Surviving 48 hours with Ludwig

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. Not this year. Last year, we made like a million and I spent like 11. What do you feel like you've done right? and what do you feel like you've done wrong? What does something like this cost? That's a good question. I feel like I have the opposite of Mark Rober's space. I just like bidets. Oh, God! That's the stroke. A child would die here. Yeah. And we wouldn't find out for weeks. Today, we're taking the show on the road, and we're heading out to go to Ludwig's office.

1:46Actually, one of two of his offices. He's got an office for his company called Mogul Moves. A company that is purely created to service me, Ludwig, in all of my stuff. and a brand new studio space for his new company called Offbrand. The idea of it is to help those creators in the future to make cool shit, to make cool shows. So he's kind of like a variety late night host who has all of these different formats that he can make when he's live that then become videos on his channel. So we've been thinking about this concept of creator companies being split into two sides. The unscalable side, which is where it fully relies on the creator.

2:23If you take the creator out, the company doesn't exist anymore. If I leave, Mogul Moves isn't sticking around. And now we're starting to see creators build scalable businesses, whether that's merchandise, food, or what Ludwig has, off-brand, where it actually operates like a traditional company with a CEO. And it's a lot more scalable. It can scale once Ludwig is done making videos. That company can still exist. Also, if you're wondering who's in the back, that's David, Tyga, Jesse. They're going to be filming today and tomorrow. On three, two, one. Here we go. We're going to need this. Let's go.

2:59Let's go.

3:05I normally arrive that way, too. I just didn't do that. Hello, everybody. I'm Ludwig. Come on, man. Come on. Welcome. Thank you. As you can see, we've dressed the place up quite nicely. Yeah. Thanks for cleaning it up. Yeah. Why did you feel like you needed this space? So we got it with the idea of doing productions. That was two years ago. We haven't done one production here. It's basically become an office and the set of the yard and a place to work out. How many people work out of here? Oh, baby. We got four editors. Okay. That's the bulk. We have two people on merch, two people in the filming department.

3:49are COO, Nick Allen, software developer, Otto. But it's also hard because a lot of people have moved over to off-brand recently. And so the number is falling. It was like 15 employees. And I think we're down to maybe 12 now. So you're like intentionally poaching your own employees for off-brand. Yes, yes. I've never thought of it like that. If somebody has a five-year plan or a goal, this company is not going to last five years. We're at a dying company, right? Am I going to be here in five years? Am I going to be making YouTube videos? If I'm not, then this company's dead. Whereas off-brand can exist 20 years in the future.

4:20And so it's more like, hey, you can go to this lifeboat or you can sink with the captain. It's up to you. That's a good Monday morning meeting. Yeah, just listen. You guys are still here. This is a sinking ship. Your call. Your call. I'll sink with you. Just so you know, we're sinking here. So when you saw the graphic we made about creator companies, where the creator is at the bottom. Oh my God, I love that graphic. This chart haunts my dreams. call on Samir I have to give a big you to both of you for showing me this was that the moment you realized this is a sinking ship it's the first time I visualized it I think when off-brand came to be and I think like I had my own personal goals of after I'm a youtuber like everything kind of clicked that like oh these people are going to lose their job and then I felt really bad about that and that's something that weighs on me it's something I think about often you know having them go to off-brand is my way of rectifying hiring someone who will not have a job in five years which i think is not a good practice normally so i want to walk around the space but would you say this space is representative of how you want to work yeah this is emblematic of me yeah for sure okay it's not emblematic of necessarily what i can do or what i've done because that's usually on the backs of other people's work but this is this this shit me because you fucking walk in, it's the gym, baby.

5:38This reminds me of a real fantasy factory. Yeah. There's like skateboards, basketballs. I did my first ollie here. Can you ollie? Not very well. Don't hurt yourself, please. All right, let's see it. Oh, shit. No. Okay, okay. Be ready for support. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Did you get some air there? I don't know. Slow-mo. Cool. Okay, yeah. See, that's a much better ollie. Can you ollie? No, I can't ollie, but I can do one trick. No, you can ollie. Oh, it's a moving trick. Oh, he's spinning it. Oh. That's so much harder than an ollie. Yeah, that is way harder than an ollie. It's like so much harder.

6:11You want to see the bathroom? Actually, yeah, I do. Let's go. Come in here. Just me and you. Oh, wow. Stay up. All right, Tiger, go ahead. Go ahead. Just with luck. That's the new swipe bidet. It glows. Hold up. Look at that. Ain't that pretty? So just to be clear, this is your bidet brand. This is the most men I've been with in a bathroom. Yeah, this is my bidet brand. This is Swipe Bidet, Swipe Plus. V2. Where does Swipe Bidets fit into your business? I'm not fucking Mr. Beast. I don't have eight people who are like, this is what you should do. Got it. I just like bidets, and I think more people should have bidets.

6:51You know, I would like one. We can get you guys bidets. We can do this. This is a thing we can do. I would love a bidet. We can have your butts. All right, let me keep showing you around. Before we go any further. Sure. I walk through here and it's you know the yard play button is just in this box yeah are you moving out Nick did a kickflip on that no I don't know I don't know why this is all here to be honest I think this is oh no I don't know so talk to me about this that's a gift you keep that okay thank you but you know what the messaging that you have that this is a dying company I think like is it fits really well with this I'm actually I just want to understand like tell me where is that peanut butter?

7:35Is that like an empty jar of peanut butter? That is an art installation actually. Peanut butter in jar. So this is basically you think about like the set and prop department in a way. Like these are relics of things that were built or acquired to make a live stream more entertaining. It actually might just be a sex thing. Honestly. I'm trying to cover our tracks here. I'm going to put it down. Yeah, let's not ask too many questions. I will pick it up on the way out.

8:32All right, what are these rooms over here? So this one is my girlfriend, Cutie. She rented this out. It's a jarring difference from her office to mine. Yeah. Wow. So you guys are very different, huh? We're super different. You guys are very different. Well, she does a lot of shows. She does the Streamer Awards, which is a very successful show. Very successful. And very premium in its nature. Welcome to the third ever Streamer Awards. Good evening, everybody. I think what makes her events different is she likes being involved in every aspect of the creation of it. So like down to, you know, who the caterer is.

9:11And me, I have a team. And so I'm just like, go do it. And I trust them fully. And I don't worry about anything. I have a couple jobs, which is like get the talent to show up and then be the host of the event. What do you stress about? Like what gets you stressed out? I don't stress much. I try not to. Stress is bad. Stress is very bad. It's very bad for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I really try not to. Not good for creativity. Yeah. Yeah. I try not to. I just trust people. I'm not built for streaming, man. I would be stressed all the time. Yeah. No, you'd do great. No, you wouldn't. No, I wouldn't.

9:43Yeah. Yeah, we stress. We're guys that stress. I'll show you my decompression zone. This has a bit of like a hostage feel to it. Yeah. This feels like a prisoner of war type vibe. No, no. It's like a good... I don't feel like I could decompress it here. You try that. At all. But then you sit on the air mattress, and you're like, who's... We're going to return that.

10:06I feel like the next thing you're going to tell me is that, like, not that there's a company dog, but that, like, there's a company possum or, like, raccoon, you know? There are company cats. There's a bunch of homeless cats outside. Like feral cats. Yeah, feral cats. They're so sweet. Okay. All right. Yeah, you guys could just leave me here. I'll catch up with you. Good night, buddy. Good night. This is the Editor's Bay. Editor's Bay. Oh, wow. This is like a real edit bay. Yeah, this is actually where people work. It's funny because it feels like we're playing a game here. We're going to roll in the dice when we walk into a room.

10:41If it's like a real place of work. Or a saw torture chamber where you don't know if you're stepping on jizz. Yeah, yeah. It turns the line. But this I get. This is a real-ass place of work. We got our four setups for our four editors. people come in do their shit what's being edited here? like main channel videos we do a lot of shoots because I think we have a higher capability than other creators to do like a commercial for a brand so a lot of that's done here how much content needs to come out for you to feel like it's a success is there any goal there of like on a weekly basis or a monthly basis putting out this much and that means or is it just as much as possible?

11:24I would like to just upload shit that I think is cool. The only thing that drives me is that I have four editors. And so I want something for them to be able to edit. So that's kind of my main push. And if I don't record, then they just literally have nothing to do. That's a funny thing that naturally happens as we build companies is like you have a team and then you're like, well, I guess I need the team to be doing something. Yeah. There's nothing worse than the team's not doing anything and you don't know what they should be doing because you haven't filmed anything. I'm so happy that we're here today right and team has something to do yeah finally these guys have something to do that's why we're here yeah yeah but i mean it's a real thing right it's a real thing it's yeah it is like a it is an anxiety thing for sure yeah and and you could be like well just don't do anything and it's like well then it's harder to justify the cost and maybe start losing money and then you have to make cuts and i don't want to do that so it's like i'm happy to just fucking keep working keep uploading yeah and make sure they have something to work on.

12:20So why is no one here today? Like, what makes today different? It's fucking 10 a.m., bro. What time does work start? I don't know. When people roll in. Okay. And it also depends on the day. There's like... We're... I mean, that's probably us just being strange in that we're more of like... You're 9 to 5? We're not 9 to 5, bro. Look, we're 10 to 6. Yeah, we're 10 to 6. We're cool. You're hit. We're cool. We're cool. Being back in the office? We've got two. Okay, shit. But they're really nice and they're from like CB2. Yeah, they're nice. No, they're more of like energetic pieces. Everyone here has an editing setup at home, and I trust them to get their work done.

12:58And so there's no expectation to come in. What honestly has made people use this space more is the gym. Because I'll be here, and I'll say, hey, come work out, and they'll come work out, and then maybe they'll work after. And it makes the space a little more lively. Yeah, there's a lot of blank canvas space here. These are 10 of the world's most powerful flashlights. Oh, God. Yeah, but every creator has those. Yeah. There's nothing strange. I mean, this is, like, dangerous, right? I mean, if you look at it, it'll fucking burn your eyeballs for sure. Right, right, right. It's also heavy as shit.

13:31Double click it. Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. Turn it off, Colin. It's kind of fun. It is fun. Here. Oh, God. That's the strobe. What are you doing? That's the strobe. He triple clicked. Okay. Okay. Triple clicks the strobe. All right, upstairs, baby. Let's do it. Okay.

13:56Welcome to the kitchen. Oh, wow. Cool. This place is huge. Yeah. How much does it cost to have a space like this? Like 10 to 15K a month, I think. Okay. Okay. That's not bad. I think that's the price of the space. For a space this big? I think so. Yeah, I mean, that's - I could be wrong. I mean, you're probably, yeah, again, if you're renting spaces for events, you're spending that, you know. All right, this is the main work area. Oh, wow, look at this. This is nice. Cool. I mean, look, it's not all a shithole. Yeah, this to me makes perfect sense. Yeah. What do people do here? This, I mean, just different jobs.

14:30This is where Otto is. He's the software dev. He made this cute little computer. This is Aiden. He's in Australia doing cocaine. What's that door to? Ooh, come through while you guys go around here. Okay, I'll walk up this thing. You can go all the way. Okay, and I'll come through this door? You can go all the way. Yeah, you can both go. Oh, wow. Damn. Dude, this is so cool. This is cool. Come on down. Wow. Woo! Welcome to the yard. How we doing? Wow. Thanks for having us. This is cool. Yeah, so this is our humble abode here. Dude, this is so cool. This is my chair. All right. When did you guys start The Yard, and how often are you filming it now?

15:16We film every week. We do a main episode and a bonus episode. And the reason I started it is we talked about doing it, but we weren't doing shit. And I wasn't going to do it. So I was like, hey, here's the deadline. We either do it by here, we never do it ever until we die. And then they did it. They made it happen. Mostly Nick. I've looked at your Patreon numbers before. Oh, yeah. They're crazy. They're crazy. They're stupid. Did that surprise you or is that Patreon became such a big part of that business? Well, no. I mean, that was always the idea. I guess how successful it was was surprising.

15:51With all of this now, what is like your primary motivation with your content? How motivated are you now by growing the business or by money, I guess? And how motivated are you by just doing fun stuff with your friends? I don't, I feel like I'm good on the money front. Like I spend a lot of money on productions, on stuff that I think is cool. Not this year. Last year we made like 13 million and I spent like 11. So like I spent a lot. Damn. There's a lot of employees. There's a lot of mouths. And it's getting more expensive because of off-brand. Yeah. Which like I'm fully aware my job is to fuel that entity and keep it afloat for the first couple of years.

16:37because it's a startup. And that 13 million is across mogul and off-brand? Like just basically - No, that was last year. That's before off-brand existed. That's before off-brand existed. So that's mogul. That's 2022, right? And that, if we're to break that down into like a revenue pie chart. Yeah, it's like, well, the bulk is the YouTube deal. And then probably another 15, 20 % would be like AdSense. And then another 10, 15 % would be like merch. and then I think the remaining would be brand deals. Got it. Which is like, what, 25 % I think? And the$11 million is on both the team as well as just producing.

17:17Like chess boxing, for example. Chess boxing costs$1.5 million. Yeah, that's an expensive endeavor. That's 10 % of the budget in one event. Got it. Yeah. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Mogul Chess Boxing Championship. So you mentioned the YouTube deal, like YouTube paying you to be exclusive to the platform. Yeah. Does it, obviously that's a great situation. It's so sick. But it's super rare and it maybe will get increasingly more rare. Oh, it's going away. It's going away. It's going away. So how do you account for that? Do you worry about that? Yeah, my goal this year, because I was, I thought of that last year and my goal, and I tried to do really good in my partnership with YouTube.

17:55Like I really tried my best to be the best creator I could be, put on cool events and be a good partner. And I showed up to a bunch of like fucking suit and tie YouTube shit. Not that it was bad or anything, but it's not stuff I would normally do. But I was also aware that this deal is not financially good for YouTube. It doesn't make sense on paper. They're overpaying me in an effort to grow and maybe get a leg up against their competitor and make YouTube gaming bigger. But they don't really need to, is I think what they've realized. And so the goal this year was to be profitable in Mogul without the deal.

18:32Even if it's not an exclusive deal, for us, there's been times in our business where we have one huge brand partner and we don't have that many others. Yeah. And we realize, okay, this is a good year, but we actually need to act as if that deal's going away. I think it's smart. Right? Because when you're that over-indexed on one deal, you're super reliant on it. So you can't start spending like you're going to have that deal again. No. How do you plan on supplementing that massive check? Is that via off-brand or is that? Oh, well, so it's changed already. It's already changed. Right? It's massively different.

19:01Like I'll say full stop. I think that YouTube is going to stop giving out deals. And I have a one-year deal. So it's like we're not, we're already there. Got it. Clock's already at like 1130. And so it's back to basics, which is just making YouTube videos, doing brand deals. But the brand deals have gotten crazier. I think that's where the change is. And I think the big difference is the brand deals are paying a lot more because they're being sold not just on me as a creator and I, you know, hold product or whatever. It's also like, we'll do an event with off-brand. And so that is able to sell for a lot more and then also get off-brand to a much better place.

19:41Yeah. That's, that's like the future is like, you're bringing in the brand partnership via what you're doing, but then you're like, but we can also do a thing that you might've been paying someone else. And you want to do it and you want to do it anyway. And that some of these brands do anyway. Right. Red Bull. That's a brand that wants to do events and historically has invested a ton and still does. That's a great partner that maybe you bring in because you're the face, you're the creator who attracts that brand. And now you've got off-brand and you can service them in a totally different way.

20:11Yeah, it's funny. It's like these companies have a lot of money to spend, but you just have to be able to tap into a different department. Like you can't, if you go all in on one department, which is maybe like creator funding, then they're like, ah, well, I think this is literally all we have. But if you tap into like a production side, they're like, oh fuck, we have a lot of money here. You joked when we came in that the people who work here will lose their jobs. Yeah. That like it's unscalable because at some point you guys are going to want to stop maybe recording the show, stop streaming, and then no one has jobs.

20:40But when I come in here, I look at this, it feels to me like this is pretty stable. Like you wouldn't want to leave this. And maybe you feel differently, but I look at it and I'm like, five, 10 years from now, I feel like you could still be doing the yard. No. It's not certain. No? Why not? Because I want to bake bread. Actually, though, you want to bake bread. Yeah, I think that'd be really cool if I was like 40 and I had a bakery and I made good, delicious bread for my neighborhood and I was a good social person for those around me and I provided value through bread. That's the problem, is that creators are not consistent people.

21:12They're creative people. In order for you to be able to make bread and enjoy that, off-brand has to work. Yeah, I think that's true. And so it's like that my next five years is just getting off-brand to that point. And then after I can do what I want. Is this the end of the mogul office? This is mogul. I mean, this is what we got. It seems like a dead, barren wasteland. And we're going to teleport to a lively, thriving off-brand studio in the midst of setting up for the biggest smash event.

21:55Okay, this is where we're doing the main event today. This is where we're going to find the best Smash play in the world. This is like an old set that we made for an event called Brew Battles, where we made a bar, and we just kept it, because it's kind of cool to have a bar. That is cool. What does something like this cost to put on? I don't know. Nate, how much do you think this whole event costs? I think we budgeted around 50. All right. 50K. So this is a$50 ,000 event. Yes. That is, you make it back by just building the brand of off-brand. With Smash, you don't make it back. You don't make it back.

22:29You got to own that. You don't make it back. You just eat it. You just eat it. It leads into today, specifically, we're doing another event right after for Rivals. It's a game that came out. Okay. And we published a Kickstarter. And so this event will immediately roll into the finale of the Kickstarter, where they've raised almost a million dollars, and that makes money. Want to try your luck in the boxing machine? Absolutely. Sure. This has taken victims before. Didn't Logan Paul, like, break his hand during this? Yeah, yeah, he did, right? Really? He missed and he was drunk. Okay. I'm sweating a little bit.

23:02Oh. Guys,$4.89. You know, it feels good to kind of get him the vibe. Why are you looking at me before you punch him? I don't know. I'm sizing you up a little bit. It's like if we... You're going to miss or some shit.

23:17Okay.

23:23Can you show us weak boys how a man does it? We weren't as forward. That's how I do it. I love how you do it because it looks cool. Wow, you're the sevens?