Catch+Release is a content licensing platform that helps brands and agencies legally discover, license, and use user-generated content from creators for commercial campaigns, providing an efficient solution for accessing authentic visuals while ensuring creators are compensated. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Catch+Release CEO and founder Analisa Goodin to learn more about the company.
Analisa Goodin’s Background
What is Analisa Goodin’s background? Goodin said:
“I started my career as a visual artist, went to graduate school for art theory, and came out with several side hustles, one of which was working as an image researcher in the ad production industry. And that’s where I met creative directors, editors, producers, and business affairs folks at agencies and within big brands. I began learning about the gap between an advertiser’s visual needs and the tools available to fulfill them. They were limited to either shooting content themselves, which was super expensive and slow, or relying on stock imagery, which was generic, cheap, and commoditized.”
“My job was to scour the internet for more interesting original visuals, whether photography, film or even music and sound—creative assets sitting on the internet. I would find them, bring them to my clients, and ultimately license them. That’s when I identified this missing link in the industry. Who would streamline the process of licensing all these amazing assets on the internet when it wasn’t really a marketplace? Somebody had to transform it into a marketplace for this $75 billion market, plagued with challenges.”
“After going through the process countless times, it dawned on me—I had stumbled upon a product roadmap. I needed to raise funds, assemble a proper engineering team, and build it. And that’s how Catch+Release was born.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Goodin reflected:
“My favorite memory was the moment I recognized the difference between being a founder and being a CEO. I, like many others, hold the position of both founder and CEO, and I really enjoy both experiences. As a founder, I built the company from scratch in my spare bedroom and now I get to share my passion and vision with those around me. As a CEO, I’m now an employee of the company that I founded and a teammate to those who are also my employees. This is where I get to roll up my sleeves and help the business grow.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Goodin explained:
“Catch+Release is the licensing layer of the internet, and our product has two main pillars. The first is discovery — exploring images and videos from all over the internet. The other is content licensing — clearing permission from the copyright owner(s) and facilitating a license purchase. Using our platform, you can do all of this faster and easier than doing it on your own. We’ll also help you organize talent releases, payments, and all other licensing components.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Goodin and the team faced in building the company? Goodin acknowledged:
“Every day brings a new challenge, big and small. On a macro level, during the last few years, we’ve been in a tough financial market which can have impacts on our customers in the form of budget cuts, re-orgs, and layoffs. For entrepreneurs, fundraising has been especially challenging. I’m proud to say that we successfully raised a round last year when the probability was at its lowest. My advice to founders is to focus on a problem you are deeply passionate about solving for the market – your passion and curiosity is one thing you can consistently rely on. One of my favorite quotes, and one that I share with my team often, is from Winston Churchill. He said, “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” This sums up my experience as an entrepreneur. Failure is inevitable, but the key is to keep moving. You really have to have the attitude that you’re going to be inspired, motivated, and excited to persevere daily.”
“The same advice applies to other challenges I’ve faced, that other entrepreneurs face too. For example, executing a strategy you’re so confident about and it not panning out the way you’d planned, or realizing you’ve hired the wrong person, and just making the wrong call here and there. Stay focused on the problem you’re solving, remain customer-centric, and let the passion for addressing market pain fuel your journey.”
Evolution Of Catch+Release’s Technology
How has Catch+Release’s technology evolved since launching? Goodin noted:
“I’m really proud of the work our product and engineering teams have done. Since our platform launched, we’ve continued to build a system that makes it easy to find and license visual content. We’re constantly seeing new stuff on the platform. Last Fall, we announced our Creator Community Marketplace, which is where creative and production teams can search for visual content that they might want to use in their campaigns. It’s a deep repository of stunning shots from people who are actively interested in licensing their content to brands for commercial use. The marketplace is also powered by an AI-enhanced semantic search engine which makes it easy to find what you need based on very simple search queries. You don’t have to think too hard about it. We’re also doing everything we can to make it easy for creators to get notified when a licensing opportunity comes their way and to give their sign off.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Goodin cited:
“Two come to mind. The first is launching the Creator Community Marketplace to provide creative and production teams a more accessible, higher quality, and more reliable source of visual content. These teams need content fast. Our creators respond quickly, their content is more likely to be selected for campaigns, and our AI-powered search engine can scrape all of the content in seconds to find exactly what you need.”
“The second milestone is the automation of our clearance workflow. Clearance is the process of contacting copyright holders and models to get their permission to license and use their content. A successful licensing transaction requires thorough communication, and a lot of it. Our product has made this process much more streamlined than, say, when I was doing all of this manually as a media researcher back in the day.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Goodin about the company’s customer success stories, she highlighted:
“Teleflora, a flower delivery company, worked with us to create a Mother’s Day ad that became their highest-performing ad of all time. It featured UGC (user generated content) clips of moms with their children in very emotional situations ranging from watching their babies take their first steps to watching them get married, and seeing them off on their first day of kindergarten. These heartwarming moments made for a very emotional spot. Teleflora had never used UGC for their campaigns before and had mainly relied on stock imagery and in-house shooting.”
“We’ve seen a lot of success with some very successful companies. We work with Meta, TikTok, Apple, and many other brands to license UGC content specifically for their campaigns as a way of shining a light on the voice of their customers and platform users. So, our platform plays a crucial role in helping our clients publish the best content possible.”
Funding
Upon asking Goodin about the company’s funding and revenue details, she revealed:
“Since launching the product, it’s been on a 100-150% growth trajectory over the last couple of years. It’s an exciting time for us; we exceeded our sales and pipeline plans in Q1 and are off to the races.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Goodin assessed:
“The advertising industry in itself is around $500 billion or so. We concentrate solely on the costs associated with making and producing content, which amounts to about 75 billion in the US alone. Catch+Release is primarily focused on the production market.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Goodin affirmed:
“Catch+Release is the first-to-market as a company that automates content licensing. That said, we still compete with the status quo. Creative and production teams are familiar with their go-to options for coming up with campaign content. Those options are 1) shoot original production or 2) license stock imagery. With Catch+Release, the options have expanded, and we’re doing our best to educate the industry about this new approach.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Goodin pointed out:
“We’d love to grow our Creator Community so that more people have the opportunity to get their content in front of brands. If we can get more and more social media users to link their profiles to Catch+Release, they can be sure that if a brand finds their content, they can work out a safe and legal licensing agreement with the help of Catch+Release. It can be daunting for a normal person to correspond with a big name brand. Commercial content licensing is in itself an entire legal discipline. So Catch+Release is happy to help everyday creators, and we’d love to be helping more and more of them.”
“Another goal of ours is to get the market to agree that licensing is proper and to also have a basic understanding of how content licensing works. In a time where more and more people are concerned about the way generative AI is ripping off human ideas, it’s important to grasp the meaning of conceptual usage and to not steal, lift, or rip content from others without permission. At Catch+Release, we’ve worked hard to make sure that licensing is accessible to brands and creative agencies. We’ve made it easy for our clients to pick and choose the specific use cases they need a license for, which means they can basically work out a license that’s a la carte. It’s really a no brainer; Catch+Release is the way to go.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Goodin concluded:
“The future of licensing, as it pertains to generative AI, is a bit of an unknown. Many content creators and marketers have rejected the use of AI creations for a variety of reasons: legal uncertainty, inauthenticity of content, hypocrisy with stated values, desire to prioritize funding human creators, and more.”
“No matter what happens with gen AI, traditional, human-created content isn’t going away. It’s the best, and pretty much only, way to train any AI model worth using. So it will be interesting to see what progress we might see whether initiated through government legislation or by popular consensus.”
