Flossmoor resident Keithan Hedrick has been a fan of “Shark Tank” as long as the show has been on television. He is more than familiar with the structure; he knows the pace. He has sat in front of his television, asking the same questions as the sharks — a panel of investors who listen as entrepreneurs pitch their businesses in an effort to strike funding deals.
Still, it was “surreal,” he said, when he and his wife, Quiante Hedrick, were on that stage themselves to pitch their company — Candi, a web platform that for a fee connects fans with celebrities and influencers for video chats. While they cannot discuss the results before the episode airs at 7 p.m. Friday on ABC, Keithan said it was an incredible experience being on the other side of the camera.
“To really be there, to really go through the process, to really be in front of those sharks answering those questions is something that is really a dream,” he said.
Keithan said the goal is, of course, to partner with a shark to get the money they need to grow their business. But just being on national television provides a boost of its own.
“Especially for a smaller business, you can’t pay for that level of marketing,” he said. “We just couldn’t afford to be on national TV, prime time, for the 4-8 minute slot that you may or may not have. Going in, you hope if nothing else you get aired. … If you can get air to get that exposure, deal or no deal, you’ve won.”
That exposure also sometimes leads to unforeseen opportunities, Keithan said. The creators of a product then known as Doorbot failed to strike a deal with investors on “Shark Tank.” The company ended up being bought by Amazon for more than $1 billion. It is now known as Ring.
There are two ways entrepreneurs find themselves on “Shark Tank.” Some audition; though many do not get chosen. Others are invited by producers.
“We were fortunate that producers reached out to us about being on the show, and we thank them for that,” Keithan said.
But filming does not guarantee that a segment will be shown. The Hedricks learned just three weeks before the air date that they had made the cut and are excited for others to finally see it. Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Kevin O’Leary and Lori Greiner are the sharks for the episode. Actor Kevin Hart also appears as a surprise guest shark.
“It was exciting,” Quiante said. “I was very nervous going into it. You see these people on TV, and it’s like, there’s no screen between you. They’re right here. This is live. It was an amazing opportunity and an amazing experience.”
Keithan said his goal is to take Candi public in the next five years. He would also love to see superstars the likes of Jay-Z or Beyoncé on the platform one day.
“I think we’ll be happy when every fan out there has a chance to connect with somebody they idolize,” Keithan said. “I think that’s important.”
Business builders
Keithan and Quiante Hedrick moved to Flossmoor in August after living the previous five years in Homewood. Keithan, who has been practicing law for six years, played football at Eastern Illinois University and earned his undergraduate degree there in three years before heading to the University of Illinois for law school. Quiante, who runs Candi full-time, got her undergraduate degree at U of I, also in just three years.
“In our household, if you graduate in four years you’re a slouch,” Keithan said with a laugh.
Quiante also attended law school until she and Keithan started a company called Instaspeakers together. Instaspeakers offered a video chat with a live translator on demand, no matter where in the world people were. Quiante originally left law school to focus on that business.
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic happened.
“Our key customer demographic was U.S. travelers traveling to non-English speaking countries,” Keithan said. “Our timing was terrible. Beginning of 2020 comes, our customer base evaporates overnight.”
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But the idea for Candi had been brewing since December 2019, and they quickly shifted to that plan. The Hedricks make no bones that their platform was inspired by and in some ways made possible by the success of Cameo, a video sharing platform that lets people pay celebrities for prerecorded messages. Keithan and Quiante found themselves watching Cameo reaction videos on YouTube one day.
“We saw fans crying, ecstatic,” Keithan said. “They’re having a good time. … We said, ‘this is an amazing product, but the natural next iteration of it is, instead of somebody giving you the phone and telling you to press play, what if you got the phone and the celebrity is actually there and you could interact with them, have a conversation as opposed to just watch the prerecorded video?”
The idea was to take down another wall between celebrities and their fans.
“You can only go so far on Instagram,” Keithan said. “You can only go so far on Twitter. You can only go so far on YouTube. We’re breaking through that third dimension and really letting them interact.”
To do that, they needed celebrities. So, the couple turned to social media, sending direct messages to celebrities and anyone connected to them.
“We definitely tracked them down and hunted them on social media — their cousins, all the agents and managers we could get our hands on,” Quiante said. “It was a lot of groundwork.”
Because Keithan still works as a lawyer full-time, Quiante, six months pregnant when they started, did much of that groundwork. She took meetings even while she was at the hospital, working full-time to build the company at the height of the pandemic.
“She’s hustled and worked hard,” Keithan said. “It was a grind, but I’m proud of the work we’ve been able to do together.”
The business model for Candi, which stands for “celebrities and influencers,” clicked quickly. Celebrities who use the service at meetcandi.com set their own rates, with fans getting 5 minutes for any given rate. But the platform allows fans to increase their sessions in 5-minute increments for additional fees, at the celebrity’s booking discretion. People can also purchase video recordings of their chat for an additional fee. Candi gets 25% of the sales, while the talent takes home 75%.
Candi launched in April 2020. Since then, 350 celebrities and influences have participated and Candi has completed more than 2,500 meetings.
“It just couldn’t have been a better business model at that point in the pandemic,” Keithan said. “Celebrities weren’t doing anything. All the shows weren’t filmed, the concerts were canceled, and fans were at home quarantining and they needed something to do for entertainment.”
Keithan said customers tend to come back for more, with 40% of them booking at least four times.
“We really have a stickiness with our product,” he said.
Beyond the continued success of their business, Keithan hopes their television appearance and story of how they built their business inspires.
“You really can do anything you want to do,” he said. “Me and Quiante went from watching these (celebrities) to talking to them, being able to meet with them backstage at their concerts. We went from literally no connections to Hollywood because we had the will and desire.”
A big part of that desire is about carving out a space in that industry for Black entrepreneurs.
“As Black founders, particularly in the entertainment space, our goal at the outset was to be able to provide some ownership representation to Black entertainers,” Keithan said. “So many times … Black entertainers are so much of the talent and a lot of times drive so much of the revenue but have almost no representation at the ownership level. Building Candi was also about that for us — being able to be a Black-owned company that’s an entertainment company that can hopefully be a multibillion dollar company one day that also utilizes Black creatives and entertainers but also is owned by Black creatives and entertainers.”
Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.