The Death of the Follower & the Future of Creativity on the Internet: Patreon CEO Jack Conte

25:54And where that comes from is this tension of feeling like I have to make for the algo as opposed to making for myself. And then you look up five years later and you look back at your catalog and you're less proud of it. And it doesn't feel as good. And you feel pressured to do things that are outside of what you want to do. And then you burn out. And that, like that, it doesn't have to be that way is my argument. Like it just doesn't have to. But is that a symptom of making it, quote unquote, feeling closer than it ever has been? This fact that like you can look at people who do things that works.

26:35And if you are creative, you're like, I could make it as some form of an artist. Whereas like before platforms and algorithms. It was so clear to you. It was like, yeah, you want to get into Hollywood? You want to get into the music business? You're out of your mind. Good luck. And you internalize that as like, yeah, I know. I'm playing clubs with no one in it. I get it. But even for you, the moment you saw a YouTube video, you're like, I'm going to put my music on YouTube. It was literally the moment I saw a YouTube video. That's just a symptom of like, oh, it's now more possible than ever, but maybe it's not.

27:06Maybe it's actually similar to pre-platforms. Maybe it's not as possible. No, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. No, no. Cause I, I, I actually, cause yeah, I, I realized that sometimes when I talk about this stuff, I sound doom and gloom and I'm being devil's advocate here. Like our show is so pro creator. Like you, I know, like you can, I believe you can. So, so just, just, just to be clear about this today, literally today is the best day in human history to be a creative person. And tomorrow will be the best day in human history to be a creative person. And that is going to continue for a very long time.

27:42And that is what I actually believe in my heart of hearts. I don't even have to stretch to like believe that. It's what I actually believe. If you want to like, just compare being a creative person now to 20 years ago, to 40 years ago, to a hundred years ago. It has been like creative tools have become cheaper and more ubiquitous. Think about how much it costs to make a record a hundred years ago. Actually, you weren't making records a hundred years ago. you know, 50 years ago. Or to make a movie. Or to make a movie, you know, versus now. And then like the fact that like you can order this mic on Amazon and it shows up to your doorstep in a day.

28:19Like creative tools are more ubiquitous and cheaper than they've ever been. People are more connected. It is easier to find people that want to see or listen to your work than ever before in human history. And the economics of creativity are changing dramatically, right? Like the even just like direct to fan market of the, you know, the creator economy is like over$150 billion market. I think it's something like$174 billion market. I'll check the data in a second. And that's just a piece of the overall$290 billion market that is the creator economy that includes ads and brand deals and sponsorships and that type of thing.

28:57That was not a thing 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And it was not available to a 12-year-old kid growing up in their bedroom in the middle of the country somewhere. So hands down, now is the best time ever to be a creative person. I just want the internet to be better for creators. That's what it comes down to. I just think that, and this is, again, I don't want to sound like a cynical person, but I am like a, I am a creative who got into this world because I deeply wanted to make it in some way as it, like expression as my business. Because when I was young, that's, that's like, I wanted it to be music when I was a kid.

29:38Does it not feel like you've done that? No, it does. Okay. It does. But as I'm here now and in this, I look at it and I look around and I'm like, when I see a young creative person, I just want them to understand what the reality of it is. And I don't know, the most creative people I know, I think would make the worst creator business owners. And that's so sad, but I know what you mean. I do. There's a different way to monetize when you are a truly creative person. Right. Because I think there's a level of entrepreneurship that has entered into our world of you, like the biggest creators are also like they're media makers.

30:16Yeah. When media making is different than creativity. I just think all these different considerations on a spectrum of, I am the most creative human being to like, I am the guy who thinks you should make another Spider-Man because that'll put butts in seats, right? We call that like a artist to distributor spectrum, right? Like a programming executive who knows what the audience wants next and an artist who doesn't care. You just have to understand where you lie on that spectrum and that dictates how you build your business. Yeah. Truly. I think if you're all the way over here, then maybe it's you and you have someone who helps you and you are more fan funded and that's great.

30:53And if you're all the way over here, you hire a hundred people and build multiple formats and you build like a Jubilee, right? Where you have like tons of shows and you can build all this stuff. It's just depend. I just think everyone needs definitions to understand themselves. Cause I didn't understand myself when I got into it. So one way to think about that, and we've now seen this, right? We, we have, you know, hundreds of thousands of creators building businesses on Patreon. I have talked to, oh God, I don't know how many thousands of creators, you know, over the last decade. And, you know, what we have seen is there's really what you described sort of like if you had to cluster them like three rough creator profiles, there's like the, I don't want to, I don't want to think about money.

31:36I don't want to even talk about money. I don't want to like think about business. I just want to like make beautiful films or I just want to play guitar. are like, I just want to like do my art. It's like ultimate, like focus on craft. On the other end of the spectrum, there's kind of what you're talking about. And I would describe it as very outcome oriented creators where it's not that they don't like the craft. They do like the craft. But like, you know, if you were to ask them like, what is the most important thing to you? They would tell you the metrics for their business that they're trying to move right now.

32:14And then there are various shows that are moving those metrics and like they're super like goal driven and outcome focused. And then there's this is like middle crater in between. And truth be told, I actually think I'm I'm in the middle where for me, like I love making things. I love telling stories. I love creating. And like, you know, I like writing music. I like making videos, all that stuff. I also really enjoy the business of it. Like I really enjoy building businesses. I really enjoy that Pomplamoose has figured out how to be profitable over the last 20 years and that we've been able to hire a team.

32:50I really enjoy that Scary Pockets has figured out how to build a live business and how to build a membership business. I get excited about it because it feels revolutionary. It feels like history. When you're paving a new path as a creator for your business, it is the first time probably in history, especially when you were starting and when we were starting 10 plus years ago, everything we did felt like oh my gosh we were like one of the first people to make this type of business work for this type of content and it just felt like is everyone seeing this yes you know like is everyone seeing what's happening like one of the most frequent comments that we get on any pomplamoose video is like oh they're able to like make records because he's the CEO of Patreon um and I always want to say to these people like no like pomplamoose is a separate entity and it's a profitable thing and we've like figured out a business model that that actually works.

33:37And I think it's because I want people to like see that it is possible. Working when we were selling soap. Yes. USB drives. Yes. I really want people to know that. I love the, I just want to relate on this thing because I can't believe how many times you did this, but in your death of a follower talk, there's all these images of you playing music to empty bars and clubs. Yeah. I did that once at the Cobalt Cafe in Canoga Park. Yeah. It was one of the most uncomfortable, painful experiences that I've ever endured. Yeah. That my three bandmates will remember it too. Yeah. Our parents drove us there.

34:16Yeah. And when the curtains opened, it was just them. Right. And you're in the middle of your set and you're like, should I keep going or should we just end after one song? But I bring that up because there's this graph that is the Colin and Samir channel over the past eight years. Yeah. And for five years, it's a flat line. Five years. This is viewership. This is viewership. Five years, we made videos that in the world of internet relativity, nobody watched. 500 to 2 ,500 views for five years. That is playing to an empty club, especially because you don't even have the feedback of the guy behind the bar being like, that song was pretty good, man.

34:59You know that experience? Yeah, actually, the guy behind the bar when I was playing left actually was empty. This is too loud. Yeah, but keep going. So I think I'm curious about the endurance for that in this era. I'm so psyched to talk about that. Yeah, let's talk about that because that endurance, I think we had, Marquez talks about of like, you really want to be a good YouTuber. You have to enjoy shooting hoops in the park by yourself. A hundred percent. Right. And it's complete. Creative people are so irrational. That is irrational behavior to go five years in your late twenties and early thirties with making stuff on the internet that you're getting no signals that it's working.

35:40Okay. So, so I can't believe this, but what you just shared, this is Pomplamoose's graph over the last 16 years. Okay. this is seven years of flatland right for us this right here was when we started this song per week thing that we did in 2018 which was sort of like chapter three of pomplooze i won't get into these various chapters but that was the thing that like happened to work was that your first recurring format uh yes so i mean yeah our story is pretty similar that is like any creator watching right now a format unlocks the world that's it yeah it's like it's it's consistency yeah the format is like a repeatable thing that you can do over and over.

36:24That's like a double every week. So I think in the line with like the move from platforms to, from follower graph to interest graph, which means, uh, I think we defined this, but if we didn't, it's like, here's what I follow versus here's what I'm interested in. Here's what the algorithm is going to recommend to me. I think YouTube also moved from, and, and actually all platforms moved from your channel being kind of like a multi-format network to being just a show. Yes. Right. Like I think actually - That's a good way to put it. A YouTube channel is a show. Yes. And everyone who is trying to develop, I also think like an Instagram channel is a show.

37:01A TikTok channel is a show. Yeah. You look at people like Adam Faze in New York, who's building shows on TikTok. Right. A show called Boy Room, which is essentially, it's like almost old MTV formats that are getting, you know, changed where this host goes into a boy's room. It's messy. She remodels it. But that's a show. And so I think that formats are the key because of that. Because session time matters. So if I can go from one episode of Song Per Week to another episode of Song Per Week to another, I'm spending a lot of time and I'm giving a lot of signals to the recommendation algorithm that I will stay for this show.

37:38But it also may be the best way to build fandom. Yeah, for sure. As well, right? Because the moment we went week to week on this channel with interviews with creators or episodes where Samir and I are talking about creators, it was like, oh, I can depend on them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, there's dependability here every week. And then we could start to see in the comments, okay, we actually are building a community. There's inside jokes. I think one of the, obviously one of the first people that made that clear to me was Nystat when I was like, consistency over time is a lever. Like it's a growth lever for a creator.

38:12And I want to be careful about saying that because there are also a bunch of creators that I deeply love who do not have a format and who are not consistent. And that is also possible. Part of the beauty of being a creator is there are no rules, right? Natalie Lynn does not have a format. Gox does not have a format. They have a style. But they have a style. She has dedication to style and taste. Bobby Fingers. And that's their filter for do you want to continue to follow? I can close my eyes and imagine a Gox video. 100%. Which is style. It's style, but it's not repeated every week. at a certain time, right?

38:45He like, he puts, I mean, I think there's a difference between like putting a boatload of effort into every bespoke piece of media that you create as its own snowflake and story versus putting a bunch of effort into a repeatable process that like is a single every week. But you're defining also this spectrum because I don't, I watch Gox, but I don't know much about how he operates. I would assume he doesn't have an office with seven employees. No, he has a family and his dad holds the camera for him sometimes. His brother stands in for him while he shoots. You can do that. You can do the, I'm not going to do a repeatable format.

39:21I'm not going to have consistency when you are an artist. Because you can go two months without making something. And go, it doesn't matter. I didn't get any ad revenue this month. Who cares? It's all good. But as a business owner with recurring costs, it's like, no, that really matters. So what do we do? What happens next? Because there's some studies that say the creator economy is growing. It's going to be bigger and bigger and bigger. There was also a Bank of America study that was saying that less and less people are putting content creator on their tax forms. And I think my prediction is that incredibly creative people who have solved storytelling on the internet, who like making YouTube videos or TikToks, they might become the next great creative employees, right?

40:02In marketing departments or like they'll use that skill set in that way. The independent creator operator either is going to capture way more of this, the lion's share of how the creator economy is growing. Goldman Sachs says it'll go to 400 billion by 2027. Yep. Like, I don't know if that is, if the creator economy growing means more creators or more money to the top creators. And I'm curious what, yeah, tell me. Okay, so I do have some thoughts around this. So, okay, so first of all, yes, we largely agree over like 400 billion by 2027. And I'm looking at our addressable market analysis right now.

40:432024 is around - What is addressable market? Meaning for Patreon or for any creator? The creator economy. Like how much money is going to creators? How much money are creators earning right now and in the future? classify a creator in this in that definition i mean is that a media company too like is does is viacom a creator no no so so so the the way we think about it i mean there's a number of things but at the end of the day it's like are you managing a community online and producing recurring media and like trying to build a business around that um and yeah so we we sort of segment it into two buckets.

41:22There's like the one way to think about is like brands, ads, sponsorships, like anything where a company is basically paying you for eyeballs. That's like one piece of the creator economy. And the other is like your fans are paying you. That's like a consumer payments portion of the creator economy. That portion of the creator economy, we believe is around And at least this year,$178 billion of fan payments to creators in one form or another across all of those categories. Does that include a Shopify? Or no? Like if a creator, like Amanda Raich Lee, who has these incredible doodle journals, she makes YouTube videos about journaling and sells journals.

42:08Yes. Not all Shopify creators will be included or merchants or resellers. siphon yeah there's a portion of them that are sort of more like digital media creators and that portion we would count in this analysis got it okay um so that's like patreon kajabi gumroad a lot of these platforms where people are uh paywalling content or creating memberships so the categories of fan payments that we see are membership which is around 28 billion which is like, I'm going to pay you for your media that you're producing and you have bonus media available. Like three of your episodes are free and one a month is behind a paywall.

42:52Or, you know, the first 30 minutes of your episode is free and the next 30 minutes is behind a paywall if you want like the full deep dive conversation. There's a bunch of different strategies now around freemium and premium segmentation that creators are doing, right? Media companies are also doing this. when you read like, you know, the guardian now or, or, um, whatever you see Netflix, Netflix ad supported and everything is freemium. There's exactly almost everything. The, the, so the internet emerged going back here, the internet emerged as free because the, the sort of tech companies that won the first version of the internet were like, information should be free.

43:29And then they thought of art as like a subcategory of information for like the first 10 years. And artists were like, no, that doesn't work for us. Like we need to be paid for our work. and media companies, right? Need to be paid for their work too. And so I think what we're seeing now is like chapter one was like, everything is free. Chapter two is like, like people are getting used to paying for stuff online. And actually when we ask fans now, would you pay a creator that you, that's like one of your favorite creators? I think it's something like over 80 % of fans say they would pay their favorite creator.

44:00And then something like over 70 % of fans somewhere around there say they would pay one of the creators that they follow. So consumer payments has sort of been, I want to say essentially like normalized over the last 10 years on the internet. But the big categories are paid membership at like$28 billion. Digital commerce is another big category. That's like, I want to, like, I'll pay for wallpaper or I'll pay for an ebook or I'll pay for like a specific episode, even if I'm not getting recurring streams or I'll pay for, you know, some type of, some type of extra information that I can get in a, in a PDF or something like that.

44:41Just to put a tangible example there. The Yard, I think is a great example. Great. Those guys make an extra episode on Patreon. They have public numbers. they make$235 ,000 a month from their membership. That is no joke. Yeah. Obviously, you don't get fan funding without algorithmic discovery. Like they play the YouTube game really well, built, you know, large, dedicated, diehard fan base are able to now have fan funding at that scale. Right. The platforms have fan funding as well, right? So like what is the relationship between like a YouTube and a Patreon? Of course, they like support each other, right?

45:16Like in the case of The Yard, it's like it's good for them to have algorithmic discovery and fandom that then comes over to Patreon. Totally. How do you see that playing out when you have like potentially a Spotify going into like more fan funding options or YouTube continuing and maybe making their channel memberships a better offering? The creators who are like serious about building a membership business, we see them leaning away from those products. And it's it's I don't want to pretend like they're not competitors because they're certainly trying to compete in that area. But like I'm not losing sleep over those products, because what we find is if you're really serious about building a subscription business or a commerce business or, you know, any sort of direct to consumer business.

46:03Creators are skeptical of putting all of their eggs in one basket. One of the things that we've seen happening recently is like creators are starting to diversify channels of communication and diversify business lines to sort of deal with the ebbing and the flowing of all the things that are happening in the world. And so one of the reasons that, you know, people are coming to Patreon and building business on Patreon is they trust that Patreon is going to be more stable through all of that versus like their income fluctuating up and down based on changes to distribution. Right. Right. So so, yes, they are.

46:40A lot of those companies are launching consumer payments offerings and subscriptions. Instagram has it. TikTok had it. You know, Facebook has it. YouTube has it. But what we're seeing is like the it works for like casual boost to your income. The serious creators that actually want to like segment their offering into freemium and premium are really using some other service like a Patreon to do that. I think one thing that's not talked about in that context is just culture. Like, I think you have to imagine the verbal call to action and subscribe to my Patreon is a culturally accepted term. Yep.

47:19And I think that's something that is not discussed. And I don't know what it looks like to discuss a feature in a tech company because I really haven't been a part of that. But if I was a part of that, I would do practice calls to action of like subscribe to my channel membership is not a culturally acceptable thing to say on YouTube. It's just not. It's not something that creators say. So you have to now say, how could we create a culturally acceptable term? And Patreon has had years and years and years of brand building in that context. So I think it's again, I always try and think about the more anecdotal, qualitative, cultural components here.

47:56I would feel comfortable saying that. I probably wouldn't feel comfortable saying something else yet. Right. Just because people are unfamiliar with it. And like subscribe to my YouTube channel is a, now it's almost like you can't say it because it became so, you know, commonly said. Yes. Like this video, these are things that are culturally acceptable to say on YouTube. Yeah. So you just have to think about like, what is culturally acceptable or what would be culturally cool if we'd spent five years building it? That's a big piece of it. It's like, what are other creators doing? Yeah. And what is kind of known in culture?

48:29And now a lot of YouTubers kind of know what Patreon is. They know there's going to be a membership. They know it's like, you know, some type of exclusive media that they can get access to. And so it has worked really well. And like, I'd say, I don't know if this is correct, but comedy podcasts have led the charge in my opinion. Yes, totally. Cultural acceptance of Patreon and comedy being a type of content that is like racy and can be at odds with platforms. So that builds like a really good narrative for - There's also something to them looping in as perks, like access to tickets and going to events, which I think is like a good thing, right?

49:05And speaks to like probably the future of fan funding too, is what we were talking about before we started recording was like events and moving in that direction too. Right. Yeah. Podcasting has worked really well on Patreon. And I think part of the reason it's worked well is because it is episodic in nature, which means it's easier to segment into some portion is free and some portion is paid, right? Because it's like, I'm just making more episodes. I'm not relying on any one episode to go viral. So it's not like I'm putting a really valuable thing that could be my next 10 million, you know, view like episode.

49:40Also marginal cost of production. Yes. Yes, exactly. That's the most important thing there is that. it's overwhelming to say, hey, double your output, but it's not if that means 30 minutes a week. Right. And if it's repeatable. Of the exact same thing that you are already doing. Exactly. From an audience definition standpoint, in terms of creation, you're looking at it as like, okay, this is actually the most core. Right. So I should know exactly what they want to hear. In the context of fan funding, does Twitch subscriptions fall into that or no? Twitch is so specific to gaming that, I mean, yes, it does.

50:11It is subscriptions, but again, like - I just think about Kaisenat. Like over the past, I would say 18 months, like one of the most culturally relevant people to emerge from the internet is Kaisenat. And during his subathon, I mean, crossed 350 ,000 Twitch subscribers. Like that is in a form fan funding, right? That's like taking out your credit card or - Also a very socially acceptable one. Yeah, again, in a very socially acceptable form of fan funding. You know, I really don't even think of it as fan funding. I know that's like where YouTube started, like their product that they launched in 2014.

50:44was called fan funding.

50:48And I get that. I don't think of it that way now. And we don't even like, we don't, it's funny hearing you guys say that because it is so different than how we talk about it inside the company. What we find is like fans want to pay for exclusive content and exclusive community. I don't even like saying the word content. Exclusive media and exclusive community. It's really what fans want to like pay for. And so it's less about like, I don't know, fan funding has like crowdfundy kind of roots. Like the pages that are like crushing on Patreon, they're not going out saying, please support us. They're going out saying, if you want our extra episode every month, you can get it.

51:33Like that like business model has kind of emerged as like a very successful business model on the platform. It is different than like where Patreon started, right? like 10 years ago, it was more in the like fan funding, like spirit, our journey. Exactly. Which is kind of where it started. But what we've seen is actually like, that's not where it's evolved to. And that's not kind of what, like, that was a piece of culture back then. It still is a piece of culture now. It absolutely is. I'm not saying like that doesn't, that model doesn't exist, but like the, the, the podcasts that you're referring to that are like, you know, doing really well on Patreon.

52:08They're the ones that are offering real transactional value to their fans who really want to pay them for that media because they love it and they also get access to the exclusive community. So the language is less support us on Patreon, more join our Patreon for X. And we see both, right? Like both are still happening, but I guess I'm just pointing out that there is a bit of like a cultural evolution in like the psychology of it and what it kind of is meaning to a lot of creators and fans right now. Like people are, a lot of fans are getting used to paying for the exclusive media now, which just feels, it feels different than fan funding.

52:47Doesn't it feel reminiscent of when I was a kid, like I asked my mom to pay for the sports bundle on TV. You see what I mean? Yeah. Like just the amount, the sheer amount of subscriptions we are paying for right now. Yeah. It feels like there's going to be some level of correction as there was during the TV era, right? Already started. Already started. It's already started. And yeah, like largely we see, even of a creator's super fans, you know, maybe 50 to 70 % of them aren't willing to pay with a subscription. In other words, they are a super fan of the creator, but, and they would buy merch and they would buy tickets and they would download an individual episode or they would buy a piece of wallpaper, but they wouldn't pay a subscription payment for media.

53:35And so one of the things that we've been thinking about is like, okay, how do we help creators build businesses with those fans that don't want to be like subscription-based, but they are core fans of that creator and they do want to participate in the creator's community. That's why we launched like free membership, which is essentially a follow. And we also launched commerce, which allows those fans to sort of do a one-time payment as opposed to subscription. So I think it's really important for creators to realize like there's not one fan profile, right? Like there's different types of fans that are willing to pay for different things.

54:04And I think having like a diversified business makes a lot of sense if you're starting out in 2024. Actually, first, I think you should like find media market fit 2025. Damn it, I keep doing that. But like, here, let me show you, let me show you Pomplamoose's, you know, revenue distribution. And I removed the Y axis here, but just to illustrate a point, um you know here's okay so here's here's and and uh yeah i think this is a good point like this is scary pockets revenue distribution um can you see that so like this is live for scary pockets live meaning live live shows live shows yeah like yeah for us like that's that's our that's a focus and that's like a big business now this is like really low margin revenue you have time yeah you have enough time what the hell so so i don't i actually don't we can't do that we can't build a live business if it depends on me going on tour.

54:59So we have an amazing, like an animatronic Jack. No, no, no, no. We have, we, we, we built pockets in a way that is like less about me and it's more about what we make. And so we actually like a keyboard player, like goes on tour with scary pockets instead of me. And we explain at the live shows why I'm not there. It was like Jack started a company and now he's like working a triple time job. And so we still want a tour, but Jack can't be here. And so we sort of tell that story on stage. But is this representative of all of music? Like isn't touring the number one for music across all bands or no?

55:36No. Also let's explain what we're looking at here because I want to make it clear if you're just listening. Oh yeah. Live is the overwhelmingly bigger portion of the Burj Khalifa. Yes. And then what are the two that look like they're tied there? And then I also see membership. So this is ad revenue. Ad revenue. This is live. We have merch, membership, ad revenue and streaming are about the same. That's amazing. This is streaming. Yeah. Now, Pockets does well on streaming, you know, so that's like a pretty big revenue source for us. The coming fourth is membership. Yes. But, and again, to illustrate a point, there is no right way to do this.

56:15There is no right way to build a business as a creator. There are a million ways to build a business, whatever works for you and your heart. Like, this is my partnership with my buddy, Ryan, right? That's what Scary Pockets is. and like what he likes to do and what I like to do and the combination of us is one thing. I have another band called Pomplamoose that is one might think very similar to Scary Pockets, but here is Pomplamoose's revenue distribution. Wow. You'll notice live is not on there. Why? Because Natalie doesn't like playing live and I have a full-time job now. Oh, streaming is really, I mean, like streaming and membership.

56:49So Pomplamoose has like 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify. So for us, streaming is like the core of our business. Like we make a lot of money through streaming every month. But like ad revenue and membership is like the next two chunks for us. So but I guess my point of like illustrating this is like, first of all, it's pretty diversified, right? If something tanks, like for example, here's Scary Pockets 2024. But in 2022, when the world closed down, this was Pockets. We still had a little bit alive because we were able to sort of work in a couple shows, but we couldn't depend on it. So we had these other revenue streams to keep the business afloat.

57:31I think a lot of creators now are building like multiple revenue streams because they know the world is changing. Technology is changing. Platforms are changing. And if you have multiple revenue streams, you can kind of have a robust business as a creator and sustain the ebbs and flows of the world around you. Especially in the context, honestly, of fan funding, just because, you know, I've always thought about this. If we had 10 ,000 people, and that's ambitious, but a part of a Patreon or a membership model, and you lose 10 % of them, and they're paying five bucks a month, let's say. Right. 10%.

58:05It's actually not that significant of a hit to your revenue. If we lose 10 % of our advertising revenue, that's a really significant portion of our revenue. That would dramatically change our business or 10 % of our advertisers. So that's where I think I look at the future of building a creator business. We're diversified across probably more unique ways than other creators, but I think everyone has a different mix. Like we have consulting is a big part of what we do. Speaking is a big part of what we do. It's like we have other elements that are... You guys are very diversified. Yeah, we're diversified, but actually we're not diversified against partnerships.

58:49Yeah, we're heavily partners. Does that make sense? Like some, there is a partnership with a... company that is paying us a large sum of money. across every revenue source outside of, I mean, I guess YouTube ad revenue would be a partnership still, but that's the only one that you don't have to get on the phone and talk to someone. Like a check just shows up and you're not like, there's not as much human touch point to that check. Yes. Makes sense. But I, you know, like it has been really substantial. We launched a course on Kajabi where we did two cohorts at the beginning of this year. I mean, it's a very high ticket course.

59:27And it was for a very specific group of people. And it was terrifying. It was terrifying to ask our audience to pay money for something. Yeah. We actually didn't even really talk about it on YouTube at all because we were, we just didn't, didn't apply to everyone. It was so specific to like a professional creator looking to increase their advertising business by 10 % and that would change their, like change the face of their business. Yeah. That was a big learning that like actually the worst thing that could happen is if we message that and we hit 100 % of our audience. Yeah. Because it's not for 100 % of our audience.

59:59And also - Why would that be bad though? Because there would be backlash. Yeah. Because 99 % of the audience would be like, I don't do enough brand deal business to take that core. Right, right. We have been doing this thing now of actually not just diversifying our revenue streams, but - Channels of communication. Channels of communication. So important. Diversifying channels of communication. I wish more creators knew that. So we have 8 ,000 people on a waiting list for our course. We only allowed 50 people per cohort because we couldn't, we were like, we cannot handle giving a good experience to more than 50 people.

1:00:29But that is starting to turn into a significant business because the people who want it and see a tangible change, you know, who can spend a thousand or 1800 bucks. And that actually, you know, there was a creator who took our course who got a$200 ,000 brand deal after our course. Right. So like you can have unbelievable ROI on that. Guys, that's such a good story. It's a great story. And there's people who've done$60 ,000 brand deals and even$10 ,000. And you're like, that is an insane ROI for us to help you get there. But that is for a hundred people have done that. Right. But it's a six-figure business that we've opened up.

1:01:01Right. So it's a really interesting thing to now start to diversify channels of communication and segment like, what are your needs? If your needs are over here, can we get you over here? And if your needs are over here, can we get you over here? You guys are obviously very sophisticated because you do this for a living, right? Like your living is the dissection and analysis of creative businesses. And so I think like – We're fortunate to have spoken to a lot of people. Yes. And that strategy was only done because we spoke to Ali Abdaal about it. Right. But I think what you guys are starting to – like what you've clearly realized is that even for creators, it's not just diversity of revenue lines and diversity of channels of communication.

1:01:46There's like diversity of businesses across audience segments. Some of your audience is going to have very high willingness to pay. And some other portion of your audience is going to have low willingness to pay. And like different offerings for those different portions of your audiences, like that's something to think about as a creator. Like a lot of courses are like$1 ,200 or$1 ,500. And like you're right, 99 % of your fans don't want that. But one or two percent of your fans really want to hear deeper levels of insights from you guys. And it is absolutely— And similar businesses to us that, through the cohort, we get to workshop together.

1:02:24Right. Exactly. And that we believe we can support. And that was—I mean, again, it was terrifying because you don't want to— You know, we put a lot of measures in place, like 100 % money-back guarantee at any point, no questions asked. Right. And luckily, like the thing worked and it was valuable because we spent a year building it. But it is a scary thing to start to like change the model of how you interact with your audience unless you segment them, which is when it has become much more comfortable now to go, oh, I know you're interested in this. And it's just a relief. Yeah. And what we recognized is, so we believe there's three rules of YouTube, three definitive rules.

1:03:07The first, I think I know what you're going to say. Okay. But I'll tell you the three and I'll explain the third because it has to do with this. The first is if they don't click, they don't watch. That is the simplest rule of YouTube. If they don't click, they don't watch. It comes from lots of conversations with a lot of creators. I think Mr. Beast has said it many times, but it is the simplest rule. If you don't figure out how to build titles and thumbnails, no one's watching your stuff. The second is respect their time, which means when I click on that title and thumbnail, I have to show that I'm respecting your time with my storytelling to get you to the end of this video, to tell you the story.

1:03:43I have to earn your trust again after you click by showing I'm respectful of your time by telling a great story. You're investing in us and this video is an investment for you. Yes. We're going to make it great. Yes. On your investment. Yes. The third is, do you want more stuff like this? Which is a filter for your next video and for any business you build is saying, what is the value of my content? And does this other thing I just made answer the question, do you want more stuff like this? So like if you listen to one of our episodes and I want to build a platform or I want to build like a Patreon, right?

1:04:16A membership. Yeah. It can't not answer that question. It's I'm asking you as an audience member of mine, do you want more stuff like this? If so, come over here. Right. But you have to then take a really hard look at what stuff like this means. Exactly. Because one thing that we recognize too, is you can't go from, as an audience member, watching a free ad supported piece of content to paying for a piece of content immediately. And what we did is we started going, okay, you finished this episode. We're talking broadly about YouTube strategy. Do you want to join us for a live session where we go deeper?

1:04:51Totally free in exchange for your email. Now you're in that environment. Now we've gotten permission to go deeper with you via email. So it's like recognizing what you are doing and how to follow the threads. The fan journey. Yeah. And even on your YouTube channel, like the best YouTubers at the end of their video are actually doing a call to action to watch another video of theirs. They're making a pitch for you. Do you want more stuff like this? Then click this video. Yeah. So those are the three rules. And that last one I think is increasingly more important because if you do get the opportunity to build a fan, you have to offer them stuff with the same thought, right?

1:05:29at the same line. Build and earn the right to pitch them something that does cost money. Yes. Like the worst salesman or the worst ad is when you feel like you've been interrupted and you're just like, ah, stop. Yeah. I don't want that. I did not sign up for this. Right? So you need to like massage your way or find the right way to communicate to someone where you can ask. There's so much there to talk about. Yeah. I mean, maybe the place where I'd start is like, I think there's a real danger to focusing on number one, like if they don't click, they don't watch, without putting number two in, right?

1:06:04Oh, yeah. That's where - The three rules have to go together. They have to be like together. I would argue there's probably two ways to think about if they don't click, they don't watch, like two ways to get people to click. The first would be a hyper compelling title and thumbnail that gets somebody to really want to click. The second way to think about it, which I'm increasingly thinking about more and more, is the body of your work and your audience's trust in you that you're going to deliver something amazing and compelling. Like, I don't care what Natalie Lin's next title and thumbnail is.

1:06:41I'm watching the video. Yeah. It could be a black card. We've said that about Casey before on this show. Yes. Casey could upload a video with no title and a black screen, and it might actually be a pretty good thumbnail. But I would click whatever it is. Yeah. That Chamberlain's video called you totally caught me making soup. Yeah. Which is a ridiculous title and thumbnail. Right. But it has 4 million views or, or, um, a creator, your mom, Ashley, Ashley Alexander, incredible creator. But you're, you're getting videos of like NYC update number two, you know, and hundreds of thousands of people are clicking on that.

1:07:12And that is familiarity is a way to get there. That just takes a long time. It takes a long time. Which is totally fine. But I think the reason we say that is it's a factual statement. Yeah. If people, like when given through recommendations, a sea of content on the homepage or the browse, you know, or suggested content. Yes. If they don't select your video to watch. Right. And again, that could come because I have a five-year relationship with Marques Brownlee and every time I eat lunch, I watch an MKBHD video. Yeah. Or it could be because it's a net new video and it was, you know, the one that we example that we use a lot is Veritasium's.

1:07:48Why are there 96 million black balls on this reservoir? Yes. There is nothing more that tells the story of an information gap better than that thumbnail. Yeah, agreed. Right, where you're like, I've just been filled to the brim with curiosity. I have no choice. I had no idea there were 96 million black balls on this reservoir, but now I have to know. But I have to know why. Okay, so let me ask you guys a question because I have some thoughts on this, but if we're thinking about what do I do in 2025? five yes there's like media market fit first right like that's step step one um make something that resonates with people and ideally it's got to resonate with yourself too i think if it doesn't resonate with yourself with your heart then you're probably going to stop making it in a year or two so like the the find the triangle where it's like i like this like and you know and an audience likes it too and it like and and there's that relationship right so maybe it's not a triangle it's just like I like it and not like content market fit.

1:08:45Actually, we've done this together and we have it. You animated this. Oh, yeah. Yes, that's right. That's right. That's what we're looking for. I've just stopped calling it content. Which is like the platform, the audience. You like it. The audience likes it and the platform likes it. Okay. You've already animated this. So we'll just play that. Actually, you did a great animation. Going around in circles. Yeah. For this when we did it. Because I mentioned that I actually think all three of those, you're juggling them at once. Yes. And they go out of sync sometimes. Yes. You might not like it, but your audience and platform likes it.

1:09:15Yeah. Yes. And it's hard to like maintain that balance. Yes. But I think find media market fit. And if I were doing that now, I would do it on shorts. Yeah. Like shorts is where people are. And it's the easiest way to break in. It's also the easiest path from idea to publish. and I actually think losing that excitement is a scary thing and it's happening with um we were talking to is harris and she was talking about the danger of batch production was it is who said this or no maybe so we've been talking i forget we're talking a lot of people about this but i think we talked to is about it of like batch production is great in the context of efficiency but in the context of creative excitement it might not be great when you're sitting on a video for two months, you have a different relationship with it.

1:10:07So anyway, there's a long way of saying - Or when you're all speaking to this episode as an example, like the best version of this episode for us and for the audience and probably for you is that it comes out the day after we record. It's not going to be the case. There's one other element to that, which is the best version of this conversation is when it is the first and only conversation of the day. You're not doing four of these back to back, right? Like that's like, if you really batch, you know, it can feel like a chore as opposed to like, oh my God, I can't wait to have this conversation.

1:10:34That's a long winded way of saying short. I agree with you. Shorts are important because you can also get a lot of shots on target. You can feel yourself out, your tone of voice, and you can stay excited about your work. You can find your content market fit, your media market fit using shorts. You don't have to make a title and thumbnail. And, and I would, I would argue that like, um, at the beginning before you found media market fit, like the most, the best strategy is no strategy. It's like speed of iteration. Try a lot of things, see what you love, find your voice, find yourself, find which aspects of yourself resonate with your audience.

1:11:07AKA the first five years of our channel. Yes. And like me too, right? That's like, that's how it's worked. So like try a bunch of stuff. Then like once you have that on shorts, I think step two, again, if I'm thinking about how to do it as a creator in 2025, you have to move beyond shorts. Now, you don't have to, but there are dangers if you don't. It becomes harder to build a direct-to-fan community and a direct-to-fan business. There are creators who have figured this out. But because fans are less willing and likely to pay for short-form content, and because when you're at the ultimate top layer of the internet, you are more subject to the whims of the platform's direction of traffic.

1:12:02It's a more volatile environment to build a long-term sustainable business versus finding a format like you guys have found where you've got this repeatable long-form thing that your audience enjoys every week and you have these long conversations and people are listening to them and building loyalty to you and building loyalty to the format. I think there's a key step if I'm doing it as a creator is like, find my audience on shorts and then figure out after that, how do I build a long form media format and a tighter community around that format? I would say that's step two. I'd be curious if you guys agree with that.

1:12:45Yeah, I very much agree. I think that transition is harder than just saying what's a longer format. It's a major like strategic change. Yeah. A major strategic change to like a wider audience. So I think if you're a short form creator, you have to take a zoom out and go like, what is my, a value proposition? Like, why do people follow me from a short form perspective? Madeline RG is a great example of this, like vulnerability, openness. Okay. That turns into a podcast of her alone in her car talking to the audience. Super vulnerable, just longer form than what she was doing on short form. So then you have to follow the line of like value proposition.

1:13:24And then I think one thing that we don't talk about enough is the vine to long form jump. Because the original version of this - Oh, you're right. I hadn't thought about that. To YouTube. And to this day, the most popular creators on the internet are people who made vines and that was the ultimate top of funnel and also the ultimate cutting your teeth as an internet storyteller yeah like you only get seven seconds love them or hate them the paul brothers are some of the greatest marketers you know of our generation and understood the internet because i think they had so many shots on target with vine and just got really competitive with that and tweaked it but like when dobrik emerged and created his format his longer form version like I've heard him talk about how that was just a series of vines, right?

1:14:12Like David Dobrik's vlogs were recurring six seconds of action baked into 30 second stories over and over for four minutes and 20 seconds. It's essentially a vine compilation. Yeah. Right. And so this is a long-winded way of me pontificating on what you could do in long form. But I think you follow your value proposition. What were you offering in short form? Why are people there? How can you extend that? I really think that's a great way to think about it. And this is how Pomplamoose has thought about it for a long time. We initially thought, what do people love about Pomplamoose? It's like, if you go back to 2008, we're like, oh, people like the weird sounds and the cool guitar tones and our cool bass lines.

1:14:54And we thought, this is what makes Pomplamoose Pomplamoose. And then I think as we made more things on the internet, we realized there was a common thread that was not those things. because at some point, Pomplamoose stopped being me and Natalie. Actually, here, I'll pull up the chart when I can show you exactly when Pomplamoose stopped being me and Natalie. It was here. Up until here, every Pomplamoose video, I was mixing everything, engineering everything, mastering everything. Natalie was singing. I was playing all the instruments except for bass and voice. And Natalie was playing all the bass lines.

1:15:31We thought Pomplamoose is us. Pomplamoose is me and Natalie playing these cool things. And our, you know, right here is the first time we were like, let's have other instrumentalists play. A drummer, a bass player, a guitar player. And at first we were like, oh, that's not Pomplamoose. But what we realized is like Pomplamoose, there's something else. If you read the comments of Pomplamoose videos, people talk about like, people will say like, thank you guys. After 20 years of my drums being in the attic, I just went up to my attic, took a cloth off of my drums, brought them down into my living room and played drums for the first time.

1:16:11Thank you, Pomplamoose. And like what we realized Pomplamoose was, was like watching the joy of creation and collaborative partnership in creativity between two people who were really excited about it. Or not just two people, but a group of people who were really excited about it. Like Pomplamoose was inspiration to make is kind of how we started thinking about after that. Less about like Pomplamoose is me and Natalie and our cool arrangements and more like Pomplamoose is something more fundamental. And so we took it into this new format. And then right here, we transitioned into shorts. This was the first time Pomplamoose started experimenting with shorts.

1:16:50This is just a couple of years ago. And we ended up filming these short form videos of us in the studio arranging songs. It wasn't the final output of the music. It was us going through the creative process of working together. So it felt like you were in the studio with us. And that was the insight there was the same insight when we made the transition to the format of song per week with other musicians. It was what Pomplanoose's spirit really is, is like inspiration to make stuff. And it was right around when the Peter Jackson documentary came out on the Beatles. And like people were talking about how great that documentary was because you get to watch The Beatles making things and how like a lot of my creative friends said they couldn't even get 10 minutes into that series without going and writing a song because it was just so inspiring for them.

1:17:33So getting to your value proposition as a creator, what is it about my work that is resonating with people and being as fundamental as you can about that value proposition? It's hard to get there and you're not going to immediately figure it out. Something that sort of emerges over time. This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan, real United Airlines customers. We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.

1:18:07That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. time. And what value prop would I commit to for the next 10, 15, 20 years, even if I wasn't getting paid? I think that's really important. As much as we can talk about going from shorts to long form and all of this sort of strategy for 2025, as woo-woo as it is, I really think it's like, what would you do even if you were making money in a totally different way? Because it's the only way that this works.

1:18:41Samir and I think about it when we get a 10 out of 10 and internally, we're like it's all over man like this is it the ship is sinking and it's over and and we'll be very fear-based sometimes and there was one moment this year where we were incredibly fear-based and i took a step back and i was like you know what this ship fell apart in 2019 and we basically quit and i moved home but we still were going to make videos about creators because we like doing it and found it interesting and i had to like think back to that moment because we have so much built up around us now and so many employees and things and so different.

1:19:15I was like, you know what? I really like doing this and I will do this in so many different forms because I like doing it. And it's like, I truly believe that is the only thing that matters. This is why I started by saying like, it is so important. It is so easy to get sucked into optimizing for the way the internet is set up right now. It's so tempting. and what you said I think there's a very long-term approach to that right which is like how do I stay in the game for the next decade or two decades right like your creative career can be long like it feels short in the present right it feels like now is the end of times if I don't get a one out of ten but like your creative career can be very long and there's a wonderful creator named Adam Westbrook he made a video essay it's one of my favorite pieces of media on YouTube it's like 15 minutes long.

1:20:08It's about Van Gogh who lived in his parents' basement for 11 years, lived in his parents' basement, making paintings every day while his teeth were falling out. Nobody saw his paintings except for his brother, was the only person who saw his paintings. And his brother didn't even like his paintings very much. And Van Gogh did this for like 11 years, didn't sell a single painting and no one saw them but him. And he did it because he loved painting. He just liked doing it. He liked exploring color and texture and framing and composition, and it lit him up. And so he kept going. It's like the YouTubers, you can tell, they just love telling stories and making videos.

1:20:49And they would do it if their ad revenue is up, and they do it if their ad revenue is down. And the creator in this video, Adam Westbrook, calls this an autotelic behavior. That's the word for it. An autotelic behavior is a behavior that you do for the sheer joy of the behavior itself versus some expected reward from having done the behavior. And I think as a creator, it's so important to find something that is autotelic for you, something you're going to do in your parents' basement for 11 years, whether people like it or see it or not. And if you can find that and it works with an audience, oh my gosh, you're in an amazing place.

1:21:30It's hard to find that. But like, if I had one piece of advice to emerging creators right now, It's like, don't sacrifice that part of it. That part of it is so important to a long-term creative career. Yeah. You need to think of yourself as potentially the Bryan Cranston of content creation. Bryan Cranston, meaning like he wanted to be an actor so badly and nothing really hit until he was, I think, in his forties, like 44 and Malcolm in the Middle hit. And then even after that, it really wasn't until Breaking Bad hit where it's like his career totally turned over. And I'm not saying like, if you're watching or listening and you haven't quote unquote made it that you have to wait 44 years.

1:22:11But I think there is a reality that's like, you got to love the thing. And it's so woo-woo to say, it's like, yeah. I know. I don't think it's woo-woo to say, by the way. Like, I think it's only woo-woo because - I know. Somebody say, follow your passion. I feel bad giving that advice. I don't think it's follow your passion. It's just be honest with yourself if you like it. And sometimes it's not even being honest. I actually think the behavior you're talking about is oftentimes involuntary. Yes. You have no choice. You don't have a choice. And I think that's what it looks like to look at a troubled artist because they aren't even sometimes happy that this is the fact that they have no choice but to get this expression out.

1:22:48Yes. There are so many times at speaking engagements or events that we have where someone will ask us a question and then it's generally Samir who says this. So he has an eye for this and he'll just say like, well, I have a question for you. Do you like making those videos? Yeah. And without missing a beat, the person is always like, no, not really. Yeah. That's one of the most unbelievable things. I think people enjoy the results of making videos. And I think when you look at the spectrum of what making videos on the internet gets you, it gets you fame, money, and status. And I think those are really appealing things to human beings.

1:23:24And I think now that there's a math equation to get there, it is really appealing. but making videos and make and creatively expressing yourself is a very intangible thing that you cannot describe when you're in it again back to like writing a song writing a song is the most bizarre weird thing that we that anyone creative could do or drawing a painting it's it's bizarre you can't explain it and so if you actually enjoy it you'll you'll do it for a really long time but i find that in talking to a lot of young aspiring creators you ask them that question they're like oh no i don't i don't really like making the videos it's hard it's hard for me and I don't like it.

1:23:59I'm trying to build a team around it. There's something, at least I've found as I've gotten older too, where I'm less willing to do things that I don't like. I don't know if you guys have found this, but I just turned 40 this year and I have less tolerance for not doing what I want to do. And so if you're not liking what you're doing now and you're 25, it only gets harder as you get older. If it works, you're going to do more of it. Which is the thing I didn't fully recognize, but learned a few times of like, if the thing you're doing works, you'll get the opportunity to do more of that thing.

1:24:42So do you like that thing or not? Yes. Especially if you're trying to do this. I want you to read the rest of your list and And we will not interrupt you because we are on number three of how you would build a creator business in 2025. So let's just recap. Media market fit, shorts to longs. That's as far as we've gone. So leverage short form traffic to find fit on a medium or long. So we're two in. Three is once you find fit on shorts, build that long form format and find fit on a longer form format because the short form ecosystem is too volatile and unpredictable. That's three. Four is build a tight community around that long form format.

1:25:27And the thing I actually want to talk about here is what you guys are doing, which is events. I'm seeing a lot more creators right now start to do in-person events with fans. We were both at Max Joseph's film screening. Bo Miles is doing these screenings. He's renting movie theaters and he's doing these 1500 person screenings of his YouTube videos. The more creators I'm talking to, and Patreon is doing this too, we're throwing events. We just did an event with Shannon Beveridge where we're like throwing an event for her and her fans and 150 fans show up. We all hang out together and have a good time.

1:26:03And she does a live version of her podcast. The more creators I'm talking to, the more I'm seeing this strong desire for like real human in-person interaction and like actual community building. And you guys have just started doing these coffee. Yeah. And like, I think that's another like version of what, what I'm seeing largely across the entire industry. That's connected to something you said earlier of like, um, make sure you're, uh, making something that you're passionate about. Yeah. Because what that also creates is what we always call, and I think Seth Godin coined this in one of his, but it's like people like us.

1:26:45Like when you're building a community, you're looking for people like you. Yeah. And so when we started doing Coffee with Creators, which is essentially, you know, we send out through our newsletter, the Publish Press, an invite. Hey, if you're in LA, come by. We rented out a coffee shop, 150, you know, sometimes 200 people show up. Coffee, we do these like community things where you get to know each other. Then we do a Q &A, essentially like a live, almost like a live Q &A podcast. And what you realize is like, I like hanging out with those people. It does not feel hierarchical in the way of we're on stage and you're here to watch us.

1:27:22It's actually like, oh, these are all people I am enjoying hanging out with. And they're enjoying hanging out with each other because they're there because of a common interest. We always thought about our, like our first YouTube business, Lacrosse Network, we thought about it as every time we uploaded, we were actually opening the doors to a convention hall for like-minded people to come in and engage with each other. So our videos were not necessarily just, hey, watch this stuff or get entertained by this or the information that's here. It's actually, this is now permission to engage with each other.

1:27:54But that becomes incredibly fragmented on YouTube because it only lives in one video. Exactly. So it's a long way of saying like, I think, um, we're basically the platforms now we're doing the interest graph thing. Yes. But, but, but in a, I think in a really healthy, good way. Yeah. Right. Like, like, um, well, hopefully in a way that's consistent and dependable and like leaves you feeling good about your interest, right. Because you've met some people in real life. Yeah. Also meeting people in real life is, is like fun and human and necessary to be a human. So I, again, I think like sometimes we get over analytical and actually it's just like, yeah, as a human, you need to interact with other humans and it's fun to interact with other humans that are into the same thing as you.

1:28:36So the way I like to think about this is like, there's a difference between audience building and community building. One is not a difference better than the other. They're not like, they're not hierarchical and you can be either as a creator you can be a mix of the two but there are creators on on patreon and on youtube that are amazing community builders and then there are creators who have really successful like audience relationships and specifically what i mean by that is like an audience relationship i would i would like the best example of that is like i go to a concert i watch the concert i go for the music and i see the musician and they play and then the concert ends and i go home and then that's it like There's no ongoing connection.

1:29:20I'm not getting a sense of belonging. I'm not getting a sense of support from other people. I'm not meeting other like-minded people. It's an audience relationship. It's a one-way street where I'm consuming a thing that someone has created for me. And there's a lot of creators who do this really well on YouTube. And it works great where it's like, I made a thing for you and you enjoyed it. that's very different than like, say, a Vlogbrothers, where like the Vlogbrothers have a community. You identify as a nerdfighter. You hang out at bars with other nerdfighters. When something in the world happens that's scary as shit, John gets up and helps you feel calm about it.

1:30:03And he explains the world so you make sense of the world together. You have shared values as community members, as a nerdfighter, right? You know who you are. And if somebody's knowing, if somebody's wearing a nerdfighter t-shirt or has a DFTBA tattoo on their arm, you're like, I know what you're like as a human. I know what your values are. And I know we could hang out with each other. We've seen that on a smaller scale with our press publish merch. Like if someone's wearing it, we've seen people tweet at us or send us DMs of like, I just met someone because they were wearing that. You already know who they are.

1:30:35You know what they're into. You You know their values. You guys are building a community. And again, I'm not trying to make it sound like one is better than the other. You can build successful businesses that are both. But I do think it's important as a creator to know what am I building here and then to do the things that work for you and what you like. And by the way, there's a lot of creators who don't want to build a community. And that's fine too, right? Especially like there's a lot of female creators where it's especially harder for them to have a relationship with their audience because it just feels worse, right?

1:31:00And so like for those creators, it doesn't even feel safe to build a community. that like, you know, my wife, like she, she would rather just be very private. She does, she just wants to make her song. She doesn't like want to have a thing where she interacts and hangs out with people. She's a bit more introverted, right? Like, so it just depends on what resonates for, for you as a creator and what it is that you want to do. But I think it's important to know. Did we get through all six? Okay. Sorry. So build a tight community around the long form format. And the reason I'm saying that specifically is I think it's harder to build the community around a short form format because it's harder to reach your audience.

1:31:38Okay. Number five, I think it's important as a creator right now. And again, the audience should know I have a direct to fan company called Patreon. So like, you know, take my words with a grain of salt here. But if I were doing it in 2025, I would have an ads business and I would have a direct to fan business. And I would start thinking about the differences between those two. And I would experiment with different types of direct to fan businesses, not just membership. Membership isn't right for a lot of creators. So I would say like, like if membership, if you're not an episodic media creator, don't try to force fit your stuff into a membership business.

1:32:15Like maybe you need to have, maybe you should do a commerce business or a courses business or a live business. Or like a pay-per-view. Like again, comedy, what has happened with comedy and comedy specials, ticketed digital live events. Exactly. So, but the reason that's important is because again, I think it's important as a creator to build a diversified business. Like if the economy crashes and companies simultaneously pull back their sales and marketing spends and, or Disney leaves YouTube because there's some piece of media on YouTube that they don't want to be associated with. And then it cascades to other advertisers who leave YouTube and then ad revenue drops in a month as a creator you want to be able to withstand that right and so you want to have like a variety of types of income um and then also the other the other reason i think it's important to build to have both and have a diversified business is like there's like fans want that from you right like fans are they want a lot of fans want more from you anywhere we see between like five to 10 % of your fans, 10 % would be like the upper bound, might be your core fans, core fans who like love everything you do.

1:33:28They follow you across all socials. They, you know, they, um, they go to all the shows, they have the merch, they have the t-shirt. They like, they, they want more from you. Do you calculate that off returning viewers or average views? Like if you were looking at a YouTube channel, would you go average views per video? 10 % of that is like our core fan pool or would you how would you calculate so that's actually how we build like when we when we model this out we do use conversion rates based off of like you know views or followers or or sometimes a combination of the two um but yes and and then of course as you get more followers the conversion rate goes down right because you're accumulating more casual fans versus in the early days of like content market fit it's like hardcore fans that are finding you first, right?

1:34:16But yes, we do use sort of like decreasing conversion rates as the creator gets bigger and bigger to model out what is the proportion of those fans that have that, you know, willingness to pay that creator for more things. And then six, once you have that, by the way, we're like saying these things like, okay, then start a director fan business. There's so much. This is what, not how. Yes, exactly. I think that's important to say. Each one of these needs its own how to do it. Yes. And it's going to be different for a lot of different creators. Right. One thing, by the way, we haven't talked about with direct to fan business, I think is really important.

1:34:47It's like, it has not worked sometimes for some creators or it's backfired, right? Like we've seen a couple examples over the last two years where YouTubers go out to their audience and there's backlash. And I think it's important to understand why and what are the lessons learned? I think it was also misguided for some of the short form, like TikTokers to launch memberships. That's just not the right value proposition, not the right audience. Nope. And fans don't want to pay for short form. No. Yeah. Yeah. And there's another insight there, which is fans don't want to pay for something that was previously free.

1:35:18Do you want more stuff like this? Yes, exactly. After our rules. Like they're down to pay for something in addition, but not the thing that was already free. Right, right, right. Yeah. Okay. The last thing is like, once you have that going, and this is a real big if you want, and if you're that sort of first profile creator versus the other profile creator. it's like hire so that you can make it sustainable and there's a whole art and science to hiring that is very tricky and i think that's like the last step here the last step is like bringing people to help like if you don't love the work and you don't want to do it yourself then you know don't just like hire i actually don't think that'll work but but i do think for a lot of creators are getting to the point where you know they're making you know there are a lot of creators are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doing it themselves and they feel burned out and underwater and they don't realize like, oh, I can hire like an admin to like help me run my operation.

1:36:21You know, I can hire. I think you have to play that out in your head. I would have no idea how to do that. And I'm this guy in this chair, like, like without Samir truly, like I, I, man, I would struggle hiring people. But I agree with you. It's so hard. I see the benefits of it to have the employees we have and like the way that they support us. But at Coffee with Creators, this is a common question. How do I hire an editor? How do I do, you know? And one of the things I ask back, and this comes directly from our conversation with Tim Ferriss is, I just want you to close your eyes and imagine having a conversation with a person who wants a raise.

1:36:58And then I want you to imagine having a conversation where you have to fire someone. Yeah. Are you comfortable in that conversation? if not it might not be your thing and that might be very black and white of me to say but i again i i live in these like i just want everyone to know the realities of what you're doing it can be amazing it can be fruitful incredible we've we've had incredible experiences but it can also be this new thing where someone you know text you in the morning what am i supposed to do and you're like whoa yeah leave me alone let me let me just be my let me just go about my day It really depends on what you want as a creator.

1:37:35I think there's a lot of creators who shouldn't hire, right? Like there's a lot of creators who don't want to like build an empire and grow, grow, grow. Like a lot of creators don't want to do that. And for them, hiring is probably not, you know, you don't want a 10 person team. I would say probably even for those creators, well, there's probably some people who just want to be fully alone 100%. But, you know, again, these things aren't black and white, right? Like I've like a couple, you know, things that I've learned. I found it easier to like work with people on a specific project. Like project-based, short-term, contractor relationship to start.

1:38:15To start. And then you're like, if you like work with 20 people like that, two or three of those people, you're going to be like, oh, I love working with that person. And I'm giving them more work every month. And you sort of naturally gravitate. And then you're like, okay, well, this is kind of a repeatable thing. And then you can start thinking about, okay, what does it look like if this person works full time? Okay. The hard part about that is what you said is like, okay, what if the internet changes and your views crash? Like, then what do you do? I think we're on the precipice in 2025 of like quite a bit of change.

1:38:47And maybe sometimes I get concerned that Colin and I have just been in rooms where we see a lot of technology and get, but like, I think we're entering into one of the most different eras of creativity. No doubt. I actually think it's one of the most, it's about to be the one of the most self-reliant versions of creativity. What do you mean by that? What I mean by that is like in the past, I don't have the technical skills Colin has when it comes to editing and design. But actually, if you've looked at over the past five, 10 years, I can now do things that I could never do because of the advancements in AI, the advancements in platforms like Adobe, Canva, ChatGPT.

1:39:28You want to write five different versions of a script in 60 seconds? You can do that now. And I can look at them. And now, instead of sitting in a room and brainstorming, collaborating with five other people to get to those. I just do that by myself. So that's what I mean by self-reliant. Soon enough, you want an intro animation, you used to hire a collaborator to make that. Soon you won't, you'll just type it in. You know, like the eyedropper tool in Photoshop, where if like you see a color that you want, you're like, I really want that color. The future is that eyedropper tool for every single color correction, character design, script writing.

1:40:02Visuals are going to enter a Napster moment. Right. Where they all can be taken and remixed. It does not mean you need taste. And that the people who have the skill set and the ability will be able to work some of these tools better than anyone else in a way that no one else can in a human way. I totally believe that. But the stuff that's coming is wild. Yeah. No doubt. Okay. You're a big time tech CEO. You've seen this stuff. Let's not play the game here that you haven't seen the stuff. It's not even behind closed doors. No, but. We've been to all these events. Okay. So, so. Some of it is behind closed doors.

1:40:34It's crazy. One thing that happens and, you know, maybe I'm totally wrong here. So nobody knows what's going to happen right now, right? There's a lot of people pontificating and postulating about what the future is going to be like. And we have to remind ourselves, nobody knows. It's just the truth. Nobody knows what's going to happen. As confident as people sound when they're talking about the future, it's important to remind yourself nobody is a fortune teller and the smartest people in the world are often wrong, right? So at the end of the day, it comes down to what do you think? I really think that's important in how you live your life and navigate the world and operate.

1:41:11So I'll just offer sort of what I think. I am so impressed by a lot of these new technologies and by AI specifically. When I found MidJourney, I felt like I was 10 years old finding a camera for the first time. I felt like I was double-clicking the record button and moving the clay figure a little bit and double clicking and moving the clip. And then I'd watch back those four seconds. I was like, my heart was exploding. I was like, I'm going to be an animator. Like, it was just like the most exciting thing I could possibly imagine. I had that feeling as a 38-year-old using Mid Journey. I was like, this is incredible.

1:41:50I was designing synthesizers and recording studios and like a Russian space station plus a 1976 Wurlitzer and making like keyboards that were the size of a room. I was like, it was explosive for my - I just kept asking, what if Wes Anderson did this? Oh, yeah. I mean, beautiful. Now look, no doubt that these technologies are incredible and will make a lot of changes for a lot of fields and a lot of people over the next long, long time. Over the short term, I think there's going to be less change than people think. I think people love people. And I think there's a portion of work that is out there that is based on human connection, right?

1:42:34When I listen to a Kendrick Lamar album, it's not that I care about the output, the work that he has created, so much as I care that I am hearing the experience of another conscious being who lived through some serious shit and suffering and like pain and life experience. And it is that feeling of connection that is at the core of why I listen to Kendrick Lamar or Elliot Smith or Big Thief or you name it. Like there is a feeling of like, I know what you're talking about and I have felt that too. And I think a lot of great art and work and even this show and podcasts, a lot of it, like really good stuff is stemming from that feeling of connection to another human being.

1:43:25So maybe all that to say, I think the craftsmanship of creation is going to change. but I think for a very long time, longer than most people think, I believe, humans will be at the core of creation. I deeply believe that. I'm saying it could never happen that we're watching 100 % AI-generated movies. Great, maybe that happens someday, but we're a longer way from that than most people think right now. Yeah. We started this conversation talking about hiring. I'm not concerned, actually, at least in the short term and even the mild long term of AI replacing creators. Yeah. Like human stories are scarce and they will always be.

1:44:02And that's great. Totally. And we will share them. What, I don't know if I'm concerned or what, but I think what is changing, like you're saying, is how something gets made. Like when I talk about the eyedropper tool, the accessibility of how is getting opened up to everyone. Yes. Great thing, scary thing. Which is really exciting, right? Because like, think about what that's done. Unless you make a living off of what that eyedropper tool used to do, then it requires adaptation and change. Otherwise you get replaced by an AI driver, which is, yeah. But like, I do think there's an exciting component of it.

1:44:35And I know a lot of creative people are scared of AI and angry at AI too, for like good reason, just to be clear. Like creators deserve to be paid for their work, full stop. Like taking creators' work and not paying for them, that's not going to be the way the future works. Like what's happening now with like the, you know, the lawsuits, you know, between New York Times and Open Night. Like, that's just the version of what happened with YouTube and Viacom, you know, playing out again. It's just cyclical. Like, that stuff will be fixed. Creative people will be paid for their work. Um, uh, so look, there's like, there's clearly problems with it.

1:45:10Um, but, but, you know, I think it's really exciting to think about like a kid who can't manage a team or negotiate with Hollywood execs or build a budget is going to be able to make a 90 minute movie. Now, that job was previously inaccessible to that kid. Like a 15-year-old kid was not able to make a 90-minute movie with special effects and science fiction spaceships and blah, blah, blah. You will be able to do that soon. Soon, we will be hearing and understanding and watching the stories coming out of people who could not afford or didn't have the skills to make things previously. And that component of it, I think, is really exciting.

1:45:58Like, making creativity accessible to more people. Like, personally, I'm pumped for that. We've never had that before. And, like, think about what's happened to music over the last 50 years. Like the engineers at Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles made all their records, they wore white lab coats and they had to understand ohms and resistance. And they had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of like technical equipment to like patch cables in and route music and record on tape. And like it was a very technical profession. Now, like 10-year-old kids are making records better than that quality on this thing.

1:46:31Yeah, yeah. And like and we're seeing that trend just like continue and accelerate. I think that's exciting. Like this did replace jobs a lot of those, you know, old audio engineers. But there is a good trade-off of that, which is like now you can be a 12-year-old and make an amazing album. And it's cool to hear the album that a 12-year-old makes. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, the emphasis will be on not – the emphasis will be on do you have a story to tell. Yeah. Right. Less on like do you have the ability to tell that story. A hundred percent. It's funny because it's like less about, I think it will be less about execution and it will be more around quality of idea and narrative, which I think previously execution was like a really big piece of it.

1:47:22But execution is getting easier and easier over time as tools get more and more accessible and cheaper and available. And I think that's good for creative people. Honestly, I think I'm very optimistic about how this is playing out for creative people. As tough as it is, like on the internet right now, I do think as media moves offline to online, we've experienced 20 years of that now. I think over the next 20 and then again over the next 100, I think artists come out the other end of this in a fundamentally different place than the last 5 ,000 years of artistry. I think artists come out of this phase of the digitization of media with more control, more leverage, more options, more creative control.

1:48:09And I think that's fundamentally going to be a good thing for artists. We will always have the struggle. Artists will always have the struggle of like, do I make for the market or do I make for my heart? Like that struggle isn't going to go away. But I'd rather have that struggle as an artist than have a media executive telling me that my song isn't cool enough to be in their pipes and they won't distribute it. I'd rather have to deal with my internal battle than be blocked by a person. And I think that's the world largely that we're entering now is like the struggle of being an artist is going to be an internal struggle that is available to all of us should we choose that path versus an external struggle.

1:48:56That's a good point. Yeah. I like that. I actually feel very optimistic right now after being in this career for so many years. And a lot of what I'm trying to do now is look at 2025 and imagine myself in December and say, and look at our channel and look at our work and be like, am I proud of all of those visually? Am I excited about those? And I feel more primed actually to do that now than ever in our career because of how much we know and also a little bit of confidence. And I think it is getting older too and being like, I don't have much in me. I don't have much time anymore for making fear-based decisions.

1:49:39I just don't have as much of that in me. That's such a good question. I think about that all the time. Am I proud of what I made? Pride in your work, I think is one of the most important metrics of success for yourself and and it like across genres right like even at the company at patreon like we talk about like we one of our values is like build with craft um which is like when you build something like are you proud of what you've built are you proud of what you've made um that's such an important thing like if you're not proud of what you've made like why are you making it what are the biggest problems you're facing as patreon right now uh the biggest like what are your Like, you mean like hurdles you're trying to overcome as a platform?

1:50:25I think it's the same as the problems that like creators are having. It's literally the same thing, which is like, it's harder and harder for creators to rally their audiences around their work. Like if you make a post on TikTok now and you have an effective CTA to like go buy my merch or go buy my tickets to my show. And the first 10 people who watch it go buy the tickets because you're a really good storyteller and your CTA is good. TikTok deranks that post in their algorithm. They're like, oh, people are bouncing off of TikTok when they watch this post. So we're going to push that to the bottom of the feed now.

1:51:06Or we're just going to wipe it from our distribution because like you're driving people away from the app. But like, that's what creators need. Creators need somebody to buy their merch. Yeah, that's pushing us further into the aligned incentives with the platform, which is advertising. Which is why. And that is the core of one of the problems that we're trying to solve for creators. And it's one of the reasons we built free membership, which is like, how do we help creators not be reliant on platforms to drive traffic for them? because essentially the platforms are failing on that responsibility.

1:51:45They're not letting creators— They're keeping people on instead of letting people go off the platform. But that makes sense for their incentive structure. It does. It's not like you can't blame them. It's not evil. It's a function of their business model. It's just how their business works. You may have known this. I did not know this, but Patreon has free memberships. So essentially we could upload our show, same time, same cadence, to Patreon and start building a following there and say, you don't have to pay for this because that's for free on YouTube too. In the first year of that, creators got 30 million free members and doubled their communities on Patreon.

1:52:20So it's a very - And again, I'm assuming the conversion from a free member to a paid member is - There are hundreds of thousands of free members converting every month to paid members. They're already in an environment where they understand - Do you want more stuff like that? And now we're building dashboards that show creators, here's your free to paid conversion. I feel like you love a dashboard. You feel like I love a dashboard? Yeah. Of course I love a dashboard. No, I know, but I just feel like you love a dashboard. I don't know what else to say about that. I just want to be careful with dashboards.

1:52:46I'm not saying I don't like it. Yeah, you got to be very specific about the metrics that you put there because they're going to incentivize me. I like a dashboard too. Exactly. Yeah. You have to be very thoughtful about dashboards because it can be Pavlovian in the wrong direction, right? You can like train people to care about this. Well, yeah, you're informing them what they should care about. And that is such an, oh, it's so important, right? You should just have a dashboard that has like the front-facing camera. Like when you open your iPhone and it's like, are you proud of yourself today?

1:53:13You're like looking at yourself and you're like, oh my God. You click a button, yes or no. It's like one of the best product ideas I've ever heard actually. I'm surprised that I don't know there are free memberships. I'm also surprised because I feel like we've been on calls with Tom about it. Yeah. But the fact that I, I think I have heard it before, but the fact that I haven't retained it. Yeah. feels like that's also a problem. Yes. It's like, whoa, that is huge. Because that's so low risk. And I, again, I don't want to sit here and sound like I'm like, we don't have a Patreon. Right. Could have started one years ago.

1:53:46We don't have one. Right. We're always thinking about it. Yeah. Jesse makes a pitch every month. Yeah. But like the fact that that message isn't clear, I think is a problem because it's incredibly low risk, I think. Yeah. Part of the challenge. Well, maybe by the time this episode's out, we'll have a free one. I mean, that's, that's right. Because like, what's the problem? What's, what's the problem? it's a free version it's like it's free and and it allows you to put stuff behind a free wall over in that environment that's like hey you get the email address and the person gets the thing behind the the you know free wall which is like a that's a value exchange it's like yeah i've never seen that create backlash for anybody so there's yeah like part of the challenge though is that we actually are building like a lot of stuff like that right now and i think people think of patreon as like, okay, here's the core challenge.

1:54:34This is it. You called it fan funding. Yeah. We don't think about it like that at all. And what you're describing as like, how come we don't know about free membership? We're trying to help people reimagine what it actually is, which is not fan funding. We are helping you build your direct to fan infrastructure and business as a creator, which includes free. It includes commerce. It includes memberships. It includes ticketed live streaming. Like it's your full direct to fan layer. Now there's no, yeah, that was going to require cultural shift and brand shift and like helping people understand what that actually means.

1:55:13But that's probably the biggest shift. Every time we hang out, I think it's so bizarre that you're like a tech CEO, you know, like, I mean, just, just that, like what the sheer amount of responsibility that you probably have accumulated during the time that we've been talking, you know what I mean? like I get anxious about that. I'm like, Oh my God, I probably like, Oh, I'm anxious about it too. So many things that I need to do right now, but I can't imagine that must be insane for you like that. So, yeah. Yeah. So thanks for this time. Yeah. So thanks for letting that accumulate. Thank you guys for having me.

1:55:45This has been so fun. I'm back on the show. It's great. It's always great to talk. It's even better when we get to record it. Hell yeah. Actually. Yeah. It's not a requirement to record it. We can also, yeah. Thanks for hanging out. Thank you guys for doing this. Yeah. It's like, honestly, I feel like, yeah, we were talking about this a little bit. Like I would have this conversation anyway. There would be a joy and to be able to record it is an even bigger joy. So thank you.