PAMETNA HRVATSKA Ivan Spajić Buturac

Guest Ivan Spajić ButoracHosted by Boris ŽivkovićMay 3, 2026

Ivan Spajić Butorac

About this episode

What you'll hear in this conversation

Ivan Spajić Butorac saw a fundamental problem in the creative industries: talented filmmakers often fail not because their ideas are bad, but because they lack the tools to validate them against market demand. He built Love Tonic, recently rebranded as Fan Fan Sex, a platform designed to be what he calls "Tinder for filmmakers" – connecting creators with investors and producers, but with a crucial difference. Rather than relying on intuition or traditional pitches, his platform uses AI and Lean startup principles to help creatives test, refine, and speak the language of the market before their projects ever leave the drawing board. This conversation explores how to bridge the gap between artistic vision and commercial viability, demonstrating that even the most subjective endeavors can benefit from rigorous, data-driven validation.

Insights from the conversation

What to take from this episode

Love Tonic, or Fan Fan Sex as it was recently rebranded, is described by Ivan Spajić Butorac as "Tinder for filmmakers." A simple, unexpected analogy can immediately clarify a complex new platform's purpose, cutting through jargon to explain its core function and market position to anyone.

The Lean startup methodology, originating from Toyota and popularized by Eric Ries, centers on the idea that "nothing is more dangerous than to build a product on time, on budget, to specification, and have nobody use it." This principle, usually applied to software, is equally vital for creative content: don't just create, test early and iteratively, because the market often doesn't know what it wants until it sees a minimal product.

Instead of asking creators about their artistic vision, Love Tonic's bot guides them through questions designed to define their target market, culminating in a clear understanding of potential audience and investors. The best way to help a creative is not to validate their art, but to equip them with the commercial language and data to validate it themselves.

Profiling human taste in film is "surprisingly heterogeneous" and hard to define with rigid categories; Ivan Spajić Butorac found that even mathematicians struggled to pin it down. Rather than force-fitting, the platform adapted by making its approach dynamic, segmenting people by existing tastes — recognizing that if someone likes 'Fight Club', there's a predictable cluster of other films they'll also enjoy.

In their research, Love Tonic discovered that the average person has an "exceptionally good, like plus-minus seven percent, ability to predict which part of the population will consider something good." This "wisdom of crowds" suggests that collective intuition, rather than expert opinion, can be a highly accurate predictor of content success, offering a powerful tool for early-stage validation.

Ivan Spajić Butorac sees striking similarities between the film production and startup scenes, from pitching formats to the need for resilience and learning to "swim." Many young creators give up early due to lack of feedback, unlike in IT where iterative learning is built-in; the lesson is that creative projects are also ventures, and applying startup principles can significantly reduce early attrition.

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