If you follow the conventional wisdom around an influencer’s lifespan, you know they start living their best life, then define a strong content niche and build an engaged audience. Then they do lots of brand collabs and make a fair amount of money. Then they diversify and get into creating their own products, services or even a full on media platform. Mr. Beast is an example of the latter. Jake Paul is another influencer turned big star. Lilly Singh went from YouTuber to late night TV star. Technically, you can add Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen, Megan Thee Stallion and many more big celebs to that influencer success journey.  The ones who leveraged their influence to launch their own products range from the Khardashians to Michelle Phan. You may remember our chat with Aaron Hefter and Felicia Hershenhorn from July of 2021. They launched Imarais Beauty with Sommer Ray whom I chatted with for an article I wrote around the same time.  Another previous episode of Winfluence you may recall is my talk with Daniel Stone and Lou Montemayor from Bandolier Media. That was in June of 2021. Bandolier Media is a multiple time Ad Age Small Agency of the Year award winner that earned a reputation for creating influencers. They launched Just a Construction Guy, Unemployed Wine Guy, Duck Tape Man, the Lawn Whisperer. These half-real, half-advertising creations were intentionally tied to brands and created as Instagrammers and YouTubers … regular old influencers. Just a Construction Guy broke off from his original brand collaboration and just became a regular creator. He’s a real guy. And really a construction guy, too.  Well, Daniel, Lou, George Ellis and the Bandolier Team is up to a variation on the theme. They’ve used their content creator thinking and inspiration to launch … a new product. Roasty Buds coffee hit the virtual shelves last fall. It’s the world’s first spicy coffee. Since the launch Roasty Buds has become one of the premier flavored coffees in the world with variations that include Kinda Spicy, Xtra Spicy and Xxxtra Insane Spicy. They recently added Texas BBQ and Cherry Glaze Smoked BBQ flavored coffee. The idea is just weird enough to get attention, which is Bandolier’s pedigree. So the agency that creates influencers has now skipped the influencer and created a product.  On this episode of Winfluence, we’ll welcome Daniel and Lou back to the program, and add George to the conversation, to explain how Spicy Buds evolved from influencer marketing and where the Bandolier of crazy creative brains are going with influence in 2023.  This episode of Winfluence is presented by CIPIO.ai. We help brands solve a couple of big problems. We also have free solutions for creators you need to know about.  For the brands out there, what CIPIO.ai does best is source authentic and high-performing user-generated content you can use to fuel your paid, owned, earned and shared content strategies. UGC performs better. We help you get as much of it as you want. If you also want those users to post the UGC on their channels to become influential voices for your brand, our software helps make that happen, too.  For you creators, when you authenticate into CIPIO.ai’s platform, we have a free media kit you can use to market your influence, content and channels to brands. You can customize it, then pop out a PDF or a web version to share. You can even create different versions for different clients on the fly. We also have an incredible referral program that pays you 20% commission on the first year’s revenue from any brand you refer to CIPIO.ai.  You can learn more at CIPIO.ai. And if you’d like to set up a call with me to personally show you the platform and how it can benefit you and your brand, jump over to jasonfalls.co/cipio, fill out that form and we’ll set up some time to talk.  CIPIO.ai - We’re building a Community Commerce Marketing Super App that has something in it for you and your business. Come see