Summary. Storytime is a platform that connects local influencers with local businesses, built by Aris Yeagar, a 24-year-old New York creator known as The European Kid. After a parmesan-wheel video did 70.5 million views on TikTok and 136 million on Reels, he signed 90 businesses to Storytime and runs its community on Whop. If you are a creator who wants a business instead of a brand deal, or a local business tired of paying macro-influencers, read this one.
What Storytime was doing before Whop
Aris grew up in Belgium and built an audience in New York with skits about pretending to be rich. By the time his parents urged him to get a job he had 500,000 followers on TikTok and 200,000 on Instagram.
The business problem he noticed was on the other side of the camera. No platform matched local creators with local businesses for product-for-promotion deals, so restaurants and shops overpaid macro-influencers for videos that did not bring customers. His plan: “We’re bringing back that trust. We’re going to vet everyone for you.”
What changed on Whop
Storytime’s community lives on Whop. That is the piece the write-up documents: the place where vetted creators and signed businesses are organized, rather than a checkout or a course.
The proof of the model is a bakery. Angelina Italian Bakery’s owner Tony Park got a video from Aris and describes the effect on his business in one line: “It’s just this drug. It’s like a passion.” The write-up does not publish the bakery’s sales figures, so take it as a testimonial, not a result.
Aris is clear that the goal with Storytime is a real business. Not a bigger following. A company with customers.
The numbers
Whop reports the parmesan-wheel video at 70.5 million TikTok views and 136 million Reels views, brand videos priced at $15,000 to $25,000, and 90 businesses signed up to Storytime. It reports no Storytime revenue, membership count or price, and no results for the 90 businesses.
What I would tell a creator or a local business to copy
If you are the creator: sell the system, not the post. A $20,000 brand video is income; a platform that 90 businesses join is a business. The community on Whop is the container that makes the second thing possible.
If you are the local business: hire the creator who eats in your neighborhood. The bakery did not need 136 million views; it needed the 5,000 people who live within ten minutes. Ask the creator for a Whop checkout link so the deal is paid and tracked, not a handshake.
Either way, measure before you spend. Google Analytics 4, Tag Manager and Search Console with a conversion event for the booking, the order or the direction request. Without it, “the video worked” is a feeling.
Then boost the proof. Put a dollar a day behind the bakery video that already went viral on its own, targeted to the zip codes the bakery serves. Aris’s skit brings the eyeballs; the Dollar-a-Day keeps them local.
Who this is not for
Whop is a community, checkout, affiliate and storefront layer. It does not find the influencers, negotiate the deals or measure foot traffic. The base rate is 2.7% + 30¢, 20 basis points under Stripe’s 2.9% + 30¢, and the optional layers, managed tax at 2%, orchestration at 0.8% and billing at 0.5%, can push the stack above Stripe. Financing requires $30,000 processed from 10 or more customers in 90 days and a dispute rate under 2%, and it is unavailable to gambling, sports betting, trading signals, credit offers and adult categories. A product-for-promotion exchange has no checkout at all, so the fee question only arises when a business pays in cash.
If you were going to use Whop anyway
If you were going to sign up for Whop anyway, sign up through my link, dennisyu.com/go/whop, or send me your business name and email and I will submit the referral. Whop pays me a share of its profit on your account; your rate is the same 2.7% + 30¢ either way. In return my team at Local Service Spotlight sets up the AI agents that audit your public reputation, fix what they find, and keep it maintained: a personal brand analysis, Google Analytics 4, Tag Manager and Search Console with conversion events that actually fire, a Content Factory that turns one recording into a definitive article, clips and posts, and a weekly Metrics, Analysis, Action report. That is the work we normally charge creator and clipping businesses for.
Source and disclosure
This story is retold from Whop’s own write-up, Meet Aris Yeagar: He pretended to be rich, and now he makes bank (2025-01-07, modified 2026-01-09), which you should read in full. I am a Whop partner and earn a share of Whop’s profit from businesses that sign up through my link. Whop did not pay for or review this article. See Whop for creators and clippers for the other creator and clipping stories and my full notes on what Whop costs, and my main Whop page for the partner program.