Meet Lawrence Kao, CEO & Founder, The Companion
A Social Marketplace for Fans to connect with Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Gaming Celebrities
We recently caught up with Lawrence Kao, CEO and Founder, of The Companion. Learn more about his journey from Oxford to founding a social marketplace where fans book their favorite sci-fi, fantasy, and gaming celebrities for meaningful live video calls.
What did you study at Oxford?
I was a member of New College, matriculating in 2007, and studied for an MBA at the Said Business School.
Did your Oxford experience contribute to starting the company?
Indirectly! I’m a huge Harry Potter fan and the fourth film has scenes shot at New College.
What motivated you to start The Companion?
I wanted to create a high quality and safe space for fans. My wife is a former pro gamer and all around geek. She quit because of the toxicity and abuse she used to get at tournaments and conventions. I realized that for fans, it’s incredibly hard to meet their favorite celebrities and for Talent, it’s hard to maximize the value of their influence, with followers, and fans.
How do you know what fans want?
We built and still run a community of 10,000 fans and have learned from them what they want most:
1) Meet their heroes
2) Meet other fans
If there is a fan-version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, those are the fundamental needs. No matter if it’s an athlete, musician, or actor, we all want to meet our heroes.
Today, The Companion Marketplace connects fans with hard to reach showrunners, actors, and experts through meaningful live video calls - 30 min can change a fan’s life.
How did the pandemic affect your company?
Lockdown fundamentally changed our behavior. The pandemic made everyone (your mom, grandparents, and kids) experts at Zoom and virtual relationships are completely normalized. It means celebrity relationships can now change. Previously celebrity meets were limited to physical locations, now it can be global and it’s just as meaningful as real life.
What is your most rewarding accomplishment to date as a founder?
Seeing fan feedback that our events are creating life changing memories. I’ve never before been at a company where the product can rank as a Top 5 moment of the year (yes like birth of a niece, friends wedding-type rank). That’s our KPI for the next 3 months, we want to create 5,000 new “core memories” and our overall goal is to create 1 million life changing memories for fans.
Why is the Oxford Angel Fund excited about this investment?
There are estimated 117 million super fans who spend on average $3000+ per year on fan-related activities. To learn more visit thecompanion.app.
The Companion
The Social Marketplace for fans to connect with celebrities.
Founder: Lawrence Kao
Founded: October 2020
Stage: Pre-seed, Q3 2022
Notable Investors: Precursor VC, Parade VC, Jim Lanzone (CEO of Yahoo), Neil Blair (Chairman of Harry Potter)
The Companion provides a Social Marketplace where fans can book their favorite sci-fi, fantasy, and gaming celebrities for meaningful live video calls - 30 minutes can change your life.