About Paul Numan

Paul Numan has worked in the software and publication space for many years. 

Paul shares, “I came to Ireland a number of years ago, started a few companies, sold them, and I’ve always wanted to get involved in this space of video and event media… I saw an opening in this with regards to what’s happening currently in the market.”

He noticed the significant issues online with how to validate people online and decided to add value to content creators by creating practical software to address this gap in the market. This realization led to the creation of Katch, a monetization platform that enables creators to earn stable revenue from their work through social events. 

What is Katch?

Katch provides creators with the software and platform needed to go live and monetize their events by allowing creators to charge for live shows. Attendees can interact with other like-minded fans, giving the events a live gig feel. 

Paul shares that Katch started with the rising issues of catfishing online. The Katch team began exploring and developing facial recognition software that allowed the platform to validate who a person is, creating a secure verification process. 

He adds, “By doing that, it creates more authenticity with regards to user interaction because you’re not afraid to deal with it because that person’s been validated.”

Paul shares that the Katch team sought a niche to break into. After noticing that many content creators were going live but struggling to make money from this, they decided to create additional monetization opportunities for creators. 

“They [the creators] are going live in a broadcast or dual broadcast amongst their fans, but also the users of Katch, so it allows them to generate income, but also their fans can mingle because their fans have a lot in common with one another.”

For example, fans may connect over their shared love of a creator, a hobby, beauty products, and more. Paul notes that Katch also brings fans together socially and intellectually, with some events aiming to foster friendships or romantic relationships between attendees.. 

How Can Creators Monetize Lives with Katch?

Katch allows creators to charge on a pay-per-view basis. The broadcast is released to fans and Katch network viewers, providing creators with a larger audience. 

Creators using Katch can make 80% to 90% of the money generated from their broadcast, which is significantly higher than other platforms. 

Many creators fear losing a primary income stream, especially when content creation is a full-time job. Katch is working to alleviate these fears by not working in an agency-like role. 

Paul shares, “We are providing the platform that enables them to go live to their fans. So, if we were Metallica and we were going live, we could make a very good living out of our fans. Now those fans are generally on other social media outlets…. So, you’re bringing your own fans, but you’re also enabling yourself to present yourself to the Katch users.”

In other words, Katch builds off a creator’s existing fans on other social media platforms while providing creators with more new audience members from their own platform. This setup ensures the creator will always have their existing fan base on other platforms while giving them additional monetization opportunities. 

Paul adds, “We have looked at, and we are at the moment paying a retainer fee for quite a lot of our influencers, so I suppose we look at that because we want to make sure that they are secure and have a good scale platform to provide good entertainment to their fans and our fans.”

How Do Creators Start on Katch?

For creators interested in broadcasting on this platform, they can sign up as a creator and contact the Katch team. Paul shares that the team will discuss the creator’s abilities, ideas, and more. 

If interested, they’ll look into creating a segment for the platform and how Katch and the creator can market the show together. During the creation process, Katch and the creator will perfect the feeling of the show and curate a specific ambiance. 

One thing that is heavily considered is how the creator can differentiate the Katch show from their other free content. In this way, the content can be more special and unique so that the end user is willing to pay to view it. 

The Future of the Creator Economy

Paul explains that, like other industries, the creator economy is oversaturated. Katch is looking for the top creators with top engagement, which is a good indicator that the creator will last and be able to monetize effectively. 

“That kind of validates who can actually monetize content because there’s quite a lot of them that produce a lot of fun content, but no one’s willing to engage. There’s no engagement factor. There’s no longevity in the user… I think there’s going to be a point where the cream rises to the top.”

Katch’s Future Plans

Paul shares that he expects video and live broadcasting will only continue to grow in the future. 

He notes, “Video is a new thing for most people, and I suppose live video is another big thing because people are now going live, and they’re getting used to going live on Zoom or TikTok. I suppose the way that we’re going to interact with anything is going to be live and video, and I think that’s going to be for dating, friends, applications, everything.”

Following this trend, Paul believes that the next big step is how to monetize live content, and he anticipates seeing a big push for monetization tools for live content. 

“From the point of view of Katch, we see ourselves as being a small software company in this larger space, but what we look towards is providing an entertainment service to keep people entertained because one thing that Katch does well is that we really simulate a bar environment.”

Katch creates a bar-like environment by allowing the audience to meet the entertainer, clap in time, hang out and chat with others, and more. 

“I think you’re going to hear a lot more [about Katch] because these content creators will see the value of them earning more. We have some content creators making 30,000 euros a week.”