They Quit an Influencer Marketing Startup and Built Their Own. Now They’re Projecting to Make $3M

Storytime aims to turn influencer marketing into a scalable, city-by-city marketplace for local businesses.

BY MARIAPAULA GONZALEZ, EDITORIAL INTERN

Illustration: Inc; Photo: Getty Images

When Aris Yeager and Philip Davis quit their jobs at influencer marketing software company Lefty to start their own business Storytime in 2024, they weren’t sure whether they were about to raise venture capital—or get sued.

The co-founders had met one year earlier, when Davis hired Yeager as an influencer marketing specialist on his team at Lefty. While working for the Paris-based startup, they saw how luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Sephora manage influencers with huge budgets, 100-person teams, and software that costs about $1,500 a month.

At the same time, Yeager was running into friction as he engaged with local brands as a content creator. The 25-year-old had begun cultivating a flamboyant internet persona—known as Louis to his audience—about three years earlier while attending Northeastern University. Today, he has roughly 3 million followers across TikTok and Instagram and regularly commands five-figure brand deals. 

Yeager tells Inc. “there was no easy way” to communicate with the brick-and-mortar businesses he visited daily. That sparked an idea: “I was like, ‘Okay, this needs to be more automated—this whole space.’”

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As the U.S. head of growth at Lefty, Davis, 27, wrestled with that inefficiency from the other side. The company’s software worked well for global brands, he says, but fell short for fast-growing, location-based businesses trying to drive real foot traffic. So, when Yeager brought him the problem, they built something that did. 

Lefty’s co-founder and former CEO Thomas Repelski wasn’t too thrilled when he found out, though, according to Yeager. “He was like, ‘Yo, you’re building in the same space? What the hell?’” he recalls. “I thought we were gonna get into legal trouble.”

Instead, their ex-boss became one of their earliest investors.

© Inc.com