Grin CEO on Why Every Company Needs a Salesforce for Creators

Over the past decade, dozens of influencer marketing firms have cropped up to broker deals between internet personalities and advertisers trying to reach their audiences. Agents, managers and other staff handle negotiating prices and coming up with creative ideas and strategies. 

Grin takes a more tech-heavy approach. The $910 million-valuation startup sells software that streamlines the process of running campaigns with creators, similar to how companies use customer relationship management services, or CRMs, for marketing and sales.

“Every consumer brand in the world, I believe, will have a creator management platform in the future. The same way that every B2B company has something like a CRM or Salesforce,” Brandon Brown, Grin’s CEO and co-founder, said in an interview with The Information. “There should be no middleman between a brand and creators.”