Speaker 1: Welcome to Behind the Influence, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and t DC Media. Read Duke Shure and I
Speaker 1: did not correct your last name. A lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of people struggle with that outside in North Dakota.
Speaker 1: But that was good. You were on point, very good. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: well what it's kind of out of ten already, Ian
Speaker 1: he talks, is in the house. Guys, Hello, you don't
Speaker 1: know who Ian is? What do you know? I know
Speaker 1: that was aggressive, but if you don't know that name,
Speaker 1: we got to reevaluate life. I mean, the Internet is
Speaker 1: a big place. I never assume anybody. You're pretty good
Speaker 1: Internet a video of mine. So, Jacob Kanje has started
Speaker 1: a small platform called Patreon. We all know it, we
Speaker 1: all want to be on it. It's the reason so
Speaker 1: many creators are able to create. And you are such
Speaker 1: an inspiration because I was telling Jack this before the interview.
Speaker 1: As you guys know, Behind the Influence is all about
Speaker 1: people who are literally behind the influence, the people who
Speaker 1: create the platforms that allow social media influencers to be
Speaker 1: social media influencers or creators. And Jack also happens to
Speaker 1: be very musically talented and has a creator passed and
Speaker 1: present so you fall on two sides of the coin.
Speaker 1: How does that like, how do you even balance the two?
Speaker 1: It's really hard. The first five years of the company,
Speaker 1: I didn't nail it. So actually that was a real
Speaker 1: struggle for me. And actually it was probably a little
Speaker 1: bit of there was some darkness there for me trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to balance it because I felt like,
Speaker 1: oh god, I'm giving up my creative career and I
Speaker 1: love being a creator, and so it was really hard
Speaker 1: because you know, I was becoming like a you know,
Speaker 1: an operator and building a company and I actually kind
Speaker 1: of had to stop creating for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: So that was that was pretty rough. But then in
Speaker 1: the last three years, I've really found a way to
Speaker 1: to still be prolific and make things. I fly down
Speaker 1: to l a once a month now and I do
Speaker 1: four music videos with one band for with another band,
Speaker 1: and then we you know this point, now I'm releasing
Speaker 1: eight music videos a month. So that's a lot. How
Speaker 1: do you find the time and you're the founder of
Speaker 1: a massive, massive platform that you're very much involved and
Speaker 1: it's not like you've just stepped aside. Now that's super successful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm I'm there, you know, of course every
Speaker 1: single day, and I'm working more than every day, you know,
Speaker 1: on on the making Patreon a thing. Yes, starting a
Speaker 1: company is a is a triple time job. It's not
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you can just kind of not
Speaker 1: to because you can't have asked these things. No, it's
Speaker 1: you can't. And yeah, it's been you know, I've I've
Speaker 1: worked more in my life, you know, on Patreon that
Speaker 1: I've worked ever on it. I mean it's been so intense,
Speaker 1: so so yeah, that has been you know, rewarding hard.
Speaker 1: Recently being able to in the last three years, being
Speaker 1: able to combine it with being a creator again has
Speaker 1: made me feel like so I feel like I got
Speaker 1: my pilot light, you know, turned back on. You know,
Speaker 1: it feels nice. We're really excited to have you here. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you represent the to me of what we cover on
Speaker 1: this show, people of influence, and you are a person
Speaker 1: of influence because you are behind these people and helping
Speaker 1: them groom into these mega stars overnight. And literally we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the numbers of all the people
Speaker 1: that you have brought forth to us. Yeah, lots of growth,
Speaker 1: and I think I think it's because of you. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's all like. We have an amazing team.
Speaker 1: I got into this industry four and a half five
Speaker 1: years ago by myself out of my bedroom, and to
Speaker 1: see what night Media has blossomed into today's have been incredible.
Speaker 1: I think we're just to throw out some numbers. Were
Speaker 1: over a billion views a month through ten clients, across
Speaker 1: ten clients, and I believe we're at about that eighty
Speaker 1: eight million subscriber range. And that's pretty impressive when you
Speaker 1: consider it's only ten individuals. You represent more than ten people,
Speaker 1: that's just your top ten. We actually just have ten.
Speaker 1: So we keep it so Night Media's philosophy just to
Speaker 1: get into this a little bit, so we usually only
Speaker 1: work with family friendly creators, so we don't work with
Speaker 1: a ton of people that actually we don't have any
Speaker 1: creators that really swear on their channels. It's something that
Speaker 1: we're we're not necessarily against. We just don't like to
Speaker 1: promote it to children. And the second ones, we only
Speaker 1: work with with creators that want to be entrepreneurs and
Speaker 1: business people. And you know, we found ten that you know,
Speaker 1: want to dig into this industry and want to keep
Speaker 1: YouTube at its core and want to do so much more,
Speaker 1: and that's why we stayed small. The reason you're here
Speaker 1: is because of that. You were one of the pioneers
Speaker 1: in the YouTube space. And not only did you pioneer
Speaker 1: in a world that a lot of people didn't understand
Speaker 1: back in two thousand five, by the way, when people
Speaker 1: weren't really doing the YouTube thing. Yeah, I mean YouTube
Speaker 1: wasn't really a thing. It wasn't a thing. It just recently,
Speaker 1: I think, in the last decade, has become a thing.
Speaker 1: In two thousand five, starts with a little, a silly video,
Speaker 1: just you and your friend. And did you ever know
Speaker 1: that it would turn into this empire that has employed
Speaker 1: so many people and made so many people so much money.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we had no no idea whatsoever. It was
Speaker 1: just us, you know, messing around with a webcam. We
Speaker 1: started with lip syncs. We did the Power Rangers theme song.
Speaker 1: That was our first slip sync, and then we did
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat and then Pokemon and then the Pokemon theme
Speaker 1: song music video was the video that like really really
Speaker 1: blew up and for I think a year and a
Speaker 1: half it was the most viewed video on YouTube. And
Speaker 1: back in the day, there was no discover ability on YouTube.
Speaker 1: So the only way that you could find quote unquote
Speaker 1: quality content, which that video looking back is not the
Speaker 1: only way you can find quality content is if you
Speaker 1: went to the most viewed page like most people of
Speaker 1: all time. Okay, so all those videos that had the
Speaker 1: most views must be the best videos on YouTube. That
Speaker 1: would be the theory. But you know, our videos up
Speaker 1: at the top, and it was think, why do you
Speaker 1: think about so many views? Because nothing else like that
Speaker 1: was on YouTube, and you guys were just kind of
Speaker 1: creating your own lane. And people were curious because that's
Speaker 1: what I would think. Yeah, I mean I think music
Speaker 1: is universal. I mean that's why all the top view
Speaker 1: videos are are music videos. So I think that's one
Speaker 1: thing Pokemon is, you know, the sort of global unifier
Speaker 1: who doesn't like Pokemon. At that time, a lot of
Speaker 1: people were doing lip syncs, but a lot of people
Speaker 1: were just kind of standing there and just lip sinking.
Speaker 1: But we were also throwing in jokes into it, so
Speaker 1: like kind of like criticizing the Pokemon while we were
Speaker 1: singing the song. Just the fact that they like Pokemon
Speaker 1: in a strange way is like animal abuse. So we
Speaker 1: had some like jokes I never thought of it. I
Speaker 1: don't need to laugh, but I never thought about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're you're forcing it's it's it's no different
Speaker 1: than a than a dog fight, and we don't allow that.
Speaker 1: So we, uh, we kind of made some some jokes
Speaker 1: in the video. I think that's what kind of made
Speaker 1: it stand out from the other sort of lip syncs
Speaker 1: is we actually had a take on it. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying like it's supreme art. But also, back in the
Speaker 1: days of YouTube, you're not really competing with that much
Speaker 1: quality content. Anything that's like sort of above like the
Speaker 1: worst quality ever would automatically rise above everything else. So
Speaker 1: you have of ten of the most subscribed to followed
Speaker 1: YouTube personalities in a time where YouTube is it's hard
Speaker 1: to navigate right. People die on YouTube, but I don't
Speaker 1: mean actually die, but their content dies on YouTube because
Speaker 1: they're not switching it up enough or whatever. The reason is.
Speaker 1: Is it that you've found people who have staying power,
Speaker 1: or is it that you have come up with a
Speaker 1: strategy for that staying power? Man, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much I want to say here. I think most of
Speaker 1: it is just lack of understanding of how YouTube actually works.
Speaker 1: Most of our guys focus on a few things, and
Speaker 1: yes they switched their content up. Yes they don't do
Speaker 1: the same video ten times in a row like some
Speaker 1: creators make that mistake. But you know, we really understand
Speaker 1: that a good video starts with a good title and thumbnail,
Speaker 1: and then once you get people to click on that video,
Speaker 1: it's all about getting them to stay and watch that video.
Speaker 1: So it's really just a combination of high click through
Speaker 1: rate which is CTR and high average uderation. So that's
Speaker 1: the two things that we really focus on. And as
Speaker 1: a creator, when those two dip, that's when it time
Speaker 1: to either switch it up or say, Okay, my fans
Speaker 1: aren't clicking on this video. Why are they not clicking
Speaker 1: on this video? Or why are they not staying and
Speaker 1: watching this video? For the duration we're going to get
Speaker 1: into a little bit of your back story before we
Speaker 1: give away all the secrets. But there was a time
Speaker 1: when all of this clicked for you, and there had
Speaker 1: to have been moments in the journey where you figured
Speaker 1: out the secret sauce and and to even figure out
Speaker 1: to work with influencers. Would you remember a time in
Speaker 1: your career that this all kind of came to fruition
Speaker 1: for you. There there's a few. I honestly don't even
Speaker 1: think we're a first space yet, Like, we have so
Speaker 1: much more to accomplish as a company. And yes we
Speaker 1: work with some of the most influential people on the Internet,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot that we have to accomplish with
Speaker 1: those individuals, and we really dig into their businesses. But
Speaker 1: when I was I was an NFL sports agent before
Speaker 1: I got into this industry, and I met Dude Perfect.
Speaker 1: So this was two thousand and fifteen. Dude Perfect was
Speaker 1: still small, not the Dude Perfect we know today. They're
Speaker 1: like two million subscribers. And I met them, and at
Speaker 1: the time, we were working with large NFL clients. We
Speaker 1: had Odell Beckham jew a year and Richard Sherman and
Speaker 1: Marcus Allen and Barry Sanders and so like, we were
Speaker 1: at the top of this NFL chain and it was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. But when I met Dude Perfect,
Speaker 1: advertising agencies and brands were asking me questions that they
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily interested about Odell and Richard. They were going,
Speaker 1: tell us more about Dude Perfect, or those trick shot
Speaker 1: guys are really interesting. Why don't you come to the
Speaker 1: office and tell us more and that was kind of
Speaker 1: like my first AHA moment was Okay, people are actually
Speaker 1: looking at this to be a viable marketing you know medium.
Speaker 1: I left three months later. People still thought I was
Speaker 1: crazy at that time, like nobody's gonna buy a Dude
Speaker 1: Perfect video, Like people aren't gonna spend money on YouTube.
Speaker 1: But eventually, after pitching it for six to eight months,
Speaker 1: people started to spend money. And that first one was
Speaker 1: Callaway Golf. Callowe Golf came in in a very conservative
Speaker 1: golf industry that's predominantly marketed towards older individuals, came in
Speaker 1: and bought a Dude Perfect video and this was the
Speaker 1: first thing I had done with Dude Perfect. And then
Speaker 1: they came back for a second video, and that's when
Speaker 1: I knew, Okay, this is something that's going to be
Speaker 1: massive for people who don't know who did you do
Speaker 1: the video with? Yes, So I did the video with
Speaker 1: my childhood friend Anthony. We met in like the sixth
Speaker 1: grade and we did a share boredom. We just graduated
Speaker 1: high school. I was seventeen. He might have been seventeen
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, at the time he was also seventeen.
Speaker 1: You guys, go to the same high school. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So we went to the same elementary school and middle school,
Speaker 1: high school, best friends, and we're both bored. All of
Speaker 1: our friends were going off to real colleges. We were
Speaker 1: staying in Sacramento and we're going to go to a
Speaker 1: community college. So we were pretty bored. Over the summer.
Speaker 1: We had actually started making videos and posting them on
Speaker 1: my Space before we even knew what YouTube was. And
Speaker 1: the only reason we found out about YouTube so early
Speaker 1: was because somebody had stolen our video and uploaded on YouTube. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's how we actually found out about YouTube, was
Speaker 1: because somebody had ripped our content. So we started upload
Speaker 1: kind of a compliment, Yeah right, yeah, so we started
Speaker 1: uploading on there. It started the views, and to us,
Speaker 1: over a hundred views was insane. And at that time,
Speaker 1: you could just refresh YouTube and see the counter go up,
Speaker 1: so we would just like refresh and see like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, there's five more views. Oh my god, there's
Speaker 1: ten more views. So that was that was a weird
Speaker 1: experience for us. You know how some artists become managers
Speaker 1: of other artists and they're like, now, where's where's my moment?
Speaker 1: Where's my stage? You know, like I would imagine that
Speaker 1: it could be hard to see other people creating when
Speaker 1: you really want to create, but you're also creating something
Speaker 1: but on a different level. Absolutely. Yeah, before I figured
Speaker 1: out a way to kind of be a creator and
Speaker 1: do the business, well, let's see, the secret was amazing
Speaker 1: working with amazing people and letting go a little bit
Speaker 1: of all the details. It was really hard because as
Speaker 1: a creator, as an artist like I, you know, when
Speaker 1: we when Pablo originally was making music, I was, you know,
Speaker 1: doing all the instrumentation, all the mixing, all the mastering.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, it was of a partnership with Natalie,
Speaker 1: but but I had full I had my hands. I
Speaker 1: was sculpting the whole thing, from the video to the
Speaker 1: editing to everything. And um, now Papa Mouse is like
Speaker 1: fifteen contractors right and like and we've slowly let go
Speaker 1: of like Okay, we're letting go to the video editing, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're letting go to the audio mixing. Okay, we're letting
Speaker 1: go to the mastering. Okay, now we're gonna let go
Speaker 1: some of the production. And like one step at a time,
Speaker 1: you kind of take a step back, but you still
Speaker 1: get to do the things that are exciting to you
Speaker 1: as an artist and that give you a voice as
Speaker 1: an artist. So I still feel like, you know, before
Speaker 1: we were able to do that, I kind of felt
Speaker 1: like I didn't have vocal chords anymore. I was like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: like somebody took my vocal car I can't speak anymore.
Speaker 1: And now I feel like I got my vocal chords back.
Speaker 1: And even though my voice is a little different than
Speaker 1: it used to be in some ways, it's like even
Speaker 1: more exciting and more beautiful and more fun because it
Speaker 1: combines the creativity of other people too. It's not just
Speaker 1: my soul vision. It's like the vision of this wonderful
Speaker 1: group of fifteen people, and they get to be creative
Speaker 1: and do their thing. So it's been really wonderful. And
Speaker 1: so you leave the sports world behind, Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: I packed up my car. I worked so hard to
Speaker 1: get into the sports industry to everyone's hard. That's a
Speaker 1: hard career to kind of break into. It's almost impossible
Speaker 1: to break into because there's not that many sports agents.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult. It's easy to get a certificate to
Speaker 1: be a sports agent. It's very difficult to represent a
Speaker 1: guy that actually makes an NFL roster. And so I
Speaker 1: saw the movie Jerry McGuire, just like everyone else did
Speaker 1: when they were younger, and I thought it was a
Speaker 1: sexy industry. I lived in Las Vegas, and I used
Speaker 1: to travel back and forth in Las Vegas to l
Speaker 1: A and literally just sit in lobbies like c A
Speaker 1: and athletes first, and like all these different lobbies. I
Speaker 1: would just sitting wait for agents to come out, and
Speaker 1: then I would hand them my resume and I'd be like,
Speaker 1: just give me an opportunity, like I promised, like it's
Speaker 1: going to be worth it. What was monetization like back that?
Speaker 1: Did you guys even think that this was something you
Speaker 1: can make money from that early on? There's no way
Speaker 1: of montization. I mean, like I guess we we had
Speaker 1: sort of like the first Patreon in a sense where
Speaker 1: we just not like solicited our viewers for donations, but
Speaker 1: we said, like, hey, we want to film with more
Speaker 1: than just a webcam that's tied to the computer. We
Speaker 1: we would like a handicap. So people actually donated money
Speaker 1: to us to buy a handicam so that we can
Speaker 1: actually go beyond Anthony's bedroom, and then we put their
Speaker 1: names and they're like, donation. I think we can put
Speaker 1: their donation amounts like on the screen of our videos.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the video, it's like, thanks
Speaker 1: to this person for donating thirty So ahead of the
Speaker 1: times because I feel like that was a very early
Speaker 1: iteration of what actually ends up happening. In a sense,
Speaker 1: you were living it because you this was something that
Speaker 1: was missing from your life. You didn't just create Patreon
Speaker 1: because you were like, oh, this is a really cool
Speaker 1: idea that you'll see like on some home shopping network
Speaker 1: that you thought was some great invention. This was something
Speaker 1: that would affect your life directly. Yeah, I as an
Speaker 1: as a creator. Um, I had just finished a music
Speaker 1: video that I spent about ten thousand bucks on. I
Speaker 1: drained my savings account, I maxed out to credit cards
Speaker 1: to make time. I was twenty eight. Were you married
Speaker 1: at the time? Now, I wasn't married. So it's a
Speaker 1: video called Pedals and it's on my personal YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: You will love this. Stephen Stephen, our camera guy DP
Speaker 1: master of all Things. But yeah, it's awesome. It's it's
Speaker 1: a wild video. Yeah. I literally built by hand. I
Speaker 1: built a replica of Lennium Falcon cockpit to be the
Speaker 1: set for the video. I mean, like I built the
Speaker 1: whole thing, like hot gluing things, and like it took
Speaker 1: me three months. I mean I was working nineteen hour days.
Speaker 1: My hands were like cracked and bloody and painted and
Speaker 1: like I was, I mean, I was all in on
Speaker 1: this video. It's a lot of money for I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about when I was twenty eight dropping ten stacks on
Speaker 1: something like that's insane. It was insane. I it was
Speaker 1: not a good idea. I mean it was it worked out,
Speaker 1: It worked out. It was illogical, though, and I knew
Speaker 1: that going in. I was like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be illogical right now because my life just
Speaker 1: lets there you go. I was like going to home
Speaker 1: Depot and Joann's Fabrics and like it was a crazy time.
Speaker 1: But the idea something. I mean, the whole reason that
Speaker 1: Patreon came up was because I was about to post
Speaker 1: this video that I like poured my soul into. When
Speaker 1: I posted videos at that time, they got about a
Speaker 1: million view So I knew I'd get about a million
Speaker 1: views and I came with this video and I'd get
Speaker 1: my ad revenue check for me to be a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty bucks, and I couldn't stomach the idea of
Speaker 1: having spent ten grand on this thing that's going to
Speaker 1: reach a million people. It's not like I'm a starming artist,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I can't find an audience, Like I
Speaker 1: found my crew on the people who like what I
Speaker 1: have to say, and I put that on the web
Speaker 1: and then I get a million. I've reached a million
Speaker 1: people around the world and I get paid a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty bucks. Like what the funk kind of system?
Speaker 1: It's bullshit, total bull And that that was the thing.
Speaker 1: I thought, There's got to be a better way here.
Speaker 1: There's gotta be a way, like if you involve fans,
Speaker 1: fans want to help, they want to support, you know,
Speaker 1: you know that. I sort of sketched out the side
Speaker 1: da for a membership platform like k Q e D
Speaker 1: or you know, um W B e Z in Chicago
Speaker 1: or SF Moment where people, you know, the fans of
Speaker 1: a thing can pay five bucks a month or ten
Speaker 1: bucks a month in exchange for exclusive access or whatever,
Speaker 1: and uh and it worked, and here we are. Once
Speaker 1: the Pokemon theme song music video was removed for copyright infringement,
Speaker 1: we were like, hey, you know, we should probably start
Speaker 1: making more original content that's not using other people's stuff.
Speaker 1: And so from that point on, pretty much we were
Speaker 1: we were wholly original content, not using copyrighted music or
Speaker 1: you know, images or whatever. So we then sort of
Speaker 1: transition to sketch comedy, and that's kind of the road
Speaker 1: we went down. So sketch comedy for the first few
Speaker 1: years of YouTube was kind of like the king of YouTube,
Speaker 1: Like everybody wanted to do sketch comedy, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's channels like Balloon Shop. It really pays me off.
Speaker 1: Why would you knock the drink out of your hand?
Speaker 1: What would you do that? Why would you do that?
Speaker 1: The Lonely Island Lonely Island obviously, Andy Sandberg, Kiva and Jorma,
Speaker 1: who then went on to SNL and then bigger and
Speaker 1: bigger things. Hello, welcome to the party. Hi, I've never
Speaker 1: met you before, you know, just two guys and we're
Speaker 1: having a good time. Derek Comedy is where Donald Glover
Speaker 1: Child's Gambino came from. That was the day everyone and
Speaker 1: a sad only to you too, Sir sat opposite day,
Speaker 1: Sir James, good evening, Sir, Can I not ask you something?
Speaker 1: About opposite day. No, but sketch comedy is really hard
Speaker 1: to continue and it's expensive. It's more expensive than just
Speaker 1: doing a vlog, Like you need to like hire people
Speaker 1: and you know, writing sketches and shooting it and editing
Speaker 1: it takes a little bit longer than normal kinds of things.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people burnt out on making sketches.
Speaker 1: I packed up my cars, like, Mom, Dad, like, I'm
Speaker 1: driving to Dallas. We're dude, perfect is Base. I'm leaving
Speaker 1: for Smartin Management, which is the sport station Seaton. Like wait, what,
Speaker 1: I thought. You've worked a year and a half to
Speaker 1: get this job. You've done it for nine months, and
Speaker 1: now you're gonna leave. I was like, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I can do this, and like, well, you know, we
Speaker 1: trust you and good luck and you know they supported me,
Speaker 1: which you know, it was number one and then number two.
Speaker 1: It was then figuring out who were the next big
Speaker 1: channels that are going to pop up on YouTube, And
Speaker 1: luckily then met typical gamer who was live streaming Grand
Speaker 1: Theft Auto and saw him pulling five thousand viewers to
Speaker 1: eight thousand viewers to twelve thousand viewers, and you just
Speaker 1: continue to grow and that's when YouTube gaming became a thing.
Speaker 1: So then was your full time focus just kind of
Speaker 1: scouting this, this next crop of influencers and mega digital personalities.
Speaker 1: And how did that day look for you? Were you
Speaker 1: just sitting there on YouTube all day? Not really. I
Speaker 1: was sending a lot of cold emails at that time
Speaker 1: because I was working pretty closely with Dude Perfect, and
Speaker 1: I was trying to bring in business for them. Wasn't
Speaker 1: really interested in signing a ton of people. I always
Speaker 1: understood that talent management wasn't scalable, it wasn't a galable
Speaker 1: business model. For me, it was I just wanted to
Speaker 1: work with individuals that I enjoyed working with, and then
Speaker 1: I wanted to become business partners with them and do
Speaker 1: something much bigger than just create YouTube videos. And for me,
Speaker 1: that was always, you know, where I wanted to take this.
Speaker 1: But at the time, there were so many different people
Speaker 1: popping up on YouTube it was hard to keep up
Speaker 1: like it is today, It's like there's so many channels
Speaker 1: with a million subscribers, how do you figure out which
Speaker 1: one to work with? So I was just getting to
Speaker 1: know people, sending a lot of cold emails, talking with
Speaker 1: advertising agencies, and really just building my rolodex. So at
Speaker 1: that point, what was the game plan for you? Did
Speaker 1: you think you we're gonna start an agency? Is was
Speaker 1: night Media? Even in the no, it wasn't even really
Speaker 1: a thing yet. I just was enjoying what I was
Speaker 1: doing and I was going to eventually figure out how
Speaker 1: to make it a business. But at the time, I
Speaker 1: wasn't even thinking that. I was just thinking, Man, I'm
Speaker 1: not making any money. How do I convince CALLOWE Golf
Speaker 1: and BMW to spend money on Dude perfect so I
Speaker 1: can actually bring in some income. That's really all I
Speaker 1: was concerned about at the time, And then it eventually
Speaker 1: to now what Night Media has become is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: I think I never matched. And yeah, so a lot
Speaker 1: of things happened between that first deal and today. Um
Speaker 1: today you represent ten huge personalities. We were going over
Speaker 1: your your top five and that doesn't mean they're your
Speaker 1: favorite gonna get me in trouble not. I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: top five because they're all incredible. But you've got Preston
Speaker 1: Mr b Sunday unspeakable. You can look at it in
Speaker 1: a few ways, views per month or subscribers or social reach.
Speaker 1: I guess we're looking at facts. We're not asking the
Speaker 1: godfather to pick the favorite child that I love them
Speaker 1: all today. Yeah, of course you do. And they're all
Speaker 1: really talented. So you get this roster? How does how
Speaker 1: does this happen? So? Okay? So I was working with
Speaker 1: dude Perfect. Then I met typical gamer Twitch and we
Speaker 1: talked about you had someone on from Twitch. Earlier Twitch
Speaker 1: was obviously taking off an Amazon had just acquired. It
Speaker 1: was called justin TV. YouTube Gaming then starts, and I
Speaker 1: was starting to work with some of those live streamers
Speaker 1: that were popping up on YouTube that were just live
Speaker 1: streaming on the platform. And that's really how it started.
Speaker 1: And then two thousand seventeen. But February two seventeen, I
Speaker 1: met an individual real name Preston Get a Minecraft channel
Speaker 1: called Preston Plays about three and a half million subscribers.
Speaker 1: We were in the same city. I was living in Dallas.
Speaker 1: I had no idea he was in Dallas, and a
Speaker 1: friend of mine who's also a YouTuber, Nico Vald, introduced
Speaker 1: us through Twitter d m s. I do most of
Speaker 1: my business weirdly enough, through Twitter Dms've never recruited anyone
Speaker 1: know they slide into mine. I've never like recruited a
Speaker 1: person to sign them. It's usually them coming to me
Speaker 1: and asking questions, is how it usually starts. Hey, I
Speaker 1: saw you work with so and so, Like, can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little more? And that's how it works.
Speaker 1: With Preston, he introduced us. We went out to coffee,
Speaker 1: sat there for about four hours and just kind of
Speaker 1: talked about family and faith and business and you know,
Speaker 1: just had a good time. And eventually, about thirty days later,
Speaker 1: him and I started working together and that's when night
Speaker 1: media took off. Right out of high school. What makes
Speaker 1: you think I'm qualified to be doing sketch because, like
Speaker 1: you said, it's not just about hiring people like you
Speaker 1: could have the money. I know people who have all
Speaker 1: the money in the world. But if you're not a
Speaker 1: good writer, if you don't have good ideas, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna fly. So how did you guys get to the
Speaker 1: place where you were qualified enough to do successful sketch comedy.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're qualified at all. Well something made
Speaker 1: you think you were. I mean, it's really we just
Speaker 1: kind of paid attention to the feedback on YouTube, and
Speaker 1: I know that's not always the best idea to read
Speaker 1: the comments. But some people have some pretty constructive criticism
Speaker 1: that are acting sucked in our ideas sucked. So we
Speaker 1: continue to go to community college, but only in classes
Speaker 1: that applied to whatever we were doing. So we took
Speaker 1: some acting classes, we took some writing classes, we took
Speaker 1: some improv classes, took some film classes, and then once
Speaker 1: we burned out on those. Once we did all those classes,
Speaker 1: we just left. But with with sketch comedy, you know,
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of time. We were out of
Speaker 1: high school, so we're living in our parents house and
Speaker 1: you know, start to have bills, so you have to
Speaker 1: find some way to create an income. And so the
Speaker 1: choice was either well you try to find a job
Speaker 1: and then find some time to make sketches, or you
Speaker 1: can commit fully to creating sketches and try to build
Speaker 1: a business doing that. So that then turn our focus.
Speaker 1: What did family think about? That family was totally don
Speaker 1: they were down there anything better? Well, because I think
Speaker 1: now it would be a lot easier for you know,
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old or sixth year old to convince
Speaker 1: their parents like, look, Jake Paul's making two million dollars years,
Speaker 1: so can I two thousand five thousand and six. Whenever
Speaker 1: you were doing it, that was not the case. So
Speaker 1: you don't have a case study to point to and say,
Speaker 1: these people are making a living doing this, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: build an empire. You had literally nothing but your own
Speaker 1: drive and an idea. Yeah, and we had viewers. You
Speaker 1: had viewers. I think my dad's an accountant, so he
Speaker 1: kind of understands business, and I think we had viewers.
Speaker 1: So that had to event something. It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if we're getting similar views to like a local TV
Speaker 1: show or something like, that's gotta that's gotta mean something like,
Speaker 1: there's gotta be a way to to monetize that. There
Speaker 1: was no way at that time in regards to add revenue.
Speaker 1: I remember our first brand deal we did for five dollars.
Speaker 1: That was a big deal to us. But we we
Speaker 1: found other ways of monetizing. We uh started selling merch
Speaker 1: and I think we were some of the first people
Speaker 1: on the platform to do that. We knew this like
Speaker 1: guy that worked out of a warehouse down the street
Speaker 1: that was a screen printer. Pretty sure he had one leg,
Speaker 1: but he never showed us. Um, but uh, I need
Speaker 1: to find out. So we so then we started like
Speaker 1: marketing our merch and like these little sort of like
Speaker 1: funny commercials at the ends of our videos. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: yess what what look at my shirt? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: stoppers small shirt. We would have this guy screenprint all
Speaker 1: the shirts. Then Anthony had a program that would take
Speaker 1: all the orders in with like their names and their addresses,
Speaker 1: and then we would package all the shirts ourselves. That
Speaker 1: we would then load all the shirts into his car
Speaker 1: and then we would drive to USPS and get very
Speaker 1: ugly looks from the workers there because we'd be mailing
Speaker 1: out maybe hundreds of shirts at a time. My god.
Speaker 1: But that was the way that we first sort of
Speaker 1: supplemented the income for the business. That was that was
Speaker 1: so entrepreneurial. I knew I was going to suck that up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every time I tried to say that one. But you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, guys, entrepreneurial of you. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we didn't have any I mean, we didn't have
Speaker 1: any choice. It was like that was our only option.
Speaker 1: It was trying to sell merch to create an income,
Speaker 1: to stay out of a job or work a job
Speaker 1: and not be able to create content. So and you're
Speaker 1: so young to figure that out. Yeah, well, I think
Speaker 1: I think I probably had some advice from my dad
Speaker 1: to we didn't really have any other choice. It's just
Speaker 1: like that was the only way to do it at
Speaker 1: the time. And you're still going to school at this point, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what were you majoring in? Was it anything to
Speaker 1: do with this world? That was just general ad We
Speaker 1: didn't really know what we wanted to do. I think
Speaker 1: Anthony thought he would get a business degree, but I
Speaker 1: think he didn't really know quite what that meant. He's
Speaker 1: just like, I don't know, business sounds nice. And he
Speaker 1: was already he was running the website on his own,
Speaker 1: and so he kind of already had like a knack
Speaker 1: for entrepreneurial kind of like, look at you. He just
Speaker 1: said it the first time, Did I do it? Like?
Speaker 1: It was like, Butter, I'm really jealous. You know. We
Speaker 1: we didn't have any sort of set plan, and our
Speaker 1: parents didn't have any expectation for us to become lawyers
Speaker 1: or doctors, so there was nobody pushing us in a
Speaker 1: specific direction. So that kind of allowed us to kind
Speaker 1: of just see that this is a big opportunity that
Speaker 1: it was our only chance to possibly take. So we
Speaker 1: just kind of went full into it. So I've interviewed
Speaker 1: a ton of YouTubers who are wanting to leave YouTube,
Speaker 1: and they're very, very honest about it. And it's because
Speaker 1: of what you just said. They put their heart and
Speaker 1: soul into these the content that they make, and content
Speaker 1: is getting really good. You know, people are putting a
Speaker 1: lot of money into their content. And then so many
Speaker 1: of them have said to me, that's why I put
Speaker 1: content on Patreon. I put my quality content there. It's
Speaker 1: like their entrepreneurs of their own world. And that's why
Speaker 1: companies like Patreon work. And that's why companies like fan
Speaker 1: joy work. Which I interviewed Chris who is the founder
Speaker 1: of fans Why am I stuttering? So I interviewed Chris,
Speaker 1: the founder of fan Joy. That's why it's hard founder
Speaker 1: of found the fan joy of founder. Yes, yes, that's
Speaker 1: basically was his business model too. It's like these creators
Speaker 1: are making more money selling T shirts and hoodies than
Speaker 1: they are on YouTube, which is like, what the hell
Speaker 1: year are we in and what what system of converting
Speaker 1: content into paychecks for the people who make the content
Speaker 1: have we built and deployed globally such that your best
Speaker 1: chance at making it as a creator is freaking putting
Speaker 1: your logo on a T shirt and selling a T shirt.
Speaker 1: That's not what That's not why you're valuable in the
Speaker 1: world because you make T shirts. You're valuable because you
Speaker 1: tell stories that people love that resonate with your fans. Like,
Speaker 1: we should have a system where the stories that creators
Speaker 1: tell that resonate with their fans, where that is their
Speaker 1: business and you don't have to do all the other
Speaker 1: extraneous bullshit to kind of cobble together a living. That's
Speaker 1: a dumb system. And unfortunately that's the reality for creators
Speaker 1: right now. I mean, at the end of every YouTube video,
Speaker 1: it's like swipe up for this merch. It's like that's
Speaker 1: how Joejoe's bows for Jojo Siwa, and like all the
Speaker 1: hoodies that Jake Paul sells, that's how they're making their money.
Speaker 1: And I think what we've essentially, yeah, the the kind
Speaker 1: of state of the industry that we're in right now
Speaker 1: is we've figured out in order to zooming way out
Speaker 1: for a second, in order to kind of put up
Speaker 1: the first phase of the web, we basically made the
Speaker 1: web free, right We said, the web is free. You
Speaker 1: pay with your attention and with your privacy, because what
Speaker 1: we essentially do to we track every movement you make
Speaker 1: on the web, and then we sell information about you aggregated,
Speaker 1: but we sell information about you two people who want
Speaker 1: to change your behavior, advertisers. You know, Um, I don't
Speaker 1: know how deep I can get. I'm loving it from
Speaker 1: someone's smartest talking. But that's essentially what I just described
Speaker 1: as the economic engine that drives the production of content
Speaker 1: on the web. Right now, consumers pay with their privacy
Speaker 1: and with their personal information and with their attention, and
Speaker 1: that gets converted into the paycheck for creators. But it
Speaker 1: turns out that essentially that's a very inefficient system and
Speaker 1: it takes millions of people, millions, because advertisers are interested
Speaker 1: in reaching millions of people. It takes millions of people
Speaker 1: in order to convert to a paycheck for a creator.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you have ten thousand people who listen to
Speaker 1: your show, that's a basketball stadium full of humans who
Speaker 1: love what you have to say. Like, in what world
Speaker 1: should that not be enough to make a living like that?
Speaker 1: We need a system on the web where ten people
Speaker 1: is enough. And that system is more like a consumer
Speaker 1: payment system, it's more like heck, freaking Disney is doing
Speaker 1: it now, Disney plus New York Times is doing it.
Speaker 1: They have a subscription portion of New York Times which
Speaker 1: is now bigger than their advertising business. So consumer payments
Speaker 1: is you know, going back to what I said before,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of phases of the web, that
Speaker 1: initial phase the web where the primary economic driver is
Speaker 1: this advertising model. We're shifting to a new phase. I
Speaker 1: think over the next you know, decade or two, ten
Speaker 1: to twenty years, we're going to see consumer payments start
Speaker 1: to be I hope. So yeah, I think that's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's already happening. It is, it is, and
Speaker 1: you're one of the driving forces in that. So you
Speaker 1: should be really happy about that. Yeah. For people who
Speaker 1: don't understand how Patreon works, would you mind us giving
Speaker 1: a high level explanation of the platform. Yeah. So, the
Speaker 1: way Patreon works is a fan can pay five bucks
Speaker 1: a month, ten bucks a month, hunter bucks a month, honestly,
Speaker 1: whatever the tears the creator creates. Fan can pay a
Speaker 1: subscription pledge to a creator in exchange for exclusive community,
Speaker 1: early access, extra episodes, behind the scenes, interviews, extra photos,
Speaker 1: basically extra content and community and Interaction, Um and Patreon
Speaker 1: is this system that allows creators flexibility to build and
Speaker 1: run whatever membership they want if they want to have,
Speaker 1: you know, five dollar, ten dollar, hundred dollar, if they
Speaker 1: want to have twenty five fifty two hundred dollar, and
Speaker 1: then you can load whatever benefits you want into those
Speaker 1: tiers early access, exclusive access, exclusive community. We have integrations
Speaker 1: with community platforms, all this kind of stuff, so you
Speaker 1: can kind of do whatever you want to do as
Speaker 1: a creator. And for creators, it's an amazing way to
Speaker 1: essentially build a super close fan base. You own your
Speaker 1: audience as a creator, like you get their email addresses,
Speaker 1: Like on what other platform do you get the email
Speaker 1: addresses of the people that are actually like fans of you,
Speaker 1: and you make so much more money than you would
Speaker 1: buy ad revenue. We have creators making literally fifty to
Speaker 1: two hundred times what they make through ad revenue by
Speaker 1: just letting their fans contribute five bucks a month for
Speaker 1: an extra episode. What did you do? What was your
Speaker 1: secret sauce and what was your offering to these people
Speaker 1: that helped them go from three million to say twenty
Speaker 1: million subscribers. Well, it ultimately falls on them to produce
Speaker 1: good content. It. The one thing that that we really
Speaker 1: focus on that we understand is it's a business. And
Speaker 1: so most of these YouTube creators that you meet and
Speaker 1: this was, you know, two thousand ten, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 1: YouTube was just an individual in front of a camera
Speaker 1: editing his or her own videos and creating their own thumbnails.
Speaker 1: That is not YouTube. You have to have a creative director,
Speaker 1: a post production manager, head editor, like you need to
Speaker 1: have specific people on your team to help where you
Speaker 1: can kind of take a step back as a creator
Speaker 1: and just focus on, Okay, what's today's video, Okay, what's
Speaker 1: tomorrow's video, and that creative director really needs to help
Speaker 1: you flesh out like, Okay, what do my fans want
Speaker 1: to watch? Right? So what we've really focused on is
Speaker 1: helping them build teams internally so they can just be
Speaker 1: talent and that's what they should be. They shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to play fifteen different roles. And as we're looking to
Speaker 1: start other businesses or whether it's a consumer product or
Speaker 1: we're starting a mobile gaming company, they can't focus on
Speaker 1: that things. If they're editing their own videos and making
Speaker 1: their own thumbnails and coming up with all the creative
Speaker 1: it's just not feasible. And so for us, you know,
Speaker 1: most of our clients now have taken a step back
Speaker 1: hired the specific individuals that they need on the team,
Speaker 1: and then they also understand the data behind why YouTube
Speaker 1: videos perform. Well, what what is the common thread between
Speaker 1: all of these talent all of this, you know, the
Speaker 1: digital personalities versus the other ones we're seeing on YouTube.
Speaker 1: So for us, like we focus on two things. This
Speaker 1: is what we're talking about a little earlier. The first
Speaker 1: pillars that they need to be family friendly. We only
Speaker 1: work with family friendly creators. It's a little differently if
Speaker 1: your audiences in their twenties and thirties and forties. But
Speaker 1: most of the audience that we have for creators is
Speaker 1: like six to twelve years old. Some of them sew
Speaker 1: a little older, like Mr Beast and many Latin typical gamer.
Speaker 1: But for the most part that's where we sit. And
Speaker 1: so family friendlies one, and that second one is we
Speaker 1: only work with creators that want to be more than
Speaker 1: just YouTubers. They want to have to be business people.
Speaker 1: They want to be entrepreneurs. They're really good at using YouTube,
Speaker 1: is that core and then building businesses from that? If
Speaker 1: that makes sense. So those are like, as I look
Speaker 1: at all of our clients are are clients. That's two
Speaker 1: things that they all have in common, is they really
Speaker 1: want to do more than just be a YouTube creator.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really sound like you necessarily had an agenda either.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like some people start a YouTube channel because
Speaker 1: the ultimate goal is to be an actress, a series regular,
Speaker 1: or they want to break into music. It just seemed
Speaker 1: like you guys were throwing things to the ceiling and
Speaker 1: seeing what's stuck that you enjoyed doing. But it didn't
Speaker 1: seem like you had a well we're doing this because
Speaker 1: we want to be, you know, movie stars in five years. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm a very much go with the flow kind of guy.
Speaker 1: So for me, I didn't have aspirations. I guess I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say like, well, they'll look at you. It just
Speaker 1: fell into a lot of success. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I think you worked very hard for that. I didn't have.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any I didn't feel like I deserved anything.
Speaker 1: You know. I think a lot of people actors, you know,
Speaker 1: they put a lot of time into this dream of
Speaker 1: becoming an actor, and then when they get sort of
Speaker 1: a taste of success, then they feel like I deserve this,
Speaker 1: Like anything anything that comes my way, I don't feel
Speaker 1: like I deserved it. I mean, I worked towards it
Speaker 1: and it happened, and then I just try to, you know,
Speaker 1: not take anything for granted. And that's just kind of
Speaker 1: been the way that I've always kind of looked at
Speaker 1: our career. It's like just kind of go with the flow,
Speaker 1: go with like wherever this crazy thing is taking us.
Speaker 1: Would you say that that has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with the fifteen plus years of success this brand that
Speaker 1: wasn't a brand at the time has seen because of
Speaker 1: your mentality and because of your attitude towards everything you
Speaker 1: were doing every day. Yeah, I think so. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't looking to use Smash as a platform to become
Speaker 1: television actor or you know, a director or anything like.
Speaker 1: To me, all those things are awesome and I love
Speaker 1: doing them and I'll take those opportunities if they come.
Speaker 1: But Smash has all he's made the most sense to me,
Speaker 1: as like, that's my sort of base. That's what I understand,
Speaker 1: and it's what I think that we're good at. And
Speaker 1: everything else is is nice, but there's probably other people
Speaker 1: they're better at it than me. So you're creating content,
Speaker 1: you're making you're getting little brand deals here and there,
Speaker 1: you're selling merch just to keep things afloat. When did
Speaker 1: it become something that you felt like wasn't a hustle struggle.
Speaker 1: It was more of like, Okay, we have a system
Speaker 1: going and this is this is a real business. Was
Speaker 1: there like a video that went viral? Was there a
Speaker 1: moment a validation? Can you remember a time when it
Speaker 1: felt real, because I'm sure it took a while to
Speaker 1: feel like a real quote unquote real Job's say, in
Speaker 1: like two thousand seven, we were contacted by um, this guy,
Speaker 1: Barry Bloomberg. He was a Disney television executive that had
Speaker 1: left Disney and he was kind of looking for the
Speaker 1: next thing to folk us on and he sort of saw,
Speaker 1: you know, online media as being this sort of next thing.
Speaker 1: So he started working with us and was like, if
Speaker 1: you guys want to do this for a long time,
Speaker 1: you need to start thinking of Smash is like a
Speaker 1: comedy brand. So it was now small at this point
Speaker 1: you had evolved into Smash. Yeah, I mean Smash was
Speaker 1: a name that we had actually had since sophomore year
Speaker 1: of high school. Okay, so that was not like evolved
Speaker 1: into the name Smash. You guys always kind of called
Speaker 1: it Smash. Yeah, that really worked out because, like at
Speaker 1: the time of like the beginning of YouTube, everybody was
Speaker 1: like their channels were just like their names. If we
Speaker 1: didn't have Smash, we might have called our channel like
Speaker 1: Ian and Anthony Productions, which doesn't exactly lend itself to longevity.
Speaker 1: But luckily we had this great name because it was
Speaker 1: a it was an inside joke that our friends that
Speaker 1: came up with, and then Anthony created a website for it,
Speaker 1: and then when the YouTube video started picking up, we're like, well,
Speaker 1: let's just continue to have it tied to this smash name.
Speaker 1: At that time, it was just Anthony and myself as
Speaker 1: the faces of Smash, and it was Barry that you know,
Speaker 1: sort of said, if you guys wanted to be doing
Speaker 1: this ten years, twenty years, whatever years down the road,
Speaker 1: it needs to be more than just you two. It
Speaker 1: needs to be a brand. And that's something that we
Speaker 1: weren't thinking of the time. I don't think that was
Speaker 1: something anybody's thinking about at the time. Nowadays, every Instagram
Speaker 1: model is like, this is my brand everything and beauty
Speaker 1: and positivity. Everybody's thinking like what their brand is now,
Speaker 1: but back then, it's like, no, our channel is, like
Speaker 1: we're just like two guys. But it made a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to say that we always just kind of
Speaker 1: like went by the flow that I guess that's not
Speaker 1: completely true. Like we we did have this vision of
Speaker 1: what smash could become. I mean just from the beginning,
Speaker 1: you screenprinting your own merch. You may have been going
Speaker 1: with the flow and attitude of like where this goes,
Speaker 1: but you were very much proactive in everything that you
Speaker 1: guys did, like the merch, the Patriot, your own version
Speaker 1: of Patriot. Yeah, that ended once we started, like I
Speaker 1: actually getting money from merch. We're like, okay, we can't
Speaker 1: just ask for money from them. We can't just be like,
Speaker 1: can I have five dollars? We can give you a
Speaker 1: shout out at the end. Yeah, we stop. We stopped
Speaker 1: doing that. We're like, okay, that's just kind of wrong.
Speaker 1: And I'm not I'm not talking Patreon. I think Patreon
Speaker 1: is great, but you were not. I mean, you were
Speaker 1: just saying five dollars please. Yeah. Yeah, We're like, hey,
Speaker 1: we'll show you on the video if you give us. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have such an eye for talent. Is there
Speaker 1: anybody on YouTube right now that you're kind of that
Speaker 1: you're not that is not signed to Night Media? Someone
Speaker 1: on YouTube you've got your eye on. You think that
Speaker 1: they have something going. I know you have. They're honestly,
Speaker 1: isn't like I'm trying to think I don't watch a
Speaker 1: ton of content outside of our clients because you don't
Speaker 1: even have time to think about signing anyone else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I'm pretty focused on our ten individuals. Are there
Speaker 1: some creators doing some awesome stuff? Yes, there is even
Speaker 1: people that we don't represent, Like, I think David's content
Speaker 1: is amazing, it's very authentic. Why do you think people
Speaker 1: watch David jo Brack. He's funny, he's supporting cast is
Speaker 1: also awesome. Like they're just fun individuals and they're at
Speaker 1: that age where they're like eighteen to two years old,
Speaker 1: right in that college age. They have a large fan
Speaker 1: They have a large fan base of probably sixteen to
Speaker 1: twenty four, maybe younger. I don't know. It's just something
Speaker 1: about his four minute videos too. They're just easy to consume.
Speaker 1: So there's all these like there's a Cloud Gang, there's
Speaker 1: Team ten there's you know, David's career already forgot what
Speaker 1: they call? Oh yeah, how could I forget the vlog squad?
Speaker 1: How come you guys don't have a gang name. We
Speaker 1: don't need to have a gang name. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like we're successful without it. I actually Preston, So Preston
Speaker 1: used to have the pack. It was Vick Star, Lachlin
Speaker 1: Musel No no no, no, Vick Star, Laughlin Beijian Canadian and
Speaker 1: Rob and Preston. They were called the Pack. That was
Speaker 1: a Minecraft blew up. But they've all kind of said,
Speaker 1: gets a smart marketing play to have your little squad
Speaker 1: and do collaps? Do they collab? We don't really do collabs.
Speaker 1: Night media clients clab internally with each other, but we
Speaker 1: don't do a lot of outside collabs. There's a few
Speaker 1: reasons for that. One is we don't want people subscribe
Speaker 1: to our channels that aren't going to click on videos
Speaker 1: and sub boxes. So, for instance, if Jimmy would go
Speaker 1: do a video James Charles and two d fifty thousand
Speaker 1: James Charles fans would subdim Mr Beast, then that video
Speaker 1: hits sub boxes and those two people don't click on it.
Speaker 1: That hurts our ctr So that's why we don't That's
Speaker 1: why we don't do collabs outside of our genre. Right,
Speaker 1: So Preston will do collabs with other kids creators because
Speaker 1: he knows that, oh, those fans will click on my videos.
Speaker 1: But we don't do like David Doll refer instance, like
Speaker 1: I don't know if we'll have to do a collab
Speaker 1: with David because we don't know if he his fans
Speaker 1: would click on our videos. YouTubers don't think about it
Speaker 1: like that, but they should be because the goal is
Speaker 1: to have a hundred percent active subscribers. When you post
Speaker 1: a video, all of them click on your video, Hence
Speaker 1: you have a high ctr When you just inflate your
Speaker 1: subscriber numbers by doing collapse, you're actually hurting your channel.
Speaker 1: What advice would you give someone who wants to go
Speaker 1: on and Patreon and be a successful creator on the
Speaker 1: on the site? Step one is make great stuff that
Speaker 1: your fans love. Um, if you don't quite have a
Speaker 1: fan base yet, uh, Patreon doesn't work as well for you. Um.
Speaker 1: It's really a membership platform. It works great for creators
Speaker 1: who are who have already kind of found what they
Speaker 1: want to make and then seen that reach people. So
Speaker 1: this isn't like a throw ship to the ceiling and
Speaker 1: see what sticks. This is like a come with your audience. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And it's not UM, it's not that we don't care
Speaker 1: about solving that particular problem, or it's not that we
Speaker 1: don't want to help folks find fans. It's just we're
Speaker 1: being at a startup. You have to prioritize, and so
Speaker 1: we're saying, Okay, you know the problem, we're gonna solve versts.
Speaker 1: So you're getting a bunch of views on YouTube, but
Speaker 1: you're not making any money. That's the problem Patreons focused on.
Speaker 1: But yeah, advice, make great stuff that you love, that
Speaker 1: your fans are passionate about UM, and just make it awesome.
Speaker 1: And then when you when you're proud of it and
Speaker 1: when you see it resonating with other folks, start a
Speaker 1: Patreon page and honestly, at that point, just be be yourself,
Speaker 1: be honest, tell your fans what's going on, invite them
Speaker 1: in on the journey. UM. The creators who love their
Speaker 1: fans and whose fans love them back, they do the
Speaker 1: best on the platform. And then advice for somebody who
Speaker 1: is in your shoes now not a creator, but somebody
Speaker 1: who wants to represent creators. Yeah, just to add value
Speaker 1: that when I first started in this industry, I didn't
Speaker 1: even take a commission. It's like I will literally work
Speaker 1: for free. I will do a good job, I will deliver,
Speaker 1: and then we'll talk about it. So it's like you
Speaker 1: need to provide value before you can just go to someone,
Speaker 1: throw a contract in front of them and say hey,
Speaker 1: let me take X percentage of your revenue. So it
Speaker 1: just doesn't work like that. And there's a lot more
Speaker 1: competition in the space, and there used to be when
Speaker 1: I got started. When I got started, there was probably
Speaker 1: two or three people that were trying to manage digital influencers,
Speaker 1: especially in this town. So I think if you're a
Speaker 1: young kid, find someone that you get along with, that
Speaker 1: you think you can work with for the next decade,
Speaker 1: and then provide value. Don't try and sign thirty seven
Speaker 1: people right out of the door, because it's you're not
Speaker 1: gonna last. You seem too good to be true that
Speaker 1: you have all these knowledge nuggets, plus you have this
Speaker 1: incredible roster of talent. I'm really excited to see what
Speaker 1: they all have going on. I know you couldn't tell
Speaker 1: us much. Is there anything you can tell us? Just
Speaker 1: give us one little, you know kind of thing. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: we talked about the tree video, so we're going to
Speaker 1: see a lot of YouTubers be a part of this
Speaker 1: Mr Beast Tree challenge. So it's a dollar to planet tree.
Speaker 1: So he did get other YouTubers involved. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a ton and it's not within the your community, your well,
Speaker 1: all the night media clients will probably get involved. We
Speaker 1: have others. I won't say anyone's name yet. We'll wait
Speaker 1: for those announcements, but some people that have been on
Speaker 1: this podcast are probably going to be involved. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and like I said, the goal is to plant twenty
Speaker 1: million trees by Earth, so we'll start out so Mr
Speaker 1: Beast will start out with probably a million trees and
Speaker 1: then we'll go get nineteen more million planet and yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll be a that's it. That's crazy. So in hindsight,
Speaker 1: fifteen fourteen years later, you can whisper into young Ian's
Speaker 1: ear and tell him one piece of advice that might
Speaker 1: make things transition smoother, business deals better. Would there be
Speaker 1: something that you would in hindsight tell younger Ian. I
Speaker 1: don't think so I mean I think obviously there was
Speaker 1: there was things that didn't work out, but that's still
Speaker 1: worked out in a sense. Yeah, I mean, whether it
Speaker 1: was like a bad brand deal and we got backlash
Speaker 1: or you know, some sort of bad business deal, or like,
Speaker 1: oh we hired this person and they weren't great. Like
Speaker 1: that's all part of learning. So whatever bad things happened,
Speaker 1: they happened, and we became better because of it. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it actually shaped your journey and probably taught you, you know,
Speaker 1: how to get over the hurdle. And you guys are thriving. Now,
Speaker 1: how many I think I've saw twenty four million subscribers
Speaker 1: across and might I might even be think we're twenty
Speaker 1: five some Yeah, I'm sure changed. We were. We were stuck.
Speaker 1: We were stuck at twenty two million for like, I think,
Speaker 1: like a year because just our content was not was
Speaker 1: not in the right place. And then once once we
Speaker 1: got things correct and we started doing the things that
Speaker 1: we felt like we needed to do, it immediately changed.
Speaker 1: Can you wrap your head around it's a big number,
Speaker 1: twenty five million people wait for your content. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean that's a lot that's subs and that's also people
Speaker 1: that subscribe maybe eight years ago that are that moved on,
Speaker 1: so it's not necessarily million people that are watching. Fine,
Speaker 1: but still, I mean, starting from a couch doing lip
Speaker 1: singing videos, fast forward fourteen years, you've built an empire
Speaker 1: that huge beheamoths of companies have wanted to buy it
Speaker 1: started on a couch, you and your best friend. That's
Speaker 1: got to be a pinch me. It's weird. It's pretty weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're so in it. It's your life, so
Speaker 1: you probably don't see it that way, but from the
Speaker 1: outside it's an insane story. I agree, it's insane, and
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing it with us today. I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to see where Smash goes in the next couple
Speaker 1: of years. Do you have any do you have a
Speaker 1: vision for what you think? Let's not even do a
Speaker 1: big one, but like, where do you see that? Where
Speaker 1: do you see Smash in the next year. Let's go
Speaker 1: like super small. Yeah. Well, we we got back on
Speaker 1: our feet in February with Mythical and if these past
Speaker 1: four months are indicative of where we're going, then I
Speaker 1: feel very, very positive about our future. It's been nothing
Speaker 1: but good ship. The ship is going to get better.
Speaker 1: And better, like the biggest best ship you've ever seen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Behind the influence of the production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and TDC Media, the st