WEBVTT - Nebula Builds Streaming Platform with A24 Vibes 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.799 Book of a strictly business varieties weekly podcasts featuring conversations 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:13.840 about the business of media and entertainment. 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:16.280 I'm TV business writer Jennifer Moss. 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.480 Nebula, which launched in twenty nineteen, describes itself as a 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:25.400 creator focused, creator built, creator first premium streaming service akin 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.560 to a Netflix or Hulu, but with the athos of Patreon. 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:31.920 The four year old indie streaming service, which is backed 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.800 by creator owned management company Standard and a minority stake 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.960 held by Curiosity Stream, costs five dollars a month or 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.400 fifty dollars a year to subscribe to. It currently tolls 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.800 six hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and past one hundred 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.640 thousand daily active users in October. Nebula is home to 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.840 the popular amazing race style online competition series Jetlag The Game, 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:57.320 which is half a million subscribers on YouTube, as well 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:59.960 as the Theater in the Round, Shakespearean trans Coming Out 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.520 Story of the Prince, and Night of the Coconut, the 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:07.720 debut film from Patrick Wilms. Unlike other streamers, Nebula sees 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.960 YouTube as a partner, not a competitor, with episodes of 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.480 Nebula series usually seeing a week long exclusive window on 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.160 Nebula before creators post them to YouTube and use them 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.280 to in turn promote Nebula. In August, Nebula named jet 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:26.200 Lagstar Sam Dunby its first chief content officer, and is 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:30.000 currently promoting its fall lineup of originals. We'll be back 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:39.959 with Dave after this break here to talk about the 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.480 growth of the indie platform and plans to expand on 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.720 its slate of original series on today's Strictly Business podcast 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.840 is Nebula CEO Dave Whiscus. I'd like to start with, 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.240 just for our audience members who might not be familiar 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.760 with Nebula, what is it in your own roof? 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.360 There should be an easier answer to this question. Makes 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.280 it complicated is that nothing like this has really been 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.200 achieved before. And I don't necessarily mean that in a 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.160 grand standing sort of way. It's just that it always 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:13.360 ends up being like a tech company who tries to 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.880 do a thing with creators, or an entertainment media company 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:22.880 who tries to do user generated content stuff like Quibi 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.560 or something. It's never the creators starting their own thing 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:30.280 and then like really landing it. And in our case, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.360 it's a group of creators who got together because we 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:38.040 saw that very simply on a creator career path, step 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:43.480 one is YouTube or whatever, and step say ten is Netflix. 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.840 The problem is where are steps two through nine? If 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.040 we want that to exist, we want to build that bridge. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.520 We have to build it. And so the purpose of Nebula, 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.120 the thing that we're building, the thing that we have built, 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.720 it is intended to be a way for the creators 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:04.639 to to sort of traverse the the vast space between 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:09.680 user generating content and more traditionally accepted forms of media 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:15.120 and entertainment. And it's it's almost a fraught answer to 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.560 say to focus on, like what the creators get out 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:20.919 of this, But what we've learned is that so much 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.360 of the relationship, so much of what makes this this 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.359 kind of thing powerful, is the relationship between the audience 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.560 and the creator. That's where we win. It's that sort 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:35.080 of parasocial dynamics. So for the audience at the base level, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.320 earliest days, it's about getting access to things early, it's 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.520 about getting access to behind the scenes content. Not this 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.480 similar from like the value proposition of a Patreon or 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.720 something like that. As we look out into the future, 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.200 we've always been building up our originals, building up our 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.040 stable of you know, content that is made here and 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:56.760 in the case of like a jet lag might end 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:58.600 up also on YouTube as a way to pull people in, 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.280 but things that have our logo on it. The idea 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:04.280 is a little bit less Patreon, a little bit more 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:10.040 a twenty four which can be a brand definition here's 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.240 what creators are capable of. And then step three in that, 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:19.360 I guess, is Nebula being more of a Netflix style 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.640 destination home for really great things that are made by 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.880 people who might not have had the opportunity or the 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.760 means to do those projects within the traditional Hollywood system 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:32.599 or traditional media system. 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.880 What is again asking you to define here? 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.920 Standard which is a company that is behind Nebula and 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.640 existed preceded Nebula's launch. 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.560 Very simply a talent management company. We work with a 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.200 bunch of creators. We book sponsors on their shows and 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.800 help them develop their businesses. And along the way we 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.719 realize that there are some gaps in the industry, like 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:00.880 around licensing and things like that, and we had been 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.120 working We've been chatting with YouTube back when they were 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:05.360 still doing originals. They had asked us for some pitches 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.560 for original shows. We sent them over and they kind 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.280 of never got back to us. So we decided, no, what, 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.320 We're going to start our own streaming video platform. 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:18.760 So standard is there to help creators build and guide 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.800 and run their business operations, and Nebulas is kind of 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:23.720 a consequence of that. 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.560 When we're exactly if you remember where and when where 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:35.520 Nebula came from and what was part of the we 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.120 can actually make this work when something like a Vessel 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:39.080 did not work. 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:44.120 Yeah, I think Vessel was like as a technology driven 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:48.839 technology solution made by technology people. There's business, there's technology, 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.640 there's maybe some entertainment media in there. I don't want 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.200 to comment too hard on them. But for us, it 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.919 came organically. We had been approached by the group that 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.560 was building what became Peacock in the end, wanting to 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.600 bring like user generated content stuff onto a new platform 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.920 they were building. They wanted to talk licensing, but how 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:14.800 they approached the licensing deals it sort of didn't make 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.200 much sense because it would be wildly different from creator 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.680 to creator, and we kind of wanted to take the 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.440 collective bargaining power, the leverage that we had as a 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.680 as a group and kind of get everybody a more 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.560 consistent deal. At the same time, we were being approached 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:34.760 by Vimeo, the lovely people at Vimeo who they were saying, 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.039 they picked one creator and they said, this person should 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.200 have their own streaming service. We can build an over 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.800 the top solution and empower that streaming service as well. 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:45.680 That guy makes a video every three months. What kind 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.839 of streaming service would that be? You're paying what five 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.560 dollars a month for a content catalog of sixteen videos? 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.080 Come on like that doesn't And they said, do you 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.000 have any other creators who are more frequent, who for 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:58.960 whom that would make sense? And said, well, no, The 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:00.479 only way that would really make any times as if 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.880 it were all of the creators, And oh, oh, that's 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.440 an idea. What if we did that? And looking at 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.600 the over the top streaming solutions at the time, how 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.280 cheap it had gotten, and how doing something like that 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:18.400 could provide a content licensing engine. Potentially there were multiple 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.520 problems that could be solved at once, the licensing thing 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.640 and you know, building out some sort of test bed 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.600 of a new business venture for creators. And I took 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.320 the idea to it. This would have been i want 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:34.840 to say, November of twenty eighteen October November of twenty eighteen. 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.320 I took to the creators and I've put this long 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.040 email like here's kind of what I'm thinking, here's my 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.000 vision for this. And I expected it would be a 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:45.160 six month climb to convince everybody like, let's get it, 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:46.960 let's get everybody on board. I knew that I could 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:52.280 because it was just it was inexpensive enough that there 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.040 wasn't a ton of risk in it, which had to 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.760 come up with enough value proposition to the creators. So 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.360 I figured out, well, give me six months and I'll 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:03.880 eventually get everybody there. I sent out the email and 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.000 instantly every single creator was like, we have to do this. 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.920 Let's go getting going doing that. I know you will. 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.560 Started with I think it's one hundred thousand dollars to 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.080 get Nebiella actually ready for a launch. 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:21.200 Where did that from? I know you didn't have venture capital. 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:24.360 The extent that that can be true, it is true 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.920 because the calculus there is how much were we paying 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.400 the engineer who was working on it for the time 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.480 that they are the engineers who were working on it 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.640 over the time that they spent working on it. It 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:42.000 wasn't like we wrote a hundred thousand dollars check. It's 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:46.960 more like we as a business standard. We have a 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:51.560 whole what you can call it. We have a back 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:56.760 end software that we developed, the help power like Creator Things, 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.440 this booking of sponsors and voicing stuff like that. It 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:03.800 was sort of like a little mini sales force for 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.560 Creator Things, and we've been building that since twenty seventeen, 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:14.560 twenty eighteen, oh, twenty seventeen. The engineering team was working 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.480 on it when we were looking at doing an over 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.280 the top video solution. Well, like I said, we're talking 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.000 to Vimeo, but they wanted to own the credit card relationship. 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:28.240 And coming from my years of working with Apple as 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.560 a designer, I was keenly aware and my years of 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.560 being a musician, I was keenly aware that what made 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:39.680 the iTunes music store work is that when you want 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.200 another song, Apple already has your credit card number, you 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.600 just press a button. And what made the app store 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.880 work is that when you want that new app, Apple 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.240 already has your credit card number and you press a button. 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.280 By giving Vimeo full ownership of the credit card relationship, 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.320 we would potentially be cutting ourselves off future opportunities where 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:07.280 we could do cool, interesting you know, integrations of sorts 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:10.880 by virtue of just you know, we don't even own 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.320 the actual relationship, and you know what if things fell 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.719 apart with that company, anything had happened, we don't want 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.600 to We don't want to cut off all future possibilities. 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.800 And so we found a different partner instead, and it 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:26.920 required a little bit of development effort on our side. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.320 So we just we knew we could either reassign an 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.240 engineer or make one more higher, and so we just 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.880 made one more higher onto the team. And then as 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:38.800 the project developed, it became a little bit more complex 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.160 when we made a second higher and I think we 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:43.600 only had the two people. By launch, there was like 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:45.240 two engineers working on it, which is where we came 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:47.120 up with the number like those two engineers over that 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.600 period of time, roughly one hundred k. Not an exact 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:52.400 science on that. It's hard for it to because they 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.080 were also working on other stuff at the same time, 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.960 but the money came from Standard was profitable. We had 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:04.160 those resources and the intent was always let's keep reinvesting 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.960 our successes into building more successes. And this was a 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.440 thing that felt like it could potentially become something. We 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:12.839 had no idea that it would turn into this. I mean, 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.240 I guess we had hopes, but even our hopes, it 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.880 never quite This never seems possible, this never seemed. 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:24.600 Realistic talking about what it has turned into. This is 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:26.800 and correct me if any of this is out of date. 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.240 But currently Nebula is valued at one hundred and fifty 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.800 million and there are six hundred and fifty thousand paying 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.560 users and that's still with no venture capital funding. 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:44.160 Pretty close Standard. The valuation is on Standard because it's confusing. 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.200 Standard is the company that owns Nebula, and while Nebula 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.360 is technically a separate LLC for a handful of reasons, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:52.800 when we talk valuation, we're talking about the entirety of 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:57.600 the machine. So much of the creator relationships and audience 0:11:57.640 --> 0:11:59.960 relationships and partnerships and everything happened up at the stand 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.400 undred level, so it's kind of it's hard to fully 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.719 disconnect the two. But in that number, when we came 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:07.240 up with the number, it was based on like the 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:13.640 totality of everything that we're doing, okay, and then the year, Yeah, 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:15.640 six hundred and at the moment, like six hundred and 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:17.679 eighty thousand, okay, And. 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.760 Then I believe you tweeted recently that Nebula just passed 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.320 one hundred thousand daily active users. 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.520 Yeah, that was a fun one, and we're we're getting 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:32.840 close to three hundred thousand monthly active all right. 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.079 So with that behind it, you know, we've talked a 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.640 lot about the business mechanics of getting it launched first, 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:43.200 but where are those views coming from the content on Nebula? 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:45.840 What can you explain what the system is and the 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:50.600 current funneling of the exclusive window of this content before 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.160 creators post it elsewhere like on YouTube. 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.800 It's really to choose your own adventure story as a creator. 0:12:57.840 --> 0:12:59.960 If you want to make things that only live on Nebula, 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:01.920 you can. If you want to make things that live 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.160 on Nebula for a week and then go to YouTube, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.880 you can. We have different naming structures for these things 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.480 to try to disambiguate it for the audience, but the 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.120 intent is that Nebula is like the canonical home of 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:17.199 the things that these creators make. And in the case 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.240 of jet Lag, the business model is built around the 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.800 YouTube version that every video ends with a cliffhanger that 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:27.640 makes you want to go sign up for Nebula that 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.560 was baked in from day one. That's always been the plan, 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.520 and that works very effectively. And there are some creators 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.440 who they were able to get ahead on schedule, and 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.160 you know, maybe they make one video per month, but 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.200 they got a head on schedule. So the video always 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.319 goes to Nebula, and then last month's video goes to 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.559 YouTube at the same time, and we call those Nebula. First, 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.079 there's full on Nebula original productions which will only ever 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.640 be on Nebula, and then there's like bonus content kind 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:01.360 of DVD extras we call Nebula. Plus. The way that 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:03.920 the audience comes in sort of depends on the creator. 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:08.520 For some creators, they sign up because they really want 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.360 to see the next video. For some creators, the audience 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.720 signs up because there's bonus stuff that they really want 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.800 to see. For some creators, many creators, it's talking about 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.520 the originals is what pulls people in. And then there's 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.080 of course the people who come and sign up just 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.160 because they want to support the creators. Again, I think 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.680 that what makes us so different and what's hard for 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:32.480 more traditional systems to it's hard to fit us in 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:37.080 with more traditional systems because the audience, a large portion 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.640 of the audience signs up for Nebula because they believe 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.480 in us and they want to support these creators. I 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.240 don't think Disney has that kind of relationship. I don't 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.119 think Netflix has that kind of relationship. 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.000 We'll be back with more from Dave after this break 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:01.960 into Netflix. I know there was a stot that. 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:07.560 Nebula is second only to Netflix and customer retention. 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.200 How do you guys measure that churn? 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.200 We're using antenna data for that. I believe Netflix is 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:19.840 three point six percent churn rate and the purported number 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.880 two Disney plus is around four and a half percent 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.760 turn rate based on the last numbers that we saw, 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.560 and we, depending on where we are in a month, 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:33.000 hover between like three point eight to four percent. So 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.920 according to Antenna data, if they were to classify us 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.640 in the same ranking, we would be number two for 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:42.200 customer attention, behind Netflix. 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.760 What would you say is the biggest factor keeping that 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:46.600 churn rate for you? 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.680 I think the audience just really loves the creators. They 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.320 want to see the creators succeed, and when they come in, 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:58.360 they stay because they're they're invested in the story. And 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.320 the cheap cop out retort to that would be that 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.440 so many of our customers come in like overall, a 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.200 little over fifty percent of the people who sign up 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.080 for Nebula sign up for annual plans, So of course 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.880 monthly train is going to be low. And Netflix doesn't 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.240 offer an annual plan. I don't believe many of the 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.120 big streamers don't, which is weird. I've got thoughts on that, 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:26.920 But I would argue that the reason that our customers 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.320 sign up for annuals so heavily to begin with is 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.800 because they they know what they're getting into, they're committing. 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.520 They know that we get more money up front, they 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.520 know that things are going to grow and evolve over time. 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:42.840 They know that they're going to get more stuff. Why 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.720 wouldn't they spend thirty bucks? And I think that's what 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:48.640 it comes down to. They believe in what we're doing. 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.680 They want to see how this unfolds, and they're making 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:53.080 a one year investment. 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:57.320 In that story, we mentioned jet Lag, but I'm going 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.000 to go into a little more specifically now, the travel 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.040 game show that I'm obsessed with and the reason I 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.240 signed up for Nebula. When I first discovered jet Lag, 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.600 I watched everything currently available on YouTube, and I believe 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:12.119 we were in the middle of one of the seasons 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:14.160 at that point. Then I went and signed up Fornibula 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:18.120 because I wanted to see what was currently there. We 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.040 got you, Yeah, you got me, and I watched Crime Spree, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.679 which for people to know that was like the unoffsual 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.600 first season that's only available to stream on Nebula. So 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:29.879 I'd love to get an idea during a season of 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.360 jet Lag or if you have another example of another 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.719 show that has that same format on Nebula, what do 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.399 sign ups look like? What is kind of the bump 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.399 that you get from something like that, especially given that 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.080 if I wanted to, I could wait and watch it 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.440 all on YouTube, you. 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:52.280 Could, or you could sign up. It's thirty bucks a year, 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:53.920 which comes out to be two dollars and fifty cents 0:17:53.960 --> 0:18:00.480 a month. You know, we've done premiere events where if 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:02.879 you're a Nebulus subscriber you get to it's first come 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:04.479 for serve. But if you're a Nebula subscriber, you can 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.760 just come to the premiere let us know. We'll get 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.160 you to the spot, and the spots usually I say 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.439 sell out, they're free. The spots sell out like within minutes, 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.040 and we'll get every single time we'll get one or 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.560 two people who are like, if I'm not signed up 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.960 for Nebula, can I just buy a ticket? And the 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:22.960 answer is yeah, it's thirty dollars and it comes with 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:27.960 a free year of Nebula. Like, it's thirty dollars. Your 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.159 uber to the venue is going to cost you. That 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.240 the price point is so low, especially relative to other streamers. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.359 I'm not saying that this is no money, and I 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:42.440 don't want to ignore that that there's income disparity. I 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.680 don't want to make that assumption. But when you consider 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:51.080 the emotional attachment that the audiences tend to have, and 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:55.560 for a show like jet Lag, people really love Sam 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.280 and Ben and Adam, they love them. The jet Lags 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:05.800 are kind of intense about it. They're the they have 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:10.200 a lot of fun. We get fan art. I get 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:14.240 fan art. I'm not even on the show. Jet Lag. 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.840 Fans drop pictures of all of us and they are 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.399 constantly discussing us on Discord and on Twitter, and they 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.720 just really, really really love the show and that kind 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.000 of emotional attachment. Of course, they want to see the 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.200 next episode. When something can reach people and bring a 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.439 little bit of joy like that, and it has that 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:36.840 spirit of independence. It's not a big budget Hollywood style 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:39.679 game show production that's all full of spectacle, and like, 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.159 this is people doing a thing that it looks like 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:45.520 you could do that. We get people asking all the time, 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.280 can you make like a home version that I could 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:49.800 play with my friends, or can will you sell the 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.160 cards so that I can do the same thing. But 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.760 we're careful about that because I don't want to encourage 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:58.000 people to jump on planes or do anything that annoys 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:02.040 other people. And a bigger conversations we had about how 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:03.800 a thing like that could be done ethically. I know 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.239 that the jet Lag team works really hard to make 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:08.800 sure that anything they do, like when they film, they're 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.439 always consciously people's privacy. They're not out there to be 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.719 like you know, jerk YouTubers getting everybody's way, and so 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.040 coming up with a way to share that that isn't 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:23.160 encouraging people to be obnoxious as something, but that kind 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:26.080 of relationship when an audience loves to show that much, 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.040 and when it's that easy to project yourself in or 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:30.760 feel like you're friends with these people, of course you 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:35.880 want to hit the button. That's not the hill to climb, 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:38.120 you know, A five dollars a month or thirty dollars 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.560 a year hill to sign up for that not insurmountable, 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.040 and so we do see a pretty big bump obviously 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:48.280 when jet Lags on air, we conversions sign ups for 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.679 jet Lag go up dramatically, but it kind of happens 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:56.960 that way. We have shows that drive huge numbers. Interestingly, 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:02.640 by various metrics, jet Lag is not our number one show. 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.240 It is, I think by audience engagement in terms of 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.760 just people being excited about it and sending us fan art, 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.040 certainly our number one show, but not always by watch time, 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:19.560 not always by sign ups. So whenever certain kinds of 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:23.800 projects go out, I think jet Legs are our only 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.879 travel or game show style thing at the moment in 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:31.600 that format. We're working on some stuff, handful of things. 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:33.199 We don't want to just make jet Lag two. We 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.159 want to be really careful about one not saturating, but 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:40.200 two not like, I don't know, diluting, if that makes sense. 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:45.440 We want to reinvest our success into doing something creatively interesting, 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:49.040 not just doing the same thing again. But there's a 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:53.440 number of formats. Different creators work on different things. It's 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:57.200 more about like audience depth and audience love will drive 0:21:57.240 --> 0:21:58.159 the big numbers. 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.040 So with that all that said, why is. 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.280 Jet LaGG not exclusively on Nebula, And that same question 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:12.040 going for any really high trafficking Nebula stuff, and if 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.920 those conversations have ever been had with those creators and 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.760 why from a business standpoint, someone would see, well, obviously 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:21.080 this does very well and it could do better if 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:22.440 it only existed here. 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:25.639 It's easy to think that what we're building is a 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:30.000 YouTube competitor, and if you imagine it as a YouTube competitor, 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:34.480 it's easy to think that anything we do from any 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.000 creator we work with, the goal should be for it 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:43.399 to be exclusively on Nebula. What we're really building is 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:47.480 a Netflix competitor, and the path we're going to have 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:51.280 to take to get there. YouTube is our biggest partner. 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.240 YouTube is our closest ally. YouTube is the top of 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:59.200 the funnel for us. We're just sold bit further down, 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:06.440 and the way that the audience dynamics work, the YouTube algorithm, 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:12.760 much maligned, is our greatest champion. It's out there finding 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:16.600