How to Make it on YouTube in 2025 (Jack Conte Interview)

[Music] you have said we might be witnessing the death of the follower there's a new discovery layer of the internet and I think that has like massive implications every time we hang out I think it's so bizarre that you're like a tech CEO the smartest people in the world are often wrong oh it's now more possible than ever but maybe it's not I wish more creators knew that and that that's my honest opinion that's one of the best ones I've ever heard I can't have my creativity pay my bills so what do we do name

another business who doesn't get to reach their customers it doesn't have to be that way like it just doesn't have [Music] to all right jack KY welcome back to the show yo thanks for having me returning guest returning guest yeah it's been a couple years it has been yeah so you have said that we might be witnessing the death of the follower yeah can you explain that yeah the last 3 to four years on the internet um have been very different than the previous years on the internet and to be as quick as I can

about it one of the main things that came out of this era of web 2 this first wave of like social media companies Facebook and 2005 YouTube you know um Instagram was this concept of the follower right where like I would follow somebody and then every time they publish something in the future I would see it so it's like as a fan I'm like signing up to like vote for what I want to see more of in the future and that's kind of like how the internet was sort of organized for many years you can

imagine like different Publishers and creators sort of building followings and people talked about followers and that's kind of how it was mostly until Tik Tok came around and Tik tok's main Innovation I think that the red herring is that it was vertical first short form video that that's that wasn't the Innovation I mean it was one of them but the main one was this concept of like the for you feed which is okay you know this concept of followers like or you have a feed of people you follow like forget about that we think Tik

Tok we think we can build you a feed that you're going to like more and you're going to spend more time on than if you chose who to follow and it worked people spent more time in that feed and traffic started siphoning off of YouTube and Instagram and onto Tik Tok and all the Legacy social media companies started freaking out trying to figure out what to do about it and so they all replicated this concept this core concept of like okay let's build a feed for you instead of you choosing what's in your feed for

you kind of became this new thing and now people don't really spend time in follow- based feeds anymore and it's it's so hyper uh focused on Discovery that essentially what's happened in the last four years is YouTube Built shorts um you know Instagram built reals Tik Tok is out there doing for you Twitter built a you know algorithmically curated feed um called for you and the net impact of all of that is you almost can't reach your followers anymore as a Creator you like make a post and you know one to 5% of your followers

see your post I think that's bad for Creative people I think it's bad for creators like you can't build a community or a business if you can't reach the people who chose to follow you in the first place and I think what a lot of creators are realizing here is like oh this isn't my audience I thought I was like building a following building an audience you're like renting that audience from the social platforms like it's not your audience it's their users is what it is and as a Creator that's like a a hard place

to be and that's really transformed over the last four years to the point where we are now which is essentially the follow is just not really a meaningful thing anymore on the internet I I agree with you that that's taking place and whether it's on short form or long form we speak with very established YouTube creators that are looking at their analytics and they're telling us hey I'm still fighting for viewership here but when I look at my number of returning viewers to new viewers I'm actually just getting more and more new viewers and less

returning viewers so I definitely see that happening for me though I wonder is the death of the follower just a consequence of the maturation of the creater economy the fact that there are like way more creators than there have ever been and maybe the demand for Content has stayed relatively stable and like the supply is able to be taken care of by a smaller group of people making it harder 100% I think what's generally happened is um the platforms have basically realized that novelty and Discovery drives session time and watch time um and if your

metrics are session time and watch time which are the metrics that drive ad Revenue which is the core business model for these platforms then you can drive ad Revenue by by over rotating toward discovery which is what I think has happened but to be clear like I don't think Discovery is a Bad Thing Discovery is great there needs to be Discovery mechanisms there are Discovery mechanisms mechanisms on patreon um there need to be algorithms like I'm not anti- algorithm I'm not anti-is discovery I'm not anti- new creators like all those things need to happen it's

a matter of balance right it's a matter of like what other business name another business who doesn't who doesn't get to reach their customers like that's not how it works that's not that's not right it's not fair there need to be and again I'm like you know I'm preaching patreon's gospel here so you know got to take what I'm saying with a grain of salt but like like as a Creator I want a place where I get a deterministic line of communication to my core fans if I don't have that place I can't build a

recurring Community or a recurring business um and so it's not a matter of like one or the other it's really just like do I have a place where I can reach those core fans and those and those most important like members of my community and business um or is it so over rotated toward discovery that uh that I can't reach them at all okay so I have a couple of a couple of thoughts here one as we're talking I'm starting to feel like isn't this what TV was when we were kids like like essentially the

platforms are the networks they dictate what is on our screens yeah right which is what we had when you wanted to watch MTV you didn't have a choice of what was on you just watched MTV and they told you what was on yeah um so like is it actually just a really short period of time where independent creatives got to publish their work and Reach people almost without obstruction like are we talking about a very short amount of time that we had and then the the the second bit here is like isn't it's almost also

I guess it's all reminiscent of a traditional model where like green lighting in Hollywood right where it's like there's a lot of steps for you to get your work seen or to even have the opportunity to build fandom like we were all we are all Lucky that we caught that moment where we could just upload stuff and it was all experimental right yeah I mean when I think about it's so I don't if you guys ever do this like you know my band pus that started publishing in 2008 um scary Pockets that started publishing in

2017 my personal solo channels on YouTube where I started publishing like 2007 um I think back on those times and I'm like that was so easy like it felt so easy back then like the bar was and part of that is cuz like the bar was so much lower the stakes were lower Stakes were lower it was there also weren't that many people doing what you were doing like toally found out about this thing YouTube and you're like oh I can upload here so here's the thing though I don't like I hear what you're saying

around like was there this kind of Magic Moment in human history where like we had this chance and now it's done I don't think that that's not I actually don't think that and here's why I think like if you just think about Creator demand it's like just like free market stuff um creators want to be able to reach their communities and build businesses and and have strong communities that is a huge need and there is a lot of demand for that the internet will catch up to that I think we're in a little bit of

like a a pendulum swinging moment so I don't think it's like actually I was like struggling with the title of the talk because death feels so final it's I think the more the more like true descriptor would have been like the dip of the follower like but that's a little less it's also specific because I believe right now all the two things are happening one is short form content is driving more algorithmic Discovery and extremely long form content is actually filtering for familiarity yes and followership meaning podcasting is at its probably alltime high in terms

of cultural relevance um cultural impact but also saturation and and also saturation but the but the big podcast it's like when I open Spotify to listen to a new pod or listen to a podcast yeah the chances that I'm going to listen to a brand new show are almost zero I'm going to go to a show I'm familiar with that I've been following for years so like I think that two things are happening because same with YouTube as content is getting longer and longer and longer if I'm going to commit to an hourlong piece of

content I'm G to be familiar with those people right totally and and yeah one way to think about it um is that like there's a new top of funnel sure like we thought top of funnel was like YouTube but now there's like a layer on top of that yeah yeah um and what what ended up happening is like Tik Tok like somehow moved up right is like there's a new discovery layer of the internet and I think that has like massive implications for what it means to be a crater in 2024 versus a crater in

2019 or 2020 um because to your point like if you don't take advantage of that Discovery layer then you're probably losing out on a lot of audience and like you know business opportunities and like that's a great place to like find other people who might like your work that's kind of where people are uh like uh you know if you think about his Amoeba Records like when you're going through bins like that's where people are going through bins right now um is interesting is is is is in short form it's the top of funnel also

think it forces you to figure out as a Creator what makes you unique and stand out from the sea of content like yours because I keep harping on this but I think like competitiveness is also what's happening like yes the platforms are making changes based off what's good for business but also like on Tik Tok if you're into gardening content on any given day you may watch a Tik Tok about gardening and there could potentially be like 10,000 other videos that would satisfy you that are very similar right and like that's a problem too that

like there may be like 10,000 people making similar content looking to build that community so this is we and we've talked about this before I don't remember if we talked about this on the show but we we definitely have talked about this before my one of my beefs with the way that works with with Tik Tok is that it isn't about the Creator the atomic unit of the platform is not the Creator it's the Nugget of 30 second entertainment and so in a sense it sort of commoditized the Creator like the producer of the content

is kind of irrelevant on Tik Tok it it's it's more like what you just said was like any of those 30,000 things could satisfy my 30C need to be entertained and I yeah I by the way it sounds like I'm probably like crapping on short form content like that I I I think it's a very valuable thing and I think it's like a really good um in some ways there's there are some really great things about it for creators pomp moose has taken advantage of short form and I I want I probably watch more Jack

kti in short form vertical now than than in long form right because you're doing those cool animations on your short form and like I really enjoy those you and most people actually right like people are seeing you know are research shows that more people are seeing short form than long form now people are spending more time on short form than long form the strange thing about that is people are less likely to pay for short form than long form they don't value short form as much as they value long form but their hours are being

driven to short form and it makes it there's like a tension there as a creater between like Discovery and business and that tension will always be there right um but there is something like really strange about this uh this like business model dichotomy that I think we're seeing right now where it's like what drives the short form ecosystem is AD Revenue which is a time spent metric and that makes sense to people and so people like that and so they spend more of their time in short form but if you ask them what they actually

value in their hearts and if you look at what they actually pay for it's longer form more meaningful media we talk about like a very anecdotal qualitative metric of memorable views versus forgettable views and that's just like I think plain and simple it's like at the end of the day what did you remember I actually that's one of the best ones I've ever heard I one of the things I want to talk about today is like as a Creator now like what are your metrics of success or do you even use metrics of success because

I think there's an argument that's like don't worry about metrics as a Creator um but like some of the metrics of success that I think are more relevant now like it used to be like follower count subscriber count was like the thing I don't want to say that's meaningless now but it just doesn't matter it's kind of a vanity metric like it's this cumulative score that just builds over time and it's kind of it just is not indicative of like nuanced conversation it doesn't matter it still matters in the context of like Topline advertising like

when when when it when somebody looks at you I don't know how long it'll matter but in like it does tell a story so let me push on that though because and I'm talking about brand deals and sponsorships I'm not talking about platform Revenue so even for brand deals and sponsorships like I think a more relevant metric is something like your v30 oh I agree it's a more relevant metric I'm not saying that is the most relevant metric I'm saying it still plays a role it plays a role in first like I think even if

Colin and Samir is doing the same average viewership but we have five million subscribers I think we're having a few different conversations and we've had conversations with creators that have taken off very quickly on YouTube and they're they might be doing 500 to 700 50,000 views on average but they have 130,000 subscribers and it does change the rates they're able to get because they're new to the market yeah 100% And and yeah it's I think it's what you're pointing out is true which is like it is it's wrong to think about these things in a

in a binary way it's not like it matters or it doesn't um I I think there's there's a second question know that's like what what should I use to like gauge my own success and what do I optimize against and I think I think more like when I think back to like YouTube 10 years ago and what I was doing and like how I was operating and then this sort of wave of like retention editing and like there is a path that is like optimizing against follower counts and I don't want to say that that

path doesn't work it works well it it can work for a lot of people views are available it's available but but but there's there's more that like is more mat matal and matters more and now when I you know the internet's like we're talking about 20 years of of creators and media on the internet at this point like if you look at the creators who have been around like a very long time and been through waves of the internet technological changes and um there's like a spirit and a heart to a lot of that work

that has like persisted and I'm not saying they never chased metrics um because like I do that too I think we all do that to some extent but like even you guys like you make important stuff that that is like memorable and meaningful and you can't measure that with subscriber counts and I think it's just important to keep that top of Mind as a Creator because it's very easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole of optimizing against a single metric I think there's two things that are distinctly different but have been misconstrued as the

same thing which is strategy and creativity yeah totally because like Tommy in it when he came on our show this is years ago he said YouTube is a video game and I took a step back and I was like he is correct this is a this is a game and people who are really good at Game Theory or like if you look at some of the top creators are people who grw up playing video games they understand that oh actually these are levels and if I if this then that right right and let me just

I mean game theorist like Matt Pat and Stephanie or some of the best right but I'm saying like you know you even talk to to a Mr Beast or um or lwig and you're like oh these guys are really familiar with game strategy and so they understand this how this landscape works and and I think um creativity to me is is a bit of a it's a different thing and and strategy and creativity they can mix because I think at at at the top level like a lot of creativity is problem solving yeah but I

think we've jammed them together into one word of like being a Creator that's such a good point that is not actually like I really when I think about I grew up playing in a band as well um and I think about when we used to write songs that is so different than coming up with the title and thumbnail for YouTube oh my God it's so different writing a song is is a very creative act and you don't even I can't even explain when I look back at how songs were made between me and my four

friends I have no idea sometimes it would start with me playing a small thing on my guitar and my best friend Mike would play the drums and I'd be like that sounds cool and then our you know basis would play something someone would write lyrics and all of a sudden these things are happening that you can't explain I also think we don't talk enough about the fact that taste is a long-term strategy oh yeah right like we creators ask us like should I be optimized or should I not and I'm like I don't know I

think you should go with what you like and we don't always do this like I wish we did and we're getting better at it over time but I'm like choose what you like and you may get less people but you will filter the people that like what you're doing more and that's a long-term strategy but it is painful it is the game of comparison hard to say game is painful what makes that harder is that algorithmically even if you're making what you like you will have a lot volatility right like if you stick to your

guns with taste and you're like I'm going to ride this out and just make what I really want and build the community you're still going to have to deal with the fact that algorithmically you're not even going to reach the people every time that you that would like your stuff so that's why I think it's so important um and again we're getting into like what do you do about it but like I think it's so important to play the long game as a crater like every video is a swing like and some swings hit and

some swings don't but what you at least what I this is hard but what I like to think about is a Creator is like the 10year portfolio of my swings does that compound into something that like I'm proud of and excited about and motivates me which I think are um things that if again if I were starting again in 2024 I would I would lean more toward those things 2025 2025 oh God 2025 no it happened fast Jack like I I would lean more toward those things because being a creater is a long game it

takes a long time to build something valuable and meaningful to people like and you go through phases cuz the internet goes through phases and like if you have that Anor of like this drives me I love what I'm doing it it fits with my soul and and and I'm not just being woooo here like there's a way to like people say like do what you love Follow Your Passion that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is like following this a sense of taste as a strategy and staying true to that soul that is inside

you gives you more longevity it you you want to keep taking more swings and it allows you to actually operate over a decade which I think increases your chances of success in in being a Creator the only way to do that though is to not build a big business and that that's my honest opinion like I don't think you can hire a bunch of employees get a studio and because now you're living in a world what are you talking about no but but but but this is what I'm talking about is that I think you

have a and I want to get to your report because you talk about the research you guys did yeah we by the way I asked our team like can can someone print me out this data report it was 280 Pages yeah we we we did a huge a huge did a huge report yes so I I'm gonna need you to help summarize it I did not read all P all the pages but um there was one that really stuck with me which is like over 78% of creators feel algorithms dictate their creative decisions um I

think that's actually uh very true I think it's very true for us like we C we can have an awesome idea and we will sit and go is there a title and thumbnail for that and if the answer is no then it's like that idea is dead in the water yeah and that that is what it takes to pay the rent here you can have a creative impulse and go yeah I would love to make that but then you look at your balance sheet and your p&l and you go but we can't make that right

and that that is where I agree with you in longevity the question that I'm asking myself is how long can I not make the thing I'm excited about um I you know one of my most creative friends who made you know amazing concert visuals and um just like the most creative dude I I know left monetizing his creativity and got a job inputting data into spreadsheets so that he could be creative because he was like I can't have my creativity pay my bills and I think that's that's the the the burnout conversation the long term

is like when I look at our career mhm I look at it in the context of how long can I have my creativity be responsible for my bills and my employees because that's strategy I think this is the Crux of it and like again if you zoom way out there will always be tension between Artistry and business I believe it is possible I know it's possible and we have the data to prove it to build systems that have a better balance toward Artistry um and right now my sense is that the way and again I'm

just I'm on my high horse here about the internet the the way the these apps have constructed themselves the metrics they have set the layouts of the apps my argument is that that is worse for Creative people and creates an unnecessary amount of tension in their lives and it's not even about algorithms again I'm not anti- algorithm Patron has algorithms in our app right now that are sending millions of dollars a year to creators they're live in the apps and they have been for years and we just launched you know explore and Discovery and we

have a little module in our feed that like recommends creators and like there are good versions of this of these types of technologies that benefit creative people and then there are versions of these technologies that push people to make stuff that they don't want to make over 80% of creators right now are talking about this feeling of burning out and where that comes from is this tension of feeling like I have to make for the algo as opposed to making for myself and then you look up five years later and you look back at your

catalog and you're less proud of it and it doesn't feel as good and you feel pressured to do things that are outside of what you want to do and then you burn out um and and that like that it doesn't have to be that way is my is my argument like it just doesn't have to but is that a symptom of making it quote unquote feeling closer than it ever has been this fact that like you can look at people who do things that works and if you are creative you're like I could make it

as some form of an artist whereas like before platforms and algorithms it was so clear to you it was like yeah you want to get into Hollywood you want get into the music business like right you're out of your mind yeah like good luck and you internalize that as like I know like I'm I'm playing clubs with no one in it I get it right but even for you the moment you saw a YouTube video you're like I'm going to put my music on YouTube it was literally the moment I saw a symptom of like

oh it's now more possible than ever but maybe it's not okay so maybe it's actually similar no actually pre platforms maybe it's not as possible no wait wait wait sorry no no cuz I I I I actually cuz yeah I I realized that sometimes when I talk about this stuff I sound Doom and Gloom and I'm being devil's advocate here like our show is so Pro Creator like you you can I believe you can so so ju just just just be clear about this today literally today is the best day in human history to be

a creative person and tomorrow will be the best day in human history to be a creative person and that is going to continue for a very long time and that is what I actually believe in my heart of hearts I don't even have to stretch to like believe that it's what I actually believe if you want to just compare being a creative person now to 20 years ago to 40 years ago to 100 years ago it has been like creative tools have become cheaper and more ubiquitous think about how much it cost to make a

record 100 years ago uh actually you weren't making records 100 years ago you know 50 years ago or to make a movie or to make a movie you know versus now um and then like the fact that like you can order this mic on Amazon and it shows up to your doorstep in a day like like creative tools are more ubiquitous cheaper than they've ever been um people are more connected it it's easier to find people that want to see or listen to your work than ever before in human history um and the economics of

creativity are changing dramatically right like the the even just like direct to Fan Market of the you know the crater economy is like over $150 billion Market I think it's something like 174 billion dollar market I'll check the data in a second um and that's just a piece of the overall 290 billion Doll Market that is the creater economy that includes ads and brand deals and and sponsorships and that type of thing that was not a thing 20 years ago 30 years ago and it was not available to a a 12-year-old kid growing up you

know in their bedroom in the middle of the country somewhere so like like hands down now is the best time ever to be a creative person I I I just want the internet to be better for creators that's what it comes down to I just think that and this is again I I don't want to sound like a cynical person but I am like a I am a creative who got into this world because I deeply wanted to make it in some way as it like expression as my business because when I was young that's

that's like I wanted it to be music when I was a kid does it not feel like you've done that no it does it does but as I'm here now and in this I look at it and I look around and I'm like when I see a young creative person I just want them to understand what the reality of it is and I don't know the most creative people I know I think would make the worst Creator business owners and that so sad but I you I'm saying I think there's a different way to monetize

when you are a truly creative person right because I think there's a level of Entrepreneurship that has entered into our world of um you you like the the biggest creators are also like they're media makers yeah when media making is different than creativity I just think all these different consider itations on a spectrum of I am the most creative human being to like I am the guy who thinks you should make another Spider-Man because that'll put butts in seats right we call that like a artist to distributor Spectrum right like a programming executive who knows

what the audience wants next yep and an artist who doesn't care yes um you just have to understand where you lie on that spectrum and that dictates how you build your business truly I think if you're all the way over here then maybe it's you and you have someone who helps you and you are more fanf funded and that's great and if you're all the way over here you hire 100 people and build multiple formats and you build like a jubile right where you have like tons of shows and you can build all this stuff

it's just depend I just think everyone needs definitions to understand themselves because I didn't understand myself when I got into so one way to think about that and we've now seen this right we we have you know hundreds of thousands of creators building businesses on patreon yeah I have talked to oh God I don't know how many thousands of creators you know over the last decade um and you know what we have seen is there's really what you described sort of like if you had to Cluster them like three rough uh Creator profiles there's like

the I don't want to um I don't want to think about money I don't want to even talk about money I don't want to like think about business I just want to like make beautiful films or I just want to play guitar like I just want to like do my art it's like ultimate like focus on Craft on the other end of the spectrum there's kind of what you're talking about and I would describe it as um very outcome oriented creators where it's not that they don't like the craft they do like the craft but

like you know if you were to ask them like what is the most important thing to you they would tell you the metrics for their business that they're trying to move right now and then their various shows that are moving those metrics and like they're super like goal driven and outcome focused and then there's this is like middle crater in between and truth be told I actually think I'm I'm in the Middle where for me like I love making things I love telling stories I love creating um and like I you know I I I

like writing music I like making videos all that stuff I also really enjoy the business of it like I really enjoy building businesses um I really enjoy that pomp Mo has figured out how to be profitable over the last 20 years and that we've been able to hire a team I really enjoy that scary Pockets has like figured out how to build a live business and how to build a membership business and how to like I get excited about it because it feels revolutionary it like history like when when you're Paving A New Path as

a creator for your business it is the first time probably in history especially when you were starting and when we were starting like yeah 10 plus years ago everything we did felt like oh my gosh we were like one of the first people to make this type of business work for this type of content and it just felt like is everyone seeing this yes you know like is everyone seeing what's happening like one of the most frequent comments that we get on any P video is like uh they're able to like make records because he's

the CEO of patreon um and I always want to say to these people like no like pomp is a separate entity and it's a profitable thing and we've like figured out a business model that that actually works um and I think it's because I want people to like see that it is possible working when we were selling soap Yes USB drives with our music yeah like I really want people to know that um I love the uh I just want to relate on this thing because I can't believe how many times you did this but

in your death of a follower talk there's all these images of you playing music to empty bars and clubs yeah I did that once at the Cobalt cafe in kenoga Park yeah it was one of the most uncomfortable painful experiences that I've ever endured yeah I I that my three bandmates will remember it too yeah um our parents drove us there and when the curtains opened it was just them right and like you're in the middle of your set and you're like sh I still should I keep going or should we just end after one

song yeah but I bring that up because there's this graph that is the Colin and Samir Channel over the past eight years yeah and for five years it's a flat line five years this is viewership this is viewership five years we made videos that in the world of Internet relativity nobody watched 500 to to 2500 views for 5 years that is playing to an empty Club um especially because you don't even have the feedback of the guy behind the bar being like that song was pretty good man you know that experience um so actually the

guy behind the bar when I was playing Left actually was empty this is too loud yeah but but keep going so I think um I'm curious about the endurance for that in this era now I'm so psyched to talk about that yeah let's talk about that because that endurance I think we had Marquez talks about of like you really want to be a good YouTuber you have to enjoy shooting Hoops in the park by yourself 100% right and it's complet creative people are so irrational that is irrational Behavior to go five years in your late

20s and early 30s with making stuff on the internet that you're getting no signals that it's working okay so so I I can't believe this but what you just shared this is pom's graph over the last 16 years okay this is seven years of flat land for us this right here was when we started this song per week thing that we did in 2018 which was sort of like chapter three of pom I won't get into these various chapters but that was a thing that like happened to work was that your first recurring format uh

yes I mean our story is pretty similar that is like any Creator watching right now a format unlocks the world that's it yeah it's like it's it's consistency yeah the format is like a repeatable thing that you can do over and over that's like a double every week so I think in the line with like the move from platforms to from follower graph to interest graph which means uh I think we defined this but if we didn't it's like here's what I follow versus here's what I'm interested here's what the algorithm is going to recommend

to me I think YouTube also moved from and and actually all platforms yeah moved from your channel being kind of like a multiformat netor work right to being just a show yes right like I think actually a good YouTube channel is a show yes and everyone who is trying to develop I also think like an Instagram channel is a show a Tik Tok channel is a show yeah uh you look at people like Adam FaZe uh in New York who's building shows on Tik Tok they a show called boy room which is essentially it's like

almost old MTV formats that are getting you know changed where uh this host goes into a boy's room it's messy she remodels it that's a show and so I think that for formats are the the the key because of that because session time matters so if I can go from one episode of song per week to another episode of song per week to another I'm spending a lot of time and I'm giving a lot of signals to the recommendation algorithm that I will stay for this show but it also may be the best way to

build fandom yeah for sure as well right because like the moment we went week to week on this channel with interviews with creators or episodes where Samir and I are talking about creators it was like oh I can depend on them yeah right there's dependability here every week and then we could start to see in the comments okay we actually are building a community there's inside jokes I think one of the obviously one of the first people that that made that clear to me was neistat when I was like yeah consistency over time is a

lever like it's a it's a growth lever for a Creator and I want to be careful about saying that because there are also a bunch of creators that I deeply love who do not have a format and who are not Beauty rules Natalie Lyn format gaw does not have a format they have a style they have a style serious dedication to style and taste Bobby fing that's their filter for do you want to continue to follow I can close my eyes and imagine a gox video 100% style yeah it's it's style but but but it's

not repeated every week at a certain time right he like he puts I mean I think there's a difference between like putting a boatload of effort into every bespoke piece of media that you create as its own snowflake and Story versus putting a bunch of effort into a repeatable process that like is a single every week but you're defining also this the spectrum because I I don't I I watch GX but I don't know much about how he operates I would assume he doesn't have an office with seven employees no he has a family and

his dad holds the camera for him sometimes his brother stands in for him while he shoots you can do that you can do that I'm not going to do repeatable format I'm not going to have consistency when you are an artist MH because you can go two months without making something yeah and go it doesn't matter yeah if I didn't get any AD Revenue this month who cares right it's all good um but as a business owner with recurring cost it's like no that really matters so what what do we do what what happens next

because there's some studies that say like the Creator economy is growing it's going to be bigger and bigger and bigger there was also a Bank of America study that was saying that less and less people are putting content creator on their tax forms and I think my prediction is that incredibly creative people who have solved storytelling on the internet who like making YouTube videos or Tik toks they might become the next great creative employees right in marketing department or like they'll use that skill set in that way the independent Creator operator I either is going

to capture way more of this The Lion Share of how the Creator economy is growing Goldman Sachs says it'll go to 400 billion by 2027 yep like I don't know if that is if if the Creator economy growing means more creators or more money to the top creators and I'm curious what yeah tell me okay so so I I do have some thoughts around this so okay so first of all yes we we largely agree over like 400 billion by 2027 and I'm looking at our uh addressable market analysis right now 2024 is around what

is addressable Market meaning for or for any Creator the Creator economy like how much money is is going to creators how much money are creators earning right now and in the future classify a Creator in this in that definition I mean is that a media company too like is does VI is Viacom a Creator YouTube no so so so the the way we think about it I mean there's a number of things but at the end of the day is like are you managing a community online and producing recurring media and like trying to build

a business around that um and yeah so we we sort of segment it into two buckets there's like the um one way to think about is like Brands ads sponsorships like anything where a company is basically paying you for eyeballs that's like one piece of the creater economy and the other is like your fans are paying you um that's like a consumer payments portion of the crater economy that portion of the crater economy we believe is around like at least uh this year $178 billion of fan payments to creators in one form or another across

all of those categories does that include like a Shopify or no like like if a Creator like Amanda R Lee who has these incredible doodle journals she makes YouTube videos about journaling and sell journals uh yes not all Shopify creators will be in included or merchants or siphon yeah there's a portion of them that are sort of more like digital media creators and that portion we would count in this analysis got it okay um so that's like patreon kajabi gumroad a lot of these platforms where people are uh pay Walling content or creating memberships so

the categories of fan payments that we see are membership which is around 28 billion which is like I'm going to pay you for your media that you're producing and you have bonus media available like um three of your episodes are free and one a month is behind a pay wall um or you know the first 30 minutes of your episode is free and the next 30 minutes is behind to pay wall if you want like the full Deep dive conversation there's a bunch of different strategies now around fremium and premium segmentation that creators are doing

right media companies are also doing this when you read like you know the guardian now or or um whatever you Netflix Netflix ad supported and everything is premium there's exactly almost everything the the so the internet emerged going back here the internet emerged as free because the the sort of tech companies that won the first version of the internet were like information should be free and then they thought of art as like a subcategory of information for like the first 10 years and artists were like no that doesn't work for us like we need to

be paid for our work and media companies right need to be paid for their work too and so I think what we're seeing now is like chapter one was like everything is free chapter 2 is like um like people are getting used to paying for stuff online and actually when we ask fans now would you pay a Creator um that you that's like one of your favorite creators I think it's something like over 80% of fans say they would pay their favorite Creator and then something like over 70% of fans somewhere around there say they

would pay um one of the creators that they follow so consumer payments has sort of been yeah I want to say essentially like normalized over the last 10 years on the internet but the big categories are paid membership at like 28 billion digital Commerce is another big category that's like um I want to like I'll pay for um wallpaper or I'll pay for an ebook or I'll pay for like um a specific episode even if I'm not getting recurring streams or I'll pay for um you know some type of uh some type of extra information

that I can get in a in a PDF or something like that just to put a tangible example there the yard I think is a great example great those guys make an extra episode on patreon they have public numbers they make 23 ,000 a month yep from their membership that is no joke yeah obviously you don't get fan funding without algorithmic Discovery like they have they play the YouTube game really well buil you know large dedicated Die Hard fan base are able to now have fan funding at that scale right the platforms have fan funding

as well right so like what is the relationship between like a YouTube and a patreon of course they like support each other right like in the in the case of the yard it's like it's good for them to have algorithmic Discovery and fandom that then comes over to patreon totally how do you see that playing out uh when you have like potentially a Spotify going into like more fanf funding options or YouTube continuing and maybe making their Channel memberships a better offering the creators who are like serious about building a membership business we see them

leaning away from those products and it's it's I don't want to pretend like they're not competitors because they're certainly trying to compete in that area but like I'm not losing sleep over those products because what we find is if you're really serious about building a subscription business or a Commerce business or you know any sort of um direct to Consumer business creators are skeptical of putting all of their eggs in one basket one of the things that we've seen happening recently is like creators are starting to diversify channels of communication and diversify business lines to

sort of deal with the ebbing and the flowing of all the things that are happening in the world um and so one of the reasons that you know people are coming to patreon and building business on patreon is they trust that patreon is going to be more stable through all of that versus like their income fluctuating Up and Down based on changes to distribution right so um so yes they are a lot of those companies are launching consumer payments offerings and subscriptions Instagram has it Tik Tok had it uh you know Facebook has it YouTube

has it but but what we're seeing is like the the it works for like casual boost to your income the serious creators that actually want to like segment their offering into premium and premium are really using some other service like a patreon uh to do that I think one thing that's not talked about in that context is just culture like I think you have to imagine the verbal call to action and subscribe to my patreon is a uh culturally accepted term yep m and I'm I I think that's something that is not discussed and I

don't know what it looks like to discuss a feature in a in a tech company cuz I really haven't been a part of that but if I was a part of that I would do practice calls to action right of like subscribe to my channel membership is not a culturally acceptable thing to say on YouTube it's just not it's not something that creators say so you have to now say like how could we create a culturally acceptable term uh and patreon has had years and years and years of brand building in that context so I

I think it's like a again I always try and think about the more anecdotal like qualitative cultural components here like I would feel I I would feel comfortable saying that I probably wouldn't feel comfortable saying something else yet right uh just because people are unfamiliar with it and like subscribe to my YouTube channel is a uh now it's almost like you can't say it because it became so you know commonly said yes like this video these are things that are culturally acceptable to say on YouTube yeah so you just have to think about like what

is culturally acceptable or what would be culturally cool if we spent five years building it mhm that's a big piece of it it's like what are other creators doing yeah and what is kind of known in culture and now a lot of YouTubers kind of know what patreon is they know there's going to be a membership they know it's like you know some type of exclusive media that they can get access to and also has worked really well in like I'd say I don't know if this is correct but comedy podcasts have led the charge

in my opinion totally cultural acceptance of patreon and comedy being a uh type of content that is like racy and and can be uh can be at odds with platforms so that builds like a really good narrative for there's also something to them looping in as perks like access to tickets and going which I think is like a good thing and speaks to like probably the future of fan funding too talking about before we started recording was like events right and moving in that direction too right yeah podcasting has worked really well on patreon and

I think part of the reason it's worked well is because it is episodic in nature which means it's easier to segment into some portion is free and some portion is paid right because it's like I'm just making more episodes I'm not relying on any one episode to go viral so it's not like I'm putting a really valuable thing that could be my next 10 million you know view like episode also marginal cost of production yes yes exactly that's the most important thing there is that it's overwhelming to say hey double your output but it's not

if that means 30 minutes a week right same thing that you are already doing exactly from an audience definition standpoint in terms of creation you're looking at it as like okay this is actually the most core right so I should know exactly what they want to hear in the context of fan funding does twitch subscriptions fall into that or no twitch is so specific to gaming that I mean yes it does like it is it is subscriptions but again like I just think about kais like over the past I would say 18 months like one

of the most culturally relevant people to emerge from the Internet is Ka and during his subathon I mean crossed 350,000 twitch subscribers like that is in a form fan funding right that's like taking out your credit card or also a very socially acceptable one yeah again a very socially acceptable form of fan funding you know I really don't even think of it as fan funding I know that's like where YouTube started like their product that they launched in 2014 was called fan funding and like and and and I get that I don't think of it

that way now and and we don't even like we don't it's funny hearing you guys say that because it's it is so different than how we talk about it inside the company interes um what we find is like fans want to pay um for exclusive content and exclusive Community I don't even like saying the word content exclusive media and exclusive Community it's really what fans want to like pay for um and so it's less about like I don't know fan funding has like Crow Fundy kind of roots like the pages that are like crushing on

patreon they're not going out saying please support us they're going out saying if you want our extra episode every month you can get it um like th that like business model has kind of emerged as like a very successful business model on the platform it is different than like where patreon started right like 10 years ago it was more in the like fanf funding like Spirit support our journey exactly which is kind of where it started but what we've seen is actually like that's not where it's evolved to and that's not kind of what like

that was a piece of culture back then it still is a piece of culture now it absolutely is I'm not saying like that doesn't that model doesn't exist but like the the the podcasts that you're referring to that are like you know um doing really well on patreon they're the ones that are offering real transactional value to their fans who really want to pay them for that media because they love it and they get also get access to the exclusive community so the language less support us on patreon more join our patreon forx and we

see both right like both are still happening but I I guess I'm just pointing out that there is a bit of like a cultural evolution in like the psychology of it and what it kind of is meaning to a lot of creators and fans right now like people are a lot of fans are getting used to paying for the exclusive media now which just feels it feels different than fan funding doesn't it feel reminiscent of when I was a kid like I asked my mom to pay for the sports bundle on TV you know what

I mean like just the the amount the sheer amount of subscriptions we are paying for right now feels like there's going to be some level of Correction as there was during the TV era right already started already started it's already started and and yeah like largely we see even of a of a Creator's super fans you know maybe 50 to 70% of them aren't willing to pay with a subscription um in other words they are a super fan of the Creator but and they would buy merch and they would buy tickets and they would download

an individual episode or they would buy a piece of wallpaper but they wouldn't pay a subscription payment for media and and so one of the things that we've been thinking about is like okay how do we help creators build businesses with those fans that don't want to be like subscription based but they are core fans of that Creator and they do want to participate in the Creator's Community that's why we launched like free membership which essentially a follow and we also launch Commerce which allows those fans to sort of do a one-time payment as opposed

to subscription so I think it's really important for creators to realize like there's not one fan profile right like there's different types of fans that are willing to pay for different things and I think having like a diversified business makes a lot of sense if you're starting out in 2024 actually first I think you should like find media Market fit 2025 damn it I keep doing that but like here let me show you um let me show you p Mo's you know uh Revenue distribution and I I removed the the Y AIS here but just

just to illustrate a point um you know here's okay so here's here's and and yeah I think this a good point like this is scary Pockets Revenue distribution um can you see that so like this is live for scary Pockets like meaning live live shows live shows yeah like for us like that's that's our that's a focus and that's like a big business now this is like really low margin Revenue you have enough time so so I don't I actually don't we can't do that we can't build a live business if it depends on me

going on tour so we have an amazing like an animatronic Jack no no no no we have we we we built pockets in a way that is like less about me okay and it's more about what we make and so we actually like a keyboard player like goes on tour with scary Pockets instead of me and we explain at the live shows why I'm not there was like Jack started a company and now he's like working a triple time job and so we still want a tour but Jack can't be here um and so we

sort of tell that story on stage but is this representative of all of music like isn't toring the number one for music across all bands or no no Also let's explain what we're looking at here because I want to make it clear if you're just listening like live is the overwhelmingly bigger portion of the B Khalifa of the yes and then what are the two that look like they're tied there and then I also see members so so this is AD Revenue ad Revenue this is live we have um merch merch membership ad revenue and

streaming are about the same that's amazing this is streaming yeah now now Pockets does well on streaming you know so so it that's like a pretty big Revenue source for us so coming forth is membership yes but but I and again to illustrate a point there is no right way to do this there is no right way to build a business as a Creator there are a million ways to build a business whatever works for you and your heart and like this is my partnership with my buddy Ryan right that's what scary pockets is and

like what he likes to do and what I like to do and our com the combination of us is one thing I have another band called pomus that is one might think very similar to scary Pockets but here is pompo's revenue distribution wow you'll notice live is not on there why because Natalie doesn't like playing live and I have a full-time job now oh streaming is really S I mean like streaming and membership so P has like 1.5 million uh uh monthly listeners on Spotify so for us streaming is like the core of our business

like we make a lot of money through streaming every month um but like ad revenue and membership is like the next two chunks for us so but I guess my point of like illustrating this is like first of all it's pretty Diversified right if something tanks like like for example here's scary Pockets uh 2024 but in 2022 when the World closed down this um was Pockets we still had a little bit alive because we were we were able to sort of work in a couple shows but we couldn't depend on it so we had these

other revenue streams to keep the business afloat I think a lot of creaters now are building like multiple revenue streams because they know the world is changing technology is changing platforms are changing and if you have multiple revenue streams you can kind of have a robust business as a Creator and sustain the es and flows of the world around you especially in the context honestly of of fan funding just because you know I've always thought about this if we had 10,000 people and that's ambitious but you know a part of a patreon or a a

membership model and you lose 10% of them it's actually and they're they're paying five bucks a month let's say right 10% it's actually not that significant of a hit to your Revenue if we lose 10% of our advertising uh Revenue that's a really significant portion of our Revenue like that would dramatically change our business or 10% of our advertisers um so that that's where I think I look at the the future of building a Creator business um we're we're Diversified across probably more unique ways than other creators but I think everyone has a different mix

like we have Consulting is a big part of what we do um speaking is a big part of what we do so like we have other elements that are uh you guys are very Diversified yeah we're we're Diversified but but actually we're not Diversified against uh partnership yeah we're heavily Partners does that make sense like some there is a partnership with a company that is paying us a large sum of money across every Revenue Source out outside of I mean I guess YouTube ad Revenue would be a partnership still Yes uh but that's the only

one that you don't have to get on the phone and talk to someone like a check just shows up and you don't you're not like there's not as much um human touch point to that check that makes sense um but I I you know like it has been really substantial we launched a course on kajabi where we did two cohorts at the beginning of this year I mean it's a very high ticket um uh course and it was for a very specific group of people and it was terrifying it was terrifying to ask our audience

to pay money for something yeah um we actually didn't even really talk about it on YouTube at all because we were did we just didn't didn't apply to everyone it was so specific to like a professional Creator looking to increase their advertising business by 10% and would change their like change the face of their business yeah that that was a big learning that like actually the worst thing that could happen is if we message that and we hit 100% of our audience yeah because it's not 400% of our audience and also why would that be

bad though because there would be backlash 99% of AUD like I don't do enough brand deal business to take that core right we have been doing this thing now of actually not just diversifying our revenue streams but channels of communication channels of commun channels of communication I wish more creators knew that so we have we have 8,000 people on a waiting list for our course we only allowed 50 people per cohort because we couldn't we were like we cannot handle giving a good experience to more than 50 people right um but that that is starting

to turn into a significant business because um people who who who wanted and see a tangible change right you know who can spend a, or or 1,800 bucks and that actually you know there was a Creator who took our course who got a $200,000 brand deal after our course right so like you can have unbelievable Roi on that guys that's such a good it's a great story and there's people who have done $60,000 brand deals and even $10,000 you're like that is an insane Roi for us to help you get there but that is for

a hundred people have done that right but it's a sixf fig business that we've opened up right so it's a really interesting thing to now start to diversify channels of communication and segment like what are your needs if your needs are over here can we get you over here and if your needs are over here can we get you over here you guys are obviously very sophisticated because you do this for a living right like your your your living is the dissection and Analysis of creative businesses and so I think like we're fortunate to have

spoken to a lot of people yes like that's that strategy was only done because we spoke to Ali abdall about it but I think what you guys are starting to like what you've clearly realized um you know is that you know even for creators it's not just diversity of like um uh of Revenue lines and and diversity of channels of communication there's like diversity of businesses across audience segments yeah some of your audience is going to have very high willingness to pay and some other portion of your audience is going to have low willingness to

pay and like different offerings for those different portions of your audiences like that's something to think about as a Creator like a lot of courses are like 1,200 bucks or500 bucks and like you're right 99% of your fans don't want that but one or two% of your fans really want to hear deeper levels of insights from you guys and would like it is absolutely and similar businesses to us yes that through the cohort we get to workshop together right exactly and that we believe we can support and that was Prett I mean again it was

terrifying because you don't want to um you know we put a lot of measures in place like 100% money back guarantee at any point no questions asked right um and luckily like the thing worked and it was valuable because we spent a year building it um but it is a scary thing to start to like change the the the the model of how you interact with your audience unless you segment them which is when it has become much more comfortable now to go oh I know you're interested in this and it's just a Rel yeah

and what we recognized is so we believe there's three rules of YouTube Three definitive rules the first I think I know what you're gonna say okay but I'll tell you the three and I'll explain the third because it has to do with this the first is if they don't click they don't watch that is the simplest rule of YouTube it if they don't click they don't watch it comes from lots of conversations with a lot of creators I think Mr Beast has said it many times but it is the simplest rule if you don't figure

out how to build titles and thumbnails no one's watching your stuff y um the second is respect their time which means when I click on that title and thumbnail I have to uh show that I'm respecting your time with my storytelling to get you to the end of this video to tell you the story right I have to earn your trust again after you click y by showing I'm respectful of your time by telling a great story you're investing in us and this video is an investment for you make giving you return on your investment

yes the third is do you want more stuff like this which is a filter for your next video and for any business you build is saying what is the value of my content and does this other thing I just made answer the question do you want more stuff like this so like if you listen to one of our episodes and I want to build a platform or I want to build like a patreon right a membership yeah it can't not answer that question it's I'm asking you as an audience member of mine do you want

more stuff like this if so come over here right but you have to then take a really hard look at what stuff like this means exactly because one thing that we recognize too is you can't go from as an audience member watching a free ad supported piece of content to paying for a piece of content immediately and what we did is we started going okay you finished this episode we're talking you know broadly about YouTube strategy do you want to join us for a live session where we go deeper totally free in exchange for your

email now you're in that environment now we've gotten permission to go deeper with you via email so it's like recognizing what you are doing and how to follow the threads fan Journey yeah and even on your YouTube channel like the best YouTubers at the end of their video are actually doing a call to action to watch another video of theirs they're making a pitch for you of do you want more stuff like this then click this video so those are the three rules and last one I think is um increasingly more important because if you

do get the opportunity to build a fan you have to offer them stuff with the same thought right the same line build and earn the right to pitch them something that does cost money like the worst salesman or the worst ad is when you feel like you've been interrupted and you're just like ah stop yeah I don't want that I did not sign up for this right so you need to like massage your way or find the right way to communicate to someone where you can ask there's so much there to talk about um I

yeah I mean maybe the place where I'd start is like I think there's a real danger to focusing on number one like if they don't click they don't watch without putting number two in right where yeah the three rules have to go together they have to be like together I would argue there's probably two ways to think about if they don't click they don't watch like two two ways to get people to click the first would be um a hyper compelling title and thumbnail that gets somebody to really want to click the second way to

think about it which I'm increasingly thinking about more and more is the body of your work and your audience's trust in you that you're going to deliver something amazing and compelling like I don't care what Natalie Lynn's next title and thumbnail is I'm watching the video it could be a black we've said that about before on this channel casy could upload a video with no title and a black screen and it might actually be a pretty good thumbnail we've whatever Chamberlain's video called you totally caught me making soup yeah which is a ridiculous title and

thumbnail but has four million views or or um a Creator your mom Ashley Ashley Alexander incredible Creator but you're you're getting videos of like NYC update number two you know and hundreds of thousands of people are clicking on that and that is familiarity is a way to get there that just takes a long time takes a long time which is totally fine but but I think the the reason we say that is it's a factual statement yeah if people like if when given through recommendations a SE of content on the homepage uh or the browse

you know or suggested content yes if they don't select your video to watch and again that could come because I have a fiveyear relationship with Marquez brownley and every time I eat lunch I watch an MKBHD video yeah or it could be because it's a net new video and it was you know the the one that we example that we use a lot is veritasium why are there are 96 million black balls on this Reservoir there is nothing more uh that tells the story of an information Gap better than that thumb agreed right where you're

like I've just been filled to the brim with curiosity I have no choice I had no idea there were 96 million black balls on this reservo but now I have to know but I have to know why okay so let me let me ask you guys a question I I have some thoughts on this but I'm but I'm you know if you were thinking about what do I do in 2025 yes there's like media Market fit first right like that's step step one um make something that resonates with people and ideally it's got to resonate

with yourself too I think if it doesn't resonate with yourself with your heart then you're probably going to stop making it in a year or two so like the the the find the triangle where it's like I like this like and you know and an audience likes it too and it like and and there's that relationship right so maybe it's not a triangle it's just like I like it and call like content Market fit actually we've done this together and we have it you animated this which is contet right what we're looking foro call the

audience you like it the audience likes it and the platform likes it okay you've already animated this so we'll just play that actually you did a great animation going around in circles yeah uh for this when we did it because I I mentioned that I actually think all three of those you're juggling them at once and they go out of sync sometimes like yes you might not like it but your audience in the platform likes it yeah anyway yes and it's hard to like maintain that balance but I think find media Market M media Market

fit and if I were doing that now I would do it on shorts yeah like shorts is where people are and it's it's the it's the easiest way to break in um like also the easiest path from idea to publish and I actually think losing that excitement is a scary thing and it's happening with um we were talking to is Harris and she was talking about the danger of batch production was it is who said this or no maybe something we've been talking I forget talking a lot of people about this but I think we

talked to is about it of like batch production is great in the context of efficiency but in the context of creative excitement it might not be great when you're sitting on a video for two months you have a different relationship with it so anyway this speak to this episode as an example like the best version of this episode for us and for the audience and probably for you is that it comes out the day after we record right not going to be the case there's one other El to that which is the best version of

this conversation is when it is the first and only conversation of the day you're not doing four of these back to back right like that's like if you really batch you know it can feel like a chore as opposed to like oh my God I can't wait to have this conversation that's a long-winded way of saying short I agree with you shorts are important because you can also get a lot of shots on target you can feel yourself out your tone of voice and you can stay excited about your work you can find your content

Market fit your media Market fit using shorts you don't have to make a title and thumbnail which and and and I would I would argue that like um at the beginning before you found media Market fit like the most the best strategy is no strategy it's like speed of iteration try a lot of things see what you love find your voice find yourself find which aspects of yourself resonate with your audience aka the first five years of our Channel yes yeah and and like me like me too right that's like that's how it's worked um

so like try a bunch of stuff okay then like once you have that on shorts uh I I think step two again if I'm thinking about how to do it as a Creator in 2025 you have to move Beyond shorts um now you don't have to but there are dangers if you don't um it becomes harder to build a direct to Fan community and a direct to Fan business there are creators who have figured this out but because f are less willing and likely to pay for short form content and because when you're at the

ultimate top layer of the internet you are more subject to the whims of the platform's direction of traffic there's a it's it's a more volatile environment to build a long-term sustainable business versus finding a format like you guys have found where you've got this repeatable long form thing that your audience enjoys every week and you have these you know you have like these long conversations and people are listening to them and building loyalty to you and building loyalty to the format I think there's a key step if I'm doing it as a Creator is like

find my audience on shorts and then figure out after that how do I build a long form uh uh media format and and a tighter Community around that format I would say that's step two be curious if you guys agree with that yeah yeah I I very much agree I think that transition is harder than just saying what's a longer format it's a major like strategic change yeah a major strategic chame to to like a wider audience so I think if you're a short form Creator you have to take a zoom out and go like

what what is my a value proposition like why do people follow me from a short form perspective mateline RG is a great example of this like vulnerability openness okay that turns into a podcast of her alone in her car talking to the audience super vulnerable well just longer form than what she was doing on short form so think you have to follow the line of like value proposition uh and then I think one thing that we don't talk about enough is the vine to long form jump because the original version of this oh you're right

I hadn't thought about to YouTube yeah and to to this day the most popular creators on the internet are people who made Vines and that was the ultimate top of funnel and also the ultimate cutting your teeth as a internet Storyteller yeah like you only get seven seconds love them or hate them the Paul brothers are some of the greatest marketers you know of Our Generation and understood the internet because I think they had so many shots on target with Vine and just got really competitive with that and tweaked it but like when dock emerged

and created his format his longer form version like I've heard him talk about how that was just a series of vines right like David Do's Vlogs were recurring 6 seconds of action baked into 30C story over and over for 4 minutes and 20 seconds it's essentially a Vine compilation yeah right and so this is a lot a long-winded way of me like pontificating on what you could do in long form but I think you follow your value proposition what what were you offering in short form why are people there how can you extend that I

really think that's a a great way to think about it and this is how pomus has thought about it for a long time we initially thought what do people love about pomus is like if you go back to 2008 we're like people like the weird sounds and the cool guitar tones and like and the like our you know cool baselines and like we thought like this is what makes pomus pomus and then I think as we made more things on the internet we realized there was a Common Thread that was not those things um because

at some point pomu stopped being me and Natalie actually here I'll I'll pull up the chart when I can show you exactly exactly when pom stopped being me and Natalie it was uh it was here like up until here every pomp moose video I was mixing everything engineering everything mastering everything Natalie was singing I was playing uh all the instruments except for Bass and voice and um and Natalie was playing all the baselines like we thought pomp moose is us poml is me and Natalie playing these cool things and our you know right here is

the first time we were like let's have other instrumentalists play a drummer a bass player a guitar player and at first we were like oh that's not but what we realize is like pomp moose there's something else if you read the comments of pomp moose videos people talk about like people will say like um thank you guys after 20 years of my drums being in the attic I just went up to my attic took a cloth off of my drums brought them down into my living room and played drums for the first time thank you

pomus and like what we realized pompl was was like watching the joy of creation and and collaborative partnership in creativity between two people who were really excited about it or not just two people but a group of people who were really excited about it like pomus was inspiration to make is kind of how we started thinking about it after that less about like pomp moose is me and Natalie and our cool arrangements and more like pomp moose is something more fundamental and so we took it into this new format and then right here we transitioned

into short this was the first time P started experimenting with shorts this is just a couple years ago um and and we ended up filming these short form videos of us in the studio arranging songs it wasn't the final output of the music it was us going through the creative process of working together so it felt like you were in the studio with us and that was the insight there was the same Insight when we made the transition to the format of song per week with other musicians it was what pom's Spirit really is is

like inspiration to make stuff and it was right around when the Peter Jackson documentary came out on the Beatles and like people were talking about how great that documentary was because you get to watch The Beatles making things and how like a lot of my creative friends said they couldn't even get 10 minutes into that Series without going and writing a song because it was just so inspiring for them so getting to your value proposition as a Creator what is it about my work that is resonating with people and being as fundamental as you can

about that value proposition it's hard to get there and you're not going to immediately figure it out something that's of emerges over time and what value prop would I commit to for the next 10 15 20 years even if I wasn't getting paid I think that's really important like as much as we can talk about like going from shorts to long form and all this sort of strategy for 2025 as woo woo as it is I really think it's like the what would you do yes even if you were making money in a totally different

way because it's the only way that this works Samir and I think about it when we get a 10 out of 10 and internally we're like it's all over man like this is it the ship is sinking and all time and and we'll be very fear-based sometimes and there was one moment this year where we were incredibly fear-based and I took a step back and I was like you know what this ship fell apart in 2019 and we basically quit and I moved home but we still were going to make videos about creators because we

like doing it and found it interesting and I I had to like think back to that moment because we have so much built up around us now and so many employees and things and so different I was like you know what I like I really like doing this and I will do this in so many different forms yeah because I like doing it and I and it's like I truly believe that is the only thing that matters yeah this is this is why I I started by saying like it is so important it is so

easy to get sucked into optimizing for the way the internet is set up right now it's so that is it's so tempting and what you said I think there's a very long-term approach to that right which is like how do I stay in the game for the next decade or two decades right like your creative career can be long like it feels short in the present right it feels like now is the end of times if I don't get a one out of 10 but like your creative career can be very long and there's a

wonderful Creator named Adam Westbrook he made a video essay it's one of my favorite pieces of media on YouTube uh it's like 15 minutes long it's about van go who lived in his parents basement for 11 years lived in his parents basement making paintings every day while his teeth were falling out his like nobody saw his paintings except for his brother was the only person who saw his paintings and his brother didn't even like his paintings very much and Van go did this for like 11 years didn't sell a single painting and no one saw

them but him and he did it because he loved painting he just liked doing it he liked exploring color and texture and Framing and composition and it lit him up and so he kept going it's like the YouTubers you're just you can tell they just love telling stories and making videos and they would do it if their ad revenue is up and they do it if their ad revenue is down and there's the Creator in this video Adam Westbrook calls this an autotelic Behavior that's the word for it an autotelic behavior is a behavior that

you do for the sheer joy of the behavior itself versus some expected reward from having done the behavior and I think as a Creator it's so important to find something that is autotelic for you something you're gonna do in your parents basement for 11 years whether people like it or see it or not and if you can find that and it works with an audience oh my gosh you're in an amazing place it's hard to find that but like I I if I had one piece of advice to emerging cers right now it's like don't

sacrifice that part of it that part of it is so important to a longterm creative career yeah you need to think of yourself as potentially the Brian Cranston of content creation Brian Cranston meaning like he wanted to be an actor so badly and nothing really hit until he was I think in his 40s like and Malcolm in the Middle hit and then even after that it really wasn't until Breaking Bad hit where it's like his career totally turned over and I'm not saying like if you're watching or listening and you haven't quote unquote made it

that you have to wait 44 years but I think there is a reality that's like you got to love the thing and and it's so woooo to say it's like I know I don't think it's woo woo to say by the way like I think it's only woo I know some people say follow your passion I feel bad giving that advice I don't think it's Follow Your Passion it's just uh be honest with yourself if you if you like it and and sometimes it's not even being honest I actually think the behavior you're talking about

is is often times involuntary yes you have no choice you don't have a choice and I think that's what it looks like to look at a troubled artist cuz they aren't even sometimes happy that this is the fact that they have no choice but to get this expression out there so many times at speaking engagements or events that we have where someone will ask us a question and then it's generally Samir who says this he'll he has an eye for this and he'll just say like well I have a question for you do you like

making those videos yeah and without missing a beat the person is always like no not really yeah that's one of the most unbelievable things I think people enjoy the results of making videos and I think when you look at the Spectrum of what making videos on the internet gets you it gets you fame money and status and I think those are really appealing things to human beings and I think now that there's a math equation to get there it is really appealing but making videos and make and creatively expressing yourself is a uh very intangible

thing that you cannot describe when you're in it again back to like writing a song writing a song is the most bizarre weird thing that we that anyone creative could do or drawing a painting it's it's bizarre you can't explain it and so if you actually enjoy it you'll you'll do it for a really long time but I find that in talking to a lot of young aspiring creators you ask them that question they're like oh no I don't I don't really like making the videos it's hard it's hard for me and I don't like

it I'm trying to build a team around it there's something at least I've found as I've gotten older too where I'm less willing to do things that I don't like I don't know if you guys have found this but like I just turned 40 this year and I just I have less tolerance for not doing what I want to do yeah I and and so if you're not liking what you're doing now and you're 25 like it only gets harder as you get older if it works you're going to do more of it yeah which

is the thing I didn't fully recognize but learned a few times of like if the thing you're doing works you'll get the opportunity to do more of that thing so do you like that thing or not yes especially if you're trying to do this I want you to read the rest of your list and we will not interrupt you we we are on number three of how you would build a Creator business in 2025 so so let's just recap media Market fit shorts to Longs that's as far as we that's as far as we go

leverage short form traffic to find fit on a medium or or long so we we're two in three is once you find fit on shorts build that long form format and F fit on a longer form format because the short form ecosystem is too volatile and unpredictable that's three four is build a tight Community around that long form format um and the thing I actually want to talk about here is what what you guys are doing which is uh events um I'm seeing a lot more creators right now start to do inperson events with fans

we were both at Max Joseph's film screening Bo is doing these screenings he's renting movie theaters and he's doing these 1500 person screenings of his YouTube videos um the more creators I'm talking to and patreon is doing this too we're throwing events we just did an event with Shannon beverage where we're like throwing an event for her and her fans and 150 fans show up and we all hang out together and have a good time and she does a live version of her podcast um the more creers I'm talking to the more I'm seeing this

strong desire for like real human in-person interaction and like actual community building and you guys have just started doing these coffee and like I think that's another like version of what what I'm seeing largely across the entire industry that's connected to something you said earlier of like um make sure you're uh making something that you're passionate about yeah because what that also creates is what we always call I think Seth Goden uh coined this in one of his but it's like people like us like when you're building a community you're looking for people like you

yeah and so when we started doing coffee with creators which is essentially you know we sent out through our newsletter to publish press uh an invite hey if you're in La come by uh we rent it out a coffee shop 150 you know sometimes 200 people show up coffee we do these like Community things where you get to know each other then we do a Q&A essentially like a live um almost like a live Q&A podcast and what you realize is like I like hanging out with those people it does not feel hierarchical in the

way of we're on stage and you're here to watch us it's actually like oh these are all people I am enjoying hanging out with and they're enjoying hanging out with each other because they're there because of a common interest we always thought about our like our first YouTube business Lacrosse Network we thought about it as every time we uploaded we were actually opening the doors to a convention hall for like-minded people to come in and engage with each other yeah so our videos were not necessarily just hey watch this stuff or get entertained by this

or the information that's here it's actually this is now permission to engage with each other but that becomes incredibly fragmented on YouTube because it only lives in one video exactly so it's a long way of saying like I think um we're basically the platforms now we're doing the interest graph thing yes but but but in a I think in a really healthy good way yeah right like like um well hopefully in a way that's consistent and dependable and like leaves you feeling good about your interest right because you've met some people in real life yeah

also meeting people in real life is is like fun and and necessary to be a human so I I I again I think like sometimes we get over analytical and actually it's just like yeah as a human you need to interact with other hum and it's it's fun to interact with other humans that are into the same thing as you so the way I like to think about this is like there's a difference between audience building and community building one is not difference better than the other they're not like they're not hierarchical and you can

be either as a Creator or you can be a mix of the two but there are creators on on patreon and on YouTube that are amazing Community Builders and then there are creators who have really successful like audience relationships and specifically what I mean by that is like an audience relationship I would I would like the best example of that is like I go to a concert I watch the concert I go for the music and I see the musician and they play and then the concert ends and I go home and then that's it

like I don't there's no ongoing connection I'm not getting a sense of belonging I'm not getting a sense of support from other people um I'm not meeting other like-minded people like it's an audience relationship I it's a one-way Street where I'm consuming a thing that someone has created for me and there's a lot of creators who do this really well on YouTube and it works great where it's like I made a thing for you and you enjoyed it um that's very different than like say a vlog where like the Vlog Brothers have a community you

identify as a nerd fighter right you hang out at bars with other nerd Fighters when something in the world happens that's scary as JN gets up and helps you feel calm about it and he explains the world so you make sense of the world together you have shared values as community members as a nerd fighter right you know who you are and if somebody's knowing if somebody's wearing a nerd fighter t-shirt or has a dftba t on their arm you're like I know what you're like as a human I know what your values are and

I know we could hang out with each other we've seen that on a smaller scale with our press publish merch like if someone's wearing it we've seen people tweeted us or send us DMS of like I just met someone because they were wearing that I you already know who they are you know what they're into you know their values you guys are building a community and and again I'm not trying to make it sound like one is better than the other you can build successful businesses that are both but I do think it's important as

a Creator to know what am I building way lers want build andine a l of fers who where it's especially harder for them to have a relationship with their audience because it just feels worse right and and so um like for those C doesn't even feel safe to build a community that like you know my wife like she she would rather just be very private she does she just wants to make her song she doesn't like want to have a thing where she interacts and hangs out with people she's a bit more introverted right like

so it just depends on what resonates for for you as a Creator and what it is that you want to do but I think it's important to know did we get through all six okay sorry so build a tight Community around the long form format and the reason I'm saying that specifically is I think it's harder to build a community around a short form format because it's harder to reach your audience okay number five I think it's important as a Creator right now and again the audience should know I have a direct to Fan company

called patreon so like you know take my words with a grain of salt here but if I were doing it in 2025 I would have an ads business and I would have a direct to Fan business and I would start thinking about the differences between those two and I would experiment with different types of direct to Fan businesses not just membership membership isn't right for a lot of creators so I would say like like if membership if you're not an episodic media Creator MH don't try to force fit your stuff into a membership business like

maybe you need to have maybe maybe you should do a Commerce business or a courses business or a live business or like a pay-per-view like Again comedy what has happened with comedy and comedy specials ticketed digital Live Events is amazing exactly so but the reason that's important is because again I think it's important as a Creator to build a diversified business like if the economy crashes and companies simultaneously pull back their sales and marketing spends and or Disney leaves you YouTube because there's some piece of media on YouTube that they don't want to be associated

with and then it Cas Gades to other advertisers who leave YouTube and then ad Revenue drops in a month as a creater you want to be able to withstand that right and so you want to have like a variety of types of income um and then also the other the other reason I think it's important to build to have both and to have a diversified business is like there's like fans want that from you right like fans are they want a lot of fans want more from you anywhere we see between like 5 to 10%

of your fans 10% would be like the upper bound might be your core fans core fans who like love everything you do they follow you across all socials they you know they um they go to all the shows they have the merch they have the T-shirt they like they they want more from you do you calculate that off returning viewers or average views per like if you were looking at a YouTube channel would you go average views per video 10% of that is like our core fan pool or would you how would you calculate that

so that's actually how we build like when we when we model this out we do use conversion rates based off of like you know views or followers or or sometimes a combination of the two um but yes and and then of course as you get more followers the conversion rate goes down right because you're accumulating more casual fans versus in the early days of like content Market fit it's like hardcore fans that are finding you first right so um but yes we do use sort of like decreasing conversion rates as the Creator gets bigger and

bigger to model out what is the proportion of those fans that have that you know willingness to pay that creater for more things and then six once you have that by the way we're like saying these things it's like okay then start a director fan business like there's so much this is what not how yes exactly I think that's important to say like each one of these needs its own how to do it yes and it's going to be different for a lot of different creators right um One Thing by the way we haven't talked

about with direct to Fan business I think it's really important is like it has not worked sometimes for some creators or it's backfired right like we've seen a couple examples over the last two years where YouTubers go out to their audience and there's backlash and I think it's important to understand why and what are the Lessons Learned I think it was also misguided for some of the short form like ticktockers to launch uh memberships yes that's just not the right value proposition not the Right audience no and fans don't want to pay for short firm

no right yeah yeah and and there's another insight there which is fans don't want to pay for something that was previously free do you want more stuff like this yes exactly our rules like they're down to pay for something in addition but not the thing that was already free right um okay the last thing is like once you have that going um and this is a real big if you want and if you're that sort of first profile crater versus the the other profile crator it's like higher so that you can make it sustainable and

there's a whole Art and Science Ty hiring that is very tricky now I think that's like the last step here the last step is like bringing people to help like if you don't love the work and you don't want to do it yourself then you know don't just like hire I actually don't think that'll work but I but I do think for a lot of creators they're getting to the point where you know they're making you know there are a lot of craters are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doing it themselves and

they feel burned out and underwater and they don't realize like oh I can hire like an admin to like help me run my operation you know I can hire I think you have to play that out in your head I would have no idea how to do that and I'm this guy in this chair like like without Samir truly like I I man I would struggle hiring people out but I agree with you I see the benefits of it uh to have the employees we have and like the way that they support us but at

coffee with creators this is a common question how do I hire an editor how do I do you know and and one of the things I ask back and this comes directly from our conversation with Tim feris is I just want you to close your eyes and imagine having a conversation with a person who wants a raise and then I want you to imagine having a conversation where you have to fire someone yeah are you comfortable in that conversation if not it might not be your thing and that's might be very black and white of

me to say but I again I I live in these like I just want everyone to know the realities of what you're doing can be amazing it can be fruitful incredible we've we've had incredible experiences but it can also be this new thing where someone you know text you in the morning what am I supposed to do and you're like whoa whoa yeah leave me alone let me let me just be my let me just go about my day it really depends on what you want as a Creator I think there's a lot of creators

who shouldn't hire right like there's a lot of creators who don't want to like build an Empire and grow grow grow like a lot of creators don't want to do that and for them hiring is probably not you know you don't want a 10 person team yeah I would say probably even for those creators well there's probably some people who just want to be fully alone 100% um but you know again these things aren't black and white right like I've like a couple couple you know things that I've learned I've found it easier to like

work with people on a specific project yes like Project based short-term contractor relationship to start to start and then you're like if you like work with 20 people like that two or three of those people you're going to be like oh I love working with that person and I'm I'm giving them more work every month and you sort of naturally gravitate and then you're like okay well this is kind of a repeatable thing and then you can start thinking about okay what does it look like if this person works full time okay the hard part

about that is what you said is like okay what if the internet changes and your views crash like then what do you do think we're we're at a we're on the precipice in 2025 of like quite a bit of change and and maybe sometimes I get concerned that Colin and I have just been in rooms where we see a lot of technology and get but like I think we're entering into one of the most different eras of creativity no doubt I actually think it's one of the most s it's about to be one of the

most self reliant versions of creativity what do you mean by that what I mean by that is like in the past I I I don't have the technical skills Colin has when it comes to editing and design but actually if you've looked at over the past 5 10 years I can now do things that I could never do because of uh the advancements in AI the advancements in um uh platforms like Adobe canva um chatu BT like you want to you want to write five different versions of a script in 60 seconds you can do

that now and I can look at them and now instead of sitting in a room and brainstorming collaborating with five other people to get to those I just do that by myself so that's what I mean by self-reliance soon enough you want an intro animation you used to hire a collaborator to make that soon you won't you'll just type it in you know like the eyedropper tool in Photoshop where if like you see a color that you want you're like I really want that color the future is that eye dropper tool for every single color

correction character design script writing visuals are going to enter a Napster moment right where they all can be taken and remixed it does not mean you need taste and that the people who have the skill set and the ability will be able to work some of these tools better than anyone else in a way that no one else can in a human way I totally believe that but the stuff that's coming is wild yeah no doubt okay you're a big time Tech CEO you've seen this stuff don't act like let's not play the game here

you haven't seen we've seen is not even behind closed doors end all these events okay so so so some of it is behind Clos do crazy one one thing that happens and and and you know maybe I'm totally wrong here so so nobody knows what's going to happen right now right there's a lot of people pontificating and postulating about what the future is going to be like and we have to remind ourselves nobody knows it's just the truth nobody knows what's going to happen as as confident as people sound when they're talking about the future

it's important to to remind yourself nobody is a fortune teller and the smartest people in the world are often wrong right so like at the end of the day it comes down to like what do you think right I really think that's important like in how you live your life and navigate the world and operate so I'll just offer sort of what I think I am so impressed by a lot of these new technologies and by AI specifically like when I found mid Journey oh my God like I felt like I was 10 years old

finding a camera for the first toally time I felt like I was double clicking the record button and moving the clay figure a little bit and double clicking the and moving the C and then I'd watch back those four seconds and I was like my heart was exploding I was like I'm going to be an animator like I was just like the most exciting thing I could possibly imagine I had that feeling as a 38-year-old using mid Journey yeah I was like this is incred I was designing synthesizers and recording studios and like a Russian

space station plus a 1976 whiter and making like keyboards that were the size of a room like I was like it was explosive for my kept asking what if Wes Anderson did this oh I mean beautiful now look no doubt that these Technologies are incredible and will make a lot of changes for a lot of fields and a lot of people over the next you know long long time um over the short term I think there's going to be less change than people think I think people love people and I think there's a there's a

portion of work that is out there that is based on human connection right when I listen to a Kendrick Lamar album It's not that I care about the output the work that he has created so much as I care that I am hearing the experience of another conscious being who lived through some serious and suffering and like pain and life experience and it is that feeling of connection that is at the core of why I listen to Kendrick Lamar or Elliot Smith or Big Thief or you name it like there is a feeling of like

I know what you're talking about and I have felt that too and I think a lot of great art and work and even this show and podcast a lot of it the the like really good stuff is stemming from that feeling of connection to another human being so maybe all that to say I think the craftsmanship of creation is going to change but I think for a very long time longer than most people think I believe humans will be at the core of creation I deeply believe that for a long I'm saying it could never

happen that like we're watching 100% AI generated movies about like great maybe that happens someday but we're we're a longer way from that than most people think right now yeah I mean I like we started this conversation talking about hiring like I'm not concerned actually at least in the short term and even the mild long term of AI replacing creators yeah like human stories are scarce and they will always be and that's great totally and we will share them what I don't know if I'm concerned or what but I think what is changing like you're

saying is how something gets made like when I talk about the eyedropper tool mhm the accessibility of how is is getting opened up to everyone yes great thing scary thing which is really exciting right because like think about what that's done for unless you make a living off of what that eye dropper tool used to do then it requires adaptation and change otherwise you get replaced by an ey dropper which is yeah yeah like but but like I do think there's an exciting component of it and I know a lot of creative people are scared

of AI and and angry at I AI too for for like good reason just to be clear like like creators deserve to be paid for their work stop like taking Creator work and not paying for them that's not going to be the way the Future Works like what H what's happening now with like the you know the the lawsuits you know between New York Times and open like that's just the version of what happened with YouTube and Viacom you know playing out again it's just cyclical like that stuff will be fixed creative people will be

paid for their work um uh so look there's like there's clearly problems with it um but but you know I think it's really exciting to think about like a kid who can't manage a team or negotiate with Hollywood execs or build a budget is going to be able to make a 90minut movie now um that that job was previously inaccessible to that kid like a 15-year-old kid was not able to make a 90-minute movie with special effects and science fiction spaceships and blah blah blah you will be able to do that soon we will be

soon we will be hearing and understanding and watching the stories coming out of people who could not afford or didn't have the skills to to make things previously and that component of it I think is really exciting like making creativity accessible to more people I'm I'm like personally I'm pumped for that we've never had that before and like think about what's happened to music over the last 50 years like the the engineers at ABY Road Studios where the Beatles made all their records they wore white lab coats and had to understand ohms and resistance and

they had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of like technical equipment to like patch cables in and Route music and record on tape and like it was a very technical profession now like 10-year-old kids are making records better than that quality on this thing yeah yeah and like and and we're seeing that Trend just like continue and accelerate I think that's exciting like this did replace jobs a lot of those you know old audio Engineers but there is a good trade-off of that which is like now you can be a 12-year-old and make an amazing

album and it's cool to hear the album that a 12-year-old makes yeah yeah yeah I agree yeah the the emphasis will be on not the emphasis will be on do you have a story to tell yeah right Less on like do you have the ability to tell that story 100% it's it it's funny because it's like less about ex I think it will be less about execution and it will be more around quality of idea and narrative which I think previously execution was like a really big piece of it but execution is getting easier and

easier over time as tools get more and more accessible and cheaper and available and I think that's good for Creative people honestly I think I'm very optimistic about how this is playing out for for Creative people as tough as it is like on the internet right now I do think as media moves offline to online we've experienced 20 years of that now I think over the next 20 and then again over the next 100 I think artists come out the other end of this in a fundamentally different place than the last 5,000 years of artistry

I think artists come out of this phase of the digitization of media with more control more leverage more options more creative control um and I think that's fundamentally going to be a good thing for artists we will always have the struggle artists will always have the struggle of like like do I make for the market or do I make for my heart like that struggle isn't going to go away but I'd rather have that struggle as an artist than have a media executive telling me that my song isn't cool enough to be in their pipes

and they won't distribute it I'd rather have to deal with my internal battle than be blocked by a person and I think that's the world largely that we're entering now is like the struggle of being an artist is going to be an internal struggle that is available to all of us should we choose that path yeah versus not you know versus an external that's funny struggle that's a good point yeah I like that I actually feel very optimistic right now after being in this career for so many years and a lot of what I'm trying

to do now uh is look at 2025 and imagine myself in December and say and look at our Channel and look at our work and be like am I proud of all of those visually am I excited about those and I feel more primed actually to do that now than ever in our career because of how much we know and also a little bit of like confidence and I think it is getting older too and being like I don't have much in me uh I don't have much time anymore for like making fear-based decisions you

know like I just don't have as much of that in me that's such a good question I think about that all the time am I proud of what I made um pride in your work I think is one of the most important like metrics of success for yourself and and it like across genres like even at the company at patreon like we talk about like we one of our values is like build with Craft um there like when you build something like are you proud of what you've built are you proud of what you've made

um that's such an important thing like if you're not proud of what you made like why are you making it what are the biggest problem problems you're facing as patreon right now uh the biggest like what are your like you mean like hurdles you're trying to overcome as a platform I think it's the same as the problems that like creators are having it's literally the same thing which is like it's harder and harder for creators to um to to to Rally their audiences around their work like if you make a post on Tik Tok now

okay and you have an effect CTA yeah to like go buy my merch or go buy my tickets to my show and the first 10 people who watch it go buy the tickets because you're a really good Storyteller and your CTA is good Tik Tok dranks that post in their algorithm they're like oh people are bouncing off of Tik Tok when they watch this post so we're going to push that to the bottom of the feed now or we're just going to wipe it from our distribution because like you're driving people away from the app

but like that's what creators need creators need somebody to buy their merch yeah that's pushing us further into the uh the aligned incentives with the platform which is advertising which is why yeah and and that is the so that is the core of like of of one of the problems that we're trying to solve for creators is like and it's one of the reasons we built free membership which is like how do we help creators not be reliant on platforms to drive like traffic for them because essentially the platforms are uh are are failing on

that responsibility they're not letting Creator they're they're keeping people on instead of letting people go off the platform but that makes sense for their incentive structure it does it's not like you can't blame them really it's not evil it's a function of their business model how their business works you may have known this I did not know this but patreon has free membership so essentially we could upload our show same time same Cadence to patreon and start building a following there and say you don't have to pay for this because that's for free on YouTube

too in the first year of that creators got 30 million free members and doubled their communities on patreon so it's a very and and again I'm assuming the conversion from a free member to a paid member is there are hundreds of thousands of free members converting every month to paid members they're already in an environment where they understand do you want more stuff like that and now we're building dashboards that show creators here's your free to paid conversion you love a dashboard you feel like I love a dashboard of course I love a dashboard no

I know but I just feel like you love a dashboard I don't know I don't know I don't know what else to say about that I just want be careful with dashboard I'm not saying I don't like yeah you got to be very specific about the metrics that you put there because they're going to incentivize behav I like exactly you have to be very thoughtful about dashboards because it can be pavlovian in the wrong direction right you can like train people to care about this well yeah you're informing them what they should care about and

and that is such an so important right you should just have a dashboard that has like a the front-facing camera like when you open your iPhone and it's like are you proud of yourself today you're like looking at yourself and you're like oh my God you click a button yes or no that's best that's like one of the best ideas I've ever heard actually surprised that I don't know there are free memberships I am also surprised because I feel like we've been on calls with Tom about it yeah but the fact that I I I

think I have heard it before but the fact that I haven't retained it yeah feels like that's also a problem yes it's like whoa that is huge because because that's so low risk and I I again I don't want to sit here sound like I'm like we don't have a patreon one years ago we don't have one we're always thinking about it yeah Jesse makes a pitch every month for the fact that that message isn't clear I think is a problem because it's incredibly low risk I think greater part of the challeng well maybe by

the time this episode's out we'll have a free one I mean that's that's right because like what's the problem what's what's the problem it's free version it's like it's free and and it allows you to put stuff behind the free wall us over in that environment that's like hey you get the email address and the person gets the thing behind the the you know freeall which is like a that's a value exchange it's like yeah I've never seen that create backlash for anybody so there's yeah like part of the challenge though is that we actually

are building like a lot of stuff like that right now and I think people think of patreon is like okay here's the core challenge this is it you called it fan funding yeah we don't think about it like that at all and what you're describing as like how come we don't know about pre membership we're trying to help people reimagine what it actually is which is not fanf funding we are helping you build your direct to Fan infrastructure and business as a Creator which includes free it includes Commerce it includes memberships it includes ticketed live

streaming like it's your full direct to Fan layer now there's no yeah that is going to require cultural shift and brand shift and like helping people understand what that actually means but that that's probably the biggest shift every time we hang out I think it's so bizarre that you're like a tech CEO you know like I I mean just just that like what the sheer amount of responsibility that you probably have accumulated during the time that we've been talking you know what I mean like I get anxious about that I'm like oh my God I

probably like oh I'm just about it too so many things that I need to do right now but I can't imagine there must be insane for you like that so yeah yeah so thanks for this time yes so thanks for letting that accumulate thank you guys for having me com back on the show it's great it's always great to talk it's even better when we get to record it hell yeah actually yeah it's not a requirement to record it we can all yeah thanks for hanging out thank you guys for doing this yeah it's like

honestly I I feel like uh yeah we were talking about this bit like I would have this conversation anyway it would be a joy and to be able to record it uh is an even bigger Joy so thank you