Podcast: Youssef Ahres, Co-Founder & CEO of Flagship
Podcast: Youssef Ahres, Co-Founder & CEO of Flagship
Talking Instagram, Apple ATT Changes, and a New Paradigm in Creator Commerce
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Podcast: Youssef Ahres, Co-Founder & CEO of Flagship
Hey Everyone 👋 ,
Today, I’m sharing my first-ever podcast episode. Please bear with me, as this is new to me! But I’d like to run an experiment—this winter, I’ll release 10 podcast episodes over 10 weeks. Guests will include entrepreneurs, investors, and startup operators—people who I think have front-row seats to the bleeding edge of technology and how it’s changing our lives.
My view is that our society is suffering from an epidemic of overly-long podcasts, so I’d like to keep these short: ideally 20-25 minutes, but definitely capped at 30.
This week, my guest is Youssef Ahres, the co-founder and CEO of Flagship. Flagship is building the infrastructure behind creator-curated online storefronts. At Index, we were fortunate to co-lead Flagship’s Seed round alongside Sequoia and some excellent angels. Before starting Flagship, Youssef spent six years building creator and commerce products at Instagram. We talk about what he learned at Instagram, why social commerce is unsolved in the West, and how Flagship aims to change that. This episode dovetails with this week’s piece, Flagship and the Future of Creator Commerce.
I’d love any and all feedback, and I expect (and hope!) I’ll improve on this whole podcast thing over time. You can listen below on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts.
In this conversation, we talk about:
(2:10) What Flagship is
(2:57) Who are the people who will have boutiques on Flagship
(4:50) Why Youssef likes the word “Tastemaster”
(6:40) The shift from sponsored posts to storefronts
(8:00) What it looks like to launch a Flagship boutique
(10:35) Why every brand and creator problem is an attribution problem
(11:17) How Apple’s ATT changes everything
(14:25) The “why now” for Flagship
(15:38) Why Big Tech platforms won’t be the winners in social commerce
(18:30) Why brands are okay giving away a share of revenue
(20:00) Who the real winner in social commerce is right now
(21:40) How creators are the future of retail
(25:30) The biggest problem with influencer marketing
(28:00) What motivates Youssef
Thanks for listening—Episode 2 will come next week.
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