Building the Next Generation of Content w/ Max Levine (AMP Studios)

0:00I've seen really big creators on YouTube, the ones who are the most valuable. they try to become the CEO of a business versus focusing on their products, which is their content.

0:15Hey, Max, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you, Alessandro? It's all good. It's all good. A lot of moving pieces these days, especially with the economy that every day there is something happening, right? So we're going to talk about it, of course, in this episode. Max, what I do all the time, it is that I ask to our guests to present themselves using this thing called the MAP. Okay. And so basically, it's a very easy way just to tell about yourself by dividing in three different sections. Right. So MAP stands for Mission, Assumments, and Purpose. So the first one is the mission.

0:49So basically, what do you aim to achieve with your work? Achievements. Anything that you are really proud of. A notable milestone could be in your life, could be your career or both of them. and the purpose. So in addition to the mission, the purpose is going to be why you do what you do. I would say our mission is to build content that is brand friendly and uplifting and positive for the generation that is obviously growing up with the internet, whether it's Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and reach a critical scale and just impact those people in a positive way. From my perspective, when I was growing up, I grew up on Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and MTV, and we had more like linear formats that we would consume content in and that impacted how I perceive the world, ideally in a positive way.

1:33And I think we're trying to shape the next generation that's coming up through our content. So that is our mission. Fantastic. And what about achievements? I'm just really driven by relationships. So I think it's really cool. Like a lot of the people that we work with and again, we can kind of get more into the business and how it's evolved a little bit later, But we find the people who are the creators that we work with at a pretty early stage. A lot of them are in school or maybe they just had a job, like an entry level job, like working in a restaurant. And it's really, really cool to see how they've achieved their dreams and essentially build like wildly successful businesses from a very humble early stage.

2:11And I think just being on the journey with those people and their families and seeing how this industry and these opportunities have transformed those family units. I think for me, like that's kind of the coolest thing that I've gotten out of this more so than any award or meetings type of people. I think it's just really cool to see, you know, how those relationships have evolved and, you know, everyone's benefit. Amazing. And the last one is the purpose. You already said something about it, right, in the mission, but is there anything else you would like to add? Yeah, personally, like I just want to do something that can make the people closest to me proud, you know, whether it's my family or friends or the people that I work with.

2:50Again, like a lot of this is relationship based. Again, you said this is very small industry. A lot of people know each other. We want to do things where we can build relationships and have impacts in those relationships. So I think that's important for me ultimately. Fantastic. And so you said, you know, humble beginning, right? great uh sad jobs uh you know when you start you never know it's gonna get big right so tell me a bit more like how how did you start all these and so tell me a bit more about the beginnings right the history there and also what it looks like on a day-to-day for you and your team and also feel free to mention some of the names that you manage so also people can understand how big right it is the organic reach of your of your talents i guess like just for a little bit of context i and try to be like as high level as possible.

3:35I've been in this industry for the past like 10, 11 years, got into it when I was in college. Just find it like genuinely curious, like who are these creators or influencers before you and I knew what they were? Who are these people who built audiences? Started reaching out to them. There wasn't really like a landscape or ecosystem really built out at that point. I signed one of those creators. He blew up on Vine, was a top 10 creator on Vine when that was all said and done. Then I started a tech company around the space. And then several years into the tech company, you know, same thing with you.

4:04You were seeing like how this industry was maturing and evolving. This is back in 2017. And that grader who I signed, his name was Brent Rivera. He had an audience around 20 million. And we wanted to see if we can grow other creators and kind of train them to create content because Brent kind of did a lot of that himself. And he was kind of like learning how to create content himself or how to grow on these platforms or doing collaboration. So we wanted to see if we can scale that model. So the first grader we brought on was a 15-year-old kid from hawaii had 10 20 000 followers on instagram he was just filming his everyday life for fun whether surfing or doing fun activities with his friends and then that creator moved out here we signed some more now that creator has over 50 million and wow youtube aloni is 30 million and yeah he's essentially one of the biggest creators in the u.s now his name is ben azalart so bren and ben were essentially the first two so ben's now getting around 30 to 50 million views per long form YouTube video, which is obviously exceptional.

5:03And yeah, now we have around like 12 total channels in our ecosystem. A lot of the people we work with have kind of started off in the beginning, similar to the Brents or Ben's of the world. Like we find people with the right makeup, with the right mindset, really passion for this. And we essentially take a chance and invest in them, similar to like a venture orientated model or like a Y Combinator type model. But we really try to find outlier people who can lead to outlier results. and everyone's different. So you kind of get different results based off the person. But I think we've kind of honed in on those attributes over time.

5:37And now we're hitting around three billion monthly views. Our content genre is very like Disney meets MTV, like that audience. We're hitting three billion monthly views. We have the scale and audience of a major media business, but it really is driven by these collection of channels. So yeah, that's a bit about the business and how we kind of got here. Obviously high level. No, thank you for that. So you said 3 billion of multiple views, millions and millions of combined followers, a lot of different channels. You already said it depends by the person. You have to bet on someone, an individual, that this person has to be professional when it comes to consistency with content, finding their own niche or style.

6:19Absolutely. But have you identified any specific social strategies or formulas? Again, I know that it depends, all the time it's different, but have you identified anything that might work to go again from like 10 ,000 to potentially millions? And if so, is it changing? Because again, right, with the algorithm changes and the double format and everything. But again, I'm just wondering if someone out there that is a content creator is listening today, what can they do? I think it's just continuously evolving. I think the best creators, they're entrepreneurs. like I'm sure you've had to pivot and evolve your business several times over the course of your business and the same thing with these platforms like you can't be too dependent on one certain thing or one certain format because Instagram could change your algorithm overnight and you don't want to be left behind so I think the best creators and we you know we've kind of built this mindset where they want to adapt and evolve and if they're only relevant because they're doing one thing a certain way that they change that's not really the mindset that we want to develop so So we've gone through so many different waves of like Vine being a thing and then Facebook being a thing.

7:21And then TikTok is obviously more relevant now. But again, even on those platforms that are relevant, it changes continuously. So you have to evolve it. So someone who is adaptable, hardworking and really focused, that's important. Just because they're relevant now doesn't mean they're going to be relevant in six months. Like we've seen that time and time again. And how do they, you know, evolve? Do they, especially when it comes to your creators, right? when you work with them, do they once a week just like get in front of a whiteboard and start writing down ideas? It is primarily just like watching what is happening on social media to see new trends.

7:54And maybe more like, you know, what is the behind the scene, right? Because people see the final product and they think that it's, oh, whatever, you know, a 30 second videos. Yeah. Okay. You know, but then there is like so much happening right behind the scene. So is there like a process there? Is it like a specific flow? Is it like there is not a flow and then you go like random like essentially most of the creators once they're just certain you know scale they build out their own production team so they have production meetings just so they're kind of like planning out their slated content and they're always just looking at you know obviously their videos how they've historically performed how they can improve it maybe best practices of other creators in the space because obviously like it's it's kind of like a live experiment where like people are always trying new things and testing new things and some things work and some things don't and even just not even in our ecosystem I just think across the board like a lot of creators are willing to kind of share and like I've been to different like dinners you know outside of the creators that I work with and they'll just talk about YouTube for three hours I think at a certain point the first year or two at least the people that we work with they're just kind of like absorbing information and trying things out I think over time you kind of like hone in on, okay, like I kind of know what a process could look like.

9:06I have people around me who can help me with that, but it just takes time to get to that point. Hello. Is your brand ready to amplify its reach? Well, the Influencer Marketing Factory is here to do just that. We are a global influencer marketing agency helping brands ignite their growth from influencer identification to campaign strategy, handling legalities and agreements to managing shipping and logistics, we have it all covered. We work with hundreds of brands across different verticals from Fortune 500 companies to DTC brands. And we don't just stop there. With detailed ROI analysis, we help brands like yours measure success, transforming impressions into actionable conversions.

9:44You can find us at theinfluencermarketingfactory.com or just search the Influencer Marketing Factory on Google. And you know what also, something that I'm noticing, and of course, a lot of people working in the industry is noticing is that something like, you know, okay, content, right? It becomes like, you know, it stays like one of the most important things. But we all know that creators, influencers, social media talents, they want also to expand their revenue streams. They don't want to risk, right? And putting all the eggs in one basket. And, you know, of course, creating other revenue streams in terms of other social media.

10:19So, of course, you know, if you were only on TikTok, it's always better nowadays to be on YouTube and Snapchat and many other channels. but then many more creators are also starting their own brands right for instance we wrote a few articles on our on our website on our blog about you know influencer-led or funded brands for like you know beauty products fitness products you know there are so many right lifestyle products and so on so let's talk a bit more about that first of all why do you think that this is a there is a boom in influencer-led brands uh first of all and then later on i'm also curious to go a in more detail in depth in this and say like you know understanding should all creators out there do something like that when is the right time and how to build a brand but let's start just with the beginning so why do you think there is a boom of this type of brands made by yeah obviously it's been around for a long time like decades if you will especially on the celebrity side and then i think i don't know if it's 10 years ago or so but kylie cosmetics was kind of one of the first really relevant celebrities who was more so social first launching a really powerful and successful brand and i think there have been several that have followed especially after like the success of feastables and prime a lot of other creators see that they're like i want to do it you know myself however it's really really hard and also to a lot of those brands it's like i know prime is kind of going through some issues even though it's had a lot of success from again just like afar but it's hard to like run and operate and scale that type of business and I think the biggest thing is having the right partner and kind of trusting that partner and not trying to bite off more than you can chew I've seen it a lot like a lot of like really big especially creators on YouTube the ones who are the most valuable they try to become the CEO of a business versus focusing on their product which is their content they're kind of a little bit too focused sometimes on like hiring an operations team or trying to build out a sales team or trying to like build out a brand internally and they kind of get too detached from the product which is content the members start to fall and their overhead's gone up and then they're like oh crap like what do we do now like you know their business is kind of I don't say faltering but it's it's changing so I think for us like we just try to be really diligent about if we do do something we kind of have to know our lane and we have to work with people who have domain expertise and kind of trust them and also too sometimes it doesn't make sense to you know start your own brand from scratch sometimes it makes sense to like maybe work with a series b stage company that has a lot of traction just so like you kind of de-risk yourself and you might not have as much equity but it's not like you're putting all your eggs in a basket and it's essentially starting something from scratch.

13:07So I think it's a very nuanced conversation. And quite frankly, like not all creators should start their own brands. It's a very different track. We're doing one now, but it's kind of like that approach where we're just kind of finding the right part. And so since you said, you know, not everyone should, right? Let's continue with this. So let's say that this person is still like, you know, primarily, you know, focusing on the content, but they also want to, right? Say, you know what, I want to build my own brand. How does it start for you? Is it identifying a need? Is it understanding like, you know, because we know that certain creators, they make, you know, the easiest well could be their brand of coffee, right?

13:45Because, you know, oh, I cannot live without coffee, I'm going to create one. Then if I am a beauty creator, I'm going to, you know, create my palette of colors, right? And distribute them because it's based on a story that one time a tale or whatever, right? Then if you're into fitness, you can do maths and whatever, right? So either you go, right, with that, or sometimes maybe you identify a need, right, from your audience and then you give them what they need. What would be, like, have you noticed, like, is there anything that works better than others or I don't know, again, it depends, but.

14:16I think it depends on probably like the creator and then also like their content and their audience. Obviously, if you're a fitness creator, that kind of narrows what type of product you can and probably should be building. And then also too, they probably know that market a little bit more and where there's white spaces or where there's opportunity. and then it could make sense to get a few of the right audience with the right buying power and the right interests to kind of build something around that i think for us like we just have a very like mainstream audience to a degree so we knew like our audience is kids teens families so i think for us we're just trying to find we spoke to different companies in the space trying to find the right partners who have had track records of executing in certain categories we're interested in and then from there ideating on where there could be opportunities in those verticals and kind of leveraging their expertise to help us with that because again like we're not domain experts and let's just call it cpg but it makes sense for us to kind of lean on domain experts so we said that you know not everyone should do it if you do it you have to focus properly without forgetting about content right that it is what people follow you for you might need some support sometimes like you know, with third-party partners that can take care of things like, you know, logistics, creating the actual products and so on.

15:33With that said, when should creators start thinking of exploring, like, the idea of creating a business? Meaning, we all know that numbers don't say the total stuff, right? Because you can have, like, 10 millions of followers and then we saw people at Bitcoin with a meet and greet with, like, no one going there. We saw people making, like, t-shirts, even if ever like you know mills and mills on tiktok you know what we're like buying them have you noticed like is there a signal is there a point is there an a kpi is there something where you say okay we know that this is not just a passive audience it's actually a strong community that will be ready to like buy from you when you go live i think you can like test it with certain things like merchandise and stuff like that community is obviously important and i think sometimes it's kind of hard to gauge community on short form platforms unless you have a certain content genre around a really powerful niche.

16:29Like, for instance, I met someone a few days ago who has a sneaker-driven media company. They had 300 ,000 followers, but, like, those people are obsessed with sneakers and will probably spend their discretionary income on sneaker-related products or services. Right? So, again, it's kind of hard to tell exactly. I think it really depends on, like, the situation. But, you know, I think for us, we view it as YouTube is the biggest, at least for us, the biggest way for us to identify and figure out like how valuable our community is from, I guess, a consumer spend perspective. Because on short form, it's kind of tough, especially like if like just given our genre of content.

17:15But yeah, like I know for a fact, YouTube and Twitter, I guess like now X, if you have solid communities there, that probably can lead to the best conversion if you were to want to sell or have a certain type of product offering. And what are some of the other revenue streams that are seen? Like I read off like, you know, creators are investing in other companies. I know that some of them are also maybe taking, I don't know, like, you know, a board seat for a company, right? As a consultant. Others are maximizing on other, like, you know, again, let's say on Snapchat, right? What about your creators?

17:52I think from a revenue perspective, YouTube is probably the biggest driver across the board for us. You know this. I'm sure a lot of the audience knows this. If you can reach a certain scale on YouTube, it can be very lucrative. However, it's very hard to do so. A lot of short-form creators have trouble cracking that code. And especially now, I feel like it's kind of hard to grow by yourself on YouTube. It takes a lot, a lot of time. But if you crack it, it's the most valuable. Two brand campaigns, obviously, like working with brands and all that. then we have like a variety of different ways we can like license our content claim our content people are using it merchandising and then i i kind of view like an ip bucket where again if we're going to be investing in different businesses or advising in different businesses or launching different businesses that's kind of more like a longer game for us and we have like certain mechanisms mechanisms in place or partners in place to help us do that i think that can kind of lead to more outsized returns but you're not kind of getting like the monthly consistent revenue So this is like, you know, what is happening now?

18:51And I have a last question for you that I ask the majority of our guests on. I know that it's difficult, right, to answer, especially in a few minutes on something about the future of the creative economy. But are there any, are you seeing any new big trends movement happening? Like, you know, a few years ago, TikTok made a revolution after Vine, right? Is there anything else that are you either excited about that maybe people are not really seeing, but you are like, you know what, this is going to be the next big thing in the financial marketing slash creator economy. The industry is growing a lot.

19:22I think it's getting saturated on the services side of things. And there's like so many different creators now. It's kind of crazy. And I feel like there's a lot of young people who are entering the space and it's great. A lot of people can build a career, but I think it's hard to build really valuable businesses now if you're kind of starting from zero, just because I feel like there has been a lot of like venture backed businesses, but they're kind of, you know, just providing certain services or products or offerings to greater economy businesses. But I don't think there's a big enough TAM and a lot of other businesses that might have some value, a lot of them are service-based.

19:56So I think we're at a really interesting inflection point where there is a lot of IP that can be created, but it's probably going to take a little bit of a different approach. But I think we're in a really good spot because so many people can become creators. I just think it's really hard to cut through and build a really viable and really successful businesses, but you can do it. It's just, you have to throw the needle. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I would say that the barrier to enter, right? It's so like low these days, but because of that, there is so much competition, right? And yeah, you can go viral one time on TikTok.

20:28It doesn't mean that you are going to stay right in the long term. Exactly. Like I think the barrier to entry is low and you can get in and you can make some money, but to make, you know, again, to build a really viable business or platform, it's not easy. And is there anything that I didn't ask you today that you would like to share with us? Could be anything that you have on your mind when it comes to either your work or again, anything else in the future of this economy that is ever, you know, changing every single day? I do think the market that I sit in, it's kind of like the premium side on YouTube.

21:01And I think it's really interesting, like what's happening, especially just in the broader entertainment landscape youtube is just surpassed netflix in terms of watch time and all their content is user generated it's not driven by like you know like produce shows that they're kind of like buying and producing and on and so forth so like i know youtube is really trying to push how stars in their platform are like the new mainstream stars and also too just in the general entertainment industry like there's no new names popping out or breaking out like maybe it's like one every few years like a glenn pow or sydney sweetie i think that's what's so interesting about the space i know we did discuss how it is like very tough to grow to that scale but if you do reach that point there's so much more money and opportunity that are kind of pouring into the upper echelon of the market that again like maybe didn't exist five ten fifteen years ago so i think that's really really exciting and if you can capture that or be a part of whatever group capturing that, there's a lot of value there.

22:01So that's what I'm excited about, but we'll see. It's definitely going to be a fun road to see how that evolves. For sure. Yeah. I say the same all the time. We will see because we have something in mind, right? But you never know if the word is a new social media, if the word is something happening with algorithm, whatever, whenever, right? But you have always said to adapt. So absolutely. Max, thank you so much for joining me today. Congratulations on everything that you built in just, you know, these 10 years that is nothing compared to everything. It's everything when it comes to the influencer marketing creative economy, right?

22:32Because it's basically, it is when it kind of not really started. We know that it started before, right? But it's like, you know, a total number that was like 10 years ago. So again, thank you so much for joining me today. And thanks for having me. Of course. This was the Influence Factor by the Influencer Marketing Factory. And I'll see you next week.