Manager of The Sidemen Jordan Schwarzenberger On The Future Of Modern Media

0:00Jordan Schwarzenberger:We really see Sidemen as being that first creative publisher, taking the mantle really of a lab bible or of a channel 4 really for the next era. Who's going to be doing that? I think Sidemen are doing that. I mean, if you look at the numbers, it's like, you know, 50 % of all Gen Z subscribe to them in the UK. It's like 70 % of all Gen Z men in the UK subscribe to them. It's like the biggest density, but yet it's always been seen as a creator, as a creator group, not a media company. So that's the switch.

0:27The Businessmen, sponsored by BT Business. Hello and welcome to The Businessmen. Welcome everybody. I hope you are good and having a lovely time in your houses. Or flats. Or travelling. Or cars. Wherever you are. Let's hope it is merry. You could be watching on YouTube, you could be listening through your ears. We are delighted to have your company. We appreciate it. If you are new here, this is the journey of Joel Domit and myself, Ben Shepard, trying to create our own male skincare brand. Yes, we are indeed. We've got a name, we are creating a logo, and we've got a lineup of incredible guests.

1:05To catch up on everything that's happened so far, listen wherever you get your podcasts and remember to subscribe if possible. You know what else? What? You can watch us on YouTube. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're actually visible. Oh my God, I would have definitely worn a different jacket. Would you have worn my cricket? I almost certainly would have not worn. I would have not worn that jumper over that shirt. But hey, but you do you, Ben. If you're not watching, you are missing a visual treat. Joel's face when he saw my tank top this morning was a vision to behold. There's so many different vibes going on.

1:40I love you. I respect you. But I would never, I would never put that jumper over that shirt. Can I just make a point? Mrs. Shepard saw this this morning and said, I love it. Oh, my God. I love it. And I think I'm going to steal it off you. Our creative director, Russ, he's already identified it as something that he would like. I love the jumper. Don't get me wrong. I love the jumper. I am influencing. I think it's absolutely, it's, it's. Is it the layering? It's the layering, man. It is fascinating. I'm messing up the layering. And also, look, I'll be honest. We've got a very young guest on the podcast today.

2:15I think maybe what happened is Ben knew that we were going to have a young guest. And he went, he looked at his closet and he absolutely panicked. So true. So true. What did Gen Z like? Maybe it's layers. Oh, God. It's cricket attire. They like cricket, right? V-necks. They like cricket. It's a V-neck and a layer. Anyway. I think he's going to love it.

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4:16How's your week been Joel Domit? Ben Shepard, Ben Shepard, can you come in a boat with me? Ben Shepard, can I play the toys with me, Ben Shepard? Ben Shepard played trains. Ben Shepard played trains. And still, still, I told him once, I went, Ben Shepard is Conkers. Genuinely, every single night, we hug before we go to bed. And just before I go to bed. Is this near you or this is you and what? I hug Ben before he goes to bed. Hug Wild before he goes to bed. And he always goes, Ben Shepard is Conkers. this is the impact the conkers has had uh because yeah hannah was there and and she is a month away from baby number two arriving yes and i said uh wilds what are we thinking names for the baby what do you think i said baby called conkers baby conkers so he even wants to name his little baby conkers or or wish i think it's conkers or wish which is the name of an elf at lapland if you And it's, I just think he's so cute how much he loves you.

5:19This is us trying not to distract, but that was the much business thing as we did. We have got a great guest coming up today. Really, really excited about this. He's someone that I've really enjoyed his content just because he's someone that comes from such a different world from us. We come from traditionally sort of linear television and they come from a world of YouTube and of TikTok and Instagram. It's an amazing guy called Jordan Schwarzenberger, who I'll do the official bio of him because it's unbelievable. He's worked at Vice Lab Bible Talent Agency YMU, where he's creative officer at the age of 20.

6:0220 years. 20. Yeah, he manages Europe's biggest YouTube group, The Sidemen, with businesses extending to the food and beverage industry. And if that's not enough, he is a Forbes 30 under 30. He is unbelievable. And he's still only 28 years old. There's so much to learn from him. He's also got five children under six. It's unbelievable. He's so fertile. So fertile, which you are when you're 28, to be fair. There's nothing he can't succeed at. That's unbelievable.

6:32Jordan thank you so so much for being here man I really appreciate it first of all can I start off by saying I I am someone who consumes everything you do on social media and I like to I don't want to be one of those people who'd be like I liked Green Day when they were small but I like genuinely feel like I was I've probably followed for like two three years when you started making that sort of content and i am so we've never met before and i i'm so happy to be in the same room as you because i feel like there's so much to learn from you you've come from a different side of the industry from myself and ben as well and essentially what i'm trying to say is i'm excited to swap

7:19Jordan Schwarzenberger:numbers i'm down it always comes down to you and your address book it's what it comes down to tell I obviously know you, but do tell us about yourself and sort of the business journey that's led you to be here today. Of course. Well, I'm 28 now. I started my career at 18. I was in my last year of school looking at university and the world of work, which you don't really know much about when you're in sixth form. You're just sort of looking at it and thinking, OK, this is going to be a headache. But you've got uni. Uni is the thing you do. But I always had this instinct, this instinct that that wasn't the thing for me.

7:52Jordan Schwarzenberger:I could just tell that it would be terrible. And I was proven right. I ended up going to Kings for 12 weeks, dropped out, solid 12 weeks stint. Hated every minute of it. It was just the biggest waste of time. Digital culture, which was probably the biggest red flag. I mean, it's cool, but that's the problem, right? It's like a cool degree, but not a valuable one. Interestingly, because I had this instinct, I had reached out to everyone that I knew at Vice, which at the time in 2014, 15 was the coolest company in the world. And I just had this instinct that Vice was the company that I wanted to work for.

8:18Jordan Schwarzenberger:I didn't know what they did really, apart from the documentaries and the YouTube content, but I knew that I wanted to be there. so I managed to find a bunch of emails from a friend of mine who'd done work experience there and had about 20 of them so I emailed everybody at the same time and said hi this is me can I come in for a chat and I had I think two people out of 20 get back and say yeah sure and then one of them ended up saying yeah well if you want to do work experience you can do it over summer so I said great did that over six weeks of summer and then started Kings in the September and it was it was quite funny right because the dichotomy of vice which was at the time the heart of digital culture.

8:49Jordan Schwarzenberger:Yeah, it was all happening. And I was there all the way through summer and then every Friday and then uni Monday to Thursday studying what was not digital culture at all. It was totally like awful and a distraction. And that dichotomy was quite interesting. So I ended up sort of saying, well, look, actually guys, I love this. This is where I want to be. And they said, well, if your parents are going to come with pitchforks to try and kill us for you dropping out uni, then we'd love to have you. So then I said, yeah, dropped out the next day and started with them after Christmas in January 2016.

9:17Jordan Schwarzenberger:And then about three months after the managing director guy called Ian said to me, oh, do you want to go for a walk around the block? And I'm 18 at this time. Okay, walk around the block sounds a bit ominous, but sure. And he said to me, look, I've been approached by Lab Bible. Do you want to potentially come with me to Lab Bible to help start their agency? And I'm 18, 19 at this time. So I'm going, this is like, I have no idea about this world and he's great. And I thought, well, like, why not? So I ended up going with him to Lab Bible to start the agency over there called Virtue. lab bible at the time coming out of its puberty stage the kind of bum day mondays the whatever tuesdays and trying to build a proper media company but they had half of all 18 to 30 year olds in the uk following them on facebook at the time right so this huge movement of audience from your online magazines into facebook and social um and so the audience was there but now they needed to build the business underneath it so that was the brief and we went over loved every minute of it was there for a year and a half grew i mean grew the age up to like 20 30 people smashing it really good, like great time.

10:10Jordan Schwarzenberger:And I was 19, got to travel to these events and just living, living a dream. Really all my friends are at uni and I'm like launching Instagram stories and going to every festival in the world and all this stuff. And it was a lot of fun. And then got to the end of that and thought, you know what? I'm able to do this myself now. So I started my own company called Roundabout in August of 2017. And that was a Gen Z agency. So I was 19. I said to myself, well, look, I'm probably the youngest person in the industry who's been able to work with these brands and do all this stuff. Why don't I just start my own business now and take all that all those learnings and just get on with it and do it myself had you always been entrepreneurial i think yeah relatively in as much as entrepreneurial as a 12 year old or 14 year old can be like i had like a clothing brand when i was in sixth form i started and you know film magazine yeah kind of projects i like making things and come up with stuff so did that and then through that process i ended up um me and two other two of the apprentices actually a lab i went off together to do that and we ended up working with some amazing companies one of them being james grant yeah why am you so i was sort of fell into why me at the time james grant because i realized going in there that actually hold on a minute you have media brands and you have a publishing business here but you're looking at it like a talent business but actually at this point instagram social was becoming more important for for talent or entertainers if you will let me just sorry let me just explain so so james grant was a talent agency set up by peter powell and russ lindsey many years ago.

11:30The OGs. Yeah, the original presenters, TV presenters agency of which I was one of the clients and then slowly that got bought out and then did a management buyout and then it became YMU. Yep. And now it's a much bigger, by the time you've got involved, it's a much bigger media agency. It was James Grant Entertainment,

11:48Jordan Schwarzenberger:James Grant Sport, James Grant Music. Yes. This was pre-converting and becoming one brand, which was YMU. Right. So at that point, you know, you go into a business like that and you say, hold on a minute. each of the individuals here collectively have more reach more engagement than a lab bible or any of the social publishers but we're selling and building a world over in lab bible and sport bible and you know the publishing world that actually is engaging with brands at a really high level doing incredibly creative campaigns why why personalities not looking at their own media as an asset that can be seen as a publisher and a media brand that was the light bulb moment for me so going in there the opportunity was one future-proof the client base and help bring new clients through people like um emilia de moldenburg chicken shop date that was like one of the first things that i was able to do that i'd met her at lab bible and said look i think this would be great for you to build chicken shop date as an ip with us a bunch and a bunch of other clients well people like zach and jay woody and cliney minya chihuahua jack harry's that whole sort of yeah um and that was four years i loved it it was amazing um i got to sort of be at that epicenter of personality brands becoming the dominant form of media which was it's just the thread coming into the next era publishing inadvertently which is really i think the creator publisher and that was me falling into the sidemen world so that happened through um a friend of mine aaron who'd gone off to manage a tiktoker girl called holly h who had 16 million followers on tiktok at the time this is when tiktok had just become tiktok so from musically they got bought by byte dance and then they converted it into tiktok this was 2018-19 so just as that started to really pop off he got to manage her um and i stay close to him he then ended up meeting sam so sam is the youtuber accountant he's looked after every youtuber in the country for 15 years really because one of his best friends at school was a guy called marcus butler big youtuber back in the day marcus knows alfie days and zoella and marcus starts making money he goes to his friend sam sam can look after my account and then he brings marcus and zoella and all his friends over and then sam just builds this roster very quietly in worthing near in sussex of every youtuber in the country so sam and aaron had met and sam has always said like the sidemen had a generational opportunity the sidemen for those you don't know at the time 10 million subscribers biggest youtube group in in the uk they walk down any street and they're getting mobbed at this point um covid really blew them up they had an audience captive at home they were consistent with their content during that time and they just built this immense fandom like on another level um i think more than anything i'd ever really seen and i obviously knew that and when sam and aaron had met they said well let's speak to jordan and we came together as a three on zoom at the time because this was in covid and we said look like why don't we speak to them about what we can do to help and to really manage them?

14:16Jordan Schwarzenberger:Because in the UK and around the world, really, creator infrastructure is non-existent. You have agents and people who are getting you deals here and there, but no one who's building the business, no one who's sitting with you and going, all right, you've got all of these opportunities, but which ones should you actually take? How do you build your own IP? How do you scale out brands and franchises and actually focus inward rather than just where's the next 10K, 15K deal from a VPN company going to come from that you don't really want to do? So we got on Zoom with them and we said hey guys this is like a vision this is a proper strategy had 15 things in there that we outlined and they said yeah let's do it and that ranged from restaurants to alcohol brands we had hotel in there we had bars we had all sorts of like pie in the sky projects just stuff that they would love to do membership club and then we basically spent the last five years rattling through them so we've got a restaurant called sides now got up to seven stores in the uk we've got singapore malaysia india and a bunch of others opening soon as well we had a hundred ghost kitchens at its peak and then shut them down went into physicals that's been a whole learning and journey but great um the ghost the ghost kitchen works in regards of sort of being able to get takeaways yeah i was in the ghost kitchen boom of like 2021 we didn't go and deliver and get any restaurant and that kind of that came with a lot of headaches one for maybe another time but still down to like got to seven physical stores in lakeside and blue water and mary hill we have box park we have box park we're going to start box box park wemberly um and yeah around the uk which is great xx vodka uh one of the high selling vodkas in wetherspoons if you go to Weatherspoons, XXVoc is in there and people love it, which is great.

15:40Jordan Schwarzenberger:We love Weatherspoons. We've got a production company now called Cybermen Productions, which is producing Inside, which is a top reality show for Netflix. I've done the charity matches, we've got four, fifth one this year at Wembley. Cybermen, obviously the power of that brand, sold out Wembley twice. The membership club, Cyberplus, has met their membership offering, which is their version of a paywalled Netflix community, which has now birthed like marriages and has people, you know, go to the charity match, they've got tattoos of the logo and they wear It's like people are so invested into their world now.

16:07Jordan Schwarzenberger:Yeah, we've got six businesses together and it's become this whole world around the cyber, which has been great to see.

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18:28how do you how do you keep all of this going how do you make sure that every part of this is sustainable without any one bit falling down like how do you divide your time with all of this

18:42Jordan Schwarzenberger:yeah well i'll tell you you know what it's there's a business philosophy that i subscribe to personally which is that you always need to have somebody looking up and someone looking down and that's the best way of running a business so if you have co-founders you can be one up one down That's perfect. Sam is an accountant. He's a business operator. He's very much looked down, looking at the detail. I was always able to stay up. And then Aaron, he's our third co-founder. He is also an accountant by trade, like in that world of looking down. So we had a really nice, we have a really great flow where I can look up at the vision and the next thing and strategy, et cetera.

19:11Jordan Schwarzenberger:And then they can look down and we built Arcade on that premise. So it's meant that somebody's always watching the business. Someone's always looking at what's next. Very often you have people who overlap, two people looking up, very difficult to keep the business on track or two people looking down or one person looking down and all they do is focus on the detail and they don't have the they're not out there enough building the thing so i think it's really important to have that jewel so that's been always the philosophy and then as arcade our real goal now for the sidemen is okay how do we build a publisher commercial business under that now because actually i look at it and go the world of tv's changing the world of spend within content is shifting rapidly and it's moving into our world we need to be set up like a publisher and that's a big switch how do you turn a creator into a media company we really see sidemen as being that first creative publisher taking the mantle really of a lab bible or of a channel 4 really for the next era who's going to be doing that i think sidemen are doing that i mean if you look at the numbers it's like you know 50 of all gen z subscribe to them in the uk it's like it's like 70 of all gen z men in the uk subscribe to them it's like the biggest density but yet it's always been seen as a creator it's a creator group not a media company so that's the switch What would you say to two people who are on telly a lot?

20:17I think this is interesting.

20:19Jordan Schwarzenberger:I would say to not be dependent on TV or any one distribution channel because TV was the distribution, but now the distribution is really owned distribution across various social platforms and then also YouTube, which has taken the lion's share of consumption. So if you look at the linear numbers, linear is down 75 % in the last 10 years with 18 to 24-year-olds, 18 to 30-year-olds, that kind of demographic. That's like total. Fast forward another 10 years. What will that number be? What's holding up linear and broadcast, which is the whole industry really, is the 60 plus audience. That's holding it all up.

20:52Jordan Schwarzenberger:But what happens when they die? Fundamentally, that's what's happening. That's why daytime struggling. There's all these macro points that you can see and say, well, hold on a minute. Like this is not coming back. And that's the biggest myth in the industry that's been held up for the last 10, 15 years. And I've been in industry 10 years. You walked into rooms 10 years ago, nine years ago. oh yeah well when gen z grow up and they'll be in their big houses and they'll be with their kids they'll be watching tv on a saturday night don't worry it will come back for the next generation that's been said time and time again and that's just not happening look at the macroeconomic culture in the uk look at gen z not even being able to leave their parents house right i mean most people at 30 are still living at home what does it and then of course you look at things like you know cable and pricing and sky and all these all these sort of legacy things you just did and gen z turn around and go yeah but i can't afford that right now or actually i'd rather have the choice of YouTube, which is free, or I'd rather have Netflix and maybe Disney, but I'm not going to really, I don't even need the license to pay the license fee because I don't even watch BBC in their minds.

21:47Jordan Schwarzenberger:So they see it as another subscription. So you have all these, this sort of change in behavior, which is I think driven by people feeling poorer than ever, but also wanting more choice and being used to choice from the minute they get on a device or they're consuming content. And no longer is there the sort of four to 10 channels that you just watch and that's a massive shift so the economics will take a while to not to settle into tv but they will come because the audience won't be there so it's how do you prepare yourself for the audience sliding away from linear because the whole business model is based on advertising spend into linear which is the biggest bulk of spend but what happens when the audience goes and they're advertising to no one that's coming that will come might take 20 years but what the brands and agencies will do is they will shift that spend over to youtube which is where so much of the consumption is being had and to social but then also into more broadly i think worlds of ip which house audiences audience ultimately is the reason why they're advertising in the first place so i think it's just being honest about that that for future-proofing yourself it's how do i not be reliant on tv and how do i build my own ip but there is still this thing um jordan which we've talked about a lot is youtubers and digital creators are still looking to try and get on the telly.

22:58Telly presenters who have been TV presenters are really keen to become creators. There's this sort of like this cross-pollinization that we're all desperate to do what the others want.

23:08Jordan Schwarzenberger:Yeah. Because we see the creators as having control. The grass is always greener on both ends. Unquestionably. But also we see them as having control. They make the decisions, they decide what they're doing and they potentially see us as having the credibility just because historically that's where people who have made stuff and been respected go to perform and do their job. KSI is a great example of somebody who's done brilliantly on Threshold and is now one of the judges on Brins Got Talent, one of the biggest shows on television. And it's a great addition to that. So as much as you can't argue with your statistics, with the reality of that and the shift in pattern, there is still that need for it and that drive for it.

23:52And that audience, which is certainly older it's still a really valuable audience it's still an important audience isn't

23:59Jordan Schwarzenberger:it totally agree and they're the audience to spend the most money so there is still a big amount of value for advertisers but i think it's looking at the short-term mid-term and long-term and the long-term is that the numbers don't lie this is the trend but that's a long tail so there's still enough to go around and enough for a decent amount of time but it might take 20 years right for this to get to a crunch point where no longer can the idea that this is value be held up and i think if you think if you're an itv uh channel for sky whatever it might be you have to hold up the value because that's the confidence that advertisers want in your medium so even if the numbers are sliding you'll still hold up the narrative that it's not and you want to keep that going for as long as you possibly can for obvious reasons also the media agencies the media agencies spend a lot of money on linear for brands they want to also hold up that linear is value and there is still value don't get me wrong and the idea that it's all dead and finished is wrong but it's that it is being replaced by decentralization that's the key it's going from you know three channels originally through to cable then through to decentralization totally and that's streamers it's youtube and maybe some linear but probably on catch up probably on 480 or on bbc ipad which is still doing really well and that's probably where these channels and these businesses move into they move to decentralization and to these vod platforms which become their the home of their content and you're absolutely right because you know the way that the overnight figures you were always judged used to see what you got overnight and you would decide whether something but of course that doesn't happen it's all consolidated figures now because so and i've first-hand experience of this hosting the summit which is on at the moment and the amount of people that watching summit on catch-up is extraordinary used to think they'd watch it when it went out live on the tuesday at nine o 'clock but so many people are coming to it on catch-up or watching it on youtube yeah and it's been the first year for me uh in telly where i've really felt like there there is less pressure on the overnights than there's ever been maybe today everyone still looks at it but finally this we're starting to catch up and not be like oh what happened last night oh god oh god they're like waiting till they know it comes in slowly and dribs and drabs and everything it's um it's so fascinating the other thing about the the digital sphere as well is your figures and your return is very, very traceable.

26:14You can see. The data is amazing. The data is incredible. And the feedback is immediate, right? So you know, the boys will know that you're working with what video works, what clip works. And if it doesn't work, try and change the hook, try and change the, and you can twist it and tweak it and turn it with the most minute little nuance. And suddenly it goes viral. And ultimately that's terrible. That data is, you know, to go into that data and understand what works, what doesn't, which ultimately is the problem with linear is that you don't know when people are going to go make a cup of coffee.

26:48Jordan Schwarzenberger:And you can also, with things like second screening and all those, I mean, the advertising opportunity, which is the whole industry is funded by advertising, right? All direct-to-consumer and the patrons of the world, et cetera, we can get into. Because that's why I really think the value is for individuals is to build IP and build direct communities that pay directly into that IP to support it, but you're not then reliant on advertisers another conversation maybe but no for sure the ability to measure the ability to predict and forecast numbers to plan but that's why the opportunity for creators is harder than most think because you need enough consistency in order to make it forecastable for brands and viable which is why the sidemen works because they have a tv show every sunday called sidemen sunday effectively pulls in five to ten million people every week and then they also have more sidemen which is their second channel and then they have reacts and they have Plus they have 15 pieces of content going out every week, let alone clips, which, you know, are maybe 15, 20 a week.

27:38Jordan Schwarzenberger:So you have this whole world of inventory there. And that heavy turnover of content as well, isn't it? There's 45 people in the team. So that's how you get to that level of, you know, for the sideband, they're not burnt out by that because everything around them is automated. That's why they can be that creator-publisher leader. But it's very, very difficult to do that and harder than most people think. And I think for some of the bigger companies moving into YouTube and into social, there needs to be a leap in terms of how they do it and not taking some of the old habits of scale and cost in.