NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

The Brilliant Strategy Top Creators Use to Bypass Platforms and Keep 100 Percent of Revenue

A business that depends on resources it doesn’t control isn’t really a business; it’s a hostage to the whims and vagaries of others.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN

MAY 25, 2026

Photo: Getty Images

A decade ago, when Cameo first started in Chicago and was working out of 1871, the tech incubator which I ran there at the time, only a few of us understood what the company’s long-term roadmap looked like and how utterly disruptive this little firm (with ugly videos from jocks in their cars and “D” level celebrities holding forth in their basements) was going to be for the entire entertainment industry.

One of the great ironies at the time was that the most cogent observation came from no less an authority than Snoop Dogg, now a noted Olympic commentator, who said: “There is no platform or middleman filtering my message anymore.” The idea that artists and musicians could bypass many expensive and controlling layers of agents and managers and directly reach out to and connect with their fans wasn’t exactly revolutionary, but Cameo and others were the earliest players to provide painless technology solutions and easy access to anyone and everyone who thought they had something important to say. However, the economic problem for the creators and content providers was still a sizable concern because Cameo as the platform provider took a healthy cut of the revenue earned in each transaction. It was a better deal, but not the right deal.

A business that depends on resources it doesn’t control isn’t really a business; it’s a hostage to the whims and vagaries of others. Even Steven Galanis, one of the co-founders of Cameo, advises creators to own their audience rather than rent it, which he defines as building monetization that does not depend on any single platform’s algorithm or content policies remaining consistent.

So, a few years later, along came bemyfriends, riding on the huge success of its first major customer, the South Korean pop group BTS, and offered musicians and other creators their own platform with all the basic features required to build direct and lasting connections to their own fans without any intermediaries. This platform enabled special fan events, merchandise sales, access to the performers themselves, data analytics, advertising opportunities, fan voting mechanisms and numerous other tools which permitted the platform owner to focus on their principal activity while all the commerce and other business concerns were handled by the b.stage and b.stage+ platforms provided by bemyfriends. Most importantly, all the fan contacts and other proprietary data were owned exclusively by the artists and not by the platform operators. But the glaring omission in their offerings was the very critical area of ticketing which was controlled for almost all of the major U.S. concert venues by Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment. 

The recent Ticketmaster and Live Nation litigation, where the suing states secured an initial determination that these two industry overlords were engaged in illegal monopolistic behavior (and notwithstanding the sad fact that they took the Trumpian payment path to bail themselves out of the federal proceedings), has energized talented musicians to be more entrepreneurial and aggressive in addressing the whole ticketing swamp. Here again, for artists with substantial fan bases and international followings, the attraction of building their own ticketing app and controlling their own interactions with their fans is very attractive and potentially quite lucrative.

One very significant example of direct-to-fan ticketing is the recent successful sold-out tour of Australia by GiaNina Paolantonio which employed a new free iPhone app that allows her to sell tickets worldwide to her fans without any service fees. She can sell tickets through the Headquarters app (which also works on Android phones) for dance classes, performances and concerts to her followers which number over 4 million on TikTok alone. Add another 2 million fans for Snap, Insta, and YouTube and you can begin to understand the reach and power of what she’s doing.

These are not thin or casual connections but rather relationships she’s been building since her work on Dance Moms first gave her a persistent global audience. She’s choreographed viral dance moves for Jennifer Lopez, Billie Eilish and Sombr, among others, and is now recording her music with Atlantic Records. The global app was built by GiaNina and her partners at a development firm named Clique Apps. GiaNina’s also got her own Selfie, an online digital twin that fans and followers can ask questions and get instant responses about everything GiaNina.

I wrote a piece quite a while ago noting that we’d probably all reached peak apps and that no one was looking to add more applications to their phones, but it’s a whole different story and a dream marketing scenario when an app developer is an artist who can speak directly to 6 million fans and tell them to get with the program and install her app to keep up with everything she’s doing – new music drops, hosting dance classes, extending her tours and, of course, other merch opportunities. And that’s only half of the really bad news for the twin ticket ogres.

The viral flywheel aspect of her launch goes like this. Once a fan sees how easy, cheap (actually free) and speedy this app is, they’re never going back. All consumers’ expectations are perpetually progressive and—just as Amazon set a brand-new curve and standard for delivery times and goosed the world’s expectations—every one of GiaNina’s fans will be asking her to add other artists, acts, creators and tours to her app. And every one of those fans will also be asking every other act, musician and performer why they’re still doing things the old, slow and costly way. It’s only a matter of time with millions of consumers waiting worldwide at the end of the channel that GiaNina’s building until every artist will be speeding their way to GiaNina’s door. You can never go wrong counting on smart people to act in their own self-interest.

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Retail Is Boring. Resale Is Booming. Inside the Consumer Shift Reshaping Apparel

Companies hate markdowns and shoppers hate full price. Resale startups are solving both problems.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

Mar 10, 2026

 

It’s no secret that during the last 15 years, growth in retail apparel sales has cratered while the resale market for secondhand clothes—both brick-and-mortar and online—has exploded. Resale growth is scaling at five or six times retail’s growth rate and should double by 2028. Most estimates expect that global sales of “previously owned” clothing will grow by more than 10 percent annually, while traditional retail results will be flat or even down. The truth is that virtually no one these days has any interest in paying full price for anything, and especially for costly items that they’re likely to wear a couple of times and then forget about.  

The rise of the “fast fashion” industry and its messaging didn’t do any favors to the old-line brands and manufacturers when they taught several generations of upcoming kids, mini fashionistas, and social media influencers that all these products were quickly and cheaply made, likely to last for a single season, and imminently disposable. They’re hot for a moment and then they’re not. Prices are up while quality is down in flimsy fast fashion items. 

No one under 35 (40 percent of all used apparel shoppers) thinks of clothing as classic anymore. Multi-generational hand-me-downs and well-made garments that can last for years to come seems to be a thing of the past. Looking like a slob can be a strong social statement that you’re socially responsible and don’t really care about material things.  

An under-appreciated aspect of the whole resale revolution is how social the entire shopping experience has become with direct links, rewards and incentives being pushed by TikTok and Instagram. Retail is boring and mass; resale is an adventure in personal branding and an opportunity to discover unique items and stand out from the herd. 

The broader explanations offered for this shift in demand, desire and taste are several and typically fall into four areas: affordability/budget consciousness, sustainability/eco-friendly action, thrifting as an adventure/social signaling, and uniqueness/non-mass market. One of the modest ironies with respect to this desire for non-mass market goods is, of course, that most of the apparel now available for resale was in fact mass produced back in the day when it was new. But now it’s chic and charming. Smart young shoppers are also aspirational and appreciate the opportunity to acquire upscale brand apparel at a discount. Another curious consideration is that if the goods weren’t well made initially, they probably wouldn’t have lasted and been available for the secondary market. 

In any event the main driver of the exponential resale expansion has been internet connectivity, technology advances in management of large scale data and images along with the emergence and popularity of online resale sites like Depop, Poshmark, and ThredUp. At the higher and more expensive end, The RealReal sets the price and luxury curve. The RealReal management has also experimented with brick-and-mortar stores, but with only limited success.  

Much like the car business, no one calls these clothes “used” however. The big brand chains have slowly started to respond to the resale trend by offering their own versions – they’ve all come up with clever names like Worn Wear (Patagonia), Athleta Preloved, Hanna-Me-Downs, Rejuiced, and Madewell Forever. In many cases, this response is accelerating because, aside from the obvious pressure from the resellers, the big brands hate the embarrassment of mark-downs, don’t like to see their goods sold in discount and outlet chains, and like to avoid all of the problems disposing of excess inventory. As a result, a fair amount of the goods moving through these channels may, in fact, be virtually brand new, in colors and styles that simply didn’t sell, or returned goods. Resale companies like Archive are pitching brands every day to help them increase their profits by more efficiently and quickly disposing of unwanted inventory.  

As exciting as the rapid growth has been, there’s an enormous remaining volume of resalable goods (including adjacent markets such as shoes, toys, outdoor and sports gear and baby products) which all share similar ownership and behavioral characteristics. No one outgrows and ages out of expensive infant products faster than sprouting little kids. And no one abandons running shoes, pickleball racquets and other exercise gear more quickly than Millennials.

But it’s not as easy as it may seem to enter these spaces and to cost-effectively attract, aggregate and market millions of these items, especially when the vast majority of the amateur “sellers” are “one of one” cases. It sounds like a great idea to sell your stuff until you actually set out to sort, take pictures of, write descriptions for, and then “list” those everyday items, which might ultimately not be worth the time and effort. But it’s a great green space for enterprising entrepreneurs. 

Two-way consumer-targeted markets are ridiculously expensive to build and grow unless you can figure out a way to work with the existing players and “ride their rails” so your business can avoid the vast majority of costs on both sides of the process. Let existing vendors expand, aggregate, and organize all the inventory on one side and find partners and affiliates who are already attracting millions of shoppers on the other side and figure out a win-win way to work with both groups.  

That’s what is so interesting about Beni, which permits retail online shoppers to quickly and painlessly search for second-hand items, matching their searches through over 300 million apparel and accessory offers from more than 40 different resale sites in a one-stop online location and/or through its own app. Visitors can search by image, text or URL. Beni’s browser extension overlays other vendors stores and “tags along” essentially as an intelligent assistant that accompanies and interrupts a typical retail search with suggestions of comparable (and less expensive) secondhand goods available at any of its affiliates’ sites. It’s already so effective that in some cases the company is working directly with brand sites like Patagonia to offer their own secondhand items so that the brands don’t have to build out and maintain their own systems. While we’re clearly well past the “peak apps” point in our lives and our phones, the truth is that a simple Chrome browser extension is a pretty simple and painless ask for all the search power and access that Beni provides.  

And, of course, the Beni enabling technology strategy avoids virtually all of the marketing and acquisition costs on both sides of the resale search marketplace. Their offerings are expanding and improving at a rapid pace with photo management tools (Beni Lens), real-time alerts, and wish lists all in one place. They have a good shot at becoming the secondhand search engine for the entire resale marketplace. 

 

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Unsubscribing Will Only Get Harder in the Age of AI. Don’t Let Your Company Be Part of the Problem.

The price doesn’t matter when you’re the product.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

JAN 12, 2026

Illustration: Inc; Photo: Getty Images

With the arrival of the New Year has come the inevitable onslaught of renewal requests, demands, entreaties and, of course, the slippery automated extensions designed to slip under the radar and convert low-ball promotional offers into full-bore subscriptions. Along with these ploys, and arguably as a product of them, come the seductive ads from subscription clean-up companies like Rocket Money which promise to quickly display on a single screen all your subscriptions—many of which they suggest with good reason that you didn’t even know you still had—and which their system will magically cancel at your direction and thereby save you grief, effort and hundreds of dollars as well.

You can decide for yourself how valuable and effective services like these are (Rocket claims to have saved its members over $2.5 billion) and do the cost-benefit calculation for yourself as well, but to be clear, they’ve clearly identified a serious problem which afflicts millions of us every year. And, needless to say, the magazine and service vendors themselves are the last businesses likely to or interested in informing you about your wastes of money.

Aside from the dollars saved, the real benefit (if these services work as represented) is that you avoid the pain, wasted time, and harrowing hurdles of trying to wend your way through the chutes and ladders, hoops and mazes, chatbots, and flat-out dead-ends in order to attempt to cancel these things on your own. And even if and when your journey finally delivers you to a human being or a chat window manned by a real person on the other end, you discover that you’re actually far from home free, unless you have a very thick skin and the ability to be unbelievably rude to some poor fool tasked with making you a series of increasingly desperate financial offers to retain or extend your subscription.

It’s pretty clear that these sad people who are actually paid to not take “No” for an answer have an entire set of scripts that they employ, and the tactics they use rarely vary much between companies. The standard ploys include guilt-tripping or otherwise shaming the subscriber, intentionally misunderstanding or misinterpreting the customer’s statements and desire; understating or concealing costs or terms, and dishonestly explaining the associated consequences and difficulties which may arise from a cancellation.

The only good news is that the Federal Trade Commission (largely pre-Trump II) has cracked down on many of these actions and operations in the traditional paid subscription and boiler room world, which has always been largely an analog operation and remains so today. The bad news is that there’s been a substantial gap in terms of acknowledgment of the similar concerns and in any enforcement in the new digital world of social networks (which are frankly far more addictive than any print magazine) where even the idea of “subscriptions” isn’t exactly applicable. And the matter is made even worse when there’s no payment involved. Regulators and legislators have had difficulty understanding the nature of the harms associated with the intended and manufactured difficulty that exists in cancelling “free” memberships or voluntary participation in social networks and in other especially addictive services like TikTok.

Of course, we’ve all learned by now that the reason you’re not asked to pay for your Facebook or Instagram or Messenger memberships or services like TikTok is that it’s your attention and mindshare that’s being sold by the tech companies to marketers, advertisers and politicians. The price doesn’t matter when you’re the product. This is the reason why it’s not simply been in the economic interests of Facebook and the other social networks to make it hard to quit; it’s a conscious, intentional and pernicious part of the underlying design and economic model of these businesses. And frankly, it’s far harder to drop these services or cancel your memberships than anyone would imagine until you’ve tried.

It can take as many as eight or more discrete steps (and the ability to ignore suggestions, blandishments, warnings about losing friends and other functionality and services) to finally reach the final stage where you can actually cancel your Facebook profile. The government has begun to work with some of the states to get a handle on this situation, but it’s slow going and nothing regulatory is likely to move rapidly over the next three years of Trump’s rule.

This may all seem like a relatively minor concern apart from the continuing damage all these services are doing to our kids, but that’s not the main reason I’m raising the issue. No matter how many times new technologies bite us in the collective ass because we launch and implement them before we fully understand their impact or consequences, we never seem to learn the lessons. Indeed, humans can ruin the spirit of just about anything if given the time and technology.

Right now, when nothing in our lives is more omnipresent and potentially threatening than AI, we’re learning that the tech guys have done it to us again. Facebook has built its AI chatbot into Instagram and WhatsApp, and there is no option to turn it off. Google searches result initially in an A.I.-generated result, and the stats already make it clear that the vast majority of all searchers never go beyond that first level quasi-generic answer to their queries. Even more problematic, Google has massively updated Gmail (3 billion users worldwide) and embedded its Gemini AI across the entire platform so the AI system will be reading all your emails whether you like it or not or, more importantly, whether you even know that it’s happening. Of course, if you are aware of this change and a complete gearhead, there’s an onerous multi-step process to shut the service off but, here again, you’ve got to know about it, find and implement it, and recognize that in doing so you will lose some other desirable and longstanding Gmail functionality.

The bottom line is that more and more of these new technologies are not being offered to new business builders as choices or options but instead are imposed on them whether they like it or not.  Only two industries call their customers “users” – tech software vendors and drug dealers.