MEET PAUL BENIGERI, THE FOUNDER BEHIND ARCHIVE
Archive is a trailblazer in the influencer marketing industry and a leader in e-commerce, thanks in large part to its innovative applications of technology and AI. CEO Paul Benigeri brings a bachelor’s in Computer Science from Stanford and real-world experience as the VP of growth and engineering at an F&B startup to Archive, which he has been running with co-founder Geoffrey Woo since 2021. We chatted with Paul about how Archive first took off, the realities of being a founder, and where the company is headed in the next year. Check out the full interview below.
What inspired you to create Archive, and how did the idea come about?
Originally we set out to eliminate the manual labor involved in managing influencer content. The traditional process of scrolling Instagram endlessly, screenshotting posts and stories, and then manually uploading them was highly inefficient. We focused on two key areas for improvement. First, the surge in short-form video content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels created a demand for better tracking, which existing platforms struggled to support. This left brands with disorganized content and no effective way to manage it. Second, while AI tools like ChatGPT were getting more powerful, no one was integrating them into influencer marketing workflows. We set out to be leaders in embedding AI to streamline influencer marketers’ jobs. We’re automating labor-intensive tasks and developing technology specifically for short-form videos, improving the influencer marketer’s experience and reducing their manual effort.
Did you experience any pain points when bringing Archive to life?
Every day presents a mix of challenges, like any startup. We solve problems constantly, whether they're customer-related, team issues, or technology failures. It's a roller coaster of highs and lows. One significant challenge was overextending ourselves last year. We raised a substantial amount of money, which allowed us to expand but also led to overspending and juggling too many projects. This resulted in forfeiting half a million dollars worth of contracts to refocus on our core business. This decision affected our team, customers, and morale, but it was necessary. Despite the difficulties, we managed to rebuild relationships and refocus our efforts. The key takeaway is that while daily problems are inevitable, maintaining perspective and focusing on long-term goals amidst the chaos is crucial.
How did you scale Archive and when did you know it was time to build a team?
Yeah, it was pretty interesting. We started the company right around COVID-19, so even my co-founder, Geoff, and I worked for six months without being face to face. Once we started growing the team, for a long time we didn’t have any face-to-face meetings. We’d do a little get together here or there, but from day one we pushed extremely hard to have rigor around our asynchronous communication and how we do meetings. Every meeting was recorded and we had really good meeting notes, which meant we could work with people around the world. One of the awesome things about Archive is how incredibly diverse our team is — I can't even count the countries we have represented. As a result, we've been able to bring on exceptionally strong people, without having a lot of people leave. We've had to let go of people from a performance perspective, but we've never had a person who pops and says, ‘I'm leaving because I want to work on another thing.’
As a founder, what do you believe is the most important part of building a team and company culture?
I think that it's been really, really special to have the quality of talent and the retention that we have. We have great people and all these cool standards, but I think the most amazing thing about our culture is that we have tremendous long-lasting relationships with many people on the team. From day one, we had an insane level of trust and depth of collaboration. That helped us build culture through osmosis, without having to be that deliberate about it. Then if we're deliberate on top of that, we can accelerate progress too.
What sets Archive apart from other influencer marketing platforms?
Over the next 12 months, we’re moving to having AI coordinators inside of Archive that can do a lot of these manual tasks for influencer managers. We're about to release our first couple of AI coordinators. The first can search and find influencers for you. The next one can run reports for you. We'll have an AI coordinator that watches every single piece of content your brand gets tagged in and can give you a recap every week. Those are just some of the things that are going to save brands 1000s of hours and give them a tremendous amount of leverage. We're very excited to be some of the earliest to tune this awesome AI tech that's being developed around the world in a way that’s digestible and easy to use for influencer marketers, without any configuration or development overhead.
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their own tech or marketing platform?
Ownership is crucial. Many assume it's enough to delegate less critical tasks, but that approach can backfire. From the start, we knew we had to give our team members true ownership, even if others doubted the decision — especially considering the bias against offshore talent outside the U.S. We took a risk by placing someone with limited English skills directly in front of customers from day one. This decision paid off, as it allowed him to grow rapidly. Now, he's confidently engaging with billion-dollar brands, a progression that wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn't trusted him with real responsibilities early on and hadn't shown the determination to learn and improve through those challenging initial calls.
What's next for Archive?
We are seeing incredible inbound from major enterprise brands. This marks a significant step for us as a SaaS company, expanding from working with impressive mid-market brands with $300 to $500 million in revenue to now offering more robust solutions for global players. One particularly cool example is our collaboration with a large beauty company, where we're helping them live translate UGC content to English. Their U.S. team needed a better way to watch Chinese influencer videos; they had been relying on Google Translate. Now with Archive, they can watch influencers around the world in real-time, with live AI-driven translations into English. We're thrilled about the innovative tech solutions we have in the pipeline.
