Get Gino talking about the work creators pour into their careers, and his passion quickly becomes contagious. He deeply appreciates the people powering the business and has firm ideas about what they deserve in return.
"Having spent years in the industry, I saw firsthand how much revenue creators were giving up just to have a place to sell their content," Gino explains. "It never sat right with me. Creators are the reason these platforms exist, so I wanted to build a business model that puts them first by allowing them to keep 100% of what they earn."
Creators invest an incredible amount of time, money and effort into running their businesses. They're producing content, marketing themselves, engaging with fans and managing everything behind the scenes. In my opinion, they deserve to keep what they earn.
For Gino, respecting creators as independent business owners also meant giving them a voice in the platform they would be using.
"From the beginning, the vision was much bigger than just creating another clip site," he says. "I wanted to build a platform alongside creators, not just for them."
Feedback From the Front Lines
Gino and his team invited more than 70 beta testers from a range of backgrounds and experience levels to put YourVids through its paces. He gave them room to be candid about what worked, what frustrated them and what the team had overlooked.
"Our beta testers challenged assumptions, pointed out pain points, and suggested features we hadn't considered," he says. "Many of those ideas made it into the platform before launch. That process reinforced something I already believed: the best products are built by listening to the people who use them."
The back-and-forth that began during beta testing has continued between the YourVids team and the creators they serve.
"To me, community-first means being accessible and actually listening," Gino explains. "When creators suggest improvements, those conversations don't disappear into a backlog. We discuss them internally, and when they make sense, our development team works to implement them as quickly as possible."
That feedback has helped YourVids reflect the varied ways creators work and connect with fans, whether through clip sales, direct messaging, community forums or its digital boutique.
"Some fans want to purchase clips, others want more direct interaction, and some enjoy being part of a creator's community," Gino says. "By offering different tools from day one, creators have more flexibility to build the business that works best for them."
Back in the Trenches
YourVids came more than a decade into Gino’s career. He’d already co-founded ManyVids and BranditScan, two very different businesses that let him see the creator economy from multiple angles and clarify what he wanted to bring to his next venture.
"Both experiences taught me something different," he reflects. "ManyVids showed me what it takes to build and scale a platform serving millions of users, while BranditScan reinforced the importance of staying focused on creators and solving the problems they actually face."
Having watched platforms evolve from the inside, Gino understands how easily growth can create distance between a company and its community.
"One of the biggest lessons I took away was that platforms need to keep listening as they grow," he says. "It's easy for companies to become disconnected from the people using their products every day."
In his latest venture, that hard-earned perspective has deepened his commitment to staying close to the people in the trenches.
"The biggest lesson was that no one understands what creators need better than creators themselves," Gino affirms. "They're the ones using these platforms every day, so their feedback is incredibly valuable."
Respecting the Work
That philosophy shows up most clearly in YourVids' 100% payout model, which lets creators keep the full amount they set as their content price.
"Creators invest an incredible amount of time, money, and effort into running their businesses," Gino observes. "They're producing content, marketing themselves, engaging with fans and managing everything behind the scenes. In my opinion, they deserve to keep what they earn."
For creators, retaining more revenue means they have the resources to upgrade equipment, hire an editor, travel for collaborations or simply gain greater financial stability. Collectively, those dollars can create room to experiment, improve and grow.
"For years, the industry has accepted large revenue shares as the standard, but I don't think that's the only way to build a sustainable business anymore," Gino says. "We wanted to prove that a platform can succeed while putting creators first. If creators are bringing the value, they should be the ones benefiting the most from their work."
Growing Without Losing Touch
Looking ahead, Gino wants to improve how fans find creators and continue adding features based on their feedback. Through it all, he wants the community to remain close enough to tell him what is working and what needs to change.
"Our goal is to continue building the most creator-focused platform in the industry," he says. "That means expanding our feature set, improving discovery, giving creators even more tools to grow their businesses and continuing to listen to feedback as we evolve."
For Gino, success would also mean raising expectations across the industry. His years in the trenches taught him how to build and scale a platform, while he sees his latest venture as an opportunity to prove how far one can go when the people powering it remain at the center.
"More than anything, I want YourVids to help shift expectations across the industry," he concludes. "If we can prove that it's possible to build a successful platform while putting creators first, I think that's a win not just for us, but for creators as a whole. The people producing the content should always be at the center of the platform they're helping build."
