Meet Blaise Hope, founder of Origin Hope

Blaise Hope, founder and CEO of Origin Hope, brings two decades of media experience to his groundbreaking content partnership venture. Beginning with internships at GQ and Tatler, Blaise's journey took him from studying in the US to becoming a prime time news presenter and producer in Southeast Asia, with live news broadcasts and taped interviews under his belt.

What sparked the launch of Origin Hope to address the challenges of reliable content solutions? 

I was a journalist and drawn to the information and content world from a very early age. I won internships at Vogue House with GQ and Tatler when I was 16 and was invited back, interning almost every holiday I had at GQ up to the age of 19. By that point I had taken a chance on applying to the Medill School at Northwestern University - the US’s best Journalism school at undergraduate level - and got in. It was an intense 4-year degree with a low acceptance and high dropout rate, and required higher level courses in all academic disciplines. I also worked Chicago’s South side as the murder rate exploded and covered a Trans HIV population that was almost totally ignored.

A big influence was the collapse of US news and a prevailing sense of doom among my cohort. I was bullish about the future and felt there had to be a better way of doing things. I sought my residency at a trade publishing company and there learned the business side of journalism; the value of controlled and qualified audiences. I then pursued a career in Southeast Asia in a gamble that paid off in experience and influence at a very young age. There I was involved with anchoring the news and helping the director of an enormous integrated newsroom with managing and delineating streams of raw information coming in. I was also pulled in to help out on deals on rights or telecoms by other divisions of the conglomerate.

I was in a unique position to restructure content operations at what became a digital media monopoly.

In the process of that work, I realised that there were no good outsourcing options. Those securing funding for content startups didn’t really understand content in the way I did and nor did many of their investors, and those that did understand content did not understand that there had to be a radical rethink in how it should be addressed.

I always thought that people would eventually get it, but the higher I rose and the more I saw, I suddenly realised, “Nobody is going to fix this, unless I fix this.” So I made the jump.

Can you explain how Origin Hope leverages a blend of human-led editorial excellence, automation tools, and generative AI to accelerate content production?

The role I took on after being an anchor gave me free rein to tear up the rulebook and start from scratch, instituting training and delivering lectures in multiple languages, instituting new working practices inspired by what you’d see in large companies but totally different at the same time. The efficiencies that I brought into these content hubs in small cities out in the sticks meant they were rolled out group-wide and turned that employer into a digital media monopoly. To this day, my workflows, notes, rules and training sheets direct the content consumed by at least 10% of the world’s young people every day, and at least 4% of the world’s population.

I realised that my previous work only captured about 20% of my vision for people-centric initiatives, but had such a dramatic effect. It struck me that by taking this up to 100% and delving into the development of innovative tools while harnessing the power of generative AI, I could create a solution that nobody could hope to match.

What is your day-to-day role as a founder and CEO?

Operationally, I have long since handed over. My focus now is on overseeing the implementation of our sales and marketing strategies and testing functions, as well as embedding our certification schemes and training courses into the most efficient formats we can. Beyond that, it is all about pushing us forward into enterprise-wide automation and refining our ability to address inbound customers’ concerns to find the optimal way to convert them on site. The acceleration fuelled by ChatGPT means all these supposedly sequential tasks are happening at the same time!

What role does innovation play as your business grows?

We fundamentally cultivate an innovative internal culture that reflexively challenges our own way of doing things. We stay hungry to test and experiment with new tools and processes as they become available. When we innovate ourselves, we always look at what everyone else is doing (i.e. article video automation) and focus on a. Looking ahead to what the better thing to innovate would look like and b. Innovating in such a way that we create something that on its own, or in parts, would have a universal and evergreen utility.

How did you fund the business in the early stages?

I funded it myself and with revenue from clients. Our goals were so ambitious I knew nobody would fund us but I felt it was important to be able to point back to material profitability from the start as proof of our hypotheses. Now, there are no concerns we cannot address, and that is a result of this approach. 

How do you plan to attract investors and generate greater public attention to drive the future expansion of Origin Hope?

Well, we have a proven ability to make money where others do not, a proven ability to develop leading technology, including generative AI, where others do not, and a history of correctly-proven predictions about the future that would give any investor confidence. Being basically silent for 4.5 years to prove a point means efforts to get coverage now carry a lot more weight - I am a journalist by nature, I could not present us to the media with incontrovertible proof to back it up.

I am starting the investment journey now but there is no hurry - we aren’t going anywhere, and the more naturally they conclude we are in fact alone as the leader in the new content world (at least for now) the better. I look forward to working with very smart people who agree with the vision.

To put it bluntly, we have tried to think of everything: all the way down to the people we train and benefiting every single stakeholder that touches that process in a way no outsourcer ever has.

Can you discuss your long-term vision and the impact you aim to create in the content industry?

Fundamentally, the first goal is to enable the destruction of the barriers to creation. I think everyone, from individuals communicating to family members all the way up to publishing giants, should use us one day. Origin Hope is here to enable a content communication future and is set up to evolve however tastes evolve. Think how we all use data centres, from pictures of grandkids to retail giants hosting e-commerce operations on cloud infrastructure. Wholesale enterprise automation and solutions are a big part of this.

Then, I think it is about pushing into publishing gaps where we can showcase both innovation and public service.

We want to enable the new content age but, frankly, the world WILL BE content in all our interactions. We need those barriers down for people to start thinking that way.

Can you tell us more about your journey from internships at GQ and Tatler to becoming a prime time news presenter and producer in Southeast Asia?

I had always wanted to work in a developing country so after graduating I created a formula to analyse the best place to go and Indonesia kept coming up. I knew the future of work would be global so that had to be part of my solution and I felt if I committed to a place most people would avoid I would get more opportunity. I got on a plane to Jakarta and after two days landed a freelance copy-editing shift. I basically refused to leave and they made me senior copy editor after three weeks.

After 8 months I was deputising for the managing editor; 4 months later the parent company moved me across to help set up a TV channel. After 8 months as a producer, I was made the anchor, taping an interview show every morning, broadcasting live every night for an hour, and spending the day with free rein to work across the conglomerate’s integrated newsroom and wider operations. From there I got to host the World Economic Forum on East Asia, The Indonesia Economic Forum and others. By the time I resigned I was able to secure much more influential roles.

What advice would you give to early-stage founders wanting to harness the power of technology to create a positive impact?

Focus on solving a problem first, not selling a technical solution. You need to build technology around a very efficient way of doing things, and that requires a level of personal knowledge and understanding that will activate creativity in how you approach an innovative solution.

I felt bound to my fate and, despite appearance, it was at times testing in the extreme. You have got to believe beyond reason in finding that solution. Then it has a real impact.