How Amelia Dimoldenberg built every celebrity’s favorite show (Chicken Shop Date)

0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.

0:38Today, we're diving into the remarkable story of Colin Rosenblum. Wow. Did you pay it to say that? That's crazy. That's very kind. It's crazy, but it's my favorite way to learn about a subject matter. I'm learning about so much more now that I can turn this research into like a seven minute podcast that I can listen to just when I'm walking. Did you tell it that I worked at the front desk of a hotel? Dude, the prompt is just make me a podcast about Colin from Colin and Samir. That's it. I may be biased, but I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm hooked. So if you guys haven't checked out Copilot, check it out.

1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. I wanted to spoof what the interview is. I wanted to spoof what a date is. What's your type? Dark hair. Why did you think it was funny? Why did you think it worked? Who gave you access? Thank you to KSI, Jennifer Lawrence, Ed Sheeran. When did you know you could make money from this show? I wasn't making any money from the views for like honestly years. It was a nightmare situation. Oh no. Yeah. Oh my God. You can make it, you can star in it, and then you can publish it.

1:47It's changing the media landscape. I'm witnessing something that... We're witnessing history. History, yes. We first met Amelia deBoldenberg after we made a video about her on this channel. And the reason we made that video is because we were so impressed with the fact that she was able to create a celebrity talk show entirely independently. No funding from any media company, just uploading YouTube videos for almost 10 years. Her interview show, Chicken Shop Date, has over 340 million views on her channel. But even more impressive is its cultural impact. A moment from her episode with Louis Theroux resulted in a dance trend that defined 2022.

2:22and it's become one of the premier destinations for actors and musicians to promote their upcoming work. We talked to her in this episode about how she's built one of YouTube's biggest shows, how she books top-tier talent, and how she's crafted a brand that transcends YouTube.

2:41Hi, Amelia. Hi. Hello. Great to see you again. Yes. We're catching you at this really cool moment here in London, coming right off the Barbie premiere, which you were on the pink carpet for. Yes. And also coming off of the Jennifer Lawrence Chicken Shop Tate episode, which those both feel like very big moments. Does it feel like that for you right now in your career? I actually feel like it does feel quite like a big moment. I think especially the Barbie premiere. If I could have seen my younger self, like, you know, at school or at university with dreams of being, you know, a presenter or a journalist, knowing that I would be one of the hosts of the Barbie premiere um I would have been like wow that is a dream gig and with like red carpet interviews it's all so much is out of your control so you really don't know um how the interviews are going to pan out you don't even know who you're going to get to speak to so um that's always a risk when you do those jobs so when it does pay off and you get you know the moment um like a moment that shared or like the Ryan Gosling I texted you Yeah, you did.

3:45I'm actually on the lookout for a Ken myself. Do you have any tips on how to find a Ken? Drop something. If a Ken picks it up, you can... Oh, God. That moment was shared by my friends to me. Oh, really? And I didn't... I actually... I had heard that you were doing the premiere, but I hadn't seen any clips yet. And immediately that was shared. And it was something that we were talking about that although you built your career on the internet, you are in a very unique position where it feels like you've built this brand that's transcended the internet. Like my friends who don't watch online content, they don't watch YouTube, they know who you are.

4:21Right. And that is a very unique thing to do for someone who's built their career off of a YouTube show. And if anyone would notice it, it would be us. Because we are interviewing, obviously, these very digital people. And the amount of times that - Well, they're real people. Well, they are real people, but they have these huge digital lives. And the amount of times it's like, mom, we interviewed Mr. Beast. And she's like, huh? Who's that? What? Isn't that crazy? because he's the biggest creator. Is he the biggest creator? Yeah. And I only knew about him through your channel, like watching. Really?

4:49Wow. Yeah, watching your, I find out about so many creators through your channel because they don't come up on my algorithm and I don't see them. And then I go on there, I find them through you and then I go on their page and I'm like, what? They've got X million subscribers. And it's interesting how the internet works in that way that you can have millions and millions of followers on TikTok or on YouTube. And yeah, so many people in the public will not know who you are because you are hitting a very specific demographic that's also incredibly global I think too so like you're a very widespread audience so those millions of followers will be from all across the world so it wouldn't be necessarily sometimes like communities of people that will know you but that's been um within like my strategy or like my ambitions is always to be like straddling both the online and the traditional and I just feel like yeah if you really sort of want to be, I don't know, top of your game, you have to be and you have to have a foot in both worlds.

5:49I feel like for for you, the world became somewhat aware of you during the because of the Jack Harlow episode. Yes, for sure. Can you read? Do you? What the hell is this? Do you? Sorry, I meant do you like to read? That was a moment in time that was explosion of the Amelia de Explosion of chemistry. But when we looked into you at that time, right? And we had heard our office, it's like a bunch of people who watch a lot of YouTube. So your show had come up before the Jack Harlow interview. But that was the moment where it kind of, you know, became very popular. And it kind of feels like you've arrived in the past two to three years.

6:31But this is a decade long story. Yeah, exactly. It is. It started, I don't know, well, when I was 17, I'm 29 now. um so i'm just trying to do the math god i'm so bad at math i mean no one can no one can do that math it's too hard um so yeah i i started with the idea when i was 17 years old at a youth club in northwest london where i'm from i started going there after school on every wednesday and we made a magazine and that's what we did and everyone um there was really into uk rap and grime um and so that was kind of like my uh introduction into that music specifically and so it was very natural when it came to be the question of who would I like to interview.

7:13It just seemed like, of course, I'm going to interview these rappers that everyone's talking about. And then, yeah, I started the column in that magazine and I did it for about two years. And in the column, you were also playing or taking part in essentially dates, like what the format has become today. There were a lot of elements to it that were also in the written column. Yeah, definitely. And it was very much like question, one line answer, my question, one line answer. It was, but within the question, I'd like put some kind of sarky comment or I wanted it to feel very like staccato energy with it.

7:55And the questions that we came up with were asking in a different angle, like spinning something on its head. The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit Strayer.edu slash Jack Welch MBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Shevin as many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street North in Arlington, Virginia. Yeah. What led you to doing this?

8:35Like what, what, who were you before that? Like, were you someone? I don't even remember who I was before. I honestly feel like I'm like chicken shop girl forever. I can't imagine my life before that. What led me to doing this? At school, I was always like an overachiever in terms of always being involved in like every single extracurricular activity. Like I always was trying to like do the most at school because I was always very, very average in terms of my grades and I didn't really love the the subjects that we had at school so like the English maths you know the classic ones I was always very much more interested in the extracurricular things things that was that were more creative that also maybe lends themselves lended themselves to something that you would actually serve a purpose in an actual job or I think I realized very early on at school that like being funny sells yeah and that you can get an audience and that you can capture people's attention by making them laugh.

9:30And that's something that I think has been a constant throughout my life. And I feel, yeah, I think that's what you can see through my work, really. Let's talk about some of the initial inspirations for creating the format. Because even as a written column, like creating it, creating Chicken Shop Day, like that there is a lot of different things that go into that idea, right? So how did that, like, where did that idea come from even as the column like why did you think it was funny why did you think it would work i think the initial idea came about through doing an interview as a date so that was the first thought um i thought that that would be an interesting way uh to angle an interview and also i really wanted to go on a date and i've never been on a date so i was two birds with one stone um and then someone said you should never go you should someone said you should go on a date where you would never usually go on a date to make it funny and that's how the chicken shop element happened and then yeah I guess the style of like my vibe was I was when I was at school I was very dry like more than I am now like very sarcastic and dry humor deadpan to me that was much more entertaining than me just being me did you have visual references of that of like you know like the first time I watched your show I remember thinking it was there was an element of between two ferns yeah definitely that was a big inspiration to love between two ferns um i just love um how it's like an anti-interview i've always also been quite inspired by like things that have gone wrong so interviews that have gone wrong or interviews that are really awkward and um the interaction hasn't gone to plan how we see interviews going and that to me is very inspiring because that's that's uh funny to me that's what i think i wanted to do i wanted to spoof what the interview is i wanted to spoof what a date is i also have always watched a lot of mockumentaries and i think things yeah from spinal tap to best in show yes um those the the awkwardness of those i think i found very inspiring to the kind of the kind of comedy that i do and in a way it kind of feels a bit mockumentary-esque maybe the tone of my show and then in terms of the character like the biggest reference i see in my character is leslie nope from um in terms of her enthusiasm and desperation both at the same time cross in a cross section and i think that that's what i do with my character in a way i always say that i'm equal parts uninterested as i am desperate and i think that juxtaposition of both those two opposing things create for a really funny comedy character.

12:16Because sometimes, you know, I'm really interested and I'm overly keen in the guest and I'm saying things like, so like, when are we getting married? And then in the same breath, they will come and say something flirty to me and I'll be like, can you back off? And I think it's that going between the two that I find can throw the audience off and both the audience and the guest i think we talked about this in the video we made about you but uh even in drake receiving a dm from drake i believe the response was like i'll check my schedule yeah yeah which still plays into that of like i'm looking for a date here comes one of the biggest stars of all time and yet the character and the tone is there well that's what you have to do like it'd be so boring to be like keen on drake right it would be as in you have to sort of play play it like um play it like that I think because that's that's that's the funny thing to do is to seem that like you're not interested in him but yeah wow it's so interesting just to to go back on some of the points in the conversation like I was also well I was a below average student in school but excelled in uh video editing and film production and was also part of the school newspaper and wrote like funny columns in there uh I also am incredibly inspired by mockumentary and my senior film project i went to film school it was a mockumentary oh really which was the first time that i was really on camera i played a role in that very inspired by the office it was like the office mixed with spinal tap yeah it was like those two were those were my two references but i was curious about your relationship with being a performer and being on camera because writing a column is very different from saying hey let's turn a camera on and let's let's turn this into a video show why go there like why do that i think because uh when i was doing the interviews when they were written i just had my dictaphone i realized that the actual what was going on was funny that i just thought this would be great if it was filmed if people could see this play out um and so i i don't know i've always been someone very comfortable at being out of my comfort zone and I feel like that's the only way you can you move forward so I'm often I often feel incredibly nervous incredibly anxious at times that I'm doing I'm often doing things for the first time but it's also how I I feel comfortable doing being in those situations so to me the idea of making the leap to do video was just something that I had to do but the issue was I didn't know how to anything about video production and we I remember like sitting in a Chinese restaurant actually before filming going over my questions being so incredibly nervous god are they gonna are they gonna turn up but obviously I'd done the written column before so I knew how it played out but it was just obviously a different experience and he was gets was actually early so I was like oh okay and then we get there and we we film and yeah and then we I didn't talk to him before gets he just arrived and I like didn't I was when I back in the day to be very like method with it I would like not talk to anyone at all and I would like barely talk to them afterwards I'd be like thanks bye I think it's also because I was not that confident like as well um and now I do like a proper like briefing with them and stuff before um did you feel like it went well right after that first episode yeah I thought it went really well yeah and also because I did have the proof of concept with the written column like I knew what it's like when when I know what it feels like when you're getting a good interview and I still find that now it's one of my favorite things of my job part one of my favorite parts of the job is when you're interviewing someone you can really tell that it's going well because I've when I'm in the interview I've got my editor hat on I've got my like everything hat on and I can feel the moments where I know this is going to really work well and I will know for sure when I've wrapped with an interview if it's going to be good or not is this going well this is going really well okay good also i'm not the one you should be answering your question that's a you question um so what was the response like after the gets episode came out and did that dictate like your energy to make another one yeah definitely it was just exactly the energy that we wanted it was that um quick cuts um funny um like laugh out loud moments and yeah I mean in terms of the reception it got I don't know like a thousand views or something like not that many views at all and I um spent a lot of time trying to pitch it to different blogs uh can you reshare this this was before um content was what it is now like this was nearly 10 years ago so there wasn't an appetite for um content in the way in the way it is now like i always think when you have a new show now um you can go viral immediately because of the way the algorithms work the way the tiktok works shorts youtube twitter sharing your content uh whereas for me it was very much like years uh it's taken years to get an audience to build an audience whereas now you can always get that overnight so in terms of the evolution of those early episodes for me there's this moment it's like right around the aj tracy episode where you have a new intro oh my god i was gonna talk about this incredibly intricate and it's got a sound to it and the actual sound of your episodes gets better yes right like from the first one you're like oh they're clearly in a chicken shop and maybe there's no mic there is and then three or four episodes later it's beautiful intro which you still have today intro and outro and you have audio yeah what was the evolution of the show like in those first three to four and like did your thinking change to even get to the point where you wanted a new intro well yeah the video production element of what I do has always been the most challenging part because I was a complete novice and everything I've learned has been through learning on the job no one has ever taught me anything I was never part of a bigger organization or anything like that so everything I've learned just through doing it and yeah the first episodes we didn't have a separate sound recordist we just had clip-on mics one of them didn't even work so i don't know if you noticed but in the gets episode i think that all the sound from from me is being picked up on gets mike that's anxiety inducing now yeah so i was doing was doing that uh for what four episodes and then the aj tracy episode was a turning point for sure because it was a real moment to get him on the show because he was a very exciting up and coming rapper in in london and he was at the time had not many followers at all i actually cancelled on him twice you cancelled on him i cancelled on aj tracy yeah because i couldn't find a shop um in his area i really wanted to do it local to him in west london and i couldn't find any shops that would let me film back then i would i would be the one who would be finding the shops and that was one of the hardest things as well was to find a shop that would let me film i also didn't realize that you had to like pay to shut them so for the first episodes we we haven't paid to shut the shop the shop is open and so we would have to stop recording when customers yeah oh my god that's it was just i just didn't understand it and also i didn't have any money to to shut the shop and then um i ended up like using some of my savings like 100 pounds to um which is the time was obviously so much money when you're just a student um to shut the shop completely the one for AJ Tracy in West London and so then I messaged him I was like I finally found a shop it was tiny like we couldn't really fit any of the crew in um and we we made it work and then once we filmed that I waited months and months sat on it for months because I was trying to get this intro and outro made my friend who I used to work with at American Apparel Naomi she is an incredible artist and she works with felt and um she made the stop motion animation for me i gave her a brief and she made it and it was amazing and then me and marvin were on um copyright free music for ages on youtube looking for a sound and then we found the which i now own rights to uh really yeah i emailed him and i said can i have the rights and he said yeah and i have a contract and everything yeah wow wow that's amazing i know yeah yeah it's cool um and so yeah and then we added that the intro and outro and I guess the intro and outro was uh I don't know why I wanted one because if I go on my analytics it's the thing that people skip past the most so really I shouldn't have it in but I like it but it's about valuing brand over necessarily views yeah which I always have yeah yeah and but and also the aesthetic of it I love because I feel like it's cute and homemade and it's not too slick like chicken shop and I just I'm really lucky that I met Naomi and her style really was something I was drawn to and that's the kind of aesthetics I like anyway like in my house like my house is I've got a lot of Naomi's work in my house and a lot of it's very colorful and a bit kitsch and that's maybe my my what I like my taste I'm curious at what point the show proved to you that it could be something commercial because as I'm looking through the episodes it feels like when you go to the wireless festival I think they sponsored some of them right I was gonna talk about that too yeah like I'm just curious when did you know you could make money from this show was it YouTube AdSense or was it like sponsorships for the first years I never had AdSense on my on my um videos I didn't know how to do it so for like the first for like honestly years I wasn't making any money from from the views um so I made money through my job is in retail and then um that's how I made my money that I would then put into it and then obviously the budgets were really low because I was getting everyone to do it as a favor um and then in terms of the commercial aspect of it the wireless episode was a big deal because I had had the idea for ages.

22:23It'd be so cool to do my interviews backstage at a festival. And so that was the first time I did a project like outside of the chicken shop, basically. And it was a real learning experience. Was there tension at all of this is a job now that I have to do because I've agreed to something with wireless? Because was that the first time that you were essentially paid or did they just kind of give you access? I don't think I was paid. At that point, it's not like a job. It's just like, this is still... This is just, they're giving me the access. They're giving me the access. They're giving me the access.

22:56And also working closely with Wireless, the festival, and them helping me get the access too and then being on board with it. Access is something though, that I think is one of the most valuable things to get as a young creator, especially when you're in, I guess, the thing that we do, which is we are looking for talent to do our thing with, right? You're looking to collaborate with people. So getting access is like social proof immediately that another artist can be like, okay, cool, they did it. Totally. And that social proof then creates momentum for guest-based shows or collaboration-based content.

23:33And I think those access moments are so pivotal in a creator's journey of who gave you access first. So I think that's really cool that that moment happened. For sure. And that's something I've always been thinking about like throughout the beginning of the show is like who can talent has always been the the most important right um kind of conversation always uh who is the talent because i don't make episodes like weekly you know i'm back in uh when i first started i was making an episode like once every four months for numerous reasons because i couldn't get access to talent because i didn't have the money to make the episodes um because i didn't have time within my studies at university all of these different things and I also and another thing was it was also on purpose because I didn't want to have too many episodes I like that they were it's a very simple idea and I've always thought that if I was doing them weekly then people would get bored of them and I'd also maybe get bored of making them I like the idea that you don't know when a new episode is going to come out and I don't have a release schedule and I think that's something you you both talk about a lot with other creators on your channel is the pressure of having to deliver um youtube content or content in general setting yourself a goal or a schedule and then being very overwhelmed by actually having to um deliver and so i've been very lucky in that sense that i've never had that pressure on me but i have also felt a pressure to always do another episode for sure i remember like early on um when no one was watching them being like i need to put another episode out because no one's gonna know who i am it's like no one knew who you are anyway um but i like that i don't have to do a weekly episode um but yeah talent is key and back to your previous point i've always been thinking okay if i get this talent will it then open a door to this talent um and i still think that about that now and i sometimes i have my theories of of this person's going to see this episode and they're going to think oh that's my peer I really rate what they do I'm going to now do it I think hopefully people actors will see the Jennifer Lawrence episode and think okay another actor's done it I could do it too it's not just for musicians um and I was so so happy when I got Daniel Kaluuya that was a big moment for the show because it was as an Oscar winning like actor um and also someone that just was so perfect for the show growing up in London and like a fan of a lot of the artists I'd had on previously.

26:01It was kind of the perfect, he was the perfect guest, but he also was different enough for, I think, people to look at the show and think, oh, wow, this could be bigger than we thought it could be, or it could be something different, or I have different ambitions for it. That episode too is funny from the immediate click. The opening line of, I'm a big fan, and then you pause. I'm a really big fan. Yeah, thank you. Of chicken nuggets.

26:31of chicken nuggets and he just completely breaks yeah and i think for any actor who probably was curious if they wanted to come on the show and they watched that episode you get them within the first like 10 seconds which i also think is really important that you like came out of the gates really strong with a new episode yeah i think so and i think that's something that you spoke about in the video you did of about chicken shop date about the intention of of starting with the moment like a hook moment right um before you go into the credits like you uh immediately understand the vibe in the first 10 seconds and you're in the middle not in the beginning yeah which i think is really important you start just in it you're not oh hey this is daniel you know it's like you're in the middle of and i always want to try and choose a um a moment that's kind of reflective of the episode as a whole that sets up the tone and the vibe of what who the guest is and their personality and what you're going to see in this episode.

27:26And I often am moving the opening bits. I'm changing the opening bits all the time. So how do you go about booking guests? And how has that changed, you know, in 2023 from the past 10 years? Well, originally, as I said, Getz came through the magazine and through a publicist that was a fan of the column. And that just sort of, that's how it happened. How else? I get through record labels, reaching out. I was reaching out to record labels, publicists, managers, music managers of the artist, me meeting talent in the wild, me DMing guests. I was at a pub on the weekend and literally just this weekend gone by in Farringdon.

28:14and I turn around with my pint and then I look and there's a girl stood up standing looking at me and I was like, oh, I'm about to get recognized and I was going to do the thing. And I look at her and she goes, hello. And I go, Lord. And it was Lord. Oh, wow. And she was like, I just wanted to say I'm such a big fan. And I was like, are you Lord? And she was like, yeah. And I was like, that's so random. And then we got chatting and then, you know, I don't know. So that could start something, a conversation, but that was really random. But sometimes things like that happen. I meet people in different situations.

28:48That was kind of crazy, though. She was really nice. But yeah, how has it differed? I don't know. It's just always been a struggle to get talent to come on the show. It's never not been challenging. There's still lots of people that I want to get on that I haven't been able to now. And it takes years of negotiating and talking. And I don't know. It just happens through all different ways. But it's always a challenge. I'm curious. Is there a guest or two that you see as like a big inflection point for taking you from, you know, grime to bigger musicians, but then opening you up to the world of like actors in a major way?

29:24I guess, as you said, the Jack Harlow episode was a big one. How did that come about? Through the label. The label reached out to either me or my producer. I think it was me actually directly. because my my involvement has changed in the show like what I do in terms of like when I when it started I was very much I produced it all I was the only I didn't even know that was a job title but I would guess I was the producer I was finding the shop I was doing the post-production I was doing everything and then it also made me very stressed I didn't enjoy that part of it really it's so much pressure on as a producer I to to make sure everything happens when like when people asked me oh do you ever get nervous before you do the interviews I'm like yeah about the production I'm not thinking about me and my delivery I'm like thinking about oh is the camera operator going to turn up is does he have the right memory cards like is the shop owner going to be there when we want to open um all this stuff like is is the edit going to go the way I want it to be um and then one of the best things I've done is offload the production to other people and um that that honestly has just been the biggest weight off my shoulders to then not have to deal with that and just to concentrate on doing my questions and being the performer in the episode and dealing with the talent um like i'm happy to like broker the first conversation with when we're trying to book talent so if i dm someone and i say hey can i have your manager's email they'll give me the manager's email send it to my producer do that but like i don't want to be involved in in the production.

31:00You need to work on the craft of being Amelia. That was a big learning though, because I think for a long time I was doing everything and it was too much. And I needed to separate the roles out. And also finding a producer that you like and finding team members, and well, mainly the producer that you like, is really challenging. It can be very challenging and finding someone that really understands how you like to work and your tone of voice. And I've been very fortunate that over the years I've worked with really brilliant producers. And I think I've learned the most from them. Like in terms of my career, I've learned the most from the different producers that have been in and out of my journey.

31:41Could you tell us how the process works now? Like if we were in a hypothetical situation, we're going to be on the show. We've just agreed. We've just agreed. We've just said, yes, let's do it. Okay. then you would be talking to my producer Liv and she would then find dates that you're available and then we would cross check that I'm available next week next week we're available then Liv would reach out to our regular crew we always use the same crew two camera operators sound operator um production assistant um photographer we she would reach out to them pencil them in for the date then we'd find the shop local to where you live or where your hotel is um and yeah and then that's kind of it really it's kind of a small production uh do those people work for your production company live does so my i employ two people live my producer and ashley my social media manager and then everyone else is freelance oh wow and then what's your process like from a brainstorming questions or angles or like the comedic side of it what's your process so originally me and Marvin used to write all the questions together um and we would meet sometimes we would meet up for dinner and write them over dinner at Nando's or like uh we would just send them back and forth to each other um and then now I work with another writer called Anya Magliano and I also work with Hazzy and Miracle who were social media assistants and then some episodes I'll just write them on my own sometimes I write with my sister um who's actually a big part of my journey as well.

33:09I haven't spoken about her yet, but she's kind of integral as well to the team. And yeah, so I'll write with different people. How aware are you of like, potentially viral moments? Or are you completely unaware? Is it like, I need to be so present that I can create comedic moments? Or I'm I know this could become a funny clip? No, I never really approach things being like, I think this could be viral. I think that that's actually the nature of something going viral is that it's unpredictable and you can't predict it happening so I think going into something being like I want to create a viral moment like will never happen like I had no idea like the Jack Harlow like to worry not to worry which people love like I didn't know who was going to say that um and I didn't know that the Ryan Gosling thing that went over the last few days of like me dropping my cue card like I just thought of that in the moment and he's so funny that it worked so when you sit down with an artist like a jack harlow whoever it is is it a constant back and forth or are there lulls like what is that hour or two hours or however long it is god it'd never be two hours imagine doing an interview for more than an hour i could never never imagine so we film for 40 minutes but we have the talent for an hour so they arrive um and i say hello thank you so much for being here oh my god i'm so happy i'm such a fan um um and then i say you're gonna get mic'd up and then i say okay so we're gonna film for 40 minutes half an hour we don't do any pickups you we just sit opposite each other and like be yourself don't overthink things and just relax and don't take it too seriously this is meant to be fun you i'm gonna give it to you so you can give it back and we show you the edit before it goes out so don't worry it's gonna be fun and that's what I say and then they sit down opposite me and we film for yeah 40 minutes and it's just question question question question question there's no lulls it's me just firing questions at them and being I don't know I love it I just love being in the moment interviewing them and seeing, figuring out, listening to what they've said, and then figuring out how I can make this interaction funny by what I say.

35:28That craft of being like that present, present enough to make those moments happen, I think is, it's such an important point for young creators of like, you do have to play producer for the first probably few years, you know, and I'm still, I still play a lot of that role in what we do. We have gotten help, but my mind is still there. Like even this morning, I'm like, here's what the building looks like. And we'll come get you. Yeah, I sent you that picture. Because in my head, I'm always thinking about what could go wrong. Because it's based on talent too. And you don't want the talent to show up and be already kind of in a strange mood because something went wrong.

36:05For sure. And I'm very particular with like the guest and everyone and the crew having a great experience. Like that everyone enjoys the time that they are having on set. And that it's a slick operation. and I think we do have a very slick operation thanks to my production team that we're the guest arrives they get briefed they sit down they they're they do the pictures they do the tiktok they leave like I think I hope it's an enjoyable experience it's over very quickly um and but yeah but saying that like yes as a every creator's journey you start as off as the producer you're making your own content and I think that's the beauty of it as well like I wouldn't even me saying, oh, I was super stressed handling all the production on my own.

36:46And I was so relieved when it was taken off my hands. I wouldn't change anything because I think it's made me aware of all those roles. I was going to say, it's made me the person I am today. Well, I stepped in with aware. It literally has like being able, wearing all the hats has made me someone that understands the process. And it's, and I think that it's, I love that about it. Like whenever I would get a DVD like rental, I would immediately fast forward to the making of section because I've always been so fascinated by how things are made and the behind the scenes. I used to love that growing up, like finding any moment I can to learn more about, you know, behind the curtains, the industry.

37:31And, and yeah, and so I wouldn't change that at all. It's really made me very aware of all of the, all of the steps it takes to make something. and when you're a creator you have the bit the best part of being a creator is you have creative control and I think that that's something that is key to my story I don't think that like the success of the show would be where it don't think that I would have a successful show or it would be what it is today without the fact that I'm in creative control I think that it wouldn't first of all it would never have got made I tried to get it I was pitching it no one wanted it who were you pitching it to like i pitched it to channel four i pitched it to vice um i ended up pitching it to the bbc they actually did want it but then they wanted to take the copyright a few people wanted to take the copyright and i am so happy that i never gave um copyright away so i own that myself um i pitched it to a big media company um and they wanted to buy the copyright for a crazy low amount of money.

38:32I can't even believe it. I still got the email. They wanted to buy the copyright for 500 pounds. Oh my gosh. Wow. But that's attractive. It can be attractive to a young creator who's just starting out and no one's paying you. Well, yeah. I got to a point where I was doing all these meetings with different people because I honestly couldn't make the show. I didn't have any money to make the show. There was no way. I couldn't. After you do four episodes of something, you can't ask people to work for free anymore. You just can't. So it was just, I couldn't make the show. so I was then um trying to figure out how I could um you know make money to to to make the episodes and I was really keen on having it sponsored I was like I really want to get a sponsor to sponsor the show this was when content was becoming this was like five years into doing it content was becoming more prevalent and things branded content in particular was something that was just started to happen so I thought okay I've seen other people do it I can get a sponsor it was impossible it was so hard um to do that and then so I was going to sell the the copyright to people so that I could just get it made and I'm so happy that I never did that and luckily one big part of the story is during that time I also was signed to my management company YMU that are a huge company that look after loads of different talent mainly at the time presenters so traditional broadcasters and I was their first like online talent.

39:51And actually Jordan, who I think you guys know. Manager of the Sidemen. Manager of the Sidemen. He at the time was working at YMU and he had come across my content and he reached out to me and he said, I work for this management company. I'd never heard of it. Would you be interested in like having a, like coming in and having a chat with us? Jordan's younger than me. At the time, I think he was probably like 20. Like he's just this sort of like child genius, prodigal son for thing um he's amazing and i went in for a meeting jordan brought me in and i had with the ceo mary and they had this whole pitch this whole deck put together of like how they see like my trajectory and what how they what they can offer being a huge management company that can basically get you a meeting with anyone and i just was like really scared to join with them at first because i was like this is a huge step um and i don't know if this is what i want to do I met with a few other companies too and then I went with them and that was such a pivotal moment in my career was being signed by a major management company because they've opened so many doors for me in particular Jordan and he brokered a deal for me and a phone company basically I got paid enough money to then use that money to make episodes of chicken shop date so I didn't have to get a sponsor because I made enough money to then just fund it myself.

41:15And I've been funding it myself ever since. What was the deal? It was with Vodafone and it was called the Hot Sauce Tour that he, his idea in a way. And it was this hugely ambitious project. Like at the time, it was kind of crazy that they agreed to doing this. It was, the idea was me to do three episodes of chicken shop date and each episode would have a live show free live show with that talent in whoa three areas in the uk so we did manchester birmingham and london which is such a cool idea and like such a cool concept but at the time it was i was i really didn't have i don't know how many followers i had maybe i had like less than 100 000 followers how big was the show not that big like at all so they just like took a punt on like let's work with a smaller talent it's a good deal making from from jordan yeah definitely for sure and the interesting thing about that deal is that we were we were in control of everything so we were in control of literally the whole production but it wasn't just the production of the videos event production the live show the live show um the marketing rollout um we also had merch we also had we we made our own hot sauce that I wanted to have 99 % mayo hot sauce because that was the kind of tagline to it.

42:36And I had so many deliverables. I had like over a hundred deliverables. Oh my God. It's a classic first creator deal. Yeah, I had so many deliverables and the project spanned over six months. Oh my God. How much was the deal for? It was, I don't remember, but it was like enough money. It was enough. It was a good amount of money. And that was split between the whole project. Did it change your perspective on how you want to make money with the show and with your channel? Because my assumption would be you take that job. It's really difficult. You're stretched thin. You learn a lot. But you go, I'm not doing anything like that again.

43:15Yeah, it was kind of a bit like that. Yeah. And I haven't done anything like that again since. But it's more, it was just a different environment of like, yeah, being at the mercy of clients, I think. And to be fair, they gave us so much creative license. Like it really, when I look back at what we achieved, it really was my vision executed exactly how I want it to be. but I think there was just so many elements at play that just made it quite challenging but it it's the first and only time I've ever done like a brand deal with including chicken shop date I realized that I don't want anyone to have any ownership on the episodes apart from me I'm not interested in sponsoring my episodes and maybe some people will think that's foolish I could be making way more money but I'm not interested in that I'm interested in what I love about the show is that I can literally just shape it exactly how I want it to be with my team are the only people that have eyes on it.

44:10I think it's incredibly aspirational to look at it and say, totally, the moment in time, I'm sure you've had offers to sponsor Chicken Shop Date. And if not, then I'm sure there's companies, the amount of money that is there is definitely in this current landscape of digital advertising. There's people who would want that. But I think staying disciplined is what builds a brand and builds a brand at a premium. Like for me watching that show, it feels more premium. If you turn to the camera and started delivering an ad read, it would break the whole show to me. It would change the dynamic of the entire show.

44:45I also think that that's why people maybe like the show is that they know that it's authentic, that it's not like got a lot of sponsorship. It doesn't have sponsorship. I mean, obviously you have the ads that YouTube include. But that's like fully accepted at this point. Yeah. That's like, there's no, and there's no connection to, that's based on me watching, not based on you presenting an ad to me. I think the main reason I don't have sponsorship is because I just like enjoy making it my own. And I don't want to make it more challenging for myself. How do you think about building a business? I'm sure a lot of creators would want to actually follow suit in a similar way and just keep what they're making their art.

45:23Make it however they want to make it. So how did you think about navigating it? Like did it ever provide issues for you that you couldn't? I don't know. like I've always just been not interested in making loads of money like as in I just sort of thought okay well I'm getting this next brand deal that's going to serve me for this x amount of time I'm not thinking too much about in the future I just want to make enough money that I can pay my rent and can make my YouTube videos like all actually I really care about is making my YouTube videos and I just was always just like okay well how much money can this give me in terms of how many YouTube videos, more episodes of Chicken Shop Date can I make.