494: Tales from a Crazy Decade on the Internet with Cody Ko and Noel Miller

0:00Hey Founder fam, before we dive into another incredible conversation, I want to share something really special with you. Whether you're just joining us or you've been following us since the beginning, you've been a critical part of our community working to change entrepreneurial education. I started Founder almost a decade ago with the mission to provide entrepreneurs access to the world's greatest business leaders. Our goal was to break down barriers to entrepreneurial education, and that's taken us on a journey from Founder Magazine to this podcast and beyond. And today marks the next step in that journey, Founder Plus.

0:35I'm proud to introduce you to Founder Plus, which is an all-access pass to each of our online courses and programs and their proven frameworks for success. It puts every strategy we've compiled from world-class instructors at your fingertips while connecting you to a global network of like-minded entrepreneurs. Founder Plus will take your business to the next level for today and tomorrow. So whether you've just joined our family or you've watched us grow from humble beginnings, We're really thrilled to have you join us in this exciting new phase of making the founder brand and this company the world's best entrepreneurial community to launch and grow your business.

1:16So finally, before we get into today's episode, I'm inviting you to come back, check out Founder Plus and go to founder.com forward slash membership. I'm really excited, guys. This is an incredible new evolution of entrepreneurial education and our mission is really to get as many of these founders that we interviewed to teach and also give back on the Founder Plus platform and really go more in depth with the knowledge and the experiences and the lessons learned that they're sharing all in Founder Plus. So guys, please go check it out if you're enjoying these interviews. That's it from me. I hope you enjoy this episode.

1:54Now let's jump in.

2:04fascinating exploration of human potential. Now. The Founder Podcast. Even the greatest entrepreneurs had help. If you want to learn from the most successful founders on the planet, you are in the right place. Branson, Mark Cuban, Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, Ariana Huffington, Steve Case, Gary Vee, Sophia Amoroso, Barbara Corcoran, Damon John. Learn from the greatest minds in business today with interviews hosted by Nathan Chan. This is not your average entrepreneur podcast. The founder podcast.

2:42The first question that I ask everyone that comes on is, how did you get your job? AKA, how'd you find yourself? How'd you guys find yourself doing the work you're doing today? We met, we weren't, we hadn't made any type of media together, but we met working as programmers around that time I was like doing standup and I was kind of like a self-taught programmer and Cody was professional iOS developer and we ended up working together at a company called Fullscreen which was also a startup it was pretty mature at that point though and yeah that's kind of where our careers together started. Yeah so we started making videos together because I think like both of us were creative people and wanted to do stuff outside of just like software programming.

3:40So we would meet up after work, make videos together, and then we would make shit on our own. And we were able to build an audience that way, to the point where we could then do it full time. And then from there, you know, we just challenged ourselves to, you know, evolve. So basically we went from making YouTube videos to or making Vines to making YouTube videos to making podcasts and making music to then touring the world and doing live shows everywhere. And then most recently starting TMG Studios together. So it's been a journey. It's been a lot of stuff, you know, up to now. But yeah. Yeah, this all started with like.

4:25Like, so I was, you know, I was on Vine. Cody was on Vine. And the story is that we, Cody had found my account. And really at that time, I was like a, I was very unknown. I think I had maybe like 80 ,000 followers. I think Cody had 5 million. And someone actually messaged me. They were like, dude, Cody Ko follows you. And I, and I, I didn't have an Instagram. Like this, Vine was like my first social media, really. So I'm like, who is Cody Ko? so i had to go like look it up and i'm like oh damn this guy's massive and then this guy sucks and then like you know then a couple months later um i'm working at full screen and uh the engineering floor was completely full you know there's no no real turnover and one developer had quit and some weeks later cody walks in the door and he sits right in front of me um and our media creation like started like on our lunch breaks so right around the time vine was dying cody was kind of ideating okay how do i kind of like move this audience over um and i was like making sketch comedy on my youtube channel so cody's like all right i'm going to experiment with like kind of like the other more uh uh i don't know like the spread of formats on youtube and so we would start vlogging and so you can actually go back and see us looking corny as in our early engineering careers, messing around on our lunch breaks.

5:52And what was your first video that popped, like you two as a duo, that made you go, oh yeah, we're onto something? I don't know if this is going to be appropriate for your audience, but we know exactly what it is. I don't know if we should necessarily be talking about it. No, no, no. We noticed that the reactionary format was something that people liked. So we found kind of a controversial video on Twitter and we can just kind of leave it at that. And Cody was like, well, why don't we try the reaction format like to this thing? And so we're like, sure. So literally after work, if you go look it up, it's just us two after work, just kind of shooting jokes on this video.

6:38And that was like the birth of like one of our biggest series on YouTube, which is that's cringe. and did you guys ever think it you you would you would make it this big or did you always know deep down or just kind of go with the flow or i think i mean i think the right answer to that is like you never really know what's going to happen but i think we were like willing to keep going until something did happen yeah and i also think like you know at a certain point we like i i had to I'm Canadian, so I had to get a visa specifically for content creation. Once I applied for that, I kind of knew like I had to make it work.

7:21And so and then, yeah, I feel like Noel was in a similar position where like when we started our podcast, it was literally like we both need an income from this. So like we have to do this strategically and we have to make this work, basically do all things necessary. So I think that attitude, though, is what has really worked for us and in continuing to be successful, I guess, is just like continuing to, you know, harbor that that mindset that we haven't made it yet. Like we're still trying to, you know. Yeah, I think you always hope that obviously some you always hope for success. but I think we never, I don't think at any point really took it for granted.

8:08We always knew that it's something like we have to work at. And, um, yeah. So, yeah. One thing that I found really interesting is I read this statistic, uh, around kind of young kids and one in four, or maybe one in three want to be a creator now or a professional YouTuber. And the reason I share that is because more than ever now people want to be full-time creators. And there are people that just have been grinding at it for a long time you know just as long as you guys but they haven't really kind of built an audience a community uh with the levels of engagement with the levels of influence and attention that you guys have what do you think sets people apart if you could if you could share any advice for any up-and-coming creators or creators that have been going at it for a while and it's not it's not where they want to be they're not even you know they're not working on this full time it's yeah i think i have a good answer to this i think i like the first thing i would say is keep going like i think history tends to favor those that just like continue to try but that being said i would also pair that with you can't do the same thing over and over again and expect different results so if what you're doing isn't working like iterate and figure out figure out your voice that resonates with people i think that's important i think we've managed to do that yeah and i think something that's important to know is um uh it's like a phrase that it's not my phrase like i've heard many people use it but i think it's super important to understand it's that the people choose so you can't choose to be famous you can't choose to be liked um people decide that and then they they may tell others and so on and so forth so um I think it's important to be like authentic to yourself, but not.

10:05So like, I think I would say if you've been doing the same thing for a while and it's not building a sense of connection or people don't relate to it, maybe functionally it breaks down to a couple of things. Like maybe it's the way you produce it. Maybe you should look at some of your peers and people in that space who do it well and maybe try to see versus what you're, what you aren't doing or try to identify like what it is that people want to see from maybe a certain topic or a certain, I don't know, person that represents something. But then outside of that, I think you shouldn't do what you think you should be doing.

10:41People can sniff that out right away. I think you should always be pursuing something you actually care about. Because that's, I think, above all what people really gravitate to is like true, genuine interest. and for you guys did you guys ever have any doubts in the early days if it was gonna work or you just always knew oh we for sure we for sure had doubts definitely i mean like like anything you know being a creator it's like this you know on the way up there's just like you know peaks and valleys and peaks and valleys so there's always those like periods of uh we're fucking up things aren't going well anymore and then it's just like powering through those and continuing to work hard and not let it get to you um but you know in the beginning those were especially obvious i feel like because we were in a place where it's like we needed an income um so i definitely like at the start of any new venture i think is scary and i think it should be especially in entertainment it's um you don't you don't know like entertainment is the least linear, I guess, I hate to put it this way, but like a product.

11:54Like, if you're selling a product, you're selling a service, it's trying to solve a problem. It's trying to deliver something. Entertainment, it's massively subjective. So you can't quantify what it is people like about what you're doing. Because in reality, people can like you for a lot of different reasons. So getting a lot of attention is scary, because you don't actually know what it is that they like about what you're doing. And so you're kind of having to figure that out as you evolve, which is something I think that's always been important to us. But yeah, in those beginning stages, it's very scary because we're doing well, but we don't fully understand the audience yet.

12:38So every move is kind of feeling like, I think they will like this. I think this will continue to make us successful. And so I think you feel the pressure just a little bit more. Hey Founder Fam, I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with OmniSend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e-commerce founders. We've been recommending OmniSend to founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling to seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results.

13:11Did you know on average OmniSend customers make$68 for every$1 they spend, which is an insanely good return on investment. And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50 % off your first three months with the code founder50. Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. It's funny you say that because it is still an iterative process though. Like you guys are looking at the numbers, like how deep are you guys going on the numbers and the data? like you you know mr beast right like supposedly he's manic obsessive with the numbers and the data and like like yeah do you guys always like that in the early days or yeah like like how do you understand your audience what they like is it you know it's it's the is it how deep do you go well i don't think we go as hard as mr beast i don't think anyone really does but i think we're both programmers so we definitely i mean i think i feel like i more than noel really like looking at numbers and looking at data.

14:12It's like, I, I feel like it, I speak the same language as the data. Like it just helps me, you know, absorb the info. Um, but like, like we used to say when we went on tour and we were in a room full of like a thousand people, like watching us on stage, like that will always feel different and way better than a number on a screen does. So, you know, as much as you as much as you try to quantify it, you never really can shed like a full broad spectrum perspective on like what it actually is. and I think like I think this kind of comes down to you know I think there's there's something important to identify there which is I think Cody and I would just try to stick to like pure comedy and what feels funny to us and that's purely a feeling and um you can reflect your personality and data a little bit right like oh when we make these types of jokes it seems to resonate with people.

15:14So maybe we can kind of hammer down on that. And so I think we do look at the numbers, but, you know, with a grain of salt, because sometimes we think it's fun to do stuff that maybe the audience doesn't favor, but it is overall, it is funny. And it's something that they can come to appreciate later. Like, you know, like yesterday, we started our podcast, and I thought it'd be funny if we just started like screaming like loud, because a podcast is supposed to be like soothing and calm and you know it's like little things like that like maybe the data would tell you don't do things to burn retention but you know so i think our goals are just uh they're not so data oriented we're always trying to value like i think what's what's entertaining yeah and when it comes to monetization you said you guys said you had to make it work what are some mistakes that you made in the early days that you could share with our community around monetizing content or monetizing your personal brand as a creator?

16:14I think monetization is really interesting because when Cody and I started, I would actually say, I don't know, Cody, if you feel this way, but it actually wasn't so clear and cut as to how you monetize. In that period, there were just ideas and a small amount of tried and true things, which was like merchandise, AdSense. And then right around that time, people were definitely starting to pay more attention to things like Patreon. So it didn't seem like there were a ton of ways to really monetize what you're doing. So obviously, we kind of went with those things. But I think to someone listening to this, if you have like a newer product or a newer venture, I think merchandise is the thing that people go to as like an immediate way to monetize something.

17:03But I actually think with the way things are now, I think you actually want to focus on like building that relationship with your audience and figuring out what it is they like about you and how they want to support you. Versus before when Cody and I were getting started, I think it was a bit more rinse, repeat, like do merch, collect AdSense, and then maybe you do subscription. Yeah, and I will say I'll piggyback on that and just say like, I think that people are still figuring it out, like as are we. I know some of the biggest YouTube channels are still figuring out like, oh man, if we found out last month that we cut up our stuff and put it on Facebook, we can double our revenue.

17:40So like there's so many unknowns still in this, like in the creator economy that I think it's a learning process. And from the beginning for us, it was just like, A, we want to make great stuff that people like. And then, you know, B, we got to figure out how to make money from it. And that was a learning process and it still is. And when it comes to your work, what don't people know that happens behind the scenes? I think I actually feel like people have come to see like if you're making stuff on the internet, they understand that you kind of have to have your vision on like a lot of different aspects of what you're doing.

18:24But I'd say the biggest thing is we wear a lot of different hats, like at all times. And to this day, we still get pretty granular, like every week, you know, we're still approving thumbnails. We're still, you know, hey, this segment feels kind of boring or, you know, let's let's trim that out. So it's like and then, you know, we have to hop over to the business side and kind of get high level and go, hey, for the network, we think we want to angle this direction in terms of subject matter and types of shows we want to bring to the platform. So it's like a really broad spectrum of work that we're doing on a daily basis.

19:06and um it's it's hard to quantify and some of it nuanced some of it isn't but i would say that's the biggest thing is when we record for the two hours it'd be awesome if that's all it was but it's not yeah that that and also like the the team the teams that we have also like yeah you know make a lot of the magic happen as well so like i think that's something that people sometimes don't realize like when they see someone they like posting super often is they don't see like the infrastructure behind it that allows you to do that because it's a really tough thing to create content like I guess at the length that we do like we put out like hours a week now so it's just like we have really really great teams that make that happen that we're very grateful for and I think that's something when you see us every day on your screen it's just oh that's them doing it But it's also like the people behind us and the infrastructure that we built as well.

20:05So I think that's important to note. Yeah, I'd say all together, I think between me and Cody's individual endeavors and then the TMG endeavor, I'd say it's probably a good like 30 to 35 people that are facilitating all that. And they do an amazing job. All right. So let's talk about the network model. So after 2020, you guys started to add talent, move into a studio. Can you talk us through that decision and also how you've scaled that out? Because I think that's a really interesting model and really the main reason we wanted to speak to you guys. Yeah, we kind of made a conscious decision like a few years ago.

20:48You know, our podcast had been going well. When we started our podcast, it was just us. like we were doing everything like, you know, we were buying the gear. We were doing poster pre-production, you know, filming it ourselves and then doing all the post-production ourselves and then all the channel management ourselves and everything. And I'm grateful that we did that because, you know, it taught us how to make a great show from the ground up. So we knew the ins and outs of what it takes to do that. And then along the way, we started hiring people. And then we made a conscious decision where we were like, you know, instead of at the end of the year kind of taking the money that we made as a dividend.

21:27Let's try and reinvest it back into the company and build this thing so that it can outlast us. And I think it kind of goes hand to hand in what I was saying before, where like we like to challenge ourselves and figure out what's next because I think it's good for personal growth, but also like career growth. Like we did with, you know, podcasts and music and live shows and everything. This was kind of, it kind of seemed like this was the next frontier for us. I think we both felt, felt that naturally. It was like, well, let's start a business together. Um, and treat it like a business. Yeah. Yeah.

22:01I think a distinct point for that was, um, our show had been growing a ton. Um, I think we were like consistently in the top, I don't know, 15 Patreons, um, for months. And we had up until that point, we were just kind of like two guys talking to each other and we inevitably landed on like okay we should maybe start to portion out some of this work and kind of take the load off of ourselves because we wanted to you know still have freedom to be creative you know together and and individually and so um we hired an editor and our first producer um and it was right around that time where we were kind of noticing things and we were kind of kicking around ideas and i noticed that we were running into this thing where we would kind of talk about subjects but we wouldn't maybe nail the personal subjects that we were really keen on like at the time i was still like an avid mixed martial arts fan and people liked when i talked about that so i said oh what if we created a tier on the patreon and we kind of start producing different segments and then i very distinctly remember cody saying oh like a network and i go yeah and um so we kind of like kicked around that idea then it just kind of like tabled for a bit and then we really wanted that next jump so when we decided to move into our studio um it was around that time where we're like okay let's go full beans let's do this network thing um let's take everything we've learned and start to build something where because our audience had grown so much we understood that they have a lot of different interests so we're like can we can we give them all these different facets of who they are as they're growing through like the TMG kind of vision.

23:47And then when it came to working with talent, how did you, how do you identify talent? We just want to work with people that are talented, that also resonate with our audience. Like that's the, I think that's the number one important thing when you're building a network is, you know, putting people in front of them that they will also enjoy and that resonate with them. I think that's, you know, that's what we've been really good at is being able to like stay within our lane, at least at the beginning. I feel like it's something in the future we can kind of broaden our horizons in terms of what types of shows we create.

24:23But I think for the time being, it's like working with people that we love, that are really great at their craft, that our audience also loves. And when you, as you guys have started to build out the network, have you partnered with any, partnered or brought in operational help and how soon did you do that? like i look at the nelk boys and the you know the partnership they did with the shahidi brothers and i you clearly saw their rise when they could just kind of work with people that handed a lot of the operations and the business day to day and then they just focused more on doing the creative side and kyle you know behind the scenes would be looking for talent and found more talent and introduced different personalities and stuff like that i'm just curious have you guys got uh at what point in time did you identify recognize you needed operational help on that side and start to build that out was that before the network was it during was it it's definitely during like in the in the beginnings of it yeah when it kind of got too much for us to handle it was sort of a natural progression for us to hire someone a little bit more senior so i want to shout out ryan right now i was on this call he's definitely helped us build out you know operationally um a lot of our infrastructure in that way and then also our agents as well have really helped us in terms of like identifying talent and helping assign talent so it's definitely something that we are still focused on us individually but we don't we also have a lot of stuff going on outside of team g studios so we have to like you know divvy up our time strategically and they've helped us do that what do you guys like what do you guys prefer if you guys could if you guys could would you just make content all day or you prefer the business side?

26:07I mean, like I personally, I love creative direction and I love building a voice and like, you know, crafting an identity for something. And that's a lot of the work I definitely do at TMG. And so I don't think just straight making videos and making media. yeah it's tough I really love like the blend of the two I love being able to wear different hats and work in different disciplines yeah I'm smiling because I think we both like just being busy and I feel like yeah so I feel like it works well for us to do both yeah because I think both of us just like learning about new things and figuring out new problems.

26:57And that's what doing both allows us to do like creatively and business wise. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying this episode and learning a ton. As you know, in this series, we interview some of the greatest founders of our generation to find out how they did it. However, if you're thinking of starting your own business and you want to hear from some incredible stories from everyday people like you or I, who are actually in the trenches, only been building their business for maybe one year or two years, like they're building right now and they're really in the early stages, but they're getting success, you should come and check out our new podcast From Zero to Founder hosted by our community manager, Molly Flynn.

27:40These are in the trenches stories from our very own successful students that have gone through some of our programs. People just like you who are deep within the process of building their very own successful business. these are the founders of tomorrow you can find the from zero to founder podcast on all platforms and remember it's founder without the e all right now let's jump in the show i also heard there's a story that you guys got to share with me uh around you parting with elon musk tell us about that it was very short-lived we um it was our first time meeting post malone and um he invited us to meet him at a uh a bar in hollywood uh it's called the rainbow bar and rainbow room kind of hanging out or i've heard it referred to both ways but okay maybe it's all i don't know either Anyway, we go there and we meet Post.

28:43We meet some of his friends. We meet his manager, Dre, and some other folks. And we're all kind of hanging out. And I think it's like right around 2 in the morning, Post looks at us and he goes, you want to go to Elon's house? And we laugh and we go, sure. And so we go to Elon's house, I guess one of his houses. and at this time he was still he was dating grimes so we we go you know we're in their place um and it's just it's very odd it's just like us posts his folks and then elon like he's literally just right there and we didn't say much to him outside of hey and um at some point we felt it was time for us to go you know it was like five in the morning we were like sitting in the middle i feel like it was like elon's trying to talk to post because that's who we invited over and we were just in the middle just like kind of like yeah totally just like why the fuck are we here and i think we ended up leaving at like 3 a.m or something right that was later but either way it was 4 a.m i don't know it was late but it was like a weekday and we were like our fucking girlfriends are waiting for us we gotta leave yeah it was like four in the morning and then um uh the funniest part is as we were we didn't know how the hell to get out of there so when we were trying to leave cody's like i'm gonna ask where that where the front door is which is that's how crazy this house was you don't know where the front door is and um he cody walks in the kitchen and he just catches elon and grimes like making out with each other and cody's like i think we'll just figure it out i'm just gonna head out yep talk to me around kind of um i know some people will find this interesting how far ahead are you guys when it comes to your you know pipeline and content creation do you guys do stuff on the fly constantly like how does all that work because you put out a lot of stuff i i'd say like i think a lot of i don't know some people like our batch recording and we'll like our like months you know ahead of their posting schedule i think we're like the complete opposite our production pipeline for our podcast is one day so we record and it comes out the next day and uh then personally for our individual stuff it's kind of the same we're pretty we're pretty nimble when it comes to um content but i think you kind to have to be in our in the lane that we're in like it's good it's better to be like more topical i feel like um so yeah yeah i think we i think something that feels better to us too is like keeping whatever we're making like authentic to who we are at that point in time um and that's something i care about a lot too is like as of recent i'm like working on stuff that's taking a little bit longer to put together and when i go back and watch it i feel weird because i'm like Like, oh, I feel like I've even learned so much in the last couple of months.

31:46Like looking at this feels so odd. But yeah, yeah, we are the dead opposite. We like real time, quick turnarounds. And when it comes to the numbers in terms of views, do you guys have strong emotional attachments to those view numbers? If they don't hit a certain number, it gets you down. It hurts. It's like a punch to the gut. like like you beat yourself up but like talk to me about that because i hear or i've seen creators talk about this do you guys experience that i will say you you'll probably hear this from other youtubers that like the feeling of a one out of ten it's like that's a special feeling that happens pretty rarely nowadays like i feel like you'll hear that same sentiment from a lot of people it's like oh i'm two out of ten today i'm like one out of ten because the youtube analytics like gives you your like how your video is performing compared to the last 10.

32:43So if you get a one out of 10, it means you've like knocked it out of the park. Right. So like on one hand, we still look for those. Obviously, when we get one, it feels good. But on the other hand, like content is just like everyone posts so much nowadays. It's so like free flowing and constant that it kind of feels like it's just part of the game. And people realize that now some episodes just get less views. I feel like it was more performance was individual episode performance was like more of a metric that was focused on in the past. Now it's more of like just how many people are aware of you and what you're doing, you know?

33:22Yeah. I also think that all the short form performance metrics have like really skewed people's perceptions. Like I don't actually think it's normal to have media viewed by millions of people every single time you upload. That's like kind of crazy. Interesting. So you guys aren't tough on yourself really? Like it doesn't affect you and like it's not that level of obsession? No, I mean, it definitely, it stinks. Like when you upload something and it's just nine out of 10, you're like, but yeah, it like. It's more of like an onto the next one type of thing. Yeah. Right. That's how we've learned.

34:07And I think like anyone gets to that point too, like we've been doing it now for like 10 years. So it's like, it's like when it happens, it's still like, ah, fuck. Like I worked hard on that one. Okay. Let's figure out what, what happened. Let's, let's make it better on the next one. You know, I know we're talking a lot here, but I think for anyone listening to this, I think something that Cody and I have benefited from is attrition. We've been in this a long time. And I think we've learned to not be hard on our heart on yourself. because again like history like Cody's pointing out history favors those who continue so rather than getting caught up in ah I messed up this one time there's plenty of opportunity to like keep pushing so yeah yeah and what's your most craziest most viewed piece of content to date across the network I think it would probably be a girl to find honestly that that video to this day has probably been memed the most amount of times out of anything we've done.

35:05And we still get people today. I think that was six, seven years ago. And still people come up to us and are like, the Girl Defying video, I watch that every day. I think, honestly, it's this hilarious thing where there are people who maybe just got into college that are just discovering that video. And they may flag us down in public or i may do a show and they i may walk out of the venue and they're like dude that girl defined video is so funny that's how i found you and i always laugh because i'm like i'm such a we are such different people from when that thing was made i know and like i laugh because i'm like you have like seven years of media to catch up on but i but i appreciate it yeah no i appreciate it for sure i do i think i think like we sometimes like meme on ourselves because you know like the stuff you do you cut the stuff you do in the past you kind of always have to cringe on because if you're growing and learning and developing and stuff like that it's like you kind of always have to look at yourself in the past like what are you what were you doing so we like to meme on ourselves but we're definitely still appreciative of people that watch that series and and like it and a lot of people are like it did something for me you know like those were the best videos ever and so we appreciate that yeah i think that's a rite of passage right like if you look back on your work 10 years ago you're embarrassed like i looked at like funnily enough on the weekend i found like my first ever video interview with the shittiest camera it was just a joke and the person yeah yeah it was bad it was that yeah and you're like you're like what the fuck were we doing yeah like i don't think we'd ever yeah i don't know but yeah i'm i'm happy they still exist and i'm happy people enjoy them when it comes to working with a brand or a business that you guys partner with what do you look for and why huge sacks of gold coins money no i'm kidding i think something i think something you'll hear echoed again from a lot of youtubers is like when they work with buried treasure that's what youtubers say buried treasure money we want to yeah no good good good good they want like a brand to let them be them and i think like that's the ones that the partnerships that we most like doing is when people understand our like comedy and our sense of humor and our brand and kind of let that shine.

37:44Yeah. Like we've done a lot of, we've done a lot of them that don't do that. And those are always like the most miserable experiences. But then the ones are our most fond ones are the ones where we get to like create stuff that we're actually proud of. Like we did a, we did like a series of videos with eBay that we like self-produced and they kind of just like let us do their thing. They gave us like, you know, their concepts and what their like brand points were, but we got to just like go to town and we did. and we were happy with those how those turned out so i think like those are always the best partnerships we actually remember that partnership like pretty fondly um because i would say of all the ones we've done that was like that was one where not only did they um let us be ourselves but like they gave us the budget to do it like they were like there's literally like carp launch worlds your oyster and um for like a huge brand like that to just fully trust whatever we wanted it to do.