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John Shahidi | |
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Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Other names | The Godfather of the Internet |
Years active | 2009–present |
Known for | Shots Podcast Network, Full Send, Nelk, Happy Dad Hard Seltzer, Bored Jerky |
Website | shots |
John Shahidi is the co-founder of Full Send, Happy Dad Hard Seltzer and Shots Podcast Network, home to top podcasters including Theo Von, Nelk Boys, Maxx Crosby and many UFC fighters.
On October 28, 2022, Shahidi became an investor and advisor to X and Elon Musk.
John Shahidi was born to an Iranian Kurdish family in Los Angeles, California and grew up in Orange County, California. [1]
He and his younger brother Sam Shahidi grew up in Southern California. They were raised by their mother and grandmother. [2] [3]
John and Sam Shahidi started developing iOS apps in 2009 [4] and started out as a video game development company called Rock Software, later renamed RockLive. [5] Their first commercial app was RunPee. Their childhood friend Jordan Palmer introduced the Shahidi brothers to former Cincinnati Bengals team member Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson. RockLive developed two apps for Ochocinco, Chad Ochocinco Experience, [6] and its follow-up, MadChad. [3]
More mobiles games were developed between 2019 and 2012, for Usain Bolt, Cristiano Ronaldo and Mike Tyson. [3] [7] [8] [9] [10]
RockLive released Shots, [10] a selfie photo sharing app, in November 2013. It was launched with Justin Bieber & Floyd Mayweather as investors. [2]
Shots grew to a user base of 7 million users in March 2016, but dropped to 2.5 million in October 2016. [11] At one point, Twitter was in talks to buy Shots for US$150 million. [12] [13]
After raising $12.1 million in funding in 2015 and with the number of the Shots app users dropping, the company pivoted from software to content. RockLive rebranded to Shots Studios, a talent agency and production studio for social media personalities, predominantly on YouTube. [11] [13] [14] Investors included boxer Floyd Mayweather [10] and singer Justin Bieber. [3] [8]
Shots Studios became Shots Podcast network in 2020 after pivoting all YouTube channels to podcasts during the Covid-19 lockdowns. This came after YouTube demonetized the Nelk Boys YouTube channel. [15]
In 2020, Shots Studios partnered with YouTube creators, The Nelk Boys to help their YouTube channels and Shahidi became President of their brand, Full Send.
On May 31, Nelk announced a new venture with Shahidi called Happy Dad Hard Seltzer's. [16]
Since running the Nelk operations, the company has begun launching and optimizing its own products and brought over $70M USD in revenue in 2020. [17]
Shahidi along with, Theo Von and the Nelk Boys via their Full Send Podcast played a significant role in supporting Donald Trump's 2024 campaign by mobilizing young male voters. [18]
Led by Shahidi, they initiated the "Send the Vote" campaign, which includes voter registration drives at sports events and male-oriented media, such as dating apps and sports podcasts. By partnering with Trump and leveraging their influence in "bro culture," the Nelk Boys focused to sway a traditionally liberal demographic toward Trump. [19] [20]
On April 20th 2024, Shahidi launched a new CPG beef jerky company “Bored Jerky” on Amazon and Boredjerky.com [21]
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