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After years of growing her platform to 2.2 million Instagram followers for her WeWoreWhat account, the 27-year-old blogger and fashion influencer Danielle Bernstein found herself unable to find a platform that helped her organize her brand partnerships. She drowned under numerous spreadsheets, notebooks, and planners, emails from brands, agencies, and agents…until she decided to create her own solution. Bernstein launched the tech suite MOE Assist on October 2, 2019, with her long-time assistant Moe Paretti to create a tool to help them, and other influencers, manage and grow their businesses more efficiently.
“Once I cracked the code on how to work more efficiently, I set out to put the tools in the hands of other influencers and content creators so that they could become more productive as well,” Bernstein told Forbes.
Introducing MOE Assist
According to the Instagram post that announced the launch of MOE, it’s the first project management tool to help influencers with some the following:
- Centralizing and managing their campaigns and collaborations
- Tracking brand partnerships
- Invoicing and collecting payments.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B3HWFFGJ3jP/
Paretti, who MOE gets its name from, now serves as the chief brand officer for WeWoreWhat and previously held responsibility for completing all of the various tasks for the brand that MOE now covers. As Bernstein told Business Insider: “Everybody needs a Moe.”
Tell Us MOE
MOE Assist aims to act as the one-stop management tool for Instagram influencers through a monthly subscription. For $27.99 per month (with the first month free), users can gain access to all of MOE’s features, including project feedback and hashtag inventory tools. No longer do influencers have to worry about the many different aspects of keeping up with brand partnerships. No more long email chains that need to be referenced countless times to make sure influencers use the right hashtags and get their captions approved. For the WeWoreWhat creator, she can recall countless times when she and her team missed one component of a partnership from lack of organization; these experiences helped spark the inspiration for MOE.
“None of the [platforms] out there address the needs of influencers themselves,” Bernstein told Business Insider. “We want to put the power back in the influencer’s hands… and it’s created by someone who knows the workflow best.”
Created by Influencers for Influencers
MOE is the first project management and payment platform created for influencers by an influencer. By creating MOE, Bernstein aims to empower other influencers to manage every aspect of their business. Its custom-designed tools help influencers manage projects, invoice clients, streamline payments, get feedback and approval on content and track revenue. Subscribers can also:
- Add multiple projects to their dashboard
- Input brand and client names
- Add relevant dates
- Organize their posts on different social media platforms
- Organize other components of a project, such as event appearances.
Influencers can keep track of their planned posts and captions, how many posts they must post that was agreed upon in the contract, what brands should be tagged in each post, and even what guidelines they should be aware of. They can then auto-generate their invoices to have it automatically sent to a client on the payment due date.
“What excited me about MOE is that [Bernstein] is unlocking and solving major pain points that hold up creators,” said fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff to Forbes. “I am so inspired by what she has developed and know that it will only help propel the users further in their career.”
The WeWoreWhat creator says MOE is meant for “micro-influencers,” which applies to any influencer with a following between 1,000 and 100,000 followers who have a growing brand to manage but aren’t big enough to hire a team for invoicing and scheduling yet. The goal of MOE is to take the place of an assistant who would organize documents and content across an influencer’s emails, social media platforms, and Google Docs. MOE also gives influencers an easy way to share changes and comments on projects with the brands they collaborate with.
“This is the culmination of my entire career and next step in legitimizing the entire influencer industry,” Bernstein told Forbes. “This is the first tool created specifically for influencers.”
MOE Competition?
Since MOE is created with influencers in mind, the competition from other project management platforms, like Trello, doesn’t pose a threat, as they’re not optimized for the way influencers conduct business. Other platforms lack invoicing and payment tools, so with MOE’s partnership with Stripe, influencers will be able to invoice and accept payments through MOE itself.
“Getting paid on time is one of the biggest pain points of the influencer industry,” Bernstein told Entrepreneur. The influencer marketing industry has seen heightened growth and is expected to reach $15 billion by 2022. The goal of MOE is to put the power back in influencers’ hands and help aspiring entrepreneurs with growing their business.
“MOE Assist shows that being an influencer is a business,” said fitness influencer Melissa Wood-Tepperburg to Forbes. “When you’re partnering with the right person, Instagram influencers can really make an impact on your brand.”
Is MOE the Future of Influencer Marketing?
With MOE, Bernstein has changed the business of social media marketing and changed the game for influencers. The WeWoreWhat creator gives her subscribers the benefits of having an assistant at a fraction of the cost of hiring one. “The reason that influencers are successful is because we represent real people,” said Bernstein to Forbes. “There is room for others to be successful in this industry. You just have to have the right tools.”
For the future, Bernstein plans to introduce other features to MOE Assist, such as a collaboration feature that allows influencers to share their project progress with brands and receive instant feedback and comments on caption drafts and other aspects of the campaign that need approval. With MOE Assist, influencers and brands would be able to communicate directly through the app. She also plans to take in user feedback to guide her in creating tools and features to include on MOE.
“We’re launching a product that’s really, really good, but in my eyes, it’s definitely not perfect yet,” the WeWoreWhat creator told Entrepreneur. “There’s so much we still have to build and develop and new features we want that we couldn’t get in time for launch. I keep thinking to myself, ‘I’m not going to love the first product, so I need to just get it out there and get people to start using it so I can get feedback and make it better.’”
Check Out These Other Influencers Who Have Created Their Own Apps/Tools:
Influencer | Product |
---|---|
Tessa “Tezza” Barton | Tezza– app that gives her followers access to presets for photos and videos, editing tools, and photo guides |
A Beautiful Mess | A Beautiful Mess– self-titled photo editing mobile app |
Iulia Danilova | Fit With Iulia– fitness app for workouts and at-home programs |
Jaci Marie Smith | Make Yourself Proud– online book/social media guide that helps readers plan their social media content and gaining an authentic following |