platform. We return the money to the fans if the request is not fulfilled. We do a revenue share only for the fulfilled requests.

AR- What are the multiple engagement points that the platform offers between the audience and celebrities?

As mentioned earlier, fans can request video messages, one-on-one video calls, and even chat with them, for a price of course. Brand owners/founders/ corporates can even request for endorsements by celebrities or social media posts for their products and brands.

AR- New and small-scale businesses rarely get celebrity endorsements during their initial few years. How has Celebyte changed the game for start-ups?

We have been receiving a lot of requests from founders/startup teams looking to get their ventures and products endorsed. So, we decided to extend the scope of our offerings to accommodate this demand. We created a category that would help business owners with a chance to reach out to celebrities for endorsements/ social media posts / virtual talks at a fraction of the cost of conventional advertising. Given our dedicated base of influencers, our endeavor has also been to connect the right celebrity with the right brand so that the founders/ brand owners get the best value for their money.

AR- The pandemic has affected businesses, both large and small. How has it changed the audience’s behavior on Celebyte?

With the ongoing pandemic and social distancing norms, gathering and celebrations have taken a backseat. Like everything else, friends and families are choosing to go online for gifting options. In the initial months of lockdown, when most businesses were finding it hard to make their ends meet, at Celebyte, we saw a huge demand for celebrity wishes as a personalised e-gifting option. We facilitate seamless gifting by allowing customers to opt for direct interaction with celebrities which can be delivered to their loved ones’ email inbox.

Even digital businesses flourished during lockdown but they need to differentiate from their peers and build traction quickly. That’s where our celebrity brand endorsement module helps. Overall, we believe the post COVID era will significantly drive e-gifting and e-engagements as physical meetings and interactions will not come back to normal until there is a vaccine. Moreover, it provides a unique new way of engagement which is liked by all age groups.