Slice Group Co-Founders Jesse Bouman (L) and Nesha Aurea Hanzdima
Jesse Bouman and Nesha Aurea Hanzdima, both creators and entrepreneurs, believe the future of entrepreneurship starts with content creation. Globally, more and more creators are using the audience they built through content to launch their own businesses.
“However, in Indonesia, it’s far more difficult for most content creators to achieve this dream of starting own businesses,” says Bouman. “We felt that if we could automate this process, we’d unlock money for more creators to go full-time and build the businesses of their dreams.”
This led the duo to start Slice Group.
Slice was launched in January 2022 by Bouman (CEO) and Hanzdima (COO). Bouman was previously Head of Technology and Innovation at Mindshare, a global media agency, while Hanzdima is a serial entrepreneur and has built more than six companies since graduation.
A creator management solution, Slice helps agencies and brands manage creator relationships. Its integrated creator relationship management (CRM) platform simplifies reporting, payments, and relationships for sponsored brand content.
Also Read: Intudo Ventures, Arise back Indonesian influencer marketing startup Slice Group
“In layman’s terms, we help brands and agencies aggregate influencer performance data for campaign reporting and crunch the data so they can determine which creators to work with in the long term,” he elaborates. “We’re able to do this because our content creators sign up to Slice and connect their social media accounts so they can share their reporting data directly with us. All our data is verified, and we eliminate the manual screenshots and PowerPoints that plague the industry.”
In turn, Slice offers creators different tools to help them grow. It currently provides dynamic media kits for creators to share their rate cards, analytics, and audience demographics with brands and agencies without constantly updating a PDF like they typically do now.
A SaaS tool, Slice charges a monthly subscription. As the company expands its product line, it will include transactional revenue with its financial products.
The startup has worked with various agencies, brands, and startups, including Shopee, Nivea, Koinworks, Populix, Erha, and OMD/PHD.
While Slice plans to expand to new countries in Southeast Asia in the future, the current focus remains Indonesia.
“Indonesia is the largest market in the region, and we are firm believers in the economic growth opportunities the country presents over the next few decades,” he adds. “Secondly, Indonesians are uniquely positioned for success in the growing creator economy. The country has one of the world’s highest social media usage rates. They love creating and consuming content. Additionally, it’s a very entrepreneurial country.”
There are about 62 million SMEs, and in his opinion, the next generation of Indonesian entrepreneurs will start by simply creating content on their mobile phones.
Bouman also informs that Slice is now working on embedded finance features. “While Indonesia and SEA are quickly digitising their financial services, everything is still a one-size fits all model. The content creators and agencies that we work with have specific financial needs. Integrated financing and payments in our platform are areas where we feel we can expedite the flow of money and boost the businesses of both our agencies and content creators. ”
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On Wednesday, the startup announced the completion of a US$645,000 seed round of financing led by Intudo Ventures and Arise. “I’m a firm believer in product-led growth. We’re investing heavily in our engineering and design teams. We’ve brought all our development and design in-house. We focus on building an intuitive and impactful product while iterating quickly based on customer feedback,” he explains.
Globally, social media users touched 4.6 billion, shaping a US$100-billion creator economy. This growing number, coupled with the novel ways of starting a business globally, presents a massive opportunity for Slice to build a billion-dollar business. And Bouman and Hanzdima have only made baby steps, and they have a long way to go.
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