With a background in fashion publicity and marketing education, Jess was frustrated sourcing cool brand partnerships in events, products and social media. So, she launched Collabosaurus in 2015 when she was only 24 years old.
The platform has now attracted over 6500+ brands including Porsche, ASOS, Olay, Topshop and one of the largest global retailers in the U.S. This is particularly useful for small businesses wanting their marketing dollars to go further during this hard time as collaboration marketing is a massive 25 times cheaper than digital advertising.
Jess won the 2019 B&T 30 Under 30 award in Entrepreneurship, and has spoken at events for Apple, Vogue, General Assembly, ADMA & The College of Event Management. We chat with her about business and beyond…
Tell us about Collabosaurus.
Collabosaurus is a match-making platform for brands. We connect over 6500+ businesses such as ASOS, Porsche, Sofitel & Olay for clever collaborations and marketing partnerships.
What inspired you to start Collabosaurus?
I was working in marketing and PR, getting so frustrated by the time consuming, unstructured approach to brand partnerships! So many opportunities were getting missed, by big and small businesses, around events, social media campaigns and limited edition product releases because a platform like Collabosaurus didn’t exist.
I knew brand collaborations were extremely effective and a valuable marketing strategy for any business, but traditionally, they’re hard work. They require networks, expertise, experience, ‘the perfect pitch,’ and the ability to generate legal contracts as well as implement leveraged promotion as part of a strategy.
I had the idea for Collabosaurus at 2am one morning in 2014 and couldn’t get it out of my head. It was a way for brand collaborations to become accessible, easy and structured for success. Then we launched in April 2015 and the journey began.
Tell us about your career and background.
I actually started out wanting to work in the film industry! I kicked off my degree this way, taking internships with art departments on music videos and The Great Gatsby to get started. I loved it, but I was told by many that it was near impossible to ‘make it’ in the Australian film industry without moving to Los Angeles. At the time, this wasn’t what I wanted, so I shifted the remainder of my degree into a PR and Communications major, landing my first serious job as a Showroom Manager for a boutique fashion PR firm in Sydney.
While I learned a lot in this role, I knew fashion PR wasn’t for me and that particular office was nearly two hours away from home. Couple that with really long working hours and graduate pay? I had zero life outside of work for a while!
I found a job in small business marketing closer to home, and we would take business owners through a 10 month course on how to DIY their own marketing. Partnerships were a big part of that training, but I noticed lots of businesses weren’t doing them because they didn’t know where to start, had been taken advantage of in the past, or weren’t sure how to structure a pitch email! Then, Tinder started to become popular and I thought “this is cool, why doesn’t this exist for brand collaborations.”
Describe a typical (if there is such a thing) work day for you.
Well, no matter what it starts with coffee. If it’s a big day I’ll get a croissant! I always take a walk to the local coffee shop and sit with a coffee while I write out the day’s to-do list. It’s some ‘me-time’ I can enjoy in the morning with a clear head.
On Mondays and Fridays, everyone in the team typically works from home, with Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays in our little Sydney office. This has worked wonders for my sanity as we have an open plan office and I need the distraction-free time to work on creative projects. Other than that, it’s really varied! Some weeks I’m in 5-7 meetings a day, where others I’m in lockdown working on new product developments with no distractions.
Has COVID-19 affected your business? How are you navigating that?
Of course! It’d be hard to pinpoint an industry that hasn’t been affected in some way by COVID-19. We initially needed to navigate the impact it had on all of our event-related and hospitality venue clients who needed to put their memberships on pause. That was hard and we needed to resist the urge to panic and make big cuts!
Now that we’re all adjusting, it’s been really positive. We have the time and space to work on a project we otherwise never would have the resources for (watch this space!) Collaboration marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways brands can remain relevant and continue marketing at this time. So, we’ve started seeing more and more businesses get creative, pivot and collaborate to achieve awesome results without the big budgets amidst COVID-19.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
Do it! It’ll likely be the hardest, but most rewarding thing you’ll ever do. Absolutely do not do it for the money, though! I think there’s often a misconception that building a business can be really fast, when often it’s a hard slog for a few years before you start to see real success.
What’s next for you, and Collabosaurus?
This year has already held so many surprises it’s near impossible to plan anything for the near future! But because of this pandemic, we’ve been working away at something very exciting that’ll hopefully launch in the later half of 2020. Cross your fingers and toes we can pull it off!
For Collabosaurus, I really see such potential in expanding further overseas. We already have clients in the US and UK, but I can’t wait to see this grow so that we can support more global collaborations.
