Meet Oliver Bourne, Co-Founder Of WYSPR

Tell us about WYSPR

In 2020, my partner Eliot Wood and I founded WYSPR with the vision of taking brands’ customers and empowering them to become content creators.

Our vision for the company was to take brands’ customers and empower them to become content creators. The best person to be creating and advocating for a brand is their customer; this way, we can inspire real user generated content (UGC) at scale.

UGC is so powerful because it does not look or feel like an advertisement; rather, it resonates as a trusted recommendation from a friend, which is widely accepted as the most authentic type of advocacy. At WYSPR’s, we call our unique UGC approach Friendfluencing™️ because we not only ask consumers to create content but also to post it on their social media.

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

The idea for WYSPR came to me and Eliot while we were sitting in our university campus gym, scrolling through social media and coming across an influencer’s post promoting a new release of a pair of trainers.

The post was unmistakably an advertisement, making it come across as inauthentic and, as a result, ineffective. We noticed that the post’s engagement rate was very low, at only 2.5%, which is below the influencer average.

However, with just one scroll down, our friend had created a similar video on his new trainers, and his content felt personal and engaging, resulting in 10x better engagement than the influencer (despite having significantly fewer followers).

We realised at the time that the digital creativity accessible among digital native generations, particularly Generation Z, was completely untapped. Brands and agencies didn’t have to pay influencers hundreds of thousands of pounds when they could reward their own community for producing more real content.
 

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

Over the last couple of years, WYSPR has evolved significantly. We’ve achieved remarkable year-on-year growth, with a revenue increase of 200%, even during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

We started as a basic software solution, where brands could only activate campaigns through WYSPR. But now, we’ve launched our SaaS platform, which is tailored for both brands and agencies, and this has been transformative for our business.

WYSPR has managed over 35 clients and onboarded 5,500 UGC creators, and our growth trajectory is not slowing down. We’re proud to have high-profile clients such as Marmite, Adobe, Franks Red Hot, and Hello Fresh.

What can we hope to see from WYSPR in the future?

Looking ahead, you can expect to see WYSPR expand our services internationally. We have plans to reach countries such as America and Australia, so brands and agencies around the world can start activating Friendfluencer UGC campaigns with ease.

We’re excited about the future and the global impact we can make in the world of user-generated content and brand advocacy.