STARKVILLE — In 2018, all Calvin Waddy and Shelby Baldwin wanted to do was launch a successful startup business at Mississippi State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach.
Just five years later, they have raised $950,000 in investments for their customer relationship management platform, Buzzbassador, and have just received another $250,000 from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund.
“We’ve been sitting on this exciting news for a while, and I am proud to be able to publicize it now and of being a Black founder,” Waddy said. “Less than 1% of venture capital goes to Black or underrepresented founders. So, it’s just an honor to be recognized by Google, who’s been doing a fantastic job supporting underrepresented founders. It means the world to us.”
Waddy told The Dispatch he and Baldwin first came up with the idea of Buzzbassador after closing another startup company, Only Pair Fashion, which worked with more than 8,000 influencers to promote fashion on its website. The only problem? Managing how influencers were paid and ran online campaigns proved difficult.
“It was like a full overtime business just managing them,” Waddy said. “So, we built (Buzzbassador) for our own brands. We were in the Shopify (market) and saw other brands doing similar marketing, so we opened up the app for private use in 2019 and then in 2020, we opened the official beta (Buzzbassador).”
An influencer advertises products through social media. They receive a commission for promoting business products on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
The program works as a customer relationship management platform for companies to supervise influencers who market products in exchange for payment. For example, a business using the software can autogenerate business analytics and sales while managing influencers’ pay and schedules. Since launch, Buzzbassador boasts more than 140,000 users and has generated more than $20 million for its customers.
“We have 450 global brands now ranging from public brands like Shimano, an indoor cycling brand, to Gatsby Chocolate, and the founder of that was the founder of Halo Top ice cream,” Waddy said. “Being able to work with some really cool brands has been fantastic. So yeah, I’m super excited about the traction that we’ve been able to have very early on.”
Since 2019, the company has received about $950,000 from angel investment groups and nonprofits, including the Bulldog Angel Network, North Mississippi Angel Investors, Tech Start and Innovate Mississippi.
With the $250,000, Waddy said the company plans to use $150,000 for market research on improving Buzzbassador, hiring staff and marketing.
The other $100,000 will be used as credit for Google’s artificial intelligence products, which improve user experience by cutting the time it takes businesses to match up with influencers catered to their products. It will also optimize influencers’ campaign schedules for products, Waddy said.
“We are looking at tapping into AI and sort of using it in our product to make it easier for brands to run influencer marketing,” he said. “Google has some great products that we’re looking at accessing.”
E-Center Director Eric Hill said this is the first time one of its startups has ever received the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund award, and that other student startups can take Waddy’s and Baldwin’s success as a learning tool for their own businesses.
“The funding is awesome, but the recognition is even cooler because that is not a bucket of money that just anybody can walk up and grab,” Hill said. “More than anything else, it’s motivation for the student that may be sitting on the fence saying ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ In the case of Calvin, that journey is the reason that matters so much because most people give up somewhere in that sequence, and Calvin didn’t. He kept looking for the better opportunity.”
Disclaimer: Dispatch Publisher Peter Imes is an investor in Rocketing Systems, Inc., the developer of Buzzbassador.
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