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Speaker 1: All right, guys, welcome back, Eyl. We have special guest.
Speaker 1: This is always good comm stations when we get to
Speaker 1: talk to people in the media space and cultural space
Speaker 1: in the business world, because that's kind of our niche
Speaker 1: as far as you know, looking at the business behind
Speaker 1: what people actually see. So everybody's familiar with Complex. You've
Speaker 1: built a tremendous brand in the world of culture, sports, entertainment,
Speaker 1: anything that really does with media, New age media. They
Speaker 1: definitely have led the charge for a long time. So
Speaker 1: Marksha Fitzgibbons.
Speaker 2: That's me, Yes, for like you build it a you know,
Speaker 2: Indian name, and I learned maybe a year ago that
Speaker 2: in India it's a woman's name. So like I've been
Speaker 2: running around, you know, my whole life. You know, at
Speaker 2: least I'm the only one, right, I've never met in
Speaker 2: business another Marsha. So this is the first, the thankful
Speaker 2: part of it.
Speaker 1: But I always think, what does it mean?
Speaker 2: It would be smilar to like Elijah, like you know,
Speaker 2: sort of.
Speaker 1: A freedom the woman version of Elijah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or Emmanuel or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very none of these people that your name are women.
Speaker 1: Emanuel Elijah.
Speaker 5: Correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't say. I'm you know, huge on Indian culture,
Speaker 2: no expert, but uh, you know that that's what I've
Speaker 2: been told that it's you know, not traditionally used as
Speaker 2: a man's name. So anyway, what kind of makes it interesting?
Speaker 5: Yeah, the first Mosca we've had on the show.
Speaker 2: Probably the last, depending on how this goes. No press
Speaker 2: me too incendiary.
Speaker 1: So President of Complex, Yeah, so you're I'm sure you
Speaker 1: have a lot on your plate now you guys are
Speaker 1: gearing up for a Complex car. Yeah that that's always
Speaker 1: a good time. I think we've been to at least
Speaker 1: one we've been.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we went to Long Each Long Beast two years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that was cool. Who was there at that time?
Speaker 3: I feel like Asap might have been there. He's always there,
Speaker 3: He's always no you know what it was kit Cutty.
Speaker 2: Kit Cutty, He's also done in a couple of Yeah.
Speaker 3: Kit Cutty was was one a headliners, the headliner. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I just remember the sneaker of the year because that's
Speaker 3: important to me.
Speaker 5: I was actually I actually had it on as they announced.
Speaker 3: It and Gary Vee was Yeah, but I think I
Speaker 3: should came through to it was big.
Speaker 5: It was big.
Speaker 2: I mean every time, it's going to be a lot,
Speaker 2: a lot bigger this year. We As you guys know,
Speaker 2: Complex was sold to BuzzFeed a few years ago. I
Speaker 2: think it didn't sort of fit within their ecosystem and
Speaker 2: as a result, you know, I would say the business
Speaker 2: side of Complex eroded a bit or wasn't nurtured to
Speaker 2: its best degree. Fortunately, they they did a good job
Speaker 2: keeping up the audience and growing that side of things.
Speaker 2: But one thing that I think like kind of suffered
Speaker 2: was Complex con They just didn't put the investment into it,
Speaker 2: and we are putting a huge investment into it this
Speaker 2: year really with sort of the thought that like we
Speaker 2: need to really like kind of establish to the community,
Speaker 2: to the fans, to the creators, to the brands that
Speaker 2: like Complex is back, It's back to its core. And
Speaker 2: you know that's where you see like this investment, Like
Speaker 2: Travis is creative directing it. He and playwhere doing sort
Speaker 2: of headlining nights. He's doing this whole sort of like
Speaker 2: micro con within it called Cactus Con, and you know
Speaker 2: it's just like you know, obviously a lot of complications
Speaker 2: and sort of pulling that all together, but we really
Speaker 2: think it's like the biggest marketing moment for the brand
Speaker 2: and sort of sets the halo effect for the brand overall.
Speaker 2: It's pretty unique when a media company can get sixty
Speaker 2: sixty five thousand young people to buy tickets, fly out,
Speaker 2: commute to this physical destination. You know, there's there's really
Speaker 2: very in my mind, very few media brands that can
Speaker 2: do it. So it's a it's a special relationship we
Speaker 2: have with the audience. And you know, just based on
Speaker 2: the sort of the historicals with BuzzFeed, it's you guys
Speaker 2: should come out it's going to be much more impactful
Speaker 2: and meaningful than years before.
Speaker 3: And the yeah we went it was in a long beach,
Speaker 3: but this year it's actually moving to Vegas.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what was the idea thought process behind all?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: We one of the things we see in events is
Speaker 3: you have something that's established in one place and it's
Speaker 3: working there, keep it there, but you're moving it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it was, you know, it was based on the
Speaker 2: investment the BuzzFeed was making in it. It was you know,
Speaker 2: it was shrinking, right, it was it needed an invigoration,
Speaker 2: and Vegas being like the entertainment capital of America, we
Speaker 2: felt like, you know, all the clubs, Live, Zook, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Everyone the city will program around it as well, like
Speaker 2: they'll really embrace it. I think there's like eighty or
Speaker 2: ninety thousand young people that travel to Vegas every day.
Speaker 2: You know, it's very close proximity to southern California, and
Speaker 2: we just felt like we needed to make a big,
Speaker 2: bold statement. It's in the new Convention Center, which is
Speaker 2: attached to the Fountain Blue. You know, you've got Live
Speaker 2: in there and whatever, Poppy Steak and all these things
Speaker 2: that are creating energy, and we felt like, you know,
Speaker 2: just we could also excite the artist community, and I
Speaker 2: think that was like part of like, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of getting Travis involved. Was like, hey, it's new, it's fresh,
Speaker 2: it's never been done before. That generally excites people, but
Speaker 2: it's definitely a risk. I was, you know, I won't lie.
Speaker 2: I was concerned about it. I was like like our
Speaker 2: you know, brands don't usually say that Vegas is a
Speaker 2: priority market, but like to you know, my sort of
Speaker 2: I guess delight. Everyone's been really supportive of it, embracing it,
Speaker 2: and if you look at you know, we put the
Speaker 2: flyer out the other day. It's a mix of amazing
Speaker 2: artists and great brands, and we're we're super excited about it.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be very impactful.
Speaker 1: So okay, so let's talk about complex What you did
Speaker 1: at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was there from my first job out of college.
Speaker 2: I worked at this magazine called The Source, which you
Speaker 2: guys obviously now of course, So you know, I started out, like,
Speaker 2: you know, getting coffee and all like the administrative stuff
Speaker 2: that you would do back then. And you know, I like,
Speaker 2: you know, I grew up like single mom. She never
Speaker 2: made very much money. So, like, I was very hungry
Speaker 2: to like make money. And I would see all like
Speaker 2: the sales guys, the ad sales guys, like you know,
Speaker 2: they all had like benzes and roll exes, and you know,
Speaker 2: Dave gave them like source chains that Jacob the jeweler
Speaker 2: made if they hit their number. And I was like, man,
Speaker 2: you know, like twenty three, twenty two years old, I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, I want that. So I begged them every day,
Speaker 2: give me accounts, give me accounts, give me accounts. So
Speaker 2: like maybe a year after working there, they started giving
Speaker 2: me like streetwear accounts. And that's how I met Mark
Speaker 2: and Seth who owned Echo and Limited. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 2: selling them ads essentially, and they're like, hey, we're going
Speaker 2: to like create this magazine, you know, but it's gonna
Speaker 2: be a digital magazine and we're going to distribute it
Speaker 2: on Sony mini discs if you remember those on the
Speaker 2: hangtags of the apparel, like super bad idea in hindsight.
Speaker 2: That failed quickly and then it pivoted to physical magazine,
Speaker 2: which you know published for quite a long time. So
Speaker 2: I was, yeah, I was one of the very first employees.
Speaker 2: I was the first salesperson, and I was there from
Speaker 2: two thousand and two through twenty seventeen. We sold it
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen and then I stayed through a sort
Speaker 2: of a transition period. But yeah, it was a great
Speaker 2: ride and a lot of you know, sort of like
Speaker 2: figuring out print magazine businesses and making that work. And
Speaker 2: then we had was two thousand and eight, two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine, you had the recession which literally like killed
Speaker 2: our print business, like went from twenty something million in
Speaker 2: revenue down to like six in like eighteen months. But
Speaker 2: fortunately we had really started to work on digital, and
Speaker 2: digital went from like six one hundred thousand to twelve million,
Speaker 2: and we were like, oh, we need to you know.
Speaker 2: And also the friction with the audience, which we didn't
Speaker 2: really because we have been sort of like print magazine people.
Speaker 2: We didn't really realize that we're like, make a beautiful thing,
Speaker 2: put it out every month, put it on newsstands, send
Speaker 2: it to subscribers. Like that was like the model where
Speaker 2: digital the internet is so much more democratic. There's no friction.
Speaker 2: You can reach consumers like almost instantly. Maybe more challenging
Speaker 2: to make that sort of like physical like long term
Speaker 2: impact with them, but there's so much more of an
Speaker 2: ease to scale audience. So that was super exciting for us.
Speaker 2: We were like, oh wait a minute, Like there's such
Speaker 2: a bigger audience on the Internet versus a print magazine
Speaker 2: which has all these distribution limitations. And so that was
Speaker 2: a super trying time. Like, you know, Echo's core business
Speaker 2: also had a lot of financial issues at that time,
Speaker 2: so we had to go independent and raise some capital
Speaker 2: and then you know, sort of the blog era happened
Speaker 2: and we were monetizing that way, and then sort of
Speaker 2: that is a consumer behavior changed and we pivoted into
Speaker 2: digital video and social and now the pivot into e
Speaker 2: comm experiences and you know, sort of premium content, having
Speaker 2: them all come together to make a more durable, long
Speaker 2: term business because being solely ad dependent, if there's a
Speaker 2: big recession moment, you know, it's so.
Speaker 1: Those talking about that thing. So Okay, you guys have
Speaker 1: a media company, right, You produce content, You have shows.
Speaker 1: You had Joe Biden was every day struggle, every day
Speaker 1: struggle and academics, right, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's amazing.
Speaker 1: So you guys produced content, you do shows, you have
Speaker 1: the Instagram thing. You got a sneaker situation but all right,
Speaker 1: so the business, how does the business make money? You
Speaker 1: make money through advertisers. Yeah, what you're saying that you
Speaker 1: don't want to be solely with depending on it. So
Speaker 1: you're talking about the verticals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's how that actually makes money. So there's
Speaker 2: three verticals currently that we're focused on. So you think
Speaker 2: about premium content, and largely there the monetization is ads
Speaker 2: or sponsorship or integration.
Speaker 1: What's there? What is the premium content with you guys?
Speaker 2: It shows like three sixty with Speedy, Mormon idea Generation
Speaker 2: sneaker shopping, and a whole host of other shows. Like
Speaker 2: I would say we probably launch pilot somewhere around twenty
Speaker 2: shows a year with the hopes that you know, ten
Speaker 2: to twenty percent will become successful and become like another
Speaker 2: three sixty with Speedy, Like I don't know if you
Speaker 2: saw the episode last week he had Go Go you know,
Speaker 2: two days did fifty million views, crazy.
Speaker 5: Fifty million two days wow, across.
Speaker 2: TikTok reels and YouTube, you know, mainly in the shorter firm.
Speaker 2: That's why I was asking you, guys, abook sort of
Speaker 2: your strategy there before. But you know, there's a couple
Speaker 2: of days there you went on reels or TikTok and
Speaker 2: like fan pages are picking it up, commentary pages. I
Speaker 2: just saw her on I think Angel Reese's podcast or
Speaker 2: somebody else podcast. She asked her about that, like, Oh,
Speaker 2: what's your type of guy? Like, Oh, it's not speedy,
Speaker 2: and like it's like it was like a whole thing,
Speaker 2: you know, So that kind of content that you know,
Speaker 2: it's high production value. It's episodic, like it's programmed like
Speaker 2: Sneapker Shopping comes out every Monday at noon, so fans
Speaker 2: can expect it. It's also good for the advertising community
Speaker 2: because they can like sort of similar to like linear
Speaker 2: cable TV, they know it's coming. That's one part of
Speaker 2: the business. The other part of the business is e commerce,
Speaker 2: so Complex through all of its channels, has just over
Speaker 2: one hundred million followers.
Speaker 1: And just get back to the first part of the business.
Speaker 1: That's part of the business. How do you monetize that.
Speaker 1: You monetize that through ads.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's traditional ads and then the probably forty percent
Speaker 2: of traditional ads, and then sixty percent is what I
Speaker 2: would call bespoke advertising. So integrations like you have this
Speaker 2: you know, water bottle on the table now it could
Speaker 2: be Sprite, and then Sprite would present this episode and
Speaker 2: there might be a Sprite I don't know, hot take
Speaker 2: moment or whatever that kind of moment is. It's like
Speaker 2: an integration yep. And then a smaller subset of that
Speaker 2: is more in depth creative development, where let's just say
Speaker 2: another Coke brands, say just Coke zero. We might work
Speaker 2: with them on creating content that's totally new to the
Speaker 2: world that has our hosts in it, but like they
Speaker 2: sort of like co create the IP with us.
Speaker 1: So you're getting the sponsors before you greenlight the show,
Speaker 1: as opposed to green lighting the show and trying to
Speaker 1: pitch the show to sponsors.
Speaker 2: We go both routes. So we are constantly launching shows
Speaker 2: with the intention of getting another you know, sneaker shopping
Speaker 2: and other speedy and other hot ones, like shows that
Speaker 2: do tens of millions of views with every episode. But
Speaker 2: sometimes we're getting you know, requests or briefs from you
Speaker 2: know whatever, Apple, Samsung, et cetera. They're like, Hey, we
Speaker 2: have something so specific we want to achieve that it
Speaker 2: can't fit creatively within one of our shows, So we
Speaker 2: will work with our development team to build something totally
Speaker 2: new to world that fits their business goals. Those shows
Speaker 2: are obviously much harder to go viral and be organic,
Speaker 2: but they satiate, you know, the brand's needs to be
Speaker 2: like you know, uber specific around I don't know what
Speaker 2: financial literacy or whatever they would want to be talking about.
Speaker 3: So when you're creating a strategy to approach to brands,
Speaker 3: obviously you have mega brands now, but go back to
Speaker 3: the beginning stages, even from the source up until this point,
Speaker 3: what was your strategy when approaching a brand from a
Speaker 3: I guess from an ad standpoint, from I guess, integration
Speaker 3: and until you just spoke about.
Speaker 2: So like the first part, I think what we were
Speaker 2: trying to communicate to advertisers around Complex and still do
Speaker 2: is this notion of convergence consumers. You know, youngish people
Speaker 2: that are just as interested in sort of traditional sports
Speaker 2: as they are action sports. You know, they're just as
Speaker 2: interested as in hip hop as they are reggaetone. They
Speaker 2: like streetwear as much as they admire coutore, where most
Speaker 2: of the media before Complex was like you like hip hop,
Speaker 2: it's the source. You like men's wear, it's GQ, You
Speaker 2: like action sports, it's thrasher and skateboarder. There wasn't like
Speaker 2: a cross pollination. And you know, obviously Mark, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of growing up the way he was like, you know,
Speaker 2: he loved everything. You know, he's making shirts for a
Speaker 2: tribe called Quest, and he was skateboarding, he was you know,
Speaker 2: doing graffiti, and he was into gaming all these things.
Speaker 2: So it's like, let's pull all these things together. And really,
Speaker 2: you know what now is sort of very typical millennial
Speaker 2: cultural and culture and gen Z culture, Like they're consuming
Speaker 2: things from all different passion points. That wasn't so much
Speaker 2: the case then, So we're really educating, Hey, there's this
Speaker 2: new consumer who's interested in all of these things. And
Speaker 2: then we also had you know, complex was always about
Speaker 2: you remember the magazines was like half entertainment and then
Speaker 2: half purchasing as a buyer's guide. So our argument was like, hey,
Speaker 2: we are reaching a consumer who is literally wallet in
Speaker 2: hand or credit card in hand, like there's a direct
Speaker 2: connection to the lifestyle and to the products they purchased,
Speaker 2: thus making the roi on marketing to them stronger. For
Speaker 2: the brands.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the advantage point you speak of is
Speaker 3: it's pretty interesting, right you start out the source you
Speaker 3: watch double XL even vibe, those aren't here anymore.
Speaker 5: Yeah, complex is still here. How does that?
Speaker 3: I mean looking at back now, how did you learn
Speaker 3: from the lessons from I guess not the failures of them,
Speaker 3: But everything has its time span. How do you guys
Speaker 3: create the longevity after watching what happened to done?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the one thing we're pretty obsessed about
Speaker 2: is winning the youth. Like we're constantly challenging ourselves to
Speaker 2: like not rest on the fact that, like we've won
Speaker 2: the twenty five to thirty five year year old audience,
Speaker 2: because pretty quick they're going to be forty five. So
Speaker 2: if you're not winning fourteen to sixteen right now, who
Speaker 2: admire the twenty one and twenty two year old, You're
Speaker 2: going to have a really hard time as a media brand.
Speaker 2: And I think you see that in other sectors too,
Speaker 2: Like I think you have to be obsessed with youth
Speaker 2: culture and what's next in reaching younger folks, otherwise you're
Speaker 2: going to age out. And I think that perhaps is
Speaker 2: what happened to those or maybe they're you know, like
Speaker 2: also the print work, you know, they didn't adapt from
Speaker 2: print where we pretty you know, not perfectly but we
Speaker 2: pretty aggressively adopted digital than video, than social, you know,
Speaker 2: now AI trying to figure out formats that we can
Speaker 2: deliver you know in an AI universe. What does that
Speaker 2: look like in the future. And if you're not aggressive
Speaker 2: about that stuff, it's you're gonna get left behind.
Speaker 1: So you didn't get a chance to finish what was
Speaker 1: the second and third leg of monetization for you guys.
Speaker 2: So the second leg is e commerce. So we are like,
Speaker 2: if you go to Complex right now, there is a
Speaker 2: shop Complex tab right now, it's a drop specific. So
Speaker 2: we'll launch like a you know, a New Balance collaboration
Speaker 2: or you know, Takashi Marakami artwork, whatever those kinds of
Speaker 2: things are. It's all like a limited time only launch.
Speaker 2: But next month it will become more of an omnipresent
Speaker 2: e commerce marketplace where they will be not just these
Speaker 2: limited time only drops, So that the ideas that we
Speaker 2: basically leverage the scale those one hundred million plus consumers
Speaker 2: we're reaching every month to not only super serve them
Speaker 2: on the content side, but serve them up the products
Speaker 2: and leverage our channels to serve up the products that
Speaker 2: they want to buy, so that you know, adds is
Speaker 2: one piece. E Commerce is the other piece, and then
Speaker 2: the third piece is experiences. Complex Cone is now twice
Speaker 2: a year Vegas and Hong Kong. We're doing other experiences,
Speaker 2: so that within that becomes ticketing revenue and other merch revenue,
Speaker 2: Like you know, the merch store around comp con is
Speaker 2: A is a standalone pretty successful business. And then we've
Speaker 2: got the store in La where you know, every weekend
Speaker 2: we're doing pop up shops with different musicians and different athletes.
Speaker 2: It's not a huge business, but it's successful and it's
Speaker 2: something that we can roll out to other markets as
Speaker 2: we grow.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how vitally important is sponsorships to Complex car.
Speaker 2: In terms of like the profitability or.
Speaker 1: How profitability ability to actually throw the event? Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you said, like you know, you didn't want to rely
Speaker 1: too too much on that from the content perspective, because
Speaker 1: you know you're thinking of yeah.
Speaker 2: If yeah, it's super important. So if you didn't have
Speaker 2: the mix of sponsorship revenues, merch like commerce revenues on
Speaker 2: site and ticketing, it would be impossible to make it profitable,
Speaker 2: like doing it on ticketing alone or merch. You know,
Speaker 2: just the cost of production on this thing is in
Speaker 2: the tens of millions. You couldn't. It's not like you know,
Speaker 2: rolling out great business. But it's like a couple of stages.
Speaker 2: They're not you know, it's not all these like super
Speaker 2: hyper developed experiences that cost you know, millions of dollars
Speaker 2: to build. And you know, without without the sponsors, it
Speaker 2: would be you know, impossible to make it a profitable business.
Speaker 2: And the same without the ticketing revenue or without the
Speaker 2: merch revenue. So it has to all come together. And
Speaker 2: that's sort of my point is like before Complex was
Speaker 2: on one legged stool, just like ad revenue, and that's
Speaker 2: why it you know, sold a couple of times, right,
Speaker 2: And we really have a vision to making a three
Speaker 2: legged stool with content, commerce and experiences feeding into that
Speaker 2: three legged stool, thus making it more stable. And you know,
Speaker 2: Complex I think twenty two ish or twenty one years
Speaker 2: old now, but we want a future proof it for
Speaker 2: the next fifty years. So it's a strong, vibrant, thriving brand.
Speaker 1: Any subscription model in there.
Speaker 2: Not currently, but down the road we want to do
Speaker 2: we want to do. We want to build a business
Speaker 2: for like the super fans of Complex around access, like
Speaker 2: early access to e commerce drops special access to things
Speaker 2: like complex con or activations we might do at art
Speaker 2: Basel or f One. Also, you know, it could even
Speaker 2: be things like, hey, if you're part of this membership cohort,
Speaker 2: there's a special track of programming and special ticketing price
Speaker 2: for invest Fest or things like that that we could
Speaker 2: do with partners. But it'll all be about like we
Speaker 2: were talking about before, access, Like this consumer thrives for
Speaker 2: access either like they want to experience the content to
Speaker 2: sort of get that like intellectual like ammunition, so they like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know what's up with that? Or they want to
Speaker 2: buy something, so it's like badging and it's like proof
Speaker 2: that you experience something. And then in the in the
Speaker 2: you know, in sort of the physical space, like they
Speaker 2: don't want to wait online. As we were talking about before,
Speaker 2: it like you want, you want to get you want
Speaker 2: you know, you want the guy at Disney that's walking
Speaker 2: you in front of the whole lines, right and you know,
Speaker 2: and that also creates social ammunition for you. I feel like, oh,
Speaker 2: like I got in right away, I had this amazing
Speaker 2: thing and I got the merge. Like then you return
Speaker 2: to the you know, working around the water cool or
Speaker 2: at school or whatever you're doing, and you have like
Speaker 2: the story that you can tell about it. You've got
Speaker 2: the physical badging, and you had a great experience. That's
Speaker 2: the wind for consobers.
Speaker 3: You brought up two great words, sponsors and partners. And
Speaker 3: to me, when I think sponsors, I think short term
Speaker 3: relationship partners. I feel like this longevity whether you're going
Speaker 3: to be at complex con or wherever event it is, three, five,
Speaker 3: ten years. How do you guys approach brands when you're
Speaker 3: thinking about that, Like, this company is up and coming,
Speaker 3: this might be a good sponsor as opposed to that
Speaker 3: brand has been here, We need to partner with them
Speaker 3: to figure out how to build this.
Speaker 2: I would say that we I think we look at
Speaker 2: it along those lines. Right there there, there's a group
Speaker 2: of brands and people that buy advertising that what they're
Speaker 2: doing is very tactical. You know, they're trying to promote
Speaker 2: tune in for their TV show or their streaming show
Speaker 2: this Friday.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Like those people, I would say, are like more in
Speaker 2: the sponsor arena.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 2: And then there's brands that you know have you know,
Speaker 2: they share a similar consumer they're trying to target. They're
Speaker 2: trying to do interesting things in the space, something like
Speaker 2: a Nike or Adidas, where you know, you can take
Speaker 2: it a bit deeper and you can become real partners,
Speaker 2: and you know they're not They're not coming and saying, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: we need to do this thing in the next ninety days.
Speaker 2: Here it is go execute for us. They're actually bringing
Speaker 2: us and say like, hey, this is our product roadmap
Speaker 2: for the next three years. What do you think can
Speaker 2: you help us with consumer insights? Can you help us
Speaker 2: build out a plan to make you know, air Force
Speaker 2: one vibrant again, or whatever that case might be. So
Speaker 2: I think it's you know, some brands will never be
Speaker 2: in the space that they share like a com and
Speaker 2: kind of DNA as you and I mean, obviously they're
Speaker 2: very different. But like brands that want, like I would say,
Speaker 2: like Sprite back in the day was a brand that
Speaker 2: really wanted to participate in our space. So like that
Speaker 2: was a brand that made a lot of sense to
Speaker 2: be a partner with and be long term with. Where
Speaker 2: you know, maybe like some of the water brands are
Speaker 2: just coming in and out of the market. It's that's
Speaker 2: that's not going to be a long term partnership.
Speaker 1: So okay, so complex. It's an interesting timeline here. It
Speaker 1: starts in two thousand and two too, and then it
Speaker 1: sells in twenty sixteen with three hundred and.
Speaker 2: Four million twenty eight three.
Speaker 1: Hundred and twenty eight million in twenty sixteen. Then in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one it sells for two hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: four million, BuzzFeed buys it, then it sells for one
Speaker 1: hundred and nine million, and twenty twenty four intw network,
Speaker 1: you network. Okay, so from three hundred from twenty to
Speaker 1: two hundred and ninety four to one hundred, and what's
Speaker 1: happening here? It's selling from drastically lower every couple of years.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when the first exit in twenty sixteen was definitely
Speaker 2: top of the market in terms of media company valuations.
Speaker 2: You know, there was a ton of hype around like
Speaker 2: brands like Vice raising crazy amounts of money. And you know,
Speaker 2: fortunately for us, as you know shareholders in the business
Speaker 2: were you're able to exit because I think if your
Speaker 2: exit later it would have been really challenging. We're kind
Speaker 2: of the last media brand to exit. In that era,
Speaker 2: the business was pretty strong and stable, but you could
Speaker 2: see when BuzzFeed bought it. It did buy it, you know,
Speaker 2: relatively similar revenues, but the multiples had compressed because the
Speaker 2: marketplace changed. And then when BuzzFeed owned it, I don't believe.
Speaker 2: I think their model of approaching audiences and approaching advertisers
Speaker 2: and monetization is just so dynamically different than complexes approach,
Speaker 2: like they are super mass, super transactional, where complex is
Speaker 2: about like depth of connection, depth of conversation, creating real
Speaker 2: partnerships with brands. And it just didn't fit. So they
Speaker 2: didn't nurture it super well. They then spacked. They got
Speaker 2: caught up in all that that didn't go well and
Speaker 2: widely reported. You know, there was I think they're on
Speaker 2: the NASDAC. I'm not totally sure on that, but whatever
Speaker 2: exchange they're on that they were. There was like the
Speaker 2: issues around potentially getting delisted and all of this stuff.
Speaker 2: And you know, we were just super persistent about like, hey,
Speaker 2: if there's an opportunity and you're in a cash need environment,
Speaker 2: you know, we are interested in and e merging it
Speaker 2: with network. And at first they weren't interested, and I
Speaker 2: think as their conditions didn't improve, that presented an opportunity
Speaker 2: and we bought the brand back in February. And Who's
Speaker 2: Network Network or what is it? Or who Both Network
Speaker 2: is a live streaming e commerce platform where the world's
Speaker 2: best creators and brands come to sell their most highly
Speaker 2: coveted products in a livestream e commerce environment. It was
Speaker 2: started by Jimmy I Bean and a couple other folks
Speaker 2: that were sort of associated with Complex. I joined there,
Speaker 2: I think late twenty eighteen, early twenty nineteen something like that.
Speaker 2: We built it up pretty successful business. Livestream shopping didn't
Speaker 2: scale quite as quickly as we thought it would. We
Speaker 2: were looking to how amazing it's doing in China and Brazil,
Speaker 2: and we thought like, hey, like this is going to
Speaker 2: be like you know, the Echo boom in North America,
Speaker 2: and you know, so as we were looking to like, okay,
Speaker 2: how do we make this business stronger? You know, we're
Speaker 2: looking at things like our CAC and we're spending you know,
Speaker 2: multimillion dollars a year on meta to drive downloads and
Speaker 2: drive engagement. And you know, we all of us were
Speaker 2: kind of like ex Complex people, So we're trying to
Speaker 2: super serve that same audience, but just through a commerce perspective.
Speaker 2: And when this opportunity, it just totally made sense. It's like, hey,
Speaker 2: we the audience is there, the brand strength is there.
Speaker 2: We can transition from network to shop complex. It's a
Speaker 2: much stronger name, it's a it's a bigger name, more reputable.
Speaker 2: The audience is there, so we don't have to invest
Speaker 2: as much into like all the digital ads on Meta
Speaker 2: and you know, we thought we could make a much
Speaker 2: stronger business solve for the issues on the complex side
Speaker 2: and then solve for the issues on the network side.
Speaker 1: And Mark Ecko was a part of the network.
Speaker 2: He was not originally known, but Mark is on the
Speaker 2: board of the new company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you guys, you guys, you exited in sixteen, Yeah,
Speaker 3: stayed on eighteen. You joined there when you guys, when
Speaker 3: the team is trying to team building and maybe we'll
Speaker 3: get into that a little bit, but it's vitally important
Speaker 3: to this. But as you're watching it, it's almost something
Speaker 3: that you helped create and you're starting to watch your.
Speaker 5: Devalue devalued value.
Speaker 3: How long or how long would the discussions to say
Speaker 3: we need to go back and try to acquire this thing.
Speaker 1: Well, you left, you left for a point in.
Speaker 3: Time, right, from Complex.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, eighteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, I left in eighteen. Yeah, I left
Speaker 2: at the top of eighteen. I think I joined Network
Speaker 2: and the top of nineteen. I might have the dates
Speaker 2: off a little bit there, but it was definitely early
Speaker 2: days for Network. But you know, like we were on fire,
Speaker 2: especially during COVID e commerce, Like we were like we
Speaker 2: thought we could do no wrong. We were, you know,
Speaker 2: raising money like it was you know, things were good.
Speaker 2: And then you know, as everyone sort of got out
Speaker 2: of COVID, things started to turn back to normal from
Speaker 2: an e commerce perspective, from an experienced perspective, so you know,
Speaker 2: we faced some of those headwinds and we were navigating
Speaker 2: them and you know we I mean just quite frankly,
Speaker 2: we always had an admiration for Complex, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: we built the brand, we loved the brand, we admire it,
Speaker 2: you know, we we love the audience, and we felt like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's so hard building a new consumer brand.
Speaker 2: If we could just merge the sort of innovation, the technology,
Speaker 2: the e commerce, the spirit of entrepreneurialism with Complex that
Speaker 2: had the audience and the cachet and the credibility, we
Speaker 2: could make, you know, a media company of the future,
Speaker 2: a marketplace and e commerce business of the future that
Speaker 2: looked like no other. So that was really the aspiration.
Speaker 2: And to answer your other question, I think it took
Speaker 2: about a yearish to convince them to do it, uh
Speaker 2: meaning BuzzFeed to sell it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's very rare that you do exit
Speaker 3: a business and get the bus back and at.
Speaker 5: A lower evaluation.
Speaker 2: So well, there's a lot of examples of that. Like
Speaker 2: Dan Gilbert sold Quicken Loans, he bought it back, you know,
Speaker 2: made it multi billion dollar business. Alan Shapiro I think
Speaker 2: bought and sold Dick Clark Productions like three times, and
Speaker 2: each time he sold it for a billion dollars and
Speaker 2: then bought it back for like one hundred million or something.
Speaker 2: I mean, those numbers might not be exactly right, but like,
Speaker 2: you know, his thing was like I know how to
Speaker 2: run that business. I'm gonna sell it to these guys
Speaker 2: that they don't know how to run it. They're gonna
Speaker 2: mess it up. I'm gonna come back and.
Speaker 1: So buy so sell high by law, you.
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Speaker 1: Was that, Yeah, you guys sold it for three hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty four million and then brought it back for
Speaker 1: one hundred million.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it was intentional, but it worked out
Speaker 2: that way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, So but that's some level of foresight, right, Like,
Speaker 1: was there any foresight or that was just that was
Speaker 1: just a coincidence. You kind of knew that they was
Speaker 1: going to ruin it.
Speaker 2: I would say that, you know, you all wouldn't know
Speaker 2: this better than me. But there's a there's always a
Speaker 2: stat out there about like murders and acquisitions failed majority
Speaker 2: of time, right, So, you know, selling Complex to the
Speaker 2: first to like a Verizon and Aharst. I mean, we
Speaker 2: were independent, so it's like okay, like we're operating separately,
Speaker 2: but still things got a little weirdish. And then you
Speaker 2: know BuzzFeed just I mean, like just think about it
Speaker 2: on paper, does that make any sense. There's no intersectionality
Speaker 2: of those audiences, Like they're not even interested in the
Speaker 2: same thing. Like BuzzFeed's making videos about like exploding water
Speaker 2: melons by putting rubber bands around them, and cats on
Speaker 2: roller skates, and like Complex is talking about like nuances
Speaker 2: within streetwear and hip hop and art culture. It's just like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it just didn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: How about retention of talent twenty sixteen, you have every
Speaker 3: day struggle. Yeah, Joe Budden obviously now one of the
Speaker 3: leaders in media. You have academics and another guy who's
Speaker 3: leading in the media. The lessons that's learned from them
Speaker 3: not being part of Complex anymore, but having a guy
Speaker 3: like Speeding who has been super creative and great for
Speaker 3: the brand, Joe with with with Stekers shopping obviously hot Ones.
Speaker 3: The lessons that's learned from losing talent but retaining in
Speaker 3: the future, retaining talent that it's going to be able
Speaker 3: for to bring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, it's a that is uh, you know,
Speaker 2: an everyday focus. You know, it's it. I wish I
Speaker 2: could say it's super easy. You know, Complex is I
Speaker 2: think super I would say we are. We're really happy
Speaker 2: that we've been able to like incubate a lot of
Speaker 2: talent and give people, you know, a lot of younger people,
Speaker 2: like a Speedy coming up like their initial platform, or
Speaker 2: Emily Oberg who now has like a super successful fashion brand.
Speaker 2: She was like one of the first you know, anchors
Speaker 2: on Complex News. And sometimes those people are so entrepreneurial,
Speaker 2: you know, they're so motivated, you're you're never going to
Speaker 2: keep them. And then some people are like Complex Family,
Speaker 2: like Joe and Speedy, who like they really value being
Speaker 2: associated with Complex. They want to be in the mix.
Speaker 2: They want to build new shows, Like we just built
Speaker 2: a new show with Joe called On Display where he
Speaker 2: goes into celebrities homes and then he basically interviews them
Speaker 2: about like their collections and a sort of like their obsession.
Speaker 2: So like you went to Dapatista's house and he collects
Speaker 2: lunch boxes and bicycles, and like the big insight was
Speaker 2: like theves like I couldn't afford any of this, can
Speaker 2: I swear or no? Of course He's like, I can't
Speaker 2: afford any of this shit when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: So now I'm buying it now. And he's like you know,
Speaker 2: it's like and it kind of dawned HI me. He
Speaker 2: was like, Wow, it's like, you know, sort of all
Speaker 2: about this fandom culture. But I was like, what, like
Speaker 2: kind of a powerful message, right, like that like once
Speaker 2: he obtained prosperity, he could unlock all these things that
Speaker 2: he couldn't get as a kid. And I thought, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I was kind of uplifting sort of subtexts there,
Speaker 2: But you got to give my little bit of a
Speaker 2: pivot here. But you have to give the talent new opportunities, right,
Speaker 2: You have to invest into them. You have to say, like,
Speaker 2: you know, hey, Joe, like you've got sneaker shopping bona
Speaker 2: fide it, you've got the sneaker podcast.
Speaker 5: Hit.
Speaker 2: What else are you interested in? Oh, I'm interested in
Speaker 2: collectibles and uh sort of like architectural digest type content. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's build something around that. You have to give them
Speaker 2: the opportunity to be creative and flourish, you know, otherwise
Speaker 2: they're gonna go do their own things. And sometimes they're
Speaker 2: you know with like you know, you know other people
Speaker 2: you mentioned before, they're so entrepreneurial that like that's just
Speaker 2: a force. You're never going to be able to like,
Speaker 2: you know, keep it, keep it inside the building, and
Speaker 2: I think that's great, Like, you know, arguably they have
Speaker 2: the number one podcast in the world amazing or you know,
Speaker 2: in the space and that that's that's great. So I
Speaker 2: think and then you know, the other part is like
Speaker 2: we always should be an incubation engine for new talent.
Speaker 2: And that gets back to my point about like really
Speaker 2: being obsessed with winning the younger audience, because oftentimes these creators,
Speaker 2: they find their audience and then they super serve them.
Speaker 2: Like the sneaker shopping audience is a very specific male
Speaker 2: consumer and they're super serving them. But you need to
Speaker 2: bring in other talent to super serve other parts of
Speaker 2: the audience as well.
Speaker 1: So, okay, how important is the content creation side of
Speaker 1: what you guys do as far as Instagram TikTok. It's
Speaker 1: a very nuanced skill set and it changes a lot.
Speaker 1: Like so at one point in time, you know, rails
Speaker 1: was everything and then Instagram changed it to car ourselves
Speaker 1: and you need to have to stay up to date
Speaker 1: with this with these things, and you guys do a
Speaker 1: good job as far as staying in the algorithm. So
Speaker 1: how important is that to make sure that your content
Speaker 1: team is up to date and uh well prepared to
Speaker 1: tackle the new challenges on social media every day.
Speaker 2: It's it's everything. If we're not engaging and growing audiences,
Speaker 2: the rest of the business will suffer.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: If we're not growing and engaging audiences, we can't put
Speaker 2: things on the e commerce side in front of that audience.
Speaker 2: If we're not engaging audiences, the advertising business will suffer.
Speaker 2: For not engaging audiences, ticket sales will be soft to
Speaker 2: complex cons So the most important thing we do and
Speaker 2: you know, led by Aria and Noah, like they just
Speaker 2: do a super good focused job. I'm continually to press
Speaker 2: to grow the socials and having dedicated talent because you
Speaker 2: know a lot of people think like, Okay, I'll just
Speaker 2: have my YouTube shorts person do tiktoks and they'll do reels. Well,
Speaker 2: they're completely different approaches, right, Like reels is feed based
Speaker 2: still algorithmic as well, TikTok is one hundred percent algorithmic.
Speaker 2: I can't really figure out shorts yet, but like someone
Speaker 2: will figure that out. But like you need dedicated people
Speaker 2: that are experts on that, and they just tend to
Speaker 2: be like younger folks, right, Like you have to invest
Speaker 2: in younger people who really understand those platforms, who understand
Speaker 2: and snap or whatever it is, and then tailor the
Speaker 2: content in appropriate way to reach those audiences.
Speaker 1: People. Do you have on your content team.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly, but over one hundred with freelancers.
Speaker 5: Yeah. When Staying Fresh and Staying Youthful.
Speaker 3: You spoke about AI earlier, talk about how the ideas
Speaker 3: and the team around that. I know you had the
Speaker 3: Slim Shady eminem cover incorporating that, So how you guys
Speaker 3: looking to implement that.
Speaker 5: I would say, it's the way of the future, but
Speaker 5: it's of the now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was a good example. That was our
Speaker 2: first piece of it. And for the listeners that don't know,
Speaker 2: pretty smart idea by Noah and team. They programmed or
Speaker 2: fed a large language model all of like the Slim
Speaker 2: Shady lyrics and references over time to train it up
Speaker 2: on what that personality would look or act like. And
Speaker 2: then they had Slim Shady interview Marshall Mathers and obviously
Speaker 2: it played into the whole theme of the album. And
Speaker 2: then visually we brought that to life in them in
Speaker 2: like a Thelma and Louise moment on the cover. You know,
Speaker 2: sort of like driving off a cliff kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But like, you know, at least as far as I know,
Speaker 2: that was the first time ever sort of the antry
Speaker 2: personality of an artist interviewed them in an AI format.
Speaker 2: So like, you know, pretty pretty I think, you know,
Speaker 2: pretty good use of the technology, pretty innovative, definitely not cheap.
Speaker 2: But you know, other things we're looking at is like, okay,
Speaker 2: so as perplexity starts to disrupt Google, right and it's
Speaker 2: sort of AI search, how do we create formats that
Speaker 2: show up in that area. We're looking at a lot
Speaker 2: of things like how do we take things that are
Speaker 2: super successful in the text format, like oftentimes like our
Speaker 2: rankings and lists of you know whatever, top fifty sneaker
Speaker 2: or hip hop albums. They create a tremendous amount of
Speaker 2: virality and debate. It's very easy for AI to just
Speaker 2: steal that content and not give us any attribution. So
Speaker 2: we're thinking about, like, okay, how do we turn that
Speaker 2: into vertical video? How do we turn that into long
Speaker 2: form video? Because we think there's more of a mote
Speaker 2: with video than there you know, than there is with
Speaker 2: tech certainly, So it's I wouldn't say we have it solved.
Speaker 2: I think it's super complicated. Uh, you know, the AI
Speaker 2: tools are going to continue to progress and make probably
Speaker 2: business more challenging for content publishers and definitely not less.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's like, you know, you can't bet
Speaker 2: against youth culture and you can't bet against technology, right,
Speaker 2: those things will always win, so you better lean into
Speaker 2: them where you're fucked.
Speaker 1: How important is data collection to you guys?
Speaker 2: Business on the e commerce side, super important, you know,
Speaker 2: because that you know, you're you're doing the drip campaigns
Speaker 2: and you know, recidivism campaigns and you know, all kinds
Speaker 2: of things to get consumers back into the store. It'll
Speaker 2: be super important when we launch membership. Obviously on the
Speaker 2: advertising side, it depends on the brand. Like some people
Speaker 2: are super interested in that, like who they're reaching, how
Speaker 2: they're reaching them, and then others are like, like they're
Speaker 2: pretty familiar with complex and they're like, okay, yeah, got it,
Speaker 2: eighteen to thirty four multicultural, you know that's what you're
Speaker 2: super serving.
Speaker 3: Well, one of the things that you're passionate about. We
Speaker 3: talked about culture. We talked about music is art and
Speaker 3: I know everything complex and comiss all of it.
Speaker 5: But on a personal side. They're an art collector.
Speaker 3: Ish, I mean, did the passion come from the work
Speaker 3: or was that something that you already had passion for?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, like, you know, I was thinking about
Speaker 2: on the right up here. Like when I was a
Speaker 2: kid in Tennessee, we lived on like a commune. So
Speaker 2: I like had like very like hippie parents that commune,
Speaker 2: like you know, communists in a true form, right, So
Speaker 2: it made me really like appreciate art and individuality. And
Speaker 2: there's a lot of musicians in that space, and it
Speaker 2: just gave me an appreciation of that. But it also gave
Speaker 2: me like a staunch appreciation for capitalism, right, So I
Speaker 2: like ran away from it, but still kept those things.
Speaker 2: I think part of that, like you know, we'd like
Speaker 2: share houses with musicians and all these things and artists,
Speaker 2: Like my home space always reflects that. And I like
Speaker 2: to support the art community, you know. I'm I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I'm part of a group at the pres Art Museum
Speaker 2: that that helps you know, sort of new artists get
Speaker 2: exposure in the museum and we fund that and it's
Speaker 2: more of you know, kind of I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: it's an interesting space for me. It's it's a space
Speaker 2: I you know, I admire artists because I'm not one,
Speaker 2: so it kind of gives me like an entryway into
Speaker 2: like their thinking and their creativity. And I think that
Speaker 2: that kind of like different friends almost like healthy tension,
Speaker 2: makes me better in business because I'm able to like
Speaker 2: sort of see things from their perspective and then apply
Speaker 2: it if I'm working with a brand or working internally.
Speaker 2: And you know, to your point, complex has always been
Speaker 2: you know, had an admiration for our you know, whether
Speaker 2: it's like Cause doing covers or us doing you know,
Speaker 2: work with Marakami. You know, there are a number of
Speaker 2: artists that really break through from a consumer perspective, both
Speaker 2: on the music side and the traditional you know, sort
Speaker 2: of fine art side, and working with those folks makes
Speaker 2: for a much more interesting media product consumer product. And
Speaker 2: then you know, if there's like a physical product that
Speaker 2: comes out of.
Speaker 3: It, is that how some of the verticals a building,
Speaker 3: especially from the digital side, it was just complex and
Speaker 3: we had complex sneakers, then we have complex sports. Yeah,
Speaker 3: is there like all right, we have a group there's
Speaker 3: a huge interest here. Maybe we need complex tech or
Speaker 3: we need complex.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they probably were a little scattered under the
Speaker 2: BuzzFeed regime, so we have retrenched it. So the categories
Speaker 2: are music, style, sport, pop culture which kind of catch movie, gaming,
Speaker 2: and food. So those are kind of the main verticals
Speaker 2: that we're focused on and really leaning deep into those.
Speaker 2: And to your point, there's very specific, dedicated teams that
Speaker 2: work on each one of those verticals. So there's like
Speaker 2: ahead of sneakers, ahead of style, ahead of music, and
Speaker 2: they have teams under them that are both producing content
Speaker 2: and working the socials to engage the audience.
Speaker 1: So what's the future for Complex, Like what do you
Speaker 1: guys have envision for their ten year model?
Speaker 2: Ten year model in terms of so, I would say,
Speaker 2: we really want to continue to invige rate the brand
Speaker 2: with you know, super interesting content like the Eminem piece
Speaker 2: that we.
Speaker 5: Just talked through.
Speaker 2: We want to over the next few months, as you're
Speaker 2: watching or reading, you know, pieces of content like the Eminem,
Speaker 2: you're also able to shop it. You're also able to
Speaker 2: go to an experience tied to it. So we want
Speaker 2: to have that sort of like trifectave content, commerce and
Speaker 2: experience come to life around everything we want to build,
Speaker 2: or we believe we can build a really big e
Speaker 2: commerce marketplace business. You know, this is the first year
Speaker 2: we took Complex to eight or complex goneto Asia in
Speaker 2: Hong Kong. That was super successful. So we want to
Speaker 2: continue to bring complex gon too other markets. You know,
Speaker 2: we really just want to build a super strong, dynamic
Speaker 2: business that is not sort of dependent on one source
Speaker 2: of revenue, that can flourish for the next you know,
Speaker 2: fifty or seventy five years. You know, I don't want
Speaker 2: it to sort of have the bumps and stumbles that
Speaker 2: it's had over the last five years. I think it's
Speaker 2: it's all about making you know, a super healthy, profitable,
Speaker 2: current and sort of future looking business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the expansion of complex
Speaker 3: con and especially going to Asia. What was experienced like
Speaker 3: because well you hear about obviously culture being exported, and
Speaker 3: sometimes it feels like, you know, they appreciate it more
Speaker 3: because it's not specifically there with the expectations the same
Speaker 3: in terms of successful the event when when you took
Speaker 3: it international.
Speaker 2: You know, consumer, we didn't expect the same from like
Speaker 2: our consumer turnout perspective, but it was pretty good. I
Speaker 2: think it was thirty or thirty five thousand people bought
Speaker 2: tickets and intended over the two days, which which is
Speaker 2: pretty good. It was a bit of a lower investment
Speaker 2: than we would make in the US. It was our
Speaker 2: It was kind of very much a pilot, but we
Speaker 2: beat our expectations both in terms of attendance and the
Speaker 2: revenues it produced. So we're steam ahead on doing it again.
Speaker 2: We've got a great partner in China and she wants
Speaker 2: to bring it to other markets like Singapore. It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: It's like she did it in Hong Kong, but like
Speaker 2: the majority of the people came from mainland China because
Speaker 2: of the access right, like Complex Com was giving them
Speaker 2: access sort of like in real life with the artists
Speaker 2: and the creators, like sort of that community. But then
Speaker 2: to the products where you know, people in Japan have
Speaker 2: access to that stuff so easily, right, So it's kind
Speaker 2: of so it's it's kind of you're you're you're finding
Speaker 2: this need case for it, whether it be in Hong
Speaker 2: Kong or Singapore and popping up in those places, and
Speaker 2: you know, we're I would say similar, like we're looking
Speaker 2: to do one in Dubai. We want to do Paris
Speaker 2: or maybe London. So I think it you know, there
Speaker 2: will be a time where there will be you know,
Speaker 2: complex con is almost this like traveling circus model, and
Speaker 2: it's popping up in these different places and doing really
Speaker 2: unique experiences and merch drops and live content and all
Speaker 2: of that coming together.
Speaker 1: What's what's your thoughts on the creator economy. A lot
Speaker 1: of people are saying that it's like a recession for
Speaker 1: creators and a lot you have a few people at
Speaker 1: the top that's doing well and the vast majority of
Speaker 1: people that's making viral content never making any money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so is it sustainable? Like where do we go from
Speaker 1: here as far as what has been coined as the
Speaker 1: creator economy?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Uh. I think you know, a lot of people flooded
Speaker 2: the zone, right, so there's a there's a dearth of
Speaker 2: creators out there. I think, you know, the people that
Speaker 2: are doing super well there they are they've found a
Speaker 2: niche in a positive way, and they're super serving that
Speaker 2: consumer and they're adding value. I think those people, you know,
Speaker 2: long term, will will flourish. They just have to figure
Speaker 2: out how to monetize. I don't think the platforms, at
Speaker 2: least in the current state, are going to be that
Speaker 2: path like that's just to get you the exposure so
Speaker 2: that brands like you know, Samsung or whoever want to
Speaker 2: work with you. And then I think, you know, they
Speaker 2: just need people that can help them get brand deals
Speaker 2: and like explain to Samsung or you know, Meta or
Speaker 2: ray Band whoever, it is, like, Hey, this is why
Speaker 2: she or he is super important. This is their audience,
Speaker 2: and this is how you can activate them clearly at
Speaker 2: the top to your point, you know, like the mister
Speaker 2: beasts of the world Logan and Jake Paul, like, you know,
Speaker 2: they're you know, even Shannon Sharp. I think he's you know,
Speaker 2: on you know, on well on his way to really
Speaker 2: dominate in this new sort of like content paradigm. Those
Speaker 2: people can branch out and do all other things, you know,
Speaker 2: launch CpG brands, launch candy bar brands, become professional fighters,
Speaker 2: like they really figured it out. The middle, I think
Speaker 2: is the hardest part, right, Like it's like you're not
Speaker 2: niche enough and specific enough to be seen as like
Speaker 2: really corer an expert to whatever that community is. And
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of people in that segment
Speaker 2: of like you know, the boyfriend girlfriend videos. It's like
Speaker 2: like I don't know who wants to sponsor that I
Speaker 2: don't can't figure out, like what's the value proposition?
Speaker 1: Like how do you monetize that? Do you feel like
Speaker 1: it's too much content? Because I was just thinking about
Speaker 1: like even you know, previously you had sports and you
Speaker 1: had news, and then you had like movies and stuff.
Speaker 1: Right now now you have sports, you have news, you
Speaker 1: have movies, but you have twenty four hour content that's
Speaker 1: being produced on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. It's it's an
Speaker 1: unprecedented time in human history if you think.
Speaker 2: About it, right, very democratic.
Speaker 1: It's like a hurricane of content daily. Right, is this
Speaker 1: oversaturating the media market to where it's devaluing real, actual
Speaker 1: valuable content doesn't even mean thing anymore?
Speaker 2: You could make that argument. I wouldn't make that argument
Speaker 2: because I think when you make really high quality content,
Speaker 2: it breaks through. Like we were talking about Speedy interviewing
Speaker 2: Gorilla last week. It broke through right like he designed
Speaker 2: that episode brilliantly creatively to have those moments where people
Speaker 2: that know were like they flirting? Was he like embarrassed?
Speaker 2: Was he cracking up? Could he not understand her?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 2: He designed that whole thing to be a thing, right,
Speaker 2: And it broke through, and like people that do that
Speaker 2: I think will be successful. Is there a barrage of
Speaker 2: like just nonsense and your friends posting eighteen hundred stories
Speaker 2: that you don't need to look at? Sure, but the
Speaker 2: high quality content I think will break through. I really
Speaker 2: like all these platforms I think are for the betterment, right,
Speaker 2: and it's giving more people at all more I think.
Speaker 2: So it's giving people more access. I mean, like, I mean,
Speaker 2: there's obviously there's obviously not nice people outs there.
Speaker 1: Let's just be honest, right, the vast majority of content,
Speaker 1: it's like the vast majority of music, the vast majority
Speaker 1: of music is bad and it's it's detrimental. And that's
Speaker 1: why specifically hip hop music is going down, right because previously,
Speaker 1: like the Golden era, you had to really be talented
Speaker 1: in order to be heard. Now anybody can be heard.
Speaker 1: Now with that breaking up the barrier, you lose any
Speaker 1: level of nostalgic moments. Quality of music is going down,
Speaker 1: and it's hurt the entire genre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can see the point you're making. I think
Speaker 2: the point I'm making is, like you have in content,
Speaker 2: you have these seismic consumer changes happening where like you know,
Speaker 2: the average age of like news programming on linear television
Speaker 2: is in its seventies.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 2: That means there's someone like one hundred and four watching
Speaker 2: it if the average is.
Speaker 1: Seventy, right, so I watch it to average seventy.
Speaker 2: Average is seventy MSNBC is seventy years old, right, That
Speaker 2: means there's no one eighteen watching it? Literally no when
Speaker 2: not one person? Right, and all of these social tools,
Speaker 2: And I would agree some of it is not nice,
Speaker 2: and some of it is not good, and some of
Speaker 2: its low quality. But there are a lot of people
Speaker 2: that wouldn't get the opportunity to create content and break through.
Speaker 2: With there's such a reduction in friction that they can
Speaker 2: have the opportunity to break through. And I do concur
Speaker 2: with your point that it is important that it is
Speaker 2: high quality, it's premium, it's scheduled, that it's done in
Speaker 2: a methodical way. I do think that's more valuable, it's
Speaker 2: more trustworthy. I think brands matter. Like you know, I
Speaker 2: don't agree in this, Like you know, Jason Calacanis and
Speaker 2: Chamoth Polyopatia that like Cinnisen, journalism is like gonna be
Speaker 2: the thing, Like No, you guys are just all riding
Speaker 2: Elon's you know, like wave right like this not true,
Speaker 2: like citizen journalism. Yeah, maybe it's part of it. But
Speaker 2: like I want journalists I can trust, right, I want
Speaker 2: people with ethics.
Speaker 1: Trust any journalists?
Speaker 2: Can you trust anyone? But yeah, like I think nobody.
Speaker 2: I think honestly, there are journalists and the journalists I've
Speaker 2: worked with that they have boundaries, like you know, they
Speaker 2: they will quit at a principle, they will not do
Speaker 2: things out of principle. I think there are people that, like,
Speaker 2: there's certainly people that the other way, right, that they
Speaker 2: will trade you access to a famous musician to give
Speaker 2: them a favorable whatever, right, because they want that access.
Speaker 2: But then there's journalists that are hyper critical, right, and
Speaker 2: and you know they won't bend those things. So I think,
Speaker 2: you know, I do think the critical journalists are super important.
Speaker 2: You know. I don't want to just see like you know, uh,
Speaker 2: flattery of people, like you know, the podcas has to
Speaker 2: I think it's called like founders or acquired one of them,
Speaker 2: and they bring business people on, but there's no critique.
Speaker 2: It's just like they're just lathering them with how great
Speaker 2: they are. It's like, well, it's not journalism. That's just
Speaker 2: you know, just a hype piece. It's just a biopic
Speaker 2: in an audio format.
Speaker 3: So and that theme, how do you stay youthful when
Speaker 3: it comes to content creation?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: You have Speedy be at a certain point and Speedy's great,
Speaker 3: it's going to be a.
Speaker 2: Demographic younger one. Yeah, right, So like that, even Speedy
Speaker 2: pushes us, he does.
Speaker 5: I think he's amazing.
Speaker 2: But Speedy is critical of us around like who's the next? Yeah,
Speaker 2: or hey, guys, how come you're crushing it on reels
Speaker 2: but TikTok's not doing as well. You got to you
Speaker 2: gotta go to get in there tinker with it. And
Speaker 2: then they'll be like, hey, you're killing in TikTok, but
Speaker 2: why are you killing in shorts? Like he's honest about that.
Speaker 2: And I would say all the people that are, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of on the content side, they tend to be
Speaker 2: of that you know, you know, mid to late twenties
Speaker 2: cohort the are you aware of that? And they are
Speaker 2: pushing that agenda like they're you know, you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: it's you know, makes this maybe be a little squirmish,
Speaker 2: you know, but like they are pushing that, and I
Speaker 2: think it's right you have to be obsessed with the
Speaker 2: youth or you're gonna lose it.
Speaker 3: Do they ever does it get to a point where
Speaker 3: it's you seeing telling it and they're like, wait, that's
Speaker 3: the person, that's the person.
Speaker 5: Can we build around that person?
Speaker 2: Sure? Like, are you guys familiar with them? She's new Gillian.
Speaker 2: She's a new on air anchor for us on Complex New.
Speaker 2: She's pretty new, like in the last couple of months,
Speaker 2: but you know, discovered her totally organically. She was a
Speaker 2: producer behind the camera. Cornell who used to be our
Speaker 2: head of video. He now works with Kendrick at a
Speaker 2: pg lang. He's like the president of pg lang and
Speaker 2: he hit us up, Hey, we're doing the pop out.
Speaker 2: We're doing this music video. And Compton. She happened to
Speaker 2: be home in Compton, got her friend to hold the
Speaker 2: camera right then, never been on camera before? Does this content?
Speaker 2: It does like first day ten million views, second day
Speaker 2: twenty million views, whatever? Right, she did like a ton
Speaker 2: of content and we're like, oh, wow, you're a star,
Speaker 2: Like we need to we need to get you in
Speaker 2: front of the camera instead of back of the camera,
Speaker 2: and we need to, you know, help you. Hone and
Speaker 2: sharpen your skills. But we're constantly you know, Aria and
Speaker 2: Know are constantly looking to find and develop new creators
Speaker 2: and on you know, on screen and talent and like
Speaker 2: you know, like you tell who's another one of our
Speaker 2: on screen talent? Like Cornell got him out of like
Speaker 2: flight club. He went into flight Club and the kid
Speaker 2: was like just pitching him hard on like whatever the
Speaker 2: shoes were, and he's like, huh do you want to
Speaker 2: do like a screen test? And then like you know,
Speaker 2: he's been with us for the last you know, three
Speaker 2: four years.
Speaker 1: Now, Well, there you have it. Appreciate the conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nice meeting you guys. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: There's a plan.
Speaker 5: It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Can we end with some list? You love albums? You
Speaker 3: love sneakers? Well, Illmatic was your favorite album?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my favorite album? Well yeah that in't like
Speaker 2: uh component Noriega's first album was probably Yeah, that's probably
Speaker 2: my favorite of all time.
Speaker 5: I haven't got my hands on the back.
Speaker 2: Back in college, I had like a you know, like
Speaker 2: a tape deck, you know, in the car and it
Speaker 2: got stuck and you know how like it plays so
Speaker 2: many times that water is down.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite song on the album.
Speaker 2: I don't know. There's so many, but I always I
Speaker 2: always remember, you know, left rack is Iraq. That's like
Speaker 2: my favorite piece of it. I don't know that that
Speaker 2: album was like, so.
Speaker 5: What's your favorite?
Speaker 2: I think I got five mics and the source.
Speaker 3: They revised it and went back and get it.
Speaker 2: That was very that's a big debate.
Speaker 1: My favorite song is Closer, but with which version? The
Speaker 1: original version? Serious? For sure, I don't care for the
Speaker 1: second version.
Speaker 5: That's the best one.
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't stick is my favorite one post and
Speaker 1: then l A l A Is a good one too,
Speaker 1: that's a really good one. Extended version.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I think people will say the remix of
Speaker 3: the L A l A is one album. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: they switched to beat on some of the albums.
Speaker 1: Well, only one album.
Speaker 5: No, I'll play it, I'll play I'll play it for you.
Speaker 5: I'll play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did it. A second version of.
Speaker 1: Yah blood money t O n y I was a
Speaker 1: commercial song. I'm saying blood money for that was.
Speaker 2: A good song.
Speaker 1: The whole album.
Speaker 2: It was a rare album that every song was like listenable,
Speaker 2: A good song.
Speaker 1: Like when I work out, it has good replay value.
Speaker 2: It's interesting though it does sound like at this point
Speaker 2: it doesn't sound modern, like yeah, but like I feel,
Speaker 2: for like a long time I listened to and I
Speaker 2: would never think like, oh that sounds like it's from
Speaker 2: a different era. But now I listen to him, like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, that that's I mean, what is that five
Speaker 2: years ago?
Speaker 3: And I told him I was the Molly ma remix.
Speaker 3: The original has the West Coast beat, and then Molly
Speaker 3: mal did a remix.
Speaker 1: On the album. Yeah, there's only there's only one.
Speaker 3: The Molly remix, but there was originally just the L
Speaker 3: A L A just and debate, no debate that there's
Speaker 3: two versions. I don't remember, but i'll play I'll play it, okay.
Speaker 2: I just remember the cassette getting down to like that
Speaker 2: sounded like it was underwater.
Speaker 5: You know, like I let my take route to my
Speaker 5: tip pop.
Speaker 2: You know, or just you know, my little Honda c
Speaker 2: r V. I couldn't, you know, afford to get a
Speaker 2: new whatever it was.
Speaker 1: Pioneer, yeah, and then Prodigy. Little known fact about that album.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to he was supposed to be on
Speaker 1: L A l A as a verse he's on as
Speaker 1: a hook. But he gave his verse to nas for
Speaker 1: the it was written album.
Speaker 5: Uh, I'm taking the song.
Speaker 2: I feel like you guys could do another podcast.
Speaker 3: It I feel like that the expectation is like, of
Speaker 3: course they can do that. Like it's like we could
Speaker 3: do one on sports. Of course they can do that.
Speaker 3: What we do nobody can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but look, you've built the brand, why not create
Speaker 2: sort of you know, you have fans on the left
Speaker 2: and the right of the brand, create products for them.
Speaker 2: It's you know, like I would imagine there's a very
Speaker 2: specific brand and advertising group that wants to work with
Speaker 2: you guys, right, like around financial literacy, et cetera. Sports
Speaker 2: is everybody else, mus music is everybody else. I mean
Speaker 2: the two bigges passion points in the world are music
Speaker 2: and sports. Right, So like, just you know, if you
Speaker 2: guys love money.
Speaker 5: My friends over accomplix.
Speaker 8: That's an idea, you know for sure.
Speaker 2: But yeah, thanks for having me guys, just fun. We
Speaker 2: appreciate you rating on all your success.
Speaker 1: Appreciateank you appreciate it.
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