@ryanleslie has always been ahead of his time. He scored a perfect score on his S.A.T. at fourteen and went to Harvard University at fifteen. He shocked the world in 2013 at the height of his music career after being nominated for a Grammy, by taking all of his music off of streaming services.
After removing his music from streaming apps, he was one of the first artists to give his fans his phone number as a way to have a direct relationship with his supporters. It’s common place for celebrities to give out their cellphone numbers today. It’s an attempt to capture their fans data, but when Ryan put his number on Twitter in 2013, he was one of the first to do so and many questioned the method.
His direct to consumer marketing was a huge success. That strategy led to him making over $2 million from his album run. He utilized text messages to gather data to pinpoint targeted marketing to his supporters.
Never the one to rest on his laurels, he has a new vision for the future of communication and has a solution for a massive problem that he is expecting in the near future. He created a company called Super Phone. @superphone.io is a text message management system that compartmentalize text messages in the way emails are in gmail or yahoo. He believes that organizing text feeds in the manner of emails will be a necessity when everyone’s text inbox becomes swamped, in the same manner that most people’s email inboxes are. With an increasing number of businesses using text message marketing, that day may come sooner than later.
He’s not the only one that believes in his vision, he has raised money from some of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley, including legendary tech investor Ben Horowitz.
His goal is to be the next tech giant and change the world in the process. On episode 64 of @earnyourleisure, Ryan discusses all of the aforementioned topics and much more, for one of our most broad-ranging conversations ever.
EYL #64 will be out Today at 5 pm est.
Article by @rashadbilal