Creator Jerome ASF on 13 Years of Daily Content and Building Tech Companies

0:00I think you will see a large increase in content creators creating tech companies because it just makes sense. Everything that we do is behind the computer. It's all technology-based. Or even if it's in front of a camera of any sort, same thing. Everything about it is all technology-based. It makes sense for them to want to produce their own tech companies. Welcome to the Hot Start VC podcast, the show where we break down how celebrities and creators build billion-dollar brands. In today's episode, I'm joined by Jerome Asseti, a creator who has been streaming online for over a decade and has grown an audience of over more than 8 million subscribers across platforms.

0:32For the last 13 years, Jerome has uploaded a piece of content every single day, a level of consistency that few creators can match. He's also one of the most entrepreneurial creators I've ever met, having co-founded multiple startups, invested in others, and also became an LP in several venture capital and private equity funds, including Hot Start VC. We will talk about where his entrepreneurial drive come from, his latest company NextEight, a patent-pending AI infrastructure that protects ad campaigns in real-time at scale, and why creators will soon be launching tech companies over traditional CPG products.

1:05So without further ado, let's get into the conversation. Jerome, you're one of the most entrepreneurial creators that I know, so I'm super excited for you to be here. Thank you so much for being on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me, Scott. Perfect. So yeah, before we talk about the companies that you co-founded, I actually want to talk about your journey as a content creator. So can you tell me more about those early days of you being a content creator when you decided to publish your first piece of content and what type of content it was? Yeah, sure. So I first started uploading March 30th, 2008.

1:34So a little over 17 years ago. I began doing real life skits with my friends at the time. We were young, we were 14, 15 years old. And so they kind of lost interest in it. And so then I decided to try and bridge the gap between passions for myself, which was video gaming and creating content. And so I decided to start recording myself making gameplay videos. And that was very early on, still 2008, believe it or not, way back when. And ever since then, I've kind of kept up with that. I've fallen more to a niche of doing family-friendly gaming, specifically around like Minecraft, Roblox, games like that.

2:07But I've always kind of kept that gaming spirit about it. Yeah, it's interesting because normally a lot of content creators, the older they get, kind of their content evolves as well. But for you, it's kind of been like the same for a decade, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah, exactly. I mean, I started filming Minecraft for the first time, I believe, in 2010. And it was all of my content or a majority of it starting in 2013. So for the last 12 years, I've more or less, I mean, of course, you know, we, you know, create new kind of content off of it, right? It's not like it's just we're only playing Minecraft, but it's basically largely the same.

2:40Interesting. And when did you kind of discover or realize that this could be more than a hobby or side projects only? So I guess it started off, well, the best way to look at that is when it started to actually gain traction and produce revenue, which would have been back in 2010. I was still in high school at the time. I was a sophomore. But it started making okay money. I mean, for a high schooler, I thought it was great. Reality was it was making less than part-time income would be if I was doing this for a full-time job. But as a high schooler, I was ecstatic. And then that kind of opened my mind to the idea that maybe there are ways to keep on growing and expanding in the industry.

3:19And at the time, it was extremely new, right? There wasn't a lot really to go with. There wasn't a lot of like, I guess what we're looking for here is a roadmap really produced by anyone else. You kind of had to make your own way. And so we started looking for other ways to make income, which led us to producing our own shirts at one time back in, I think, same thing about 2010. And then we started making Minecraft servers, which are still around to this day and actually are still part of my, I guess, portfolio of companies. And from there, we just kept on looking for new ways to innovate and new ways to produce revenue.

3:50So it was around 2010 that I realized that there was a way to make this full time, but it was nowhere near that point. And then it wasn't until my first year of college towards the very end that things really exploded quick. And that was back in the beginning of 2013. So about five years down the road. So a lot of people think like, if I create a channel, it'll be tomorrow I can start making money. It takes a lot of time. So it took me until about five years down the road that it was producing enough income that I was able to say, hey, there's a real opportunity here. I'm going to drop out of college and I'm going to pursue this full time.

4:20So it was a little bit of a lengthy road to get there, but I'm glad it worked out. Yeah. And I think like to this point, I think what's really interesting about you is like a lot of content creators, like kind of are passive when it comes to making money. So they're waiting for brands to approach them or like they're waiting for AdSense or whatsoever. But already from a very young age, you were like, hey, how can I actually find new revenue streams? Today, you're a co-founder of several companies. You're an investor in multiple startups. You're even like an LP in several venture capital funds and private equity funds, including ours.

4:52So where does that entrepreneurial drive come from? Mainly the entrepreneurial drive, you know, I guess where it comes from, I'm not entirely sure. I know I've always kind of had that about me. Even as a kid, funny enough, my friends and I, we used to go. I remember back, I mean, we're talking like I was six, seven, eight years old. And there was a local golf course that we'd go to. And we'd go there at night. And every once in a while, golfers would lose balls in the woods. They wouldn't really care to go get them or fall into random places like detention basins, places that they just didn't care to go.

5:23And we'd go there and pick up the golf balls. And then the next days, we would set up stands on the side of the golf course and sell them to golfers. And we were like six, seven, eight years old, but we were still looking for ways to create like a business or, I mean, I don't know if you'd call it a business, but we were looking to generate income and I guess with a business. Yeah. I don't know. It always kind of was with me. It's something that always interested me being able to produce my own revenue, create my own revenue streams. I don't know why. I just know as long as I've lived, I've always kind of had that about me.

5:50And then mainly as well as I've been an adult, it's been the realization that similar to, I guess, an athlete, right? Content creators, they come and go. And we don't know how long we have to be in the spotlight. Like, even though my channel, yes, it does produce good revenue, and I'm still happy with the results, and for more so, it's a great passion of mine. But the reality is, like, my heyday of popularity was probably about 10 years ago, as funny as it sounds. But at the same time, that's why I always knew that this day would come, where it's important to have other revenue streams being built out, whether it be from just investing and, you know, collecting passively or being more actively involved by founding my own companies.

6:27So that's kind of where I guess that drive comes from. I think that's very smart. And I love that comparison where you compare yourself with an athlete because athletes, they often have like a career of 15 years and that's where they have to make all their monies. Like content creators also need to realize that because maybe they are 20 today, they're probably not going to be in front of the camera like every single day as much as they are right now when they're 40 and they have their families and that type of stuff. So like in those prime days, you have to make the most money and you kind of also have to set yourself up for success later on.

6:57So I love that. Do you think that every kind of creator should approach it like that? Because like most of them are just focused on getting the brand deals and the AdSense. But do you think like everyone should kind of focused on the entrepreneurial stuff besides it as well? I would say that not so much everyone should focus on it. I think a lot of creators absolutely should. And whether or not they have the entrepreneurial spirit or not, maybe then they need to hire someone who does, you know, within their team to build out those different avenues. I feel like the safest route, of course, you know, we all know, save your money.

7:26But I think save it and invest it wisely. That doesn't mean you should go and invest in wild startups or things like that. Although if you have the capital, it makes sense to allocate some into those categories. But if you're especially just starting out in your career, save as if your entire career is ending in a year. Save like that, invest like that, and then do everything you can to make sure it extends beyond a year. But save as if this is the only year you've got. And invest that money wisely in very safe, secure areas. That's a way you could set yourself up for life. I think in terms of entrepreneurial spirit, there are some people that just don't have that same driver spark.

7:58And those people, you see it all the time. I've had plenty of content creators, even friends of mine, that will start their own companies. And then they don't come at it with a roadmap or a game plan. They basically just make short-term cash from it, and then the entire company falls to the wayside. And it happens all too often. It's very sad to see. But I think it just speaks to the fact that I don't know if everyone has that same entrepreneurial spirit drive. or sometimes it's just know, you know, know how, right? They might not know what they're doing, which is why something like Hot Start, for instance, is such a fantastic fund because you guys also provide some services and help creators really maintain that company, maintain that brand and that revenue stream, which I think is so cool.

8:37But I do think that a lot of creators would be better served saving, investing their money in safer places. And also if they do have an entrepreneurial spirit or a brand idea or something of that nature, partnering up with someone who does know how to grow a brand. I think that that's vastly smarter for them. Yeah, I love the last part. And I think like now we can talk a little bit about some of the companies that you have co-founded. And we will talk about NextDite in a second. So let's focus on the other ones. But what I think is super interesting about you is that like with companies like Merch for All and Darknode, you have always found partners that are actually like operational involved on the day-to-day where you are just focused on your strength.

9:13Let's take Merch for All. So yeah, you provide like merchandising services for creators, but you don't have to be in the supply chain meetings. That's not your strength. Your strength is actually your network of creators. And that's why you don't have to spend 60 hours per week on companies like that while you're still a super valuable co-founding partner. So could you tell me more about some of the companies like other than NextEight that you have co-founded so far? And what does the structure of those partnerships look like? Sure. So for instance, perfect example would be Merch for All. We're just a merchandise solution company.

9:45I like to say we take care of all the boring side of merchandise while the creators get to have the fund. So we'll print, package, produce, set up online web stores. We take care of everything, customer support. The creator just has to focus on promoting the products and letting us know creatively what kind of products they would like us to have. So from there, you know, for myself, I involvement, much to your point, is more so on the actual client building side, which is getting other creators to sign on. You know, it's been by tapping into my network that we've been able to kind of grow such a such a company.

10:17However, at the same time, operationally speaking, you're entirely correct, right? Like, I don't know the first thing about actually producing merchandise, but we have a wonderful team where Anthony has done a fantastic job. He's the director of operations there. He makes sure that every single content creator, if they have a crazy vision and we've had some creators want some very crazy things. We've had someone want headphones with cat ears sticking out of them that were LED and he figured it out, right? So like he's incredible. He's a wizard with that. I could never, you know, piece together these different parts and find even what facilities could do this.

10:48So you got to find people you could partner up with that have those strengths. And same thing operationally, Ron is the one who actually leads a CEO. So as funny as it sounds, although I'm the largest shareholder in Merch for All, I take a step back as, you know, I don't, to be honest with you, I don't even know if I have a formal title there besides partner. You know, that doesn't really intrigue me to have like some kind of crazy chief title or whatever that, you know, I don't necessarily deserve. For me, my job is to bring in clients and, of course, make sure the company is alive and well. And then I trust the other partners in place who also have stakes to make the right decisions.

11:21And the same thing goes for, for instance, Snadju, which is a software development company out of Houston, Texas. You mentioned Dartnode briefly. Dartnode is a subsidiary of Snadju. And so same thing. Personally, like I'm a content creator, right? I don't know the first thing about software development. However, I know that the team there led by Zach is incredible and they know exactly what they're doing. He's a tried and true, you know, top level developer. He's someone who even has some of his code that's existing on the ISS, believe it or not. It's the International Space Station. Hard to believe, but he does.

11:53He's done incredible work. And so when you find fantastic partners like that to get behind, whether it be financially or by providing other services, make sure you, you know, you do that. You hold on to those kind of partnerships, those relationships, because those are the kind of people that are going to be able to lead those companies for you. So it's not to say that a content creator has to stay in their lane of actually doing something within the industry. However, you really should consider partnering with people who do know what they're doing in those avenues. It'll save you a lot of headaches.

12:25You know, same thing. We're only talking about, I guess, companies that exist now or are successful. But I have had more than my fair share of partnerships that have not partnerships, but companies that have failed some of them because I tried to do something way outside my lane and didn't partner with people. Sometimes I partnered with the wrong people, regardless of what it is. I, you know, you hear this all the time from entrepreneurs. I have vastly more failures than I do successes. Luckily enough, you only really get to hear about the successes. But, you know, you should be open and willing to try new things.

12:53Just make sure that when you do it, if it's something that you have no idea what you're doing, find a good partner to work with. And there's ways to structure it as well so that you can protect yourself. I know some people are afraid when they're bringing on a partner, for instance. Well, if I bring them in, I can never get them out, et cetera. Talk it through. Talk to the person. Always be open and communicative about what your fears are and what you want and make sure that the other person is aligned with that. It's just about communication when finding partners. I so often see this as like a creator or celebrity.

13:23They get in touch with like an operator and like after a 30-minute call, they're like, okay, let's do it. And I always say like, well, you kind of have to see like such a co-founding partnership as a marriage. And you always have to date before you can get married and have to talk about important stuff, about breaking up, about prenups and that type of stuff. So, yeah, I think that comment is spot on. So let's talk about your latest company, NextTide. So what is NextTide and what is also the founding story of it? So NextTide is kind of multi-layered. Right now, I guess to very quickly describe it, it is a product where we go out, we find advertisers.

13:56Advertisers such as, for instance, we've used our banner ads in state farm campaigns in the past. We have an active one out there right now we're working on with Welsh's. We've worked with a lot of premium companies out there. And what we do is we take those advertisers and we run banner ads underneath people's webcams for live streaming. The reason that we're kind of set apart is because you're probably saying, well, can't anyone do that? And in theory, sure, but the one thing we have is a product called LiveGuard. Now, LiveGuard allows us basically to use AI technology in order to test the tone of what's being discussed, hear what's going on, reading chat sentiment as well, and know whether or not a situation is unsafe for a brand.

14:34So let's say a creator was to be sitting there. You had a very family-safe brand. I don't even want to give examples, but, you know, let's say a very family safe brand and then a creator starts cursing or talking about controversial topics, things that the brand doesn't want to be associated with. In the past, what ended up happening is we have similar situations to an adpocalypse, which is what we call it in the industry when basically advertisers pull out for a temporary period of time because they're afraid of brand safety issues. And this has happened plenty of times in the past, actually all too often, even I think in this year has happened as well.

15:05However, for us, what we're able to do is with that AI technology, it identifies that and it actually turns off the ad. And the way it's able to do that is because it's integrated into the actual streaming software of the content creator. So it basically cuts it off near immediately when something like that happens, which I think is what sets us apart because brands can actually trust us as a brand safe product. And I think that's so awesome. I think what's really like an interesting insight here is that obviously the streaming market has been booming. And the market has also matured. Like today, like billions of hours of content are being like watched by others.

15:41But what you see is that the ad budgets, they've actually not increased. So what do you think is the specific reason for that in addition to what you just mentioned? In terms of ad spend, that much, I'm not entirely sure. I do personally believe it is because brands are a little bit afraid of that lack of safety. So as a, for instance, when it comes to even live television, they've had stopgaps in place for years and years and years. Normally, even if it's live, there's always a five to 10 second delay because it hits a studio. And if someone was to do something like that, it typically will get shut off immediately.

16:11So horrible things never really make it onto live TV. Whereas with live streaming on different platforms, that's not there. And we see it all too often where content creators will say crazy things. They will cause a big stir in the industry. And there is no stopgap currently in place. So I believe that a lot of traditional brands are a little scared to get involved in this industry just because of prior incidences that have happened. And it's really sad as well, because at the same time, and this is why it intrigues me so much, why I even wanted to be a co-founder in Next Tide is because for myself, I've done family friendly content for well over a decade, which basically is my content can be watched by anyone of any age.

16:51It doesn't matter. The content is not bad in any way, shape or form. However, just because I'm in this industry, when someone else goes off the rails and says some horrible things and there's an adpocalypse, I still suffer despite the fact that I did nothing wrong. That's because ad spend gets gets broadly pulled from the industry. It's not like they just target that one creator. They go, whoa, we got to reevaluate our marketing plans for this quarter. That's always the terminology they use. And then all these creators suffer because of it. And so we don't want to see that happen. We want brands to feel safe and we want in turn creators to succeed because when they're able to have that consistent flow of revenue, then you allow for more creators to take that plunge into being full time, to keep people gainfully employed and to keep focusing on what they do best, which is creating as opposed to worrying about how they're going to pay their bills because one random streamer across the world said something crazy and now all of us have to pay the price.

17:44Yeah, like it's a flywheel effect, right? Like the more money you can bring into the industry, the more creators can actually benefit from it and actually become full-time content creators and the more money you can make as a company. So it's like a win-win-win for everyone. I was talking to your co-founder Alexander and he mentioned this very interesting example of the application of lifeguards. So he, for example, said, let's say someone is called Dick and let's say you're talking to someone and you refer to his name. You say, hey, Dick, what is your opinion about that? A lot of people don't know if you're referring to someone or if you're actually calling him a dick.

18:16And actually your AI, your patent pending AI is able to filter that out. So what is it like to actually, as a content creator, to now be involved in a patent pending company? Yeah, no, exactly. And I think you have the nail on the head, which is why I used the keywords earlier, context and tone, right? So it's not just simply going to hear someone say a bad word, for instance, like you, well, it could be a name. It's not just going to take that and go, okay, time to shut off the ad. It can tell the context of the situation. Also, it can check with the chat as well. It basically takes all of these into account when deciding whether or not this is a situation that might be brand unsafe, right?

18:53Because if someone's name truly is Richard or nicknamed Dick and you say that, the chat's not going to be exploding or going crazy or going like, oh, my God, he said, you know. And so it's going to say, okay, everything else is calm. The situation is fine. Let's just let it go. So it's really smart. However, at the same time, it's one of those things where it's ongoing. That's what AI is, right? It's constantly learning. And so that's the importance of it. As these new trends and things develop, things that used to not be a curse word yesterday could become a terrible word today or used to have a different meaning yesterday could be entirely changed today.

19:25And so it has to be constantly learning. And luckily, it is. But to answer the question about what makes it so – I guess why I'm so interested – or I guess the question was more so about is it exciting to be part of a patent-pending company? Yes, because what we've done has obviously never been done before. Otherwise, we couldn't patent it. And so to be part of something that's kind of like cutting edge is incredible. And at the same time, to be part of something that's actually solving a problem in my industry, something that I've dealt with throughout my career is incredible. Like to me, there's nothing more fulfilling than when you've been a part of an industry for so long when you're ingrained in it.

19:59Right. Like as far as I'm concerned, you know, YouTube was kind of the advent of independent content creation. and that was back in late 2005. So as far as I'm concerned, I've been in the industry pretty much since its inception, two years late, but I love it, right? Like I feel fully ingrained in it and being able to solve a problem that has plagued this industry for nearly 20 years, it feels great. It's really incredible to be part of the solution. Yeah, and that's also what we always look for like at Hot Start VC, whenever we invest in brands founded by celebrities or creators, we always look for that authentic creator product market fit.

20:31Basically meaning like what gives you an edge or the authority as a creator to launch that specific company. And you have been a streamer for the last like 10, 15 years. So that gives you that specific authority. Can you tell me more about how your experience as a streamer has helped you to actually launch this company? Yeah. So as a streamer in a variety of ways, I mean, sometimes as simply as explaining to the other founders how it works when you're live streaming using a streaming software. I mean, we're talking, that's the bare bottom, right? You know, but just even explaining like how I use my software on a daily basis, being able to provide context of this is what happens when I'm like live streaming.

21:11And when there's an adpocalypse, this is how it affects me. And this is how you can pitch it to creators to help them see the value in the service. Another way as well is by actually connecting them with content creators. We have a network of a few hundred vetted content creators now. So if a brand comes to us, we can more or less find the right fit with a snap of the fingers. And if they're not part of that net, I can most certainly reach out and try to make them part of that vetted net. If they have specific content creators they're looking for. It comes from that way, as well as just being in the industry for as long as I have, you know, finding the right partners to connect with has also been something that I've been very good at.

21:47Like, as a, for instance, funny enough, one of the people behind developing some of the LiveGuard technology and some of our other tech as well is also the co-founder of the development company I mentioned earlier, Snadju, which is Zach. And so I've been able to kind of help piece together parts of the puzzle. However, that being said, it goes back to what we talked about earlier about finding the right partners to work with. Because what Alex does, he's our main founder, our CEO. What he does, I could never do. And I don't have that wherewithal to work in the ad space. It's truly another beast.