Why the Try Guys are starting a streaming service

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

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1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. It's easy to feel trapped by your own success when you're on YouTube. the algorithm wants you to make one thing and to make it really, really well to do it again and again and again. We don't need this to be the end all be all. We don't need this to replace our business. We just need it to be another piece of our business. Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome to this audio exclusive episode this week. This week, we're bringing you a conversation between Nate from the Publish Press and Zach and Keith from the Try Guys.

1:53Nate called up Zach and Keith to talk about their new streaming platform that they just launched called Second Try. It's$50 a year or$5 a month, and it comes with early access to some of their shows as well as a bunch of original content. Now, shortly after launching the streaming service, it was also announced that Eugene, the third member of the Try Guys, was going to be moving on from the group, and carrying the torch will be Zach and Keith, along with some of their existing hosts and staff, and then some of the new faces that they're going to be introducing. I did see a very funny tweet about the Try Guys.

2:25It said the Try Guys have reduced by 50 % during the Biden administration. I just thought that was so good. You know, though, they are going strong. Now, this launch of a subscription platform, in our opinion, is part of a growing trend in the creator economy that includes a lot of shifts in business models away from the world of brand deals. And we heard a announcement that the YouTube CEO Neil Mohan made, Brandcast last week, that I think ties into this growing trend. So we're going to talk about that as well as our reaction to this conversation with Zach and Keith after you listen to the interview.

2:59Now, this interview was conducted as a part of coverage for our newsletter, The Publish Press. So if you're not subscribed yet, go to thepublishpress.com. Three times a week, we send out the latest news in the creator economy as well as exclusive interviews like this one with Zach and Keith. All right, here's Nate's interview with Zach and Keith from The Try Guys. would love to hear from your perspective why was now the right time to launch something like second tribe versus say a year ago or even a year from now well we needed a year to put it together we knew from the beginning this was not something that we could rush that if we were going to launch something that we needed to provide a ton of new value and to do that all at once to justify asking people to pay for stuff you know they're used to getting our content on youtube for free So if we're going to make new shows and say, hey, come on over here, we got to really think about this launch and, you know, anything from the assets and the design of the website, but also just the episodes itself.

4:00And why now? It's because this is when we finally diagnosed and figured out a potential solution to everything that we've been going through. I would say our frustrations to the algorithm date back years. It's easy to feel trapped by your own success when you're on YouTube. The algorithm wants you to make one thing and to make it really, really well to do it again and again and again. And as the Try Guys, we try stuff. We like doing different things. And we've always wanted to have a multi-show model. And so there's this push and pull. We always feel that YouTube forces this dilution of our content where it pushes us to make things we never really intended to be doing in the first place.

4:55Because YouTube rewards a certain type of video. So then as a business, you are incentivized to make that type of video again and again and again and to shy away from the ones that are either algorithmically punished or financially punished. And that's not a great place to create from. It's certainly not the best for our audience. Yeah, and you talk about taking the time to build something like this out, right? and having the company in a place both from capabilities just building the platform, but also from a programming standpoint and being able to have a content development pipeline. Would love if you could paint us a picture.

5:37What does the Try Guys operation look like these days? How many crew and cast members? What these employees do on the day-to-day? Would love to just kind of hear that from you all. Yeah, I mean, it's been interesting in the last year because I was just talking yesterday about how everything that I think each staff member did last year, they're still doing that. And now they're all doing a bunch of other stuff. And some of those jobs were almost like temporary. And like, I don't need someone to constantly be building a website right now, right? Because it's built. But there's a lot that everyone's doing.

6:14But in general, for the last six months, we've been kind of running our company how it has been run to make two videos a week, all our podcasts, all that stuff. But also building an entirely separate channel of content at the same time. So we're building like two trains on top of the same track. We just can't see the other train yet. That's a terrible metaphor that no one's ever used, probably for good reason. But we seem to be using it. We're using it, I guess. But yeah, we had to, and we had two members of our team, Devin and Erica, did an excellent job kind of mapping out how we would do this, what resources it would take to do it, how many resources we actually could afford at certain times where we were going to be really stretched thin on our cash flow to have enough people to make it.

7:03You need a certain amount of editors, a certain amount of producers, a certain amount of camera teams. Figuring out what shows can we make that we can block shoot that can be cheaper but still a high-value actual show to make. We certainly look to and talk to the guys at Dropout. Sam was very influential in sharing some tips about how they think through stuff. And also, the fact that what we think is going to be successful on our platform may not be what ultimately is. we're going to be making mistakes. We have to, to learn how to do it right. To simply answer your question of what does it look like that the team does, hard to say, because it's almost like there's one team doing two teams' worth of jobs, and there's no traditional-looking role at our office right now, because we have producers, but those producers have also been helped direct some of the art and graphic design and they normally wouldn't be doing that.

8:03We have another production head who's been actually mapping out how we would launch and how we would coordinate with the people helping us build the site. It's been kind of, I mean, it's hard to explain, and it's even more impressive to see happen because I'm not even sure how we're doing it all. Yeah, it sounds like the org chart is just a plate of spaghetti, essentially, is what you're saying. Yeah, it is. And honestly, they did a really good job of building out a spreadsheet that is amazing, but it hurt to look at. We feel like our jobs as the leaders of the company is to pick a direction and get everyone rowing in that same direction.

8:47It's been a really intense year, and I'm really proud of the team and what they've pulled off. You know, our production team has had to pull off really impressive and exciting shows. That's challenging both from a creative but also a logistical standpoint. Our editing team, you know, they are creating the blueprints for new shows, but then also figuring out like graphically, what do they look like? You know, our social team was doing the double duty of promoting the episodes we make while also thinking about the branding for the new platform and this new launch. So, yeah, as Keith said, a lot of interchanging parts, a lot of people wearing multiple hats.

9:28It was everyone coming together to be united. This wouldn't have worked if we didn't have everyone really aligned on a singular goal. And I want to actually just hop back to the algorithm of it all, because I think you know this. I think a lot of creators know this, but I think maybe some people don't know that there's the algorithm of YouTube that is like comparing shows to one another. right there's things that are looking for people making mr b style content so lots of people make that because that seems to rise to the top but also the algorithm is comparing your channel against itself which works really well to make one thing and make that same kind of thing and that i think it's optimized for what youtube even was built on and kind of trending back toward now which is like vlogs and single camera setups and stuff that you can really make and make the same thing every day but we have always operated as a network of shows and some shows have a certain viewership and it's 40 minutes long and some shows have a different viewership and it's an hour long and some shows have a different viewership and they're 20 minutes long so that is very confusing to a machine because it's like none of this is the same i'm just going to pick the one that has ultimately the longest view duration but not necessarily the longest highest percentage or is actually the highest earning or it's just there's a lot of those numbers going in on the back end and they really don't serve the type of uh entertainment company that we are so building a platform that operated more as a network serves a lot better how we do things and we're still on youtube still very much need youtube for lots of reasons both as a chunk of our ad revenue and business model but also to test to advertise to uh learn and also to entertain It's still a platform we intend solely on entertaining people on.

11:17But the algorithm is a complicated little thing. And for us, it has been hard because this is maybe going into the weeds. But we found it like, oh, if we just name videos, the Try Guys do this. Even if it's not a proper Try Guys video, it's going to surface better. But then that kind of made a lack of trust to the audience because not every Try Guys video then was created equally. So that had a diminishing return on trust. but it was what YouTube was encouraging us to do to have success. So that's like two different sides of success competing with each other directly. Yeah, and I mean, look, on the topic of staying on YouTube as well, I know that was something you all communicated a lot through the announcement video.

11:58You also brought up Dropout both as a company giving you advice as well as inspiration to a degree. And if we look at the last couple of months, of course, you guys aren't the only ones to launch a subscription streaming service. We've seen creator groups, including Critical Role and Watcher, that have gone down this route. What did you all learn from seeing not only their final products, but also how they communicated these launches with their audiences? The honest answer, I know there's a lot of people who are saying like, oh, we watched these and learned what not to do. The honest answer is we didn't learn anything.

12:36I think we were always very steadfast in our vision for what this was, what it had to be, what the third rails were, so to speak, that would incite the audience. That's, again, because of studying, like, learnings from people who have successfully done this in the past and just an understanding of our audience. It was always super, super clear to us that this only works if you add value and you cannot take stuff away. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID, and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info.

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13:35Yeah, I mean, off that, too, you know, we're talking Wednesday afternoon, and it's been about eight hours since you guys upload the video. How would you describe your audience's reaction so far? You're gonna say us because I'm like, we are tired. We are. We also had a party last night. We wanted to celebrate the team. And like, no matter what happens today, you guys should be proud because you worked hard. But as a result, we are so fucking sleepy. the audience seems to i think overall we have very positive response there's people who are really excited about it people of course who are like i don't want to buy that but i'm really happy it's staying on youtube and i still get to watch a lot of if not everything i'm used to watching everything they're used to watching on youtube they're still going to get so i think a lot of people are very happy that change is happening but it's actually not change that is detrimental to those who are not actively participating in the change.

14:30Now, my job is to incentivize people to want to join us on the new adventure. I think it is a way better experience. We have new great stuff. We have all the great stuff people are used to coming out early without ads, without sponsorships, without all that stuff that sort of like interrupts the flow of just watching a good show. So, yeah, I mean, I'm stoked with the reaction so far. We've gotten really good sign-up numbers. The audience is really engaged and excited. As part of this, too, we announced the expansion of the Try Guys cast. And so these are a lot of people that have been in our videos over the last year and change.

15:10And it's been wonderful to see the way that the audience has glommed onto these new personalities. Everyone is so talented and funny. For what we are trying to do to work, people need to be bought into this broader ensemble. So that, to me, has been the big takeaway is just seeing how excited everyone is to see this larger cast. Yeah, and this idea of, you know, being a network, building out that cast, that ensemble. If we zoom out a little bit and look at the broader entertainment industry, you know, when streaming became all the rage a decade or so ago, it innovated by breaking up the traditional cable bundle.

15:46right? And as we've seen the last couple of weeks, if not days, with streamers losing money, they're now all bundling up. Yeah, we're choosing an interesting time to try and jump into the streaming game, aren't we? Yeah, well, I mean, look, Comcast just announced this like Netflix Peacock and Apple TV Plus bundle, right? And it's kind of interesting that they're going back to the cable bundle in a sense. But in a way, creators launching their own streaming services is kind of becoming the new version of the original streaming model. And I guess, why do you guys think it might work, this streaming service model might work for creators in ways that it didn't for large entertainment companies?

16:24I think because, look, at the end of the day, we have lower overhead. We're more nimble. And I think, hopefully, we're not as greedy. We don't have shareholders. We don't have to answer to, we don't always have to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow the way that a publicly traded company like Netflix has to. I hate to get all soapboxy on you and say that capitalism is the enemy here, but that sort of seems like the common denominator. These companies aren't comfortable with their profits. They always need to be growing or else they're losing. There's also, look, they've been doing it for a long time.

17:02They're dealing with churn rate and people coming in, coming out. I'm sure that's something that we're going to experience down the road too. I think ultimately for us, we don't need this to be the end all be all. We don't need this to replace our business. We just need it to be another piece of our business. Every creator gets to a point where they need to diversify their income streams. You see that with touring and merch and what have you. But many creators get to a point where they make a product. Mr. Beast is a chocolate company. Emma Chamberlain is a coffee company. Logan Paul is making energy drinks that are bad for children and so on and so forth.

17:40We looked at it and decided that we didn't want to become a marketing machine for a product. We didn't want our time to be spent understanding consumer product goods and velocity of sales, all that. The thing that we are best at is making great entertainment. It's what we love to do, too. It's where I want to spend my time. And so that's why we decided ultimately we want our product to be aligned with our superpower. We want to make great shows. The reason that creators can sell anything better than on Netflix and Amazon at times is because there are people and the viewers feel so much more connected and are more connected to those creators.

18:27So whether you're saying you don't give a shit about Ted Sarandos. Okay. He's the one I love actually. No, it's like we already have Patreons, right? And even small creators before the Patreons of the world, there were Kickstarters. There was this connection of the fans who like this help the person make it and sustain it. So Patreon is definitely a sustaining model. I think that people who are like us looking at making their product just be the product they already have, which is entertainment. We do that best. We want to double down on that. that we might have more success than Netflix, but also we don't need to make as much money as Netflix.

19:08We don't have that size company. We don't have investors. We don't have shareholders. That's not how we are. So we are looking at this as one part of our business. It's not going to be the biggest streaming platform on earth. It can't be. We don't need it to be. It is meant to be a premium destination for the stuff that we can make for those people who really want to experience the best. And we also, that will allow us to make even better stuff and also sustain our company for as long as we can. We're a 10-year-old company business brand right now. That's a long time. Not a lot of YouTube entertainers, digital creators have this long of a run.

19:47There are definitely some with longer. We feel very lucky, by the way, got to say, but that is the case, right? To have 10 years on YouTube is sick as fuck. Love that. But for us to continue for another 10 years, our business can't rely entirely on top of another business that we don't control like YouTube. We need to diversify. We need to make our own thing that invigorates us as to why creators are doing this. I think it's because we have a different relationship with the people who watch our stuff. It's parasocial, but it's also a direct-to-consumer model, right? it's it's how it's how mr beast does sellers chocolate uh it's how we we then in a small chocolate company can't grow at that rate um it's it's it's a totally different economy that we live in and there's pluses and minuses to it but i think that is why creators are doing these platforms but i some creators are probably trying to do it to completely be the number one part of their business we're trying to do it to be a piece of our pie uh that ultimately leads to a pie that can be shelf-stable for longer.

20:58So will we see a Nebula or dropout bundle with the Try Guys soon enough? Hey, man, if they want it, let's make it happen. We'll see. I think first and foremost, we got to get our feet underneath us. But absolutely, look, I think we have a long ways to go to be considered in the same league of those guys. Both companies have achieved things really tremendous and inspiring. If we can aspire to even one-fifth of their success, us i think we would be very proud of ourselves yeah i'd be thrilled to drop out has had a nice like what five years now that they've been doing this that's incredible as well uh we're uh about nine hours in right now um it's going pretty well wouldn't say we're pulling dropout numbers and we shouldn't be uh it's really exciting like to make something new is really exciting we you know uh zach and eugene and i built the try guys brand everyone knows we made it a buzzfeed start a company it's huh oh yeah i'm gonna let me get there um and we built it together and then we built this company to support this brand but now this company that we built has made this second try platform is we are making this new era of our content and just the project itself has emblazoned our our staff to work together to have something to work toward it's like how making the fort in your living room is actually more fun than playing in the fort.

22:25Now I hope we have a lot of fun playing in our fort that we make. But the last six months has been about building something new. It's exciting. It challenges us. That makes us be more creative. We come up with new fun things. People come in in the morning and they're like, last night I thought of this. What do you think? We are all building something and contributing to it in a new way that we hadn't been able to make content and stuff before this. So it is like a new start for our company. And just any time you can make something so new and so big that it takes all of your company to learn new skills and get excited about and feel a part of it in a way that I think maybe they hadn't been able to feel a part of it before.

23:10We've obviously had some negative things happen to our company the last couple of years. So it's great to have a really positive thing to work toward, to inspire all of us together to feel like I feel that there's no way we could have done this without any single member of our team. Every single person was crucial to building this, getting this done on the timeline that we put together for it. And it will continue to take every single member of our team to sustain it and make it awesome and make it even more awesome and get people to join and help it become even more awesome. Yeah, I was going to talk about pillow forts, but Keith covered it.

23:51Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, sometimes you build the pillow fort in your living room and it becomes a couch that two guys on YouTube sit on and announce a new streaming platform, right? I'll have you know we will. Okay, I was going to say we did sit on a couch, but then we did do a bit sitting on a couch. But we were sitting on desks. Thank you very much. Yeah. Well, congratulations on the launch. Any other last thoughts or comments? I just want to say that it was a shout out to how excited we are again to have our new cast with us. Zach and I and Eugene. And, you know, Eugene is departing. And I think people are going to are knowing more about that as well.

24:29But we have been tremendous collaborators with one another for the last 10 years. It's been amazing. And I'm so excited for Eugene to be able to have time on his new projects. But I'm also so excited for Zach and I to have more creative collaborators. Because the Zach and Keith show is fun and good. But I don't think it's the best thing we can make. And I want to be able to make more things with new people's perspectives. And their talents and skills and their brains. And I hope we continue to grow. That that cast gets bigger. and that we have new exciting shows that have nothing to do with Zachariah because it's not our story to tell.

25:11I really am excited about the future. And a lot of the future has to do with new faces and new brains and new people. I appreciate the congratulations. But to me, this is the starting line. We've got our work cut out for us now. It's all about doing what we've always done, which is making great entertainment. if we can do our jobs I think that the audience will follow yeah well thanks to you guys for chatting and we look forward to following along with Second Try I did send a sign up code to Colin and Samir but if you want it directly you let me know yeah do I get that referral bonus or how does that work?

25:54you get that yeah we have a referral program for everyone who signs up using code Nate you get a kickback. No, but I've got that. I've got that hundo percent off code. You let me know. All right. I'm looking forward to seeing how sticky these listeners really are. Thanks, guys. Take well. Take it easy. Bye. So one of the biggest things that Zach and Keith cite as the reason to launch Second Tried TV, the streaming platform, is the YouTube algorithm. And I think that's a really interesting concept that the algorithm is limiting all the shows they want to make. Yeah. Look, YouTube is a video game.

26:36I can't remember which guest of ours said that. Ryan. Oh no, Tommy in it. Tommy in it. He said, YouTube is a video game. And in a way it is, right? You're following this algorithm. You're following the way that it moves. And if you want to succeed, there's an element of playing the game. And Zach said, YouTube forces the dilution of our videos, meaning that they're not able to make exactly what they want to make. He feels that they're putting out a watered down version that is better for the algorithm, but not necessarily maybe better for what they want to make and what he believes their audience wants to watch.

27:08I was thinking about this as I was listening. It's like YouTube for the multi-format entertainment company, because they keep referring to the Try Guys as an entertainment company. And I thought that was an important distinction. Like what they're trying to do is not make a show. When they were part of BuzzFeed, they were making a show, the Try Guys. They try something different every episode. It's the same guys every time. Now they're trying to broaden that scope and say, can we have a bigger cast of characters? Can we have more offerings from a show perspective? Multi-format channels don't actually work as well on YouTube anymore.

27:44There was a time where they did, where you could be like a network. Briefly. Briefly. We thought maybe. Yeah, or maybe that was the hypothesis. I think it was the hypothesis that you could have a network where you could have a bunch of different shows, a different show every day of the week with a different format and different hosts. But we realized pretty quickly back then, which was probably 10 years ago now, that that was not going to work. Some of those companies like Network A went out of business. That's right. Yeah. So you go, okay, what you actually need to do on YouTube to grow is one format or one type of format or something directed at a specific audience that compounds over large periods of time.

28:23to roll out multiple formats and specifically formats that aren't necessarily algorithm-friendly. They might be audience-friendly, but not algorithm-friendly. You do need to do that in another environment. And we've talked about that at length. It's like, there's a lot of episodes we wanna make that aren't great titles and thumbnails, but we think would make good episodes. And that's where we've been talking about this for a long time. Membership makes a lot of sense. You don't limit what you're doing on YouTube, but you do bonus content or additional content. Now, I do think what they're doing is so much more intense than launching a Patreon.

28:59Oh my gosh. Or like a, hey, here's some bonus content. They are straight up launching a streaming service with like multiple highly produced shows. Yeah. I mean, we subscribe to Second Try and they spent the last year plus making original programming. And as you swipe through, there are a ton of original shows. It feels like Netflix. I mean, and that's similar to the experience of logging into SidePlus, which is the Sidemen's membership subscription platform. And Jordan Schwarzenberger, the manager of the Sidemen, told us that's one of the largest parts of their revenue is SidePlus. Yeah. And that's great because it diversifies your business.