How Big Are Creator Businesses Really and What’s Up With All the Offshoot Creator Awards?

0:00Hi, everyone. This is Scalable, a weekly show about the business of the creator economy.

0:04Jasmine Enberg: I'm Kaya Yurieff. And I'm Jasmine Enberg. Every Thursday, we take you beyond the headlines to tell you what's happening, what it means, and why it matters. 750 employees. That's how big one creator business has gotten. And what's up with all these offshoot creator award shows. Welcome to the Snappies. Today, we break down these stories. And we take you behind the scenes of my experience in D.C. during the White House Correspondents Dinner Weekend, where a shooting took place. Plus, we're joined by Matt Starker, the CEO of AudioChuck, a media company founded by top true crime podcaster Ashley Flowers.

0:42Hi, Jasmine. Hey, Kaya. And hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into our weekly show about the creator economy. Jasmine, you went to D.C. this weekend, and your weekend did not go as planned.

0:52Jasmine Enberg: No, it definitely did not. I was supposed to go to Substack's new media dinner, which took place at the exact same time as the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but I never made it in. The party was hosted at the Renwick Gallery, which is right across the street from the White House. And we were actually on our way to the event when shots were fired at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. And the police had shut down the road in order to evacuate President Donald Trump. And there was a big group of us who were stuck about a block away behind a police barricade. I was texting with a couple of people who were inside the Substack party, and they told me it was on lockdown.

1:27Jasmine Enberg: So there really was no way in or out for anyone. I'm so curious what the mood was like, because I've been consuming this whole news cycle from afar. And it's been so interesting to see the difference in coverage between traditional media and independent journalists in the aftermath of the shooting. You know, understandably, the people in the room, including journalists, were very shaken up by the situation. I mean, what struck me was that a lot of, you know, the media in the room and the anchors were doing these selfie style reaction videos from their hotel rooms or from, you know, the scene and posting it to their personal social media.

1:58Obviously, tone was very serious, but they were acting a lot like creators. Then you had, you know, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, who was literally a few feet away from the shooter. And even though the alleged gunman, you know, didn't make it into the room, people, you know, had to hide under tables. They didn't know what was going on. It was a scary situation. But as soon as the news was out, you know, the fear sort of went away. I mean, I think it's this cognitive dissonance and desensitization we have in this country about gun violence. And people are just like, oh, it's sort of another day in America.

2:28I mean, not to diminish what people were feeling in the room, but I think the people who didn't directly experience it kind of went on with their night. And as soon as the news was out, then, of course, the conspiracy theories, the speculation online all starts from the lack of security to conspiracies around the shooting being staged and so on. You know, traditional media didn't give that much attention or air while independent journalists did. Take a listen. The shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner is really, really odd because how did this shooter get past security with a gun?

3:00I've been to this dinner many, many times, and I can tell you that security there is incredibly high. I think one of the reasons so many people in the public are sort of skeptical and questioning all this is because law enforcement never comes out and explains the security breakdown that allowed these events to happen. So I think we need to demand and expect transparency on this. Yeah. And then the other shocking thing was that the parties just continued. I mean, look, obviously no one was hurt or killed, but you would think that would dampen the mood in D.C. What was your experience on the ground?

3:32Jasmine Enberg: It was definitely really scary and very confusing for people at the Hilton. But out on the street where I was near the White House, I think people were mostly just frustrated that their festivities had been disrupted. I didn't really get a sense of the fear that you might expect after a shooting. And it certainly didn't make me think twice about going to a party. Although, to your point, I was surprised that a lot of these parties were going on as planned, if not all of the parties. It all felt, you know, very let the show go on as President Trump later tweeted. And that is actually kind of fitting considering that so much of the coverage of the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend or prior to this weekend was about how Hollywood the event would be this year.

4:13Jasmine Enberg: Anyway, I did finally end up at the Time Magazine after party, which is an annual event. And I have seen some reporting that it felt more subdued than in previous years. But because I hadn't been there before, I really didn't have a point of comparison. But, I mean, I didn't really talk to anybody about the shooting while I was there. And I think that kind of speaks for itself. And what I saw was that the Time magazine party was packed. There was a DJ. People were dancing. They were drinking champagne. They were taking photos on the step and repeat. And we left at about 1.30 in the morning, and the party was still going strong.

4:47Jasmine Enberg: So I think you're right to say that people are really desensitized because of all the violence, gun violence in this country. Yeah, the time parties hosted every year at the residence of the Swiss ambassador. You know, it's an after party to the dinner. It's usually attended by pretty high profile guests. And, you know, to your point about the weekend being more Hollywood this year, even before the shooting took place, this year's White House Correspondents dinner was going to be unlike any other. And the creator economy had a huge presence. There were so many other parties, including from CAA and Vanity Fair on Friday, which was full of well-known journalists and celebrities.

5:18YouTube also hosted an event on Friday night. Even Grindr, the LGBTQ dating app, held an event which had long lines around the block. It seemed to be the hot ticket over the weekend. But there were also parties from newsletter platforms. Subsex New Media Party was the big one, and Beehive also hosted a dinner on Friday night.

5:35Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I also missed the Beehive dinner as well as the CAA Vanity Fair party on Friday because my flight was super delayed from LA to DC. So this weekend really was one of best laid plans for me. But yeah, I mean, there were a lot of creators, influencers and independent journalists milling about. That includes at the Hilton where the dinner was held. There were, you know, pre-parties that took place there and creators and independent journalists were invited. You also, and I certainly have seen these many photographs of independent journalists outside of the ballroom where the dinner actually took place.

6:08Jasmine Enberg: Now, not everybody was happy about that. And here's the tease. Before the event, Steve Toma, executive director of the White House Correspondents Dinner Association, allegedly rejected Substack's request to buy tables at the dinner, saying that independent journalists are, quote, not news, would never be news and, quote, will never be invited to the White House Correspondents Dinner. Tomah has since denied this exchange, but Substack framed its party as a, quote, alternative to the WHCD. It even said that directly on the invitation, and that was the first thing that stood out to me when we received our invitations.

6:43Jasmine Enberg: And this was before I even knew any of the reported backstory. True or not, it's just all so emblematic of the current state of affairs in the journalism world, where there is this constant power struggle between old media and new media. And that's happening even as we see more traditional reporters make the jump into independent journalism, including longtime tech reporter Joanna Stern, who just dropped her first episode of her new YouTube show called New Things last week. OK, well, first of all, ouch, I am not surprised that he is now denying that exchange. But yes, the old guard has been on edge as more creators, independent journalists and influencers have been encroaching on their turf, quite literally in this case.

7:22It's worth noting that this was the first time that Trump had attended the White House Correspondents Dinner as president. You know, he obviously has a very complicated relationship with the traditional press, and he has boycotted the event every year. You know, Trump is much more chummy with independent media, particularly right-wing podcasters, who he has credited with helping him win the election. He's also given more access to those podcasters and independent new media, including through a new seat his administration added to the White House press room.

7:48Jasmine Enberg: Yeah. To go back really quickly to the conspiracy theories that you started to mention, they're floating online. I mean, one of the big ones is that the shooting was staged. I think a lot of that is to be expected. This tends to always happen after any big event. Influencers, creators, and regular social media users are really helping to spread a lot of these rumors online. I do have to say, though, that Trump's own comments after the shooting about how this never would have happened if the dinner had taken place in his own ballroom is also helping fan the flames of these conspiracy theories. Yeah, I noticed a lot of right-wing influencers repeating that ballroom line soon after the shooting, you know, flooding the zone with that message.

8:25Anyway, I'm glad everyone is safe, that you're safe, that you got to go to at least one of the parties, although I'm still like, trying to process how it didn't dampen the mood and the state of gun violence. But while so much of the coverage has obviously understandably focused on the shooting, the White House Correspondents Dinner ties in with a different theme of our episode today, which is that Hollywood and traditional institutions have largely shunned the creator economy when it comes to big moments like these and award shows. One semi-exception to that is the Time 100, which took place in New York City last week.

8:54Mr. Beast made the list for the second time this year, but he was only creator on that list. And of course, the list we're referring to is Time's annual 100 Most Influential People.

9:04Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, and all of this has resulted in a huge number of niche award shows hosted by everyone from social apps like Snapchat and TikTok to podcast platforms like iHeart and get this, even fragrance companies, it really has gotten out of control. That last one was certainly an unexpected one. And we're not talking a rinky-dink awards show. We're talking production, stage, theater, the whole thing. In this episode, we also sized and mapped out the biggest creator-founded media companies from Beast Industries to Alex Cooper's Unwell to Dude Perfect. We'll tell you where they're located. And spoiler alert, they're not all in LA like you might expect.

9:39These businesses are all trying to scale beyond just the original creator or creators and have hired executives and expanded their teams to help with that. Later in the show, we interview a CEO of one of these businesses. Matt Starker joined AudioChuck, the media company founded by top true crime podcaster Ashley Flowers, in April 2025. Her company has raised$40 million from investors.

9:58Jasmine Enberg: Before we get into all of that, here's a message from our sponsor. It might be hard to believe that a lobster fisherman in Maine outperformed wellness creators for a leading supplement brand. But Argentio has the numbers. Agentio, the AI-native platform for creator advertising, is also the title sponsor of our Scalable Summit happening next Wednesday, May 6th in LA. The response has been so overwhelming that we're waitlist only at this point, so if you don't have a ticket yet, make sure to sign up in case spots free up. Here's the big idea. Brands testing 10 or more creator verticals see 2.3 times higher partnership success rates.

10:32The best performing programs discover demand, they don't assume it. Agentio's platform uses LLM and first-party performance data to surface those non-obvious matches and run them at scale. 50 partnerships or 500, same team.

10:45Jasmine Enberg: That's how Clover scaled their creator marketing 2x without hiring anyone new after proving 2x incremental return on ads then through MMM. Come say hi to the Agentio team at the summit, and in the meantime, go to agentio.com to see this case study and book a demo. Okay, here's a very bad riddle. Oh no. What do you... What are you going to say? What do Snapchat, Fragrance Company, Scentbird, and iHeartMedia all have in common? They have all put on their own awards show recently. We have been asking ourselves, why are there so many offshoot awards shows for creators? It's something that Matt Friend, a comedian and top Snapchat creator, referenced in March during his hosting duties at Snapchat's first award show called The Snappies at its Santa Monica headquarters.

11:33Why does it seem like everyone has an award show now? Like, of course, there's the OGs, there's the Grammys, there's the Emmys, there's the Oscars, but the Snappies? I mean, like, what's next? Me hosting the Venmo Awards? And honestly, are you anybody in this town if you haven't been nominated for a Google Chrome Extension Award? As an aside on Matt Friend, he also hosted a CNN comedy special the night before the White House Correspondents' Dinner. I did not watch it. I saw some clips from his bit with George Santos. I know you watched it in your hotel room, Jasmine. What did you think?

12:07Jasmine Enberg: I did. And it was pretty painful to watch. I will say he does do a very good impression of Donald Trump. Here are the top news stories of the day as delivered by the people they are about. Well, look, everybody, I was actually supposed to be the Pope. It's a very true story. The Pope is a beauty, which is so great. The Pope wouldn't like Biden. I'll tell you that much. The straight and foremost moves is so beautiful. They were very good. But I found the rest of the show really difficult to watch. And I honestly felt bad for him at times. It also felt like the audience wasn't very engaged. And I think part of the problem was, is at least the opening monologue was incredibly fast paced, which is probably what he's used to on social media because, you know, reels and clips really have to move quickly.

12:47Jasmine Enberg: But I, you know, had trouble keeping up with some of it. And it just didn't really seem to land the way it should have. I mean, I don't know how much control he had over, you know, the jokes that he was making and the script and how much CNN had input. But I just I don't think it landed the way that anybody anybody wanted it to. But anyway, back to award shows, because I mean, creators want to have their red carpet moment, too. But winning a Snappy from Snapchat is not the same thing as winning an Oscar or an Emmy. And when there's so many awards being given out, it really just doesn't hit the same.

13:23Jasmine Enberg: That said, I totally understand this from the creator point of view. I mean, everybody wants recognition for their work, and creators are having a really hard time getting that from Hollywood. Like, yes, we see them scoring Netflix deals. Markiplier, of course, just had a massive box office hit, but they're being snapped at award shows. I mean, think back to the Golden Globes earlier this year. I mean, they gave the best podcast award to Amy Poehler instead of to a digital creator like Alex Cooper, who was also nominated. I've said this before. I'll say it again. Again, no shade to Amy for this, but it just goes to show how, you know, they're not necessarily ready for a digital or social media creator to actually, you know, win an award or get the legitimacy that comes with winning an Emmy or an Oscar, for example, or a Golden Globe in this case.

14:04Jasmine Enberg: And I also understand why social platforms and these fragrance brands apparently are hosting these shows. And I think it's pretty smart. They know that creators want this recognition, so they're trying to fill the void and build loyalty among creators, as well as those creators' audiences who are super excited to see their favorite creator win an award. Totally. And to your point about legitimacy, these award shows have not been enough to stop creators from going after the big leagues. TBPN, for example, is launching a campaign to win an Emmy that will include billboards. Co-host John Coogan did couch that move by saying that award shows were not their end goal, but they still did it.

14:41Also, just as a side note on the backstory of their Emmy campaign, TBPN has a barter deal with AdQuick, which is an out-of-home advertising firm, under which the show is giving AdQuick on-air promotion in exchange for the ad inventory. And a rep for AdQuick told press that the campaign represents$800 ,000 worth of out-of-home inventory. And this is all still moving forward, even with the OpenAI deal. So interesting. We'll see if it has any sway. I mean, that's very smart. It's smart on all sides. They launched the campaign to win an Emmy before the OpenAI deal, which was interesting. So update that it's still going forward.

15:14You know, creators getting traditional awards have also been a huge talking point for YouTube. So in his annual letter, YouTube CEO Neil Mohan argued that creators, quote, need to see more recognition from traditional award shows. You know, I have to say we've seen some gains. Two independent journalists with large YouTube followings were nominated for Emmys this year, Jorge Ramos and Johnny Harris. Both were nominated in the news and documentary category. and that earned them a public congrats from Mohan on X. Miss Rachel was also nominated for her first Emmy, two in fact, as part of the fourth annual Children and Family Awards.

15:45Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I mean, I think we've definitely seen a lot of gains, especially over like the past year to past year and a half, but we're still waiting for a win. I mean, there's no creator that's actually taken home an award yet. But on the YouTube point, I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into that because YouTube is also kind of in the same boat as a lot of these creators. it's also desperately seeking approval from traditional Hollywood and entertainment. And it's a big reason why YouTube nabbed the rights to the Oscars starting in 2029. Like, yes, of course, there's a business side of things. Ad dollars are a huge driver for this, but it's also the legitimacy.

16:19Jasmine Enberg: I mean, even as YouTube has become number one in TV watch time and more creators are developing higher quality TV-like content, it still isn't considered a premium platform. What I find so contradictory about Neil Mohan's comments, though, is that he is asking Hollywood to reward and award creators, but they're not providing any funding or resources that we know of to creators to actually develop the kind of content that could compete with the content that's coming from, you know, premium studios and Hollywood. And also, did you hear about Markiplier's recent beef with YouTube on that front? Yes, but I also understand YouTube skepticism in general because their YouTube originals bet did not work out in the past.

17:02But okay, fill us in on the latest with Markiplier.

17:05Jasmine Enberg: Okay, but a lot of the reason that they said it didn't work out is because they didn't know how to pick content. And I don't think that's necessarily true. But anyway, I mean, we've done a whole podcast episode on this, so I could talk about this forever. But what happened with Markiplier is this. He wanted to digitally release his movie Iron Lung, which he self-financed and self-distributed in movie theaters on YouTube. The movie was a major success in movie theaters, especially for a creator. It grossed over$50 million globally. Markiplier has about 40 million subscribers on YouTube, so it was a natural fit for him to want to release the movie on YouTube.

17:39Jasmine Enberg: But in order for him to do a paid release, meaning actually sell the movie, YouTube reportedly said that he either had to work with a studio or become an official aggregator on the platform. And according to a live stream that Markiplier did for his fans, YouTube has agreed to the latter, meaning he's going to become an official aggregator. And he's apparently now in negotiations with YouTube to get this deal done. A couple of things that I took away from this is one, and this is absolutely mind blowing to me. It is potentially harder for a creator to sell a movie on YouTube than it is in traditional movie theaters.

18:15Jasmine Enberg: Like, yes, this is an extreme case, but that sounds crazy to me, especially a creator like Markiplier who's been on the platform for forever and has such a huge audience there. But the second thing is, is if this deal happens, it could actually set the stage for more creators to go down this route with YouTube. Again, you know, this is a very, very extreme case. But as we've talked about previously and started to allude to on this podcast once again, the time is ripe now for YouTube to bring original content back. And it doesn't have to be in the same way that it did previously. And I think exclusivity is one way that, you know, they could really accomplish this in a more sustainable fashion.

18:53Jasmine Enberg: But anyway, that is another conversation for another time. Okay, back to awards shows. So here is a sampling of the awards shows that have been held recently. So you can just see how wild this has gone. So in March, iHeartMedia hosted its podcast awards at South by Southwest, the Tag and Arts Festival in Austin, crowning Giggly Squad, the show of the year. Funny enough, soon after they won the iHeartMedia Award, it was announced that the show's hosts, Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo, will star at a new Netflix scripted comedy. And they're also part of the ACAST Podcast Network, which we just joined as well.

19:23Then you had the Snappies, which, by the way, like looked highly produced. Again, like people in tuxes, dressed up. You know, Matt Friend did a musical number and everything. Welcome to the Snappies. Grab a seat and pour yourself a drink. I said it once, I'll say it again. These are real productions. Like they are really emulating the glitz of these award shows. But some of these are getting really niche. I mean, there's an entire awards show dedicated to the best marketing podcasts. And then this one, we've alluded to it. But Scentbird hosted an award show earlier this month. If you don't know that company, you do now.

19:59They offer a monthly subscription for designer scents, perfumes and colognes. The award show was hosted by a creator, Sirius Vessi, a really amazing comedic creator who does a lot of partnerships in luxury fashion and beauty so perfect fit there and this was actually the second year that sent burt hosted this in case you were curious some of the winners included donna born in roma extra dose by valentino which was in the best new launch of the women's popular category while savant manhattan cherry by chris collins won for the best new launch in the men's niche category but now that imbreeding was allowed i think these these perfumes and awards need snap your names because this is just a mouthful.

20:37But these shows also add to other long running digital content awards programs. You have the Shorty Awards, you have the Webby Awards, which are now in its 30th year, and they just released their winners as well. We were also judges this year for the Webby's, which was so fun. A few notable winners in the creator category included the Try Guys, Mr. Balan, Zach King, comedian Zarna Garg, who is hilarious, who did a project with activist Malala. Justin Bieber also snagged an award for live streaming on Twitch, which we discussed in a recent episode. And then TikTok hosted its first ever TikTok awards show in the US in December.

21:14You were there, Jasmine, on the red carpet.

21:16Jasmine Enberg: Yes, I was. It was a fun event, like you said. I mean, it was a real production. Everyone was dressed up, though I would say a little bit more casually than you might see at a traditional Hollywood awards show. But everybody was having a great time. there were performances, including by Sierra, between awards being given out. Most of those awards did go to digital creators, though Paris Hilton, who I love, also won Muse of the Year. There was also apparently a La Boo Boo Cannon. I missed that, thankfully. That is ridiculous. So TikTok, I kind of love it. But here's what happened, because the event actually started about an hour late because of issues that caused all of the screens in the event space to not work all night.

21:57Jasmine Enberg: And okay, so tech issues can happen to anyone, anywhere at any time, but it just felt so appropriate, but it happened there. Like, yes, these are productions. These are shows. They're trying to emulate, you know, the big award shows from Hollywood, but they're just not quite the same. And that, to me, was like a physical manifestation of all of that. We say all this now, but also I wouldn't mind having Scalable nominated for an award, no matter how niche, because then we can say we're an award-winning podcast. It's so true. That's how this works, though. Enough about award shows. Moving on. We also decided to size and map out the biggest creator-founded businesses.

22:35Jasmine Enberg: So one of the things that we hear all the time is that creators are like small businesses. So this was our way of putting that comparison to the test. Our new map is also part of a new product launch for Scalable 2 because what is one of the most common questions we get asked, Jasmine? Where to find good, reliable data on the creator economy. And honestly, it was a question that I would ask myself almost daily for about 13 years at eMarketer. So totally get it. Same. We've also found in our careers that people just love a visual. They love a chart. They love an infographic. They love a visual, especially when they're simple, easy to understand, and have a clear and interesting takeaway.

23:10So that's why we knew that charts had to be part of what we did at Scalable. But we also went one step further, and we launched our proprietary research database, which brings together a curated collection of ready-to-use charts from reliable sources all in one place and for free. You can check it out at scalablepot.com slash research.

23:28Jasmine Enberg: So back to our map. As I said earlier, creators are often referred to as small business owners. So that comparison is becoming increasingly more accurate. For a little context, the U.S. Small Business Administration defines a small business as a company with 500 employees or less. There's also other criteria that they use, like average annual receipts, But for the purposes of this analysis, we focused on employee headcount. We also only focused on creator media businesses. And so most of the top creator media businesses in the U.S. are well under 500 employees. There's one that is not. You probably guessed who it is.

24:03Jasmine Enberg: It is Mr. Beast. He now has about 750 employees, which is just so crazy to think about. His holding company, Beast Industries, is part of the less than 1 % of companies in the U.S. that now have over 500 employees, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It's so wild. I mean, of course, some media and tech companies have 750 employees or more in just one part of their company. But it is huge and hard to wrap your mind around for a creator-led business. Totally. And then I think the other difference is that while many of these traditional media companies and even tech companies right now, they're shrinking and creator media businesses for the most part are growing.

24:41Jasmine Enberg: So look at Meta, look at Snap, look even at Disney. I mean, they're either in the midst of layoffs or have undergone big layoffs recently. And then you have Mr. Beast and a lot of the other creator media companies that we found that are hiring and expanding. And we'll talk about that a little bit more later on. Another thing that creator economy companies and small businesses have in common is that they're also spread out all across the U.S. That makes sense for a lot of reasons. I mean, being a creator means that you can live and work pretty much anywhere. And plus, in terms of revenue, these companies are still operating on a much smaller scale than big media companies or big tech companies.

25:18Jasmine Enberg: And so it makes sense for them to choose places that are cheaper than, say, LA. Yeah, and I think one thing to take away from this is that it reflects the flexibility you get with being a creator. I mean, you can live and build your businesses from wherever you want. Ahem, me in Barcelona. You don't have to be in a major hub like New York or LA to make a business succeed anymore. I mean, in fact, it's probably better in some cases for creator founders to be somewhere with a lower cost of living, lower cost for office space. I mean, can you imagine Dude Perfect having their crazy headquarters in a building in New York?

25:49I mean, where would they find? Yeah. Exactly. Like finding that amount of space period would be hard. And second, extremely expensive. So as a whole, I mean, it can just be a big benefit to your business to have these lower operational costs and also for hiring. I mean, your costs are lower. Salaries are much lower in Texas, you know, where Dude Perfect is than they are in Manhattan. I mean, on the flip side, it can make hiring seasoned executives harder. You know, many of these CEOs or C-suite titles are located in major cities and don't want to move their families or relocate.

26:18Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I mean, we do also see that a lot of these creator media companies have remote employees for that reason. And there's also the fact that a lot of these creators don't want to relocate either. So what we saw is that many big creators have actually set up shop in their hometowns. Mr. Beast is a great example here as well. Beast Industries is based out of Greenville, North Carolina, where Mr. Beast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is from. Then you have Complexly. Complexly is headquartered in Missoula, Montana, where Hank Green was living when he founded the company with his brother John back in 2012.

26:47Jasmine Enberg: We recently talked to CEO Julie Walsh-Smith, and she told us that the company now has about 85 employees, including remote workers. And then you brought up Dude Perfect being in Texas. I mean, that's where all of the five dudes, I guess they're called. How do they call them? The five dudes, they're all from Texas. And Texas overall has become a bit of a hotspot for creator media companies, as well as, of course, tech firms, especially thinking about Austin. Because of a lot of the reasons that you mentioned, Kai, I mean, things like lower corporate taxes. There's no income tax and there's a lot more real estate than say in Manhattan.

27:22Jasmine Enberg: Dear Media, which was founded by husband and wife Lauren and Michael Bostic, is another Texas-based creator company which is headquartered in Austin. That is best known for its podcasting network. Lauren is also behind the Skinny Confidential and is a longtime creator going back to the days of blogging. There's Creator Camp, who we also recently spoke to for this podcast. That's a creator media incubator which has about 16 employees. They are also currently based in Austin, but relocating to New York. And as they do, their CEO, Max Risinger, told us that they are actually expanding and hiring more people to their team.

27:56Then there's AudioChuck, which is based out of Indianapolis, Indiana, the home state of founder and true crime podcaster Ashley Flowers. The company now has roughly 100 employees, which is about double what it had 18 months ago, CEO Matt Starker told us. A big part of why the company is hiring is because it's expanding into video and other verticals outside of true crime. They've brought on new hosts, and all of this means that they need more people to support their operations. They need to start hiring showrunners, for example, which is, you know, titles they didn't have before. So we're seeing similar trends from other big media creator companies.

28:28Many of these businesses are in growth mode right now.

28:31Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, and I think it also just speaks to a larger trend that we've been following in the creator economy of more creators operationalizing their businesses. Going solo just doesn't cut it anymore and more creators are now hiring staff or outsourcing some of their work. So we got some data from CreatorIQ, which showed that 62 % of creators now either have at least one full-time or part-time employee or are outsourcing things like video editing. Only 38 % of creators are working completely solo at this point. And even we, I mean, we've slowly been bringing people onto our team as well. For the top creators, expanding the team often means bringing on seasoned executives from CEOs to chief content officers.

29:11Jasmine Enberg: This is something that we've covered in a previous podcast and newsletter. And Mr. Beast is now reportedly on the hunt for a CMO, which is something that we actually predicted would happen. So to be totally fair, though, only 12 % of creator companies, according to the Creator IQ data, have full-time staff. So the companies that we've been talking about here and that are featured on the map are still just part of very few creator companies that have built out these big teams. Yeah, and this takes us back to the map because we also have to talk a little bit more about New York. Besides creator camps and pending move, New York is really not a hotspot for these big creator businesses.

29:46You know, we have to, of course, shout out a friend of the show, Brett Dushefsky, who has built Creator Economy NYC, and he hosts monthly events to connect professionals and creators in the industry. Another good example is Smooth Media, which is an agency that helps knowledge creators with their businesses. They recently helped former Wall Street Journal reporter Joanna Stern start her new independent media company. But largely what we see in New York is that it's home to companies supporting the creator economy. You have Mirage, the parent company of the AI video editing app Captions, which is a fully in-person team in New York.

30:14My guess is that it's just too expensive to have a big company there. I mean, plenty of individual creators live there and run their businesses. But to have, you know, an 100 person company in New York City is, I think, pretty challenging to pull off for a creator.

30:26Jasmine Enberg: And obviously, New York is also home to ad agencies, publishing firms and other types of media companies that support or work with creators in different ways. And if you think back to like the era of BuzzFeed, Gawker, all of that was really being run out of New York. So there really is this buzzing economy around that. And now there's still companies like Fetches and Morning Brew that I would say are kind of like creator adjacent. They definitely feature a lot of creators in their work. Both of those companies have been acquired, though. But moving on to L.A., because that's where I live, it also has the highest concentration of major creator media companies.

31:00Jasmine Enberg: So that includes Darman Studios, Smosh, Mythical Entertainment, and Alex Cooper's Unwell. All of this makes sense. I mean, despite all of the high costs, I mean, the city really is the epicenter of the entertainment industry. And it's home to so many of the big media companies from Netflix to Disney that these creators are trying to emulate. Before we move on, let's talk a little bit about why these businesses are expanding and hiring more staff. So one big reason is to mitigate against key person risk. Key person risk is risk for a reason. These businesses are fundamentally centered around an individual.

31:33And whether they can grow beyond that isn't a guarantee. I mean, we're seeing this right now in real time with Alex Cooper. You know, so many creators have cycled through this where they get canceled or issues come up and they're in the news for negative reasons. But not all of them have businesses of her scale. You know, she has 100 employees with Unwell, but Bloomberg recently reported that Unwell has seen about 20 staffers exit, including senior roles like the head of brand marketing and the chief growth officer over the past year or so. And at the same time, I mean, her podcast network has struggled to make other shows besides Call Her Daddy a hit.

32:05And there have also been anonymous staff complaints about her husband, Matt Kaplan, who's the CEO of Unwell. The company has declined to comment about all of this, but it just speaks to the difficulty of expanding one podcast or one creator into a long-lasting business that hopefully doesn't rely on that creator forever.

32:20Jasmine Enberg: It also speaks to the pitfalls of all this growth. So as these creator companies grow, so does the scrutiny around them. And I don't think the media would be as interested or care as much about, you know, individual creator drama. But when there's a big business like Unwell attached to it, it makes news, even on Bloomberg. Alex Cooper, of course, is not the only one facing negative headlines about her company recently. Mr. Beast is also facing a lawsuit right now over alleged sexual harassment and workplace gender bias. In response, Beast Industries has called the allegations, quote, categorically false.

32:53Jasmine Enberg: But all of this also just speaks to why these big companies really need seasoned executives to help lead their teams and manage all of this. So anyway, we've mapped out all these businesses. If you want to download our map, you can find it on scalablepod.com research and check out all the other data in our database. We are really excited to hear your feedback and how you're using the data. You can email us anytime at hello at scalablepod.com. Now stick around for our interview with AudioChuck's Matt Starker. Is a video podcast still a podcast? That's one of the big questions we had for Matt Starker, CEO of AudioChuck, the media company founded by top true crime podcaster Ashley Flowers.

33:27Jasmine Enberg: We also got his take on two other major debates happening in the podcasting world, clipping and the rise of AI podcasts. Matt Sarka's career has been everything from private equity to business development roles, just to name a few. In April 2025, he became the CEO of Audiocheck, which right now has roughly 100 employees and is expanding beyond true crime. Let's jump right in. Is a video podcast still a podcast? It's a great question. Yes, I think so. I think the format is expanding so widely. As long as they are putting out the audio version of the video podcast, it's a podcast in my point of view.

34:04Where do you guys stand? It's interesting. I mean, I think one thing that's been so interesting is to hear from Spotify that basically YouTubers are putting their shows on Spotify and they don't really have traditional podcasts and they're charting. So it's like this interesting kind of moment where I do think like, I don't know what's different from like Michelle Carey's YouTube show and a podcast. It's like a familiar format. It's I mean, it's not that different. And then talk shows like if you look at like Call Her Daddy set, like that just looks like a very, very professional operation. So I don't know.

34:41I don't know where I shake out. But I think the lines are blurring and this year is going to be even bigger. Everyone's acting like, oh, okay, podcast or video now. But like there is so much that has to happen in the industry to make that shift. You guys are expanding this onto YouTube and there's still a lot of confusion. And then the Apple announcement recently about kind of there. So like there's a lot happening. It's not like, okay, we're done and we're moving to video. YouTube is the largest podcasting platform out there, right? Spotify is second. One is video at its core. Spotify pushing video as hard as they can.

35:14Apple just announced it with some really great technology to like help on the modernization front. Like video podcasts, it's a format, right? Video podcast, audio podcast. I think you've got to do both though to be called a podcast. It's got to be in both formats. But I think it is, yeah, Kai, I agree. The lines are blurring at an incredible pace. But if you're both places, you're a podcast.

35:36Jasmine Enberg: I think about it from the consumer angle. And one thing I've said, you know, throughout my career studying this space is that people don't care as long as they like the content. Like they don't care what you call it. And think about books and audiobooks, for example. It's so interesting. Kaya, I listen to you sometimes because you talk about audiobooks. I don't read them because I like a physical book. But you say you read it, right? And so you don't even really differentiate between whether you're listening to it or reading it. And I think ultimately that's going to be the same thing between video podcasts and audio podcasts.

36:07Jasmine Enberg: I just think the lines have blurred so deeply and consumers just want good content, regardless of what format comes in. I think the challenge then becomes like if you have a video podcast, it is more of a commitment from the viewer, right? You're sitting and watching, whereas I think one of the reasons podcasts got so big is you could just plug your headphones in and go for a walk or go for a drive. or, you know, it could be on your commute on the way to work or you could be cooking dinner or any of those kinds of things. Whereas with television and with video, it tends to be more of an experience where you want to actually sit down and watch what's going on on the screen as well.

36:43I also think there's the background noise of TV that just like is such a like a welcoming feeling and sound in the room. And like when I was growing up, like ESPN SportsCenter was like the thing we listened to. We put on the TV and we listened to it. Right. Yes, we turned our head every once in a while. And I think that works for the true crime genre really well. It's like you can put on Tubi or you could put on YouTube, you could put on the deck and you could listen to or watch kind of interchangeably, you know, hours of that content. And I think that works really, really well for someone who's making dinner or for someone who's like out in the garage building something.

37:22I feel like sometimes the device that's accessible to you is the format that you're choosing. And so it might not be that you really want video or you really want audio, but it's just what's available to you and like what you're able to give to that screen at that, at that, any, any given moment.

37:41Jasmine Enberg: It's true. I put on Spotify to listen to music from my TV in the kitchen. So, I mean, that makes perfect sense. I actually don't want video on Spotify because I feel like it's just draining my battery. I'm not playing the video when I listen to music on TV. It's literally just audio. I think the other piece that's like muddying things further is the rise of clipping, which has obviously exploded. And I think also, it's so interesting, as you hear people say, like, oh, I love that podcast, but like, they only like watch it on TikTok, right, via clips. So curious, your thought on that, obviously, it's been a huge growth, growth engine, and it's like a marketing tactic.

38:19But then there's also been this rise of like vertical podcasts, like subway takes is technically a podcast, but they don't actually publish. Now they're starting to get into long form, but like the whole show is just the clip. So curious your thoughts on all those things. Yeah, this is, this is super fun. Like this is rights management, right? This is like, I'm a nerd. I love this. I think about this all the time. And when I think about like the sports world, like the podcasting space, the entertainment space is moving more into the sports world where like a single clip could be all that you want.

38:47Like a single highlight could be all that you want. And so as operators and like IP owners, like how do you not give too much value away in these in this clip strategy on these social platforms where you're not monetizing at the level that you are on other platforms but how do you use that as lead gen or our top of funnel audience development to get them into your show and introduced to your show and then come back to your platform like i am i am of the um strategy where like less is more i think it's hard to take back content from the consumer and so you really want to be methodical about how your role pulling out your clips to make sure that too much value isn't leaking out of your monetization ecosystem.

39:32I think like the quintessential example that I use internally is the NBA. And like the NBA like is one of the biggest and most forward thinking social media leagues out there and have done an amazing job of developing a really young audience base by putting their clips out there. And they constantly say like, how do we quantify all the people watching on social media versus our television ratings? And how do we report that back in a unified measurement way? And that's really hard. So before we go too far on the clipping side, we want to make sure that we are really thoughtful about where do we have any leakage?

40:09How do we work with the platform partners? And how do we have a holistic view of monetization and audience before we go too big?

40:17Jasmine Enberg: It's not just clipping, right? I mean, there are now shows that are being built primarily for short form? I mean, Kaya, you mentioned Subway Takes. I mean, that one is primarily short form, even though now they're leading into long form. How are you thinking about that? Could you see a world where you release short form podcasts? I mean, we talk about like the micro drama space is obviously like a buzzword in an industry that people are exploring. We're doing our research on it. We absolutely see a world where we could put like 30, 40 clips together, you know, 30 second, minute long, three minute long clips together to create something that is a documentary or is like a show unto itself.

40:55I think this is like, it comes back to like what people want and how much time they're willing to give the content. And like, this is a clear early signal right now that this is what younger consumers want. This is where they're going to spend their time. And so as a studio, we have to do our homework to figure out like, how do we think we can play in the space? And right now we're in studying mode. AI is really dominating the conversation. I think what I found so interesting is in our interviews with podcasters in particular, I mean, I think there's a lot of anxiety, there's opportunity, but podcasters in particular, I found have like a specific aversion to AI.

41:35Like a lot of them are like, no way will I do an AI clone of my voice for an entire episode, right? Maybe they're using it a little bit in post-production. But curious how AudioChuck is using AI. I mean, AI is here to stay, right? So we're leaning into it. We're not leaning into it in terms of like production, right? And we're certainly not leaning into it in terms of like replicating our host voices. But we are leaning into it in terms of like, how do we shorten the time from case selection to research packet to reporting? And so we built an internal tool called Chuck OS. So Chuck is the sonic signal at the end of all of our podcasts.

42:15It was Ashley's dog. And this is basically a case information tool powered with AI to help us understand what cases are likely to resonate with our audience, what cases have case files on them or information, or are they coming from family members, like being recommended to us from family members or law enforcement. It then looks at all of our older cases and rates them, like all of our existing public episodes, and then rates it against that. And then it gives it a score. And from there, it potentially goes to a reporter to go then start the process. But now we're not starting from zero. We're starting from a place where we have a high probability of a very successful case.

43:00and a high probability of a case that has a lot of information for our reporters to go dig into to get the facts and then tell the story. So that's where we're starting. It's on that pre-production phase. Once we nail that, I'm sure we'll think about other ways to use it. But to me, if we can get AI right, it's an operational moat for our business. And so that's where we're spending the time. It's how do we use AI in our operations, not necessarily our content at the moment. And then once we feel good about the operations, we'll start thinking about other ways to use it.

43:32Jasmine Enberg: So you're not using AI in your content and you're not using it to replicate host voices, but there are other companies and people out there who are. I mean, there was recently a case of a radio host voice being used without their permission. We've also seen reports of these AI generated podcasts getting hundreds of thousands of downloads. What's your take on all of that? I mean, is that where the industry is just headed? And if so, what does that mean? I hope not. I think it goes back to the personal relationship in this medium. Like, in my opinion, consumers and fans and listeners and even viewers now, they're looking for someone to trust, right?

44:10And there's so much information out there that when you find someone who you understand their values, you appreciate their perspective, you really like the way they tell a story or interview or whatever the format is, like you want to listen to them. You want to spend your time with them. I think that's what matters. And I think like, yes, there'll be lots of content that is generated with AI. I just don't think that personality-driven content is going to be substituted with AI. So Ashley, of course, is one of the most well-known names in true crime. Expanding from kind of podcast host to building a media company is not an easy feat.

44:48So we're seeing creators hire seasoned executives to help them and really build big teams around them. So what are your biggest priorities to grow the business this year? Yeah, I think as you think about the shifts in the space, like podcasting is an amazing medium. But when you think about the total addressable market, it's smaller than the video space, right? It's smaller than the market for video. And so the first and biggest initiative for us is entering into the digital media space from a video perspective. and so we have two shows on youtube right now we have crime junkie we have the deck it is a large priority for us and we are scaling incredibly quickly um it's so funny as you think about like the youtube platform you spend you know a year nine months building awareness building sort of a rhythm of content and then all of a sudden you hit like hyper velocity and hyper growth and we're just entering into that like hyper growth phase which is so fun to see and the team is so rewarded by all the work and the growth there.

45:47So that's priority number one. And then the second is enter into the, you know, premium TV and film space. And so how are we packaging up our IP and adapting that IP into the bigger streaming platforms like a Netflix or like an Amazon and then bringing, you know, reaching audiences where they are, where they are on the streaming platforms.

46:05Jasmine Enberg: As you're thinking about, you know, building out these new formats and leaning more into video, are you also thinking about expanding your verticals or are you planning on sticking to true crime? We have ambitions to be bigger than true crime. I think one of the things that is really important is, you know, we are a startup and a lot of the creators today are they're startups and then they are entering into growth phase. And so one of the things that we need to be really thoughtful about is how fast do we grow? Where do we spend our time as we're growing? Not just formats, not just shows in one category, but where are we expanding it to a new category?

46:40And so priority right now is making sure that we build a solid foundation on the true crime space. And once we have that solid foundation across multiple different formats, so building out our flywheel in the true crime arena, then we'll move into a new vertical. So that'll be something that we push out later into 27. 26 is about building out the flywheel for the true crime, for the true crime vertical.

47:06Jasmine Enberg: Do you have any thoughts on what verticals, what categories you might be pushing into in 27? We have spent a lot of time batting this around internally. And so our audience at AudioChuck is highly female. It's like 91 % female and it is young. And so it is like under 35 is really the demographic that we hit. We had basically a decision point. Do we make more for that demographic and basically take advantage of our competitive moat, which is we have this audience, they're coming to us every single week across multiple different shows, or do we try to expand our adjustable market and enter into either a different female demographic or into the male demographic?

47:46We have landed that we are going to super serve our core audience. And so we're going to be looking at genres that fit that under 35 female audience. We don't know exactly what we're going to be entering into, but what we do know is the type of content that we're going to go after so like we are a scripted company and in the future we will be focusing on like how do we add non-scripted or unscripted content into our repertoire and then it will be the host will really be like the big driver of where we want to go so and you guys know in the podcasting space and even as you translate podcasting into video like that connection with the audience is what makes you successful or not And that's not a host.

48:31That's a producer host. That's someone who's in the work, really building the content from the ground up.

48:36Jasmine Enberg: Speaking of finding the right host, I mean, one of the topics that we hear debated a lot in the industry right now is key person risk. It comes up a lot, especially in conversations with investors. AudioChuck, of course, raised about$40 million recently. How do you think about that? And how are you thinking about expanding AudioChuck when it is so closely associated with Ashley Flowers? And true crime too. Not just person, but genre too. Ashley Flowers is our founder. She's our chief creative officer. She's the host of two of our shows. She is undoubtedly a keystone to the company, but we have built an engine of franchises in the true crime category.

49:18So we have seven weekly shows right now. Five of them are in the top 50, the rest are in the top 100. And so we've proven that we can build content that is outside of Ashley Flowers hosting it. She's still very much executive producing it and putting her creative touches on it in her chief creative officer role. That's what we want to be building. We want to begin to be building more shows. And then we also want to go deeper within the brands that we have. And so, you know, in a world where Crime Junkie, you can imagine a world where Crime Junkie is not just a weekly show, but it is a brand with lots of formats underneath it.

49:56And a good example of that is we launched Crime Junkie Jury, which is a live sort of version of Court TV on YouTube. And that was around the Karen Reed trial. And that wasn't hosted by Ashley Flowers, right? But that was her creative vision. And so as we think about like the evolution of this company, yes, it's growing into new verticals, but it's also going deeper and really creating these shows and building these shows into franchises with multiple talent underneath them, multiple formats, multiple shows, and truly start to think about like their own universe inside of these bigger brands. It's also impossible.

50:31Like you can't scale one creator, right? Like she can't host, you know, 15 shows a week. So part of it is just the audience wishes she could too. So where do you kind of shake out on the key person risk debate? I mean, do you think it's overhyped in this industry or is it kind of the reason that these businesses can be such a success? I think it's a pro and a con. I mean, to me, it's like you need to figure out how to leverage the creative vision of the founder, right? Or leverage the creative vision of the host. If you are solely going to rest and build on their efforts and their hosting or their singular brainpower, if it's not an entertainment company, you're never going to scale past that one human being.

51:16And so you have to find ways to take their taste and extend it, or you have to find ways to take their vision and operationalize it outside of them. And that's what we're working on. She's the ultimate crime junkie, but she's basically rose her hand and said, I want someone to come in and scale this business beyond me. And so that's my job. And I love it. And I think about it all the time. You mentioned streaming services earlier. They have lately been very interested in podcasts now that they've expanded to video. Netflix in particular has been quite aggressive. Audio Check announced to deal with Tubi recently.

51:53What are some of the benefits of expanding and making content available on streaming services? I mean, everybody's looking for entertainment, like their share of entertainment time, right? And so how do you get more of that consumer's time? And if you look at all of our personal habits, we are spending time on our phones, we're spending time on the big screen, we're spending time on our computers. How do we show up where the consumer is? And so when we think about our distribution strategy, historically, it's been let's launch on Spotify, Apple, and let's be where the audio consumer is. And then it's a natural expansion to take your vodcast and put it on to YouTube.

52:28And so we started out with the ambition of like, let's nail it for YouTube, but then let's make this content portable for streaming platforms when they're ready. And the hypothesis is this content is really good. At least, you know, our shows are really good and And there'll be demand from the streaming services. And then we want to take that package with Tubi and what we've learned, and we want to start putting it to more streaming services because consumers have their default setting, which is some people love Tubi and some people love Pluto and some people love Roku and some people love Netflix.

52:59And we want to make sure that whenever they turn on their, you know, whatever app they go to, Crime Junkie is an option for them. Or We're the Deck or Park Predators, all of our shows. How challenging was it to kind of one pivot to video, especially with true crime, right? You don't always have a lot of kind of B-roll material. And then adapting it for a 2B or a streaming service, how much work is that to then go from a YouTube to streaming? I think like we went from an audio studio to a video studio and that's a ton of work. I mean, like no doubt about it. Like one format to two formats, audio and visual, like honestly, we're still working, we're still working through it.

53:38Like this is a big change for studios to do both on a weekly basis. And so when we think about like schedule of our shows and the output that we need, like we have to take what made us really great, which is great reporting, factual accuracy, fact checking, like legal rights, clearances, we have to take all of that and port that into a video process that works in a weekly format. You guys know how hard weekly formats are. And so what we're doing right now is we're investing into that process. We're operationalizing that process. And so that we are a hundred percent certain that we have all the rights, that the fact check is perfect.

54:18The research is perfect. And then we feel good about the distribution. So it's a different muscle for us. It's actually really fun to operationalize it and create a multi-platform studio, but it is a big challenge. It's a big undertaking. And I think you mentioned true crime. I spent a lot of time thinking there's so many successful true crime shows out there, but there's not very many successful true crime networks. As we were investing into building the operations around the audio and video network, true crime, there's a there's a level of factual accuracy, which is a hundred percent that is unlike other genres.

54:58And so you need a ton of supporting staff off camera staff to make sure that you have all the right people with all the right expertise and all the right resources in place to move forward in this at scale, to move forward in this genre at scale. And so I was thinking, I was like, why don't more people scale up off of their successful show? And I think it's just really expensive to build out these networks in this vertical. And we've done it. We've done it really well. And I think we are really just at the beginning, but we've done a good job of operationalizing all the key things, key metrics, key measures that we have to do in order to be successful.

55:38Jasmine Enberg: So it's a different muscle operationally, but I imagine it's also a different muscle for the hosts of these shows, right? I mean, I think that's a tale as old as time that people are good on radio, but they may not be good on TV. How do you kind of approach that as you're thinking again about expanding your shows and into different verticals and formats? It's so interesting you say that because as we think about new talent, like we start to have a different checklist, right? And so like the beats and the energy that someone has in the audio space is so much different than what is successful in the video space.

56:13And so you start to think about like, what are you optimizing for? What's most important to you? Like, where do you see the scale of this business going forward? It's a challenge. We think about ourselves as premium. We are a premium brand, period, end of story. Like everything we do is premium. We invest in like audio engineering. We invest in the talent. We invest in the scripts. And when you move into both of these formats simultaneously, you can't necessarily, based on the technology today, drive both of them at an incredibly high level from an audio perspective, right? You have to choose whether you're going to have the video audio or the audio audio surface on specific platforms.

56:54And so that's something that we haven't fully locked in on. But when we think about the talent, just to go back to that, we think about the talent, you have to optimize for both. And you have to optimize for making sure that they are incredibly successful in the audio space, but also have the ability to be engaging visually as well.

57:15Jasmine Enberg: What can you tell us about how the deal landscape with streaming services in particular has shifted? The exclusivity is a new one in terms of distribution. And so I think that's a big deal point that comes up is like, where do you want to spend your time? And are you willing to make a bet that your audience is going to find you on a single platform? And that comes with a lot of new counterparty risk, even if the platform is one of the biggest in the world. And so for us, non-exclusive was a really important deal point. I think as we think about the current state of our business and how we want to scale the audience and how we want to make sure that we get our content out to as many people as possible, exclusivity out of the gate was off the table.

58:02And so we were a non-exclusive deal right from the start. And so people value different relationships. People value different partnership tie-ups. But for us, it was non-exclusive right from the beginning. How much can you say about how the terms have shifted for these deals, right? Like it used to be this big kind of big ticket number. Now it's more about kind of the ad revenue sharing on the podcasting side. So I'm sure you can't go into a lot of the nitty gritty, but what are you seeing kind of zooming out in terms of like, what did the terms really look like when you're talking to streaming services versus kind of the past era of like the Spotify deals?

58:39Honestly, the terms are kind of the same, right? It's like, what content are you distributing to them and how much are they paying you back? Or like, how are they recouping that? What's the revenue shares against that? Or if there's a licensing fee, what's the licensing fee for the content? So I think from like a deal perspective, the terms are pretty much the same. But what I'll say is like the middle has kind of dropped out of the market, right? And so like the bigger shows with the bigger audiences are taking the lion's share of the time and resources from the streaming platforms. And the middle is finding it like having a really hard time of securing an exclusive deal or even a non-exclusive deal.

59:22And then the emerging platforms that are emerging shows that are coming up with some of the bigger name talent, like the platforms are willing to take bigger bets on them and say, hey, like we might build our own like Pete Davidson. Let's take a bet on Pete being really successful with Netflix. But where I find the appetite for partnership is either the really big players or A-list talent that is just starting with those folks in the middle who were doing really great deals and had a lot of opportunity in the market with really competitive audio-only deals. On the video side, they don't seem to be as attractive or as in demand.

59:59What's the impact of that? Is that sort of like the shrinking middle class of the creator economy where the big kind of stars get bigger and then you have this niche long tail, like what will be the longer term impact? I think that's exactly right. Like, I think, I think this is going to be a typical, like head of the tail and then a decline with a really long tail. And you're going to start to see like, this will be more like a traditional market as opposed to like, there was a nice fat middle for a really long time where you could create a nice business and be sort of like 50 ,000 downloads per episode.

1:00:31And that worked out really well. A hundred thousand downloads per episode that worked out really well i think unless you have an opportunity to really scale unless you have an opportunity that you like a connection with your audience like that is unique and that can transfer and be portable across platforms so formats and platforms audio to video youtube to netflix netflix to tubi i think you're going to start to see a lot of you know podcasts a lot of creators start to think differently about how they run and operate their business or how they scale it The one caveat is like, I'll say, you know, the business community, like you can, those can be smaller shows and be incredibly impactful because the audience is so targeted.

1:01:14And so for some of those business focused shows, I think you still have a really good business, even if you have a smaller audience, like the size I talked about, because they're so targeted and there's, you know, they're high earners and they're exactly where advertisers want to be.

1:01:27Jasmine Enberg: So going back just for a moment to your shift to video, how does that impact your employee hiring needs, for example, or your strategy, not just for future hosts, but for other people that you're bringing into the business? We have new titles across the board. I mean, we talk about showrunners, right? Like we started to think about our business more on, like as we think about like the expansion, it's more like a TV style expansion, right? We still have our audio producers, our audio engineers. Audio is always going to be core to this business. It's the root of how it was started. We're Audio Chuck.

1:02:05We're not going to change the name. The heritage of this business is there. We need to make sure we're premium. But we're making TV shows now. As we think about it, it's a weekly TV show. We need that DNA. We need those roles. We have episodic producers. We have showrunners. We have EPs. These are more traditional television roles. And that's where we're hiring from. So we're hiring from the traditional TV market. We try to go after folks who have true crime experience. The genre is just so unique in terms of what the production schedule looks like and some of the different ways that we use archival versus a typical show.

1:02:42But yeah, it's a big TV model push for us.

1:02:45Jasmine Enberg: Are there certain roles that are more important than others? Is there like a specific role that you've been targeting or prioritizing over others? Two roles I think are incredibly impactful. The first is the EP. Who is setting the vision for the show? Who is working with the host? How are they making sure that the cases are being selected right? The schedule's running properly, the scripts are in the best possible place. So the EP role is undeniably one of the most important roles to get right and make sure you have an experienced executive in that seat and then the second role is the post producer like the post editor like it's amazing to me how much magic an editor can do both on the audio side and on the video side like the way that the team that we have the teams that we have and the people and the head of it the talent that they have to put to make these episodes great and to add visual impact and to add suspense with a pause.

1:03:51It's just amazing what they do. And I think those two roles drive the most impact outside of the host, of course. Those two roles drive the most impact. How big is AudioChuck? How many employees do you have and what are your hiring plans for this year? Yeah, we're in expansion mode. So we're just under 100 employees right now. We were about 50 or 60, 18 months ago. And we want to grow by about 30 % this year. So we are, we're hiring, if anyone's out there who has these skillsets, this is a plug, but yeah, we are, we're growing.

1:04:22Jasmine Enberg: To wrap up one piece of advice, what would you say to operators and people coming from traditional business backgrounds who want to work in the creator economy? Don't wait. I think now is the time. Like when you think about moments, like shifting moments in a media landscape, like now is the time where creators are becoming a dominant player in the space. And I think like all of the consolidation and all of the business model disruption, like that lead, that, that creates like slowness from like traditional media and creators can move really, really fast and they know what their audience wants.

1:05:00And they, like we, we iterate, We test and iterate and move in days and weeks as opposed to months or quarters. And I think if you want to enter into this space, waiting two quarters, it's going to be a different space and two or three people are going to have taken the spot that you could have taken. So don't wait the time for the creators to really dominate the market is now. Thank you so much for joining us, Matt. We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it.

1:05:27Jasmine Enberg: Thanks so much for being here.

1:06:01We'll be right back. and accelerate your business at rubric.com. Again, rubric.com.