Mikkel Malesa founded DreamInfluencers in November 2017 because he wanted to connect micro-influencers with different business companies. Today the company has 3.500 influencers signed up and he has yet to spend one Danish krone on marketing. We have talked to him about his best entrepreneurial advice.
ARYZE is a Copenhagen fintech startup with a passion for entrepreneurship. We try to give back to the community and today we’re introducing a young and upcoming startup that has a lot of advice to offer. Mikkel Malesa has partnered up with 18-year-old Louis Rugaard who is the frontend developer, 18-year-old backend developer Rasmus Tobiasen, strategic partner Casper Hillstrøm (24 years old) and 23-year-old Oscar Rosager and DreamInfluencers was founded in November 2017.
Even though he is just 22 years old himself Mikkel Malesa has discovered a market niche in Denmark and today he is running his own company with him, Rugaard and Tobiasen making a living off it. Malesa’s original idea for his business came due to bewilderment of why there was no platform where you could connect micro-influencers with company campaigns. His concept is very simple: the companies register for a membership and then they can put their campaign online where the influencers apply for it and the company decides how many influencers they want to go with.
Despite of all the data available on Instagram they do not work with algorithms. Instead, they choose the influencers themselves. They have had 6.500 people apply to become influencers, but selected 3.500 manually.
“We are collecting hand-picked influencers – we don’t use an algorithm.”
Have not spend any money on marketing due to retagging
Because of this and a strategy to get retagged on each Instagram post, a marketing strategy was developed where they decided not spending any money on acquiring influencers. They get their own influencers to tag them on their posts and stories. It drives new followers and sign-ups via their influencer bio. Malesa’s best entrepreneurial advice is connected with this strategy. That you should not be self-focussed in building a brand and not be afraid to differentiate from others. Making mistakes is also not a bad thing as it helps to grow even more.
“Make as many mistakes as possible to find out what works right and wrong. And find other partners and employees who are more clever than you”
According to the young founder you have to be open to other perspectives from people who could be smarter than you. Open your horizon and learn from somebody else instead of putting your ego before business helps the company to grow.
“Talk with costumers, get as much costumer feedback as you can”
Mikkel Malese recommends that if you want to improve your product, the best way is to talk to your customers because they are the ones who spend the most time with it. They can know more about your product than yourself and how to make it better because they value it ever day.
DreamInfluencers’ top 5 entrepreneurial advice:
- Get your hands on books on your special market
- Stay in touch and keep yourself updated on your niche
- Find other partners and employees which are more clever than you
- Keep yourself focused on building a brand and differentiate it
- Get as much customer feedback as you can
Learn more about DreamInfluencers on their website and see their concept in action on their Instagram. You can connect with Mikkel Malesa on his LinkedIn and ask him questions about influencers. The company targets scaling in Sweden, Norway and Finland in 2020 and over the next five years the goal is to be a global platform working with brands across different countries and continents.