[00:00:00] Colin and Samir: We are two creatives who are at each other's throats every day. And in this episode, you're going to watch us try and come to agreement. Finally, we made this fight. It could happen. We are Colin and Samir. We've been on YouTube for the past 13 years. We've built YouTube companies. We've sold them. We've sat down with the top creators on YouTube.

[00:00:19] And we have a show called The Colin and Samir Show, where we talk about the latest news in the creator economy as well as sit down with the biggest creators on the platform. Our goal is to educate and empower the next generation of creators. And I hope that what you get from this episode is a deeper understanding Of the creator economy as well as specifically the world of YouTube.

[00:00:36] It's a very confusing platform. There's high barriers to entry and we have failed way more than we've succeeded, and I think that's what, uh, will make this episode interesting.[00:01:00]

[00:01:08] Chris Do: Welcome to the show everybody you guys we met at I think a like an influencer party or something with LinkedIn. It was a dinner, right? In Venice. It was in Venice. It was, there was food outside. It was cold. Jelena rooftop. Yeah. And we started talking. I know, I knew of you guys and I, and I want to reference this.

[00:01:25] I couldn't find the video again, but it's like you guys in a car talking about, Yeah. And there was something really refreshing and raw. And I thought, is it the dialogue? Is it the subject matter? Is it because you guys are in a car and there's something so intimate about it, but it was all starting to work and let, let's just go, let's rewind the tape here.

[00:01:42] Okay. So I have lots of questions for both of you, what you've been able to do, what you've discovered. But before we get into that. It's always a tricky dynamic when there are two people with very different personalities and different cultural references and backgrounds to come together to work. I get a certain vibe from each one of you.

[00:01:56] How do you guys describe yourself to someone who doesn't know? Just kind [00:02:00] of like the top line. Like how do we describe ourselves individually?

[00:02:05] Colin and Samir: Yeah, like individually. Cause I want to see if it matches how I see you. I mean, when it comes to our dynamic, I often tell people that Samir is more on the business side.

[00:02:13] I'm more on the creative side. That's like in the most simple of terms. That's at least how we have always sort of operated. Like Samir is really good at networking. He's really good at storytelling live in person, getting into rooms that I can't even believe he's been able to get into. He tells people, yeah, we can do this for you.

[00:02:31] We can make that documentary for you. We can do this for you. And then he comes back to me and he's like, all right, we're doing it. And I help him try and figure it

[00:02:40] Chris Do: out. It's very interesting that you describe, and I see you buying in on this, like you're, you're the business guy and you're the creative side.

[00:02:46] But maybe there's a different way of looking at it. Like you're front of the house. You're back of the house.

[00:02:50] Colin and Samir: Yeah. Right. You wrote people

[00:02:52] Chris Do: in. You winded down. You charm. Uh, you're kind of like the, the more outwardly facing person, but you're in a back call and like, [00:03:00] dude, let's get the order out. It's gotta be hot and fresh.

[00:03:01] And this is not meeting my standards. And then that way he's writing checks with his mouth that you're going to have to cash or something like that.

[00:03:08] Colin and Samir: A little bit. Yeah. I mean, I think it's more like mixed than that. We definitely help each other out a lot on both sides. But yeah, I think like. If you look at the root of who we are and who we've always been as creatives.

[00:03:19] Like when Samir talks about, you know, his first job is as an editor in Hollywood for Ides of March. Like when he's walking to the edit bay, he's dressed real nice. He's looking good. And he's hoping that maybe he's getting discovered on set and like he'll be taken from behind the computer to in front of the camera.

[00:03:34] I always thought someone from the show business committee would pluck me out of obscurity. You know, like growing up in LA, you always think you're like, somebody's going to find me right. Yeah, I'm

[00:03:42] Chris Do: waiting to be discovered.

[00:03:43] Colin and Samir: Yeah,

[00:03:43] Chris Do: I'm

[00:03:43] Colin and Samir: waiting. Somebody's going to find me. You're, you're always ready. Always ready for that.

[00:03:48] And my happy place is like staying behind the computer. Yeah. Sometimes I'm like amazed and surprised that I ended up in front of it, but I think it's because of our dynamic that that's happened. I mean, we got to know each other on [00:04:00] camera. Like the reason we even ended up on camera together was the first business we started was called the Lacrosse Network.

[00:04:05] And it was, You know, I had this idea when I left that editing job in Hollywood. I had this idea that I could make my own sports network online. So it's like, why not try the one that I know the most people in that I'm most familiar with the sport. I grew up playing lacrosse. So I started a channel called the Lacrosse Network.

[00:04:19] And shortly after I met Colin, who was making documentaries about the Colorado club lacrosse team. And so I treated it like a TV network. That's how I understood YouTube in 2010 and 2011. This is a TV for the internet. Colin was making documentary. Let me license. That programming, right? The pitch was, we'll carry your programming.

[00:04:37] We'll split the AdSense with you. We'll do the distribution and marketing. You make the content

[00:04:41] Chris Do: pitch. I see.

[00:04:42] Colin and Samir: Yeah. And so, you know, obviously at that time, AdSense for lacrosse based content was not significant, but we were having a lot of fun making an impact, recognizing that like Colin's show was reaching a ton of people and we had different programming on every day.

[00:04:55] We literally treated it like a TV channel. I studied the surf channel, the tennis channel, and I was [00:05:00] like, Every day we have a new show and his show was the standout and, you know, somehow convinced Colin to move to LA to, to work on it a bit more for three months, which turned into 13 years. Um, but when we ran out of programming, um, we had a third member of the team who was like, it's YouTube.

[00:05:15] You guys got to, you guys got to be on camera. Okay.

[00:05:19] Chris Do: And you got to keep feeding the machine. Yeah. Okay. And he was

[00:05:22] Colin and Samir: adamant that this is actually what people want on YouTube. They want lo fi connection to the people they might not. Want the documentary series even though like it was doing well It was like I think you could actually just get on camera and talk about the sport Yeah, and people would like that.

[00:05:38] So our first video ever, although we were good with cameras We were editing so much other stuff, highlight packages, documentaries, profiles on players, that our hosted stuff was shot into a Mac book and uploaded without editing. So our first videos on YouTube are just us talking into a Mac book camera, pressing [00:06:00] publish, and that's it.

[00:06:02] And over time that developed into us setting up a DSLR and talking to that, but we barely knew each other. And so what happened was we got to know each other through being on camera together. And that was for me being the guy who was really trying to make this a business, but deeply wanting to be a creative, those moments of figuring out that we could be on camera and laugh and make each other, you know, surprise each other with jokes, or like, we just learned everything about.

[00:06:31] orating and hosting and having fun. And like, we built a really deep connection with that audience. And that was, that was a really fascinating experience, both to like, get to know each other through that. And also to get to know. This platform of like, Whoa, man, what makes this different from another sports network?

[00:06:50] Is that all the people watching can talk to us? If you were watching ESPN and you could be like, Hey, actually do this tomorrow. And then the host did that. [00:07:00] You'd be like, Whoa, I have, I have a say in this network. And so we recognized quickly like, Oh, YouTube is not creating content for an audience. It's creating content with an audience.

[00:07:10] And that was like, you know, I mean that that's a lot is over a decade ago, but that was a light bulb moment for us. And I think what really developed our creative relationship was this shared, we developed a shared taste because we were creating this thing that was our faces. And like, if that thing sucks, it's you, everyone's looking at you.

[00:07:30] And that amount of creative stakes is very different than like, I made something and no one, maybe someone looks at who directed it, but like, no one really knows who made this. Yeah. I mean, you'd stay up all night, if not multiple nights in a row for your identity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's like, it's like good driving force when at the time we weren't really making that much money.

[00:07:51] Chris Do: Yeah. Okay. There's so many threads for me to pull on here. I can't agree more about the benefits of getting on camera and learning [00:08:00] how to be on camera to be present, to command attention, to be able to articulate your ideas without stammering your way through it. I feel like it's a natural thing for you, maybe a little bit less natural for you, Colin.

[00:08:10] So like in the early days. When he's like, let's go do this thing. I mean, there's so many questions I have, but how did you feel in those early days? And how are you, I don't, I'm making some assumptions, but I assume as a creative, you're an introvert. I am not saying it's good or bad, but just how do you get over that?

[00:08:26] Because the benefits seem so great. Like, especially where you guys are now.

[00:08:30] Colin and Samir: Yeah. I would say we were fortunate in that we chose a very niche community that we were both members of. Right. So, there weren't that many people, almost, there really wasn't almost anyone making lacrosse content 12, 13 years ago and putting it on YouTube.

[00:08:47] So our audience was really underserved. So they were very like forgiving and very grateful that we were trying and putting a lot out. So, the comments were not really about like if I was uncomfortable, right? The comments were more so like, thank [00:09:00] you for showing us that game or that highlight. And then, I was also not on my own.

[00:09:06] Like. Samir said we were becoming friends and figuring out who each other were on camera. So if we made each other laugh like that showed up on camera and that was very authentic, right? It's hard to be someone else or be someone you're not when someone is next to you on camera who knows who you are off camera, right?

[00:09:26] Like the second you portrayed yourself as someone that you are not, even if it's just like portrayed yourself as awkward, he's going to laugh. Yeah. So that was like a helpful way to, to do it. Yeah. And we made YouTube back then was very different. We were putting out multiple videos a day.

[00:09:42] Yeah.

[00:09:43] Colin and Samir: So there was no time really to like.

[00:09:46] think about it. And I was getting so many reps at being on camera.

[00:09:50] Chris Do: Yeah. That's an important point is at first you suck, but if you keep doing it, you make small improvements. Eventually you get pretty good at or at least comfortable enough doing it.

[00:09:59] Colin and Samir: It felt very [00:10:00] safe. Like I didn't feel like my friends from high school were watching these videos because they weren't right.

[00:10:05] Like lacrosse fans were watching it. So it felt like a safe place to experiment. Yeah. I do think the point there is really, really important. Like, like targeting a very specific audience with a very specific value proposition to the content. makes it feel safer because you know who you are trying to reach and you know why they would watch.

[00:10:24] There's like unbelievably simple question in YouTube that some people forget to ask. We've forgotten to ask it to ourselves. But it's the most commonly, uh, it's the most common thing that people forget to ask, who is this for? And why would they watch? Those are the two questions you have to first, before you do anything, it's like, who is this video for?

[00:10:43] And why are they watching? And you have to answer those questions. Cause as filmmakers or creatives, even when we first started calling and smear, which was YouTube, we didn't ask that question. And we were just like, these are cool videos. Right. And actually they were for us, not necessarily empathetic towards [00:11:00] broader.

[00:11:00] Audience or broader ecosystem of YouTube and developing that empathy over long periods of time of like, what, what does it mean to put out a video on this platform is so important. I think you forget to ask that, but when you do ask that and you go, oh, this is for people like me and what, what is the value of the value is I'm teaching them.

[00:11:18] Okay, great. And we were able to find videos through asking those two questions. Like one of our most viewed videos on the lacrosse network at that time was how to shoot a lacrosse ball because it was like, Oh, who is this for? There's it's the fastest growing sport. There's a ton of new players. Why would they watch to learn the most important part of the game?

[00:11:37] So it's like you get, you can find a lot of ideas through just asking those two really simple questions. And it feels really safe to make that video because it has purpose. Okay.

[00:11:46] Chris Do: The next question I want to ask, and I really do want to get into the whole reporting on the creator economy and being part of it, because that's really important.

[00:11:52] I think that's the meat of what we're going to talk about today is you move across country, you're going to go and work with a guy that you don't know [00:12:00] that well, who's been syndicating your content, I think. There's a lot of question marks there. Okay, cool. You did it. I have a hard time agreeing with anybody.

[00:12:08] How is it that you guys can be working together for 13 years and still agree and still maintain a professional and personal relationship? That is one thing that I always tell people don't get into a partnership with anybody because it's just so difficult. It really is because half the time you're explaining why you want to do something versus just doing what it is that you need to do.

[00:12:28] How do you guys make it work? Because every time I see somebody who's made it work, it's a it's a miracle for me.

[00:12:34] Colin and Samir: I would say for myself creatively, I never really saw myself going down a creative path as a career. Like I took art classes in high school and things like that, um, and a little bit in college, but I was an economics and Italian major and like, I just didn't see it as a path for myself.

[00:12:52] And when I started working with Samir, we were getting so many early wins creatively that felt so exciting. [00:13:00] And I never felt like I was like deserving of way more, like everything was like already the icing on top. So taking that combined with the fact that we truly do share taste a lot, and of course there are times when we disagree and then we kind of like start to understand who cares more about having it the way that they see it, right?

[00:13:21] And then it's like we defer in some times, right? Yeah. But just feeling like the creative wins in the career was already like more than I ever thought it would be made me feel like, wow, if I walked away tomorrow, if all of this went downhill, I'm already so excited about where it's already taken me. Yeah.

[00:13:40] And I felt that way like very early on, and I still feel like that now. But like I would never, I'm, I'm very committed to this creative partnership and like where we've taken it and where we want to go. But if for some reason, truly, it like fell apart tomorrow, I really think I would look back on this whole thing and go like, wow, That was [00:14:00] so unbelievable and outside the bounds of my expectations.

[00:14:04] What about for you? How do you make it work? I think, you know, we both come from a team sports background, which I think was actually important. And we learned a lot about each other in the first couple of years that we not only, we just had like really weirdly similar experiences in like our teenage years and college years.

[00:14:21] And I think that all like really informed both our taste, but also our, you know, Um, ability to work together and our ability to share common vernacular and language. Like it's actually really insane how similar we are. Um, and I think that felt very familial early on. And I come from a, a lineage of family business.

[00:14:43] And so like my understanding of business was family. And I actually think that can be really detrimental to a lot of businesses to like operate like a family. Right. I think, who was it, Reed Hastings who said, Yeah. Reed Hastings was talking about Netflix and he was saying that companies are not families, they're sports teams.[00:15:00]

[00:15:00] Yeah. And there's a depth chart and you can go up and down on the depth chart every year and you need to know that you're up for renewal. You can't get out of a family, you can't get like kicked out essentially of a family, right? So he's saying companies shouldn't operate like families, they should be sports teams.

[00:15:13] You can get traded, you can get dropped. Now, with that in mind, I think between us, we operate like a family, like he, I, I treat Colin like a brother and like that, I think comes from this like really wild loyalty and commitment from an early stage of doing this project, which was the lacrosse network that didn't make any money for three years.

[00:15:35] And then we sold it. So experiencing like really hard times and then an incredible success. And validation is, is a pretty powerful thing to experience with someone and to go like at 23 years old when we sold the company, like to go like, Whoa, we're, we're, we're pretty capable, you know, like that's a really important moment for an entrepreneur, a creator, anyone in the world, like to have that moment of validation without it, I don't know where [00:16:00] we end up, but that moment of validation, I think created a tie and a bond between us that, uh, was like, okay, we're really capable.

[00:16:08] Yeah. And that, that was hard to hold on to in the years to come after when we felt really incapable. But that little glimpse of, hey, when we are really working together, we have something powerful and special and we're capable. There was a guy who put it to me this way. He said, like, there are some people who work together and one side puts in one part of it.

[00:16:32] One side puts in another part of it. And one plus one equals two. And then he was talking about his own creative partnership and he said, when I put my one in, my creative partner puts in the other one, for some reason it equals three. And I think we felt that way early on that it was like we were coming together to work on something and then something unexpected and extraordinary would come out of it.

[00:16:52] Chris Do: What I'm hearing you both say is like you had an early indicator that working together worked [00:17:00] with you being able to sell your network, you coming in with lots of gratitude, like, you know what, man, this is exceeded everything I wanted anyway, so I'm going to ride this train forever long, and I'm going to be grateful for every moment.

[00:17:11] And finding how you guys create that energy together. That's awesome. I'm going to ask this question. If it's not a good question, we move on to the next one, right? I always worry about this. Cause this happens in every partnership I've ever had. Work ethic, focus, vision, egos. They all rear their heads. One person feels resentful of the other person.

[00:17:31] Like, are you working as hard as me or you're doing things I don't want you to do? And there's just a lot of compromising. I'm of the mindset, like I'm a good captain. I'm a good soldier. I'm not a good captain soldier. Like, I can lead, I can follow, but one of us has to lead, one of us has to follow. It works better for me.

[00:17:48] I'll do everything you say. But when it comes into, and maybe because of my age, this co creation, everything is like shared, let's hold hands throughout the whole process. It doesn't work for my brain. So, have there been moments where you're [00:18:00] like, hey, somebody's getting, you know, way more attention. Like, there's that No Doubt video where they just push the band out of the way and it's always on Gwen.

[00:18:08] Even though the band is really, like, she was just brought in. Right? So do you guys get moments where either vision, cadence flow, and somebody feels like, Hey man, you stepped on my toes. If that happens, how do you resolve that? If it doesn't happen, I'm not trying to dig out any dirt here.

[00:18:23] Colin and Samir: I don't know that that happens, but I think like, I don't know that we had experiences of, of that.

[00:18:30] I don't know if you feel that way, but I think the experience that we have is like, I definitely. Like, I would say that in our relationship, I'm definitely, if we're looking at like in who's leading the ship of where we're trying to go, I would say based on our reality, like, I am pushing us into where does this go from a business perspective?

[00:18:51] Like, where are we taking all of this? And also Samir and I didn't start as creative partners or friends. I was technically an employee. [00:19:00] Yeah. Like, so like, like the, the way we started is like Samir is my boss. Right. And even our working relationship was like, he pushes on the business on the vision and I'm here to like craft it and bring it to life.

[00:19:11] So I definitely different from Colin, like I am incredibly grateful for where we are, but I also grew up in like a immigrant Indian family where like the dinner table conversation was money. I live in a deep, like my biggest work is to work out of a scarcity mindset, right? That I'm like still in survival mode in some way, shape or form.

[00:19:30] So like my. ambitions and my curiosity of where this can all go is, is like very expansive. And like, I, I would like to see how far this can go. Yeah. I think if this ended today, although I would be grateful, I'd be like, we didn't do it, you know? And, and that's, that's also, maybe I'll never feel it. Yeah.

[00:19:55] Yeah. Most likely I'll never feel it, but that. The game of that is pretty exciting [00:20:00] for me and pretty stimulating. That also can lead us to some challenging places when creativity is about vision and focus. And when you think about like in the different parts of your career, what is the collaborator? Like Colin is my core collaborator, but as you grow and as you grow up and you go from being a 20 year old kid to a 35 year old guy, Money, family, all these things become collaborators and all of a sudden like projects that pay really well are super interesting.

[00:20:26] They might not be the ones that are the most creatively aligned with you. They might take you completely off focus and you have to get really good at navigating What that all means. I think that is like the constant work of a creative partnership is to work in that direction of like, okay, what do we do?

[00:20:45] Like if a ridiculous offer comes in, that feels insane to say no to, but it's a little off focus. It doesn't really make sense. Yeah. How do you make a decision? And I think as you, as you go like longer in your career in a creative partnership, [00:21:00] like the thing that I'd like to work on now with us is decision making, tracking like time to decision.

[00:21:06] The worst thing in our company, which happens quite a bit is a lingering decision. It's terrible. It messes up your creative flow. It messes up focus. It messes up the team. It's like, it doesn't work. It sits in your mind for too long. It's like not a good place to be. And so I think, how we collectively come to a decision is going to make or break the next chapter.

[00:21:27] And I think sometimes my frustration can be in our relationship, like our inability to agree on a, on a big decision or just make a decision. Uh, like we can go, we can oscillate and go back and forth on decisions.

[00:21:41] Chris Do: Uh, yeah. I just want to touch on our cultural thing here. Forgive me if I'm painting too broad of strokes, everybody.

[00:21:48] White American. I'm grateful. Everything's great. It ends tomorrow. Asian immigrant American, like, Oh my God, I'm a disappointment to my family. You gotta go. I just want, I have some friends who are Indian [00:22:00] or either first generation American or first generation immigrants. I just want to know what the Indian American experience is.

[00:22:08] When you said you were sitting at the dinner table and you're talking about money, give us a little glimpse into the kinds of conversations that might, it doesn't have to be literal, but The things that you're hearing that's affecting the way that you think in your relationship with abundance or scarcity.

[00:22:20] Can you share an example? Either you did something that that was pretty good. And then mom or dad said, no, or your brother or sister or somebody says, so we can understand that perspective a little bit. Cause I think I know Colin's perspective there. So

[00:22:31] Colin and Samir: yeah. Yeah. Man, I was a really bad student in school.

[00:22:36] I didn't get good grades.

[00:22:37] Chris Do: Harvard Westlake? Come

[00:22:38] Colin and Samir: on. Yeah, I went to one of the best schools. Yeah, you did. And you

[00:22:41] Chris Do: can't just get into that school by not being a good student.

[00:22:43] Colin and Samir: I think I'm like a good storyteller and a good orator. And I think I can work my way around, but I just didn't care about school that much.

[00:22:50] Um, so I, I, I was on academic probation at that school. I was not a good student. And that in the Indian community is like, you move to America, your dad works his [00:23:00] ass off to put you in the best school. And then you're on academic probation. That's like immediate. You are, what the hell is wrong with you?

[00:23:06] Right? And so, first of all, that's my experience just to paint a picture of who I am in my family, my brother, student body, president of the school, student body, president of USC as well. When he got into USC. me couldn't get into USC. Right. So like, there's, there's like the, the, just to understand where I sit in the family, but what the dinner table conversations were like, my dad's an entrepreneur.

[00:23:26] He built a company from the ground up in 1976 when he moved to America, just true classic American dream. Yeah. Um, but no matter how we, we could never gauge how You know, successful as company was as young kids, we can never gauge where we sat as like a family. Like things were comfortable, everything was totally comfortable, but the conversation was always that we were one, you know, deal away from it all falling apart.

[00:23:54] And so that is the experience that still even with us, no matter where, [00:24:00] like when you're a child and that is the conversation that you hear and not over here, you, you are a part of, that is the experience of being an entrepreneur is. Yeah. Things are going great, but we are one deal away or one deal not happening away.

[00:24:14] Right. And so I've had to do a lot of work as a, you know, creative and as an, as a, as a businessman to like, uh, live in facts. Not stories, right? And that's that's still hard for me. But that is what I would say like my experience of dinner table conversation was explicitly hearing about he's in the clothing business About which buyer was buying what which buyer wasn't buying anymore.

[00:24:40] How many units were sold? What the price of those units were what the margin was on a discount sale versus a full price sale. How many boutiques were customers versus big box retailers. I was also attending dinners with big box retailers. Like I was at a very young age, a part of that whole process.

[00:24:59] [00:25:00] There was no, there's no line when you grow up in an immigrant family of like, This is business and this is family, right? There's no line between those two things. Yeah. Hey, we're going on vacation. Yeah. We're going on vacation, but we're going because there's a store there and we're meeting with them, right?

[00:25:14] Like, and we got to be, I've got to dress nice to that dinner. Right. So like we're working. You're not going to the beach. Dad's got

[00:25:22] Chris Do: a deal. You need to like, sit properly, quietly for that. I don't want to paint a

[00:25:25] Colin and Samir: picture. Like we didn't have a good time, but like, everything was through the lens of like, we're going to be productive here.

[00:25:30] I get it.

[00:25:30] Chris Do: Yeah. Okay. I totally understand. So

[00:25:33] Colin and Samir: now everybody gets who I am and where I come from. But yeah, that is my, like, My work is to explore my way back into constantly back into like, uh, free creative spaces. Yeah. Creative spaces that are absent of fear. Because fear is a really interesting collaborator in the creative process.

[00:25:49] It can actually be really interesting fuel, uh, but it also Uh, there's a, there's a tipping point of that right there's a tipping point of the scarcity mindset that pushes [00:26:00] you over to a place where you're not creating as authentically as you want to be. You get paralyzed. Yeah.

[00:26:04] Chris Do: If it goes through fire.

[00:26:06] Colin and Samir: I think fear is better in the creative process or the creative journey when you feel like you haven't achieved what you want.

[00:26:12] Yeah. Not that we have like achieved everything, but when we've found success. The fear of losing it, I find to be more stifling and paralyzing than the fear when you're trying to build something for the first time.

[00:26:26] Chris Do: So what I'm getting from both of you guys is a slightly different energy, but common goal, which is, I think your approach is be grateful, be grounded in the moment, don't have any expectations of what tomorrow holds.

[00:26:37] Colin and Samir: I'm also though a little more competitive than that. Like I am very grateful for this and I try and like take a step back and center myself that way. But like, When we were building the lacrosse network, when we're building this. Because I played sports and because I grew up the way I grew up, like I, I look at it also pretty competitively.

[00:26:54] So I think I am able to like match some of Samir's energy when it's [00:27:00] needed. Like, we're both very competitive. Like also when we play any sport together, we don't even speak to each other during the game. Like we are, we are diehard competitors. And like, no matter if we're playing pickleball, we'll play like lacrosse or street lacrosse or like basketball, we'll just.

[00:27:18] Compete super hard. Uh, and I think that's how we feel when we come in here too. It's like this is our new You know field and we're here to compete and like youtube is our space that we're trying to compete, right? And it's interesting to look at creativity as a competition Uh, it's very different. Uh, but that is the you know, the gamification of What has happened to, to the internet?

[00:27:43] Chris Do: It feels like I'm probably going to mess this up, but it's a very grounded space to look at the world. And from the Asian immigrant parents, like, yeah, you got to just keep going. And I feel when you said what you said, so many of the audience that are immigrants are going to be like, I feel so senior right now.

[00:27:59] I'm just [00:28:00] feeling it. You know, I remember one time. We're, we're also, uh, refugees, immigrants, and I had to fill out some paperwork for a high school or something about how much money my parents made. I'm like, it's got to be this amount because we're poor. And then my mom and dad fill out the paperwork. Oh my God.

[00:28:14] I mean, they're not entrepreneurs, they're working in tech companies, but I'm like, that is way more than I thought we had. The Asian immigrant parent says we're always poor. They have a poor mindset. Not in terms of like healthy or unhealthy, but just like literally we have no money. Yes, we cannot spend any money and we're always worried about money and there's never enough and I totally understand and relate to that.

[00:28:36] And that creates a different kind of driver. I'm trying to get to the place where you are, where it's just like, you know what? Whatever happens, happens. And if we lose it all, we'll rebuild from the ground up and I'm grateful for every day.

[00:28:46] Colin and Samir: Yeah.

[00:28:47] Chris Do: And there's a balance there of like wanting something being super competitive and also saying like, it's a pretty good day today.

[00:28:52] Yeah. I'm alive. I'm around friends. I'm doing something I love and everything else is a blessing on top of that. Let's do a hard switch here and let's get into [00:29:00] the creator economy. I foolishly am in the creator economy, but I don't even know what that means. I got to debate with somebody. And I was wrong.

[00:29:07] I apologize and admit it to that person later. I could really thought about it. So for people who don't even understand what a creator is in the creator economy, can one of you guys define it as you understand it? Sure.

[00:29:18] Colin and Samir: Yeah. A creator is someone who produces media on the internet and monetizes that.

[00:29:26] monetizes that through um, either advertising or direct sales to their audience. I would say that's like the best way I understand it. And I see this as the guys who talk about the creator economy the most probably. There's a great tweet that Colin showed me that said the creator economy, otherwise known as the economy.

[00:29:45] And I think it is an important thing to, to recognize, but uh, that, that it is just representative of like, The economy, it's just, you know, capturing attention and monetizing that attention, the, the, the change that happened. And the reason why it's called the greater economy is because that [00:30:00] access was democratized.

[00:30:01] So what we previously, you know, when I wanted to start the lacrosse network, my, one of my first thoughts was I need to go pitch TV networks. And then, you know, I realized, wait, no, I can just upload to YouTube. So like if you wanted to create a radio station in the past, you couldn't just do that. Now you can.

[00:30:16] So the democratization of media has led to independent people being able to capture audience through media and then monetize that. And the ad economy is what really changed that. Like the fact that internet advertising through companies like DoubleClick, the current CEO of, of YouTube, Neil Mohan was very instrumental in this, but creating a system where there is an auction based.

[00:30:41] Advertising network across the internet that could then share with the publishers. That's what created the creator economy. Like that is what it is. It means that today if I have an idea for a video, I can upload it without having to pay anything. I can just upload it to the internet and then I can actually have a mechanism to get [00:31:00] paid for that.

[00:31:02] And you're not pitching a client. You are never talking to that person. Right, right. That is just happening while you're producing media.

[00:31:08] Chris Do: Okay. Components, Lynn. And one of your tests, you create media and you can monetize it. And there's something about distribution because access is democratized, right? So if I'm a writer for a newspaper, I created media, I'm getting money for it, but I'm working for someone.

[00:31:23] So that doesn't fit the test. If I write a blog post for medium and I'm able to monetize the views, am I part of the creator economy? Yes. Okay. If I'm, here goes the bad example, if I'm Tom Cruise and I publish a video on YouTube, my creator. Yes. Okay. So that's like old entertainment meets new entertainment.

[00:31:44] And is there any other criteria that we have to look at? Because then it seems like the debate I got into with Andrew, apologies, Andrew already said it to you, is he's like, well, we have to have some parameters, otherwise everyone's a creator. And it started getting really blurry to me because I thought one who creates [00:32:00] as a creator, but there's actually a lot more to it.

[00:32:02] Colin and Samir: Well, again, I think you have to look at this from the terminology that has come out of Come to understand all of this. It's not necessarily defining terminology of who you are from an identity perspective, right? Like that's an important distinction. But yeah, the questions are are super valid and we are prediction.

[00:32:20] We've said a few times as we think the word might go away. Because again, like if we go down this path is Haley Bieber, the most, you know, some of that we know primarily through Instagram and social media, she a creator, she captures a ton of attention, launched a brand off of that attention and monetizes in that way and does brand deals on Instagram.

[00:32:38] Yeah, she's kind of a creator, right? So like the, the world is going to get increasingly blurry. Tom Brady just started a YouTube channel. Chris Hemsworth just started a YouTube channel. Rinaldo has a YouTube channel. Like Everybody is now jumping here. And I think how we understand it is like the true Independent person who rose from obscurity.

[00:32:57] That's how we understand that term, right? [00:33:00] But it is a term that is broader now that is just like look I wonder if we look at this in the future and go, um You know, hey, uh, drew good and youtuber. He's actually a comedian. He's not a, he's not a creator. He's a comedian, right? We use traditional entertainment words to understand these people or the term remains and it describes everyone who knows, but in the immediate term, it very explicitly describes like the independent formerly unknown person who rose through these social platforms.

[00:33:35] I would say too, like from interviewing a lot of creators and like pushing them and asking them, how would you describe what you do? Seldom do you get a creator who just says, I'm a creator or even I'm a YouTuber. Like, like there are a lot of YouTubers, but that's like a smaller subset. I would say in the creator economy, a lot of times you talk to people and they're like, I consider myself a comedian or a designer or a writer, right?

[00:33:57] Like they are looking for those traditional [00:34:00] terms as well to define themselves.

[00:34:02] Chris Do: Yeah. I wonder also, because maybe there's some stigma attaching yourself to a YouTuber because. Basically, every kid who's got a camera publishes a video as a YouTuber, and you're trying to position yourself as a more professional person.

[00:34:15] I had a problem with that. I ran a motion design firm. I started making content on YouTube, and the first person who saw me, I'm like, you're a YouTuber. Well, don't put me in that box so quick because there's 20 plus years of history before I get into the YouTube and I don't want to be defined that way.

[00:34:28] And now today people tell, I'm an online creator. I create stuff for YouTube. I don't care anymore. I don't feel that stigma. And I think it's shifting towards that place where perfectly professional acceptable to say that you're a YouTuber or creator. There's no weird, You know, stigma that you got to fight through, right?

[00:34:45] It's aspirational. Yeah.

[00:34:46] Colin and Samir: When we first started and, you know, when I first started making YouTube videos, it was, it was not premium to say that.

[00:34:55] Chris Do: That's a very nice way to sub premium. Yeah. It was, it was a sub

[00:34:58] Colin and Samir: premium thing to say. Right. [00:35:00] I used to tell people that I worked in advertising and

[00:35:03] Chris Do: kind of hope that it just stopped there.

[00:35:04] Right.

[00:35:05] Colin and Samir: Yeah. It wasn't like now, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm also older now and less concerned about what people think about me. But like, I was very concerned in my early twenties to say, I make YouTube videos, especially when they weren't successful and there wasn't aspiration around it. Right. Then it's like, Oh, you make YouTube videos for like a couple of hundred people and you make zero dollars.

[00:35:23] Okay. That's cool. Now it's like, all right, you know, however, the world sees a profession is how, you know, the broader world is also going to understand. And it's like when the Mr. Beast's rolled around, when we started seeing deals like even Alex Cooper and call her daddy, like she started by making YouTube videos.

[00:35:40] So it's like, wait, that's possible. You can get a 60 million deal with Spotify when you make YouTube videos, uh, you know, that's, that's when people started taking it really seriously. It's like, oh wait, this is, this is real. But in 2011, no, no one took it seriously and I, I connected with you too. I think like I understand the difference between a creator and a creative.[00:36:00]

[00:36:00] And I think that's actually a really distinct difference, right? Like you look at like, uh, we have a, a friend and a former collaborator who's like, so creative. He's a music video director, uh, his music video, one video of the year at the VMAs and it was Bradley caller. He's a, uh, uh, director. He's a creative.

[00:36:17] He takes, he does photography, he'll put together an amazing video and like he is someone who who you bring on to direct something or creative direct something. He is a creative. Can make amazing YouTube videos and do all that, but he doesn't. He chooses not to do it. He chooses not to be a distribution platform.

[00:36:34] I think that that's like the difference between creative and creator, right? It's like a creative does a creative act and produces creative work. The creator is a distribution platform. Those are the like, they're different art forms. And you can be both. Yeah. And you can be both.

[00:36:48] Chris Do: Yeah. Okay. I like that.

[00:36:49] It's more inclusive. And maybe you're right. Maybe at some point the label has a lot of meaning or no meaning at all. It doesn't really matter. Yeah. And this is just all part. Par for the course, you, you make a living because you make [00:37:00] stuff. That's cool. Okay. Now, scanning through your channel, top viewed videos, there's MrBeast, MrBeast, MrBeast.

[00:37:08] So let's, let's talk about MrBeast for a second. Okay. Um, is it arguable? He's like most, the influential, impactful creator on YouTube? Yeah. Not arguable, right? I think it's fair to say. Okay. Okay. You've talked to him so many times. Yeah. He's an animal, Mr. Beast, I get it. In your conversation with them, what were things that you learned that surprised you, or that you think are worth noting for people?

[00:37:31] I'd love to hear from both of you guys. Like, you're, you're one thing.

[00:37:34] Colin and Samir: I mean, I would say like, the first time, and the first couple of times that we spoke with him at length, gaining the understanding that he is a true student of the platform. And he made some of our, I won't call them mistakes, but like videos that didn't do well, seem so obvious in hindsight that they didn't do well.

[00:37:57] Right? Like he just looks at the platform and it's very cut and [00:38:00] dry to him of like, There is data that backs up why someone will watch. How many people click the thumbnail? Is the title right? How many words are in this title? In the first literally frame of the video, is it interesting and does it meet the expectation of the thumbnail?

[00:38:16] You could just keep going down the line of all of these different rules that he understood that we clearly did not understand, right? But like they are out there and they are available to people, but he just follows them. Yeah. And he'll sometimes call us and be like, Hey, like, what's up with that video?

[00:38:28] Like you're not following the rules and I know, you know, the rules and it's like, Oh yeah.

[00:38:33] Chris Do: He's calling you. Oh yeah. He calls us all the time. About his video. Or is it random? No, about our videos.

[00:38:40] Colin and Samir: Oh my God. And sometimes, you know, about his videos to talk about his videos. But yeah, I mean, that's, that's one thing that, um, I would say surprised me is like his deep investment in his friends and like people that he.

[00:38:55] You know, early on when we first met, we met just by talking on the phone and talking [00:39:00] about YouTube on the phone. But like, he would just want to talk about our videos and be like, why are you doing this? Do it this way. What have you ever thought about this way? Remember, there's one time he called me. He's like, pitch me your next five videos.

[00:39:09] I was like, uh, I think I've only thought of one. He was like, that's a problem. Think of like, you should be brainstorming way more videos. You shouldn't have just your next video plan. So like, I think that, that surprised me. And like, I think what he, what I know about him is that through teaching, he was learning to, right.

[00:39:25] Cause I would throw unexpected things at him of here's my next five videos and he'd be able to fix them. Right. The titles be like, that title doesn't work. And he'd be learning himself of like, Oh, interesting. That's. That's how the title should be like. And so, yeah, I think that that surprised me early on was like, I, I hadn't met someone like that who found a lot of value through just getting on the phone and brainstorming or talking through problems or trying to basically be like, throw me a problem and let's solve it together.

[00:39:52] Yeah. Like a creative problem. Yeah. And. Yeah, that was really interesting. It still happens today. And I would say that five years into our [00:40:00] relationship, he has not, he, he's changed in that he has way more to deal with on a day to day basis. Now, like he is, the problems he's solving are not reduced down to is the story good.

[00:40:12] He has way bigger, You know, challenges and running a 300 person organization, you know, a lot of those challenges have been very public. Like he's dealing with a lot now, but he's still when I talk to him and spend time with him, he's still deeply, deeply cares about. He obsesses over his videos. He's still like a guy who just loves making videos and loves when a video is good and hates when a video is bad, you know, like there's simplicity to that that I think is actually a commonality across all successful YouTube creators.

[00:40:45] Chris Do: So there's always multiple sides to every person, the person that you see, the person that's presenting, the person that's behind closed doors. So when you see him, he's a very likable, friendly guy who's giving all people money and cars and islands and things like that. But the obsessive [00:41:00] nature of that.

[00:41:00] Have you guys seen him behind the scenes? I mean, someone who's that obsessive, because I know creative people, not creators, that are insane, and like, that's wrong, don't do like that, and everybody's like on pins and needles because there's a very specific way of making things. Is there any truth in this idea of an obsessive creative who is trying to do the very best with a team of

[00:41:27] Colin and Samir: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I, I would say that we have a very different relationship with him because we're friends and we've been friends for a long time. So when we spend time together, it's through that lens, right? And as collaborators and as peers, but you know, I think that's, again, it's just who he is. He deeply cares about making great stuff and there's a lot of people like that who deeply care about making great stuff and it really irks them to make not great stuff.

[00:41:53] Right. Right. I think we're kind of like that, you know, like we, we really struggle. Like I think taste is our biggest [00:42:00] bottleneck. I think taste is a lot of creative people's biggest bottleneck in terms of like building something bigger. Like I don't, I could not have a company with 300 people. Um, because I would be so concerned with everything that is going out and getting my eyes on everything that goes out.

[00:42:17] It even it happens in this small studio with, you know, a limited amount of employees and team members. But like, I don't want anything going out without our eyes on it. And we typically want to. Edit it or re edit it, and then you realize over time, you're like, either we need to let go a little bit, or we need to actually just focus in on a few things, because we care so much about what they look like.

[00:42:39] Chris Do: So as you scale, are you going to still want to like, need to look at the edit, I want to sit down and trim here and I think it's a

[00:42:46] Colin and Samir: conversation of how far you scale, and I think what I'm realizing is as much as I, I thought at one point in my life, I wanted to run a very big media company with a lot of people and maybe like producing a ton of different things.

[00:42:58] I actually don't think I want [00:43:00] that. I don't think I can handle that emotionally. I think I want to, I want the things we do to have bigger scale, but to do less things. Yeah. I would love to do one project at a time really well. Rather than 10 projects. Yeah.

[00:43:14] Chris Do: Colin, do you remember when Mr. Beast calls you up and says, uh, that title's, you know, Not working.

[00:43:20] Do you remember the original title and what he changed it to and why you're like, yeah, of course, we know the rules. We know this is done.

[00:43:26] Colin and Samir: I mean, he mainly calls Samir. So, uh, what I hear is generally, why do you hate views is a common thing he will

[00:43:33] say.

[00:43:35] Colin and Samir: A little sass coming out there. I don't know if I can pick apart a specific title and thumbnail.

[00:43:40] You can, but yeah, it's always just like, yeah, he'll say, why do you hate views? Which basically means like, are you choosing to not have the most amount of people watch your video? Because I could. Make alterations that I know you know. Yes. To have this reach more people and you're not doing it for some reason.

[00:43:55] You're not spending time. You guys just haven't spent enough time. Yeah. You haven't spent enough time. Like you haven't taken it seriously. Right. [00:44:00] This, this. Because there's three rules of YouTube. And the first one is, if they don't click, they don't watch. That's the first rule. You can't get to anything else unless you solve that.

[00:44:11] And that is the rule that he focuses on the most. Right. Which is, if they don't click, they don't watch. The number one fundamental of YouTube is did you make the title and thumbnail before you made the video? Most people don't 99%. We still do that where we don't make the title and thumbnail before in the video.

[00:44:28] And it always bites us in the ass. You really want to reach the most amount of people. The game of YouTube is a compelling title and thumbnail, and then back it up with a great video. Rule two is respect their time. So what that means is if you, if you earned the click, I earned your click through instilling enough curiosity through my title and thumbnail that you want to click.

[00:44:51] I need to now respect your time. The first thing we track is first seven second viewership, then first 30 second viewership. So the thing I have to do after I've [00:45:00] earned your click is write a compelling hook that first backs up the title and thumbnail. And second introduces a new question that you want the answer to by the end of the video, right?

[00:45:10] And so now I need to recognize that you've just committed to make an investment of time in my video and I need to give you a return on that investment. The first thing I have to do is promise you that return. The third thing we track there is AVD, average view duration. How long does someone watch? One of our videos, and that gives us an understanding if we created something that was worth your time and that backed up the thumbnail that we generated.

[00:45:35] The third rule is, uh, do you want more stuff like this? The reason I say that is because it's basically the suggestion of most people are building, you know, from a business perspective, YouTube to, you know, again, capture attention, which was the first two rules. And the third monetize attention on a monetize attention.

[00:45:55] Then typically I'm selling brand deals. into it or I'm selling my own thing. So do [00:46:00] you want more stuff like this is the third rule because you think about the value of your video. And any monetization has to answer the question, do you want more stuff like this? So if, you know, Colin and I, our show, the value of the show is to teach you about YouTube, our sponsors should be in line with that value, right?

[00:46:18] The question to the audience is, did you like that video? Do you want more stuff like this? Click the link in our description. Right. Or, you know, um, or do you want more stuff like this? Great. We have it. Yeah. Watch another one. Watch another video. Right. Because, because what happens with YouTube is not, I made one great video.

[00:46:34] It's me. I made a catalog of great videos that you can watch all of them. So again, it's, do you want more stuff like this? Do you want more videos like this? Do you want more, uh, knowledge like this? Do you want a product like this? That is the third rule that you have to, uh, I mean, we spent a lot of years asking, do you want more stuff like this?

[00:46:53] And the answer was no. Yeah. You know, it was like, all right, let's change it up. Right. Yeah. So those are the three rules [00:47:00] that took us a while to boil those down and simplify those. Those are part of our, uh, program, which is called the YouTube growth playbook. But I had to get to a point where I was like, What are the rules?

[00:47:10] What are the fundamentals? How do we then like build within those and make sure that we're following those rules? That's the hard part. And there's a lot of exercises and ways to get there. But yeah, those are the three rules. Uh, if they don't click, they don't watch. Respect their time. And do you want more stuff like this?

[00:47:25] Beautiful.

[00:47:26] Chris Do: Do you remember the example? I'd love to give the audience a tangible example. I mean, like here's a title that we didn't think about a lot, and then when we really thought about it, we changed it to this and then things took off or now it worked and now we know why. Thank you. I want to try to make it concrete.

[00:47:40] It doesn't have to be from Mr. Beast. It could be anything you guys have done.

[00:47:44] Colin and Samir: All right. So I'm, I'm, I'm going to give you examples that I've seen to be a hundred percent honest. I like literally can't remember one from our channel, but there's been a lot that we changed quite a bit. Maybe we can give one specifically about a title that we, we [00:48:00] interviewed Austin Cleon, who's, who wrote the book, steal like an artist.

[00:48:03] And the episode, the impetus for the episode was about plagiarism on YouTube. And it was like basically plagiarism on YouTube is a problem. A lot of people. copy exact videos. So we wanted to make this video where we talked about that, and then we brought on Austin Kleon to talk about, you know, how to steal like an artist.

[00:48:21] And, you know, we'd love that we got to talk to Austin Kleon. So we made the video first, then we're like, what's the, what's the title of thumbnail? And we were like, title is let's talk about plagiarism on YouTube. That was the actual title that we started with.

[00:48:34] Chris Do: Okay. Let's, let's, I'd love to sink in with the original title.

[00:48:37] Let's talk about plagiarism on YouTube. Okay. Everybody got that.

[00:48:40] Colin and Samir: Yeah.

[00:48:41] Chris Do: Okay, cool. So then we

[00:48:43] Colin and Samir: actually used. AI, uh, we use chat to BT to go give us like as many variations of this as possible. And one thing that came out was the copy and paste culture of YouTube, much more interesting, much more of what we call a [00:49:00] curiosity gap, which means like I'm presented with A level of information.

[00:49:04] And I want to know, you know, more information. And that gap typically gets you to click. So it's like a term that's a little more creative. You don't really know what it means yet. And that paired with the thumbnail, which was to exactly same thumbnails from two different creators saying this is theft up top that interplay supported earning the click.

[00:49:26] There's a lot in there. I'm going to give a few more specific examples that we can workshop even right now. Okay, so I'm gonna give you a title now. I bring these up because celebrities are starting to join YouTube and their titles are all wrong because they're assuming that because they're celebrities.

[00:49:42] People will watch them, right? So Chris Hemsworth put out a video called 24 hours in Spain. So what is the issue with that? So one of the first issues is like, it's a little abstract. It doesn't really tell me what's going to happen if I invest my time in [00:50:00] this. Sure, I'm going to see Chris Hemsworth spend 24 hours in Spain, but I have so many other options of what to watch today.

[00:50:07] So why am I watching this video? So I clicked into that video and I explored it and he like challenges a bunch of Spanish soccer players to a soccer match. Much more interesting, much more visual, right? We can use visual words there. So like I challenged expert soccer players to a match is a little more interesting.

[00:50:26] We're not there yet, but working in that direction was a note that I wrote down of like, if I ever talked to Chris Hemsworth team, I'll tell them like, you know, or Tom Brady is now on YouTube. He, he did a title that was watching Tom Brady highlights with Julian Edelman. Now, the problem with these is that the story's over.

[00:50:45] Yeah. Right. Once you hear that title, you've. It's a close. Close. It's done. It's done. Yeah. You know, you don't have any questions. You get it. So the reframe there could be like pro [00:51:00] NFL player roast Tom Brady highlights parentheses. It doesn't go well. Gives us a little bit more of like, okay, if we don't know who Julian Edelman is at scale, then can we get like.

[00:51:11] Okay. We know he's an NFL player. He's like an NFL expert or NFL player. Um, roasts Tom Brady is a little more interesting. Okay. We know that it's like, you know, going to go in that direction. They're going to laugh. It doesn't go well, adds a little element to like, Ooh, that's fun. It might like go in a weird direction or like it gets weird, something like that.

[00:51:29] Like they're, they're just like a little bit. You know, pushing me in the direction of curiosity rather than closing the loop. Or if it's like his worst, they watch his worst plays and they get increasingly more embarrassing. Yeah. Right. Like you're like, how embarrassing can these plays actually get? Right.

[00:51:47] Where Tom Brady is messing up. I'll watch. There's a, uh, there's a term that we use called the Jenga storytelling, which means like when you play a game of Jenga, um, and you pull out the pieces, you know, that the end of [00:52:00] that story is that the tower is going to fall. But what makes the game exciting is that with every piece that you pull, the tower gets a little less stable, a little more shaky, and tension rises as time goes on.

[00:52:13] So when you think about compelling, or a compelling YouTube video, it follows the same thing. Tension has to rise as time goes on. Right? And so like what Colin said, they get increasingly more embarrassing. The tension is rising because you're trying to get to that point where it's the most embarrassing.

[00:52:29] But actually the best case, and this is something we learned from Mr. Beast, is that tension should actually rise and fall at disproportionate levels. The overall arc should be that tension rises towards the end, but you don't actually want a consistent rise, right? And that's why, like in older Mr. Beast videos, when he's doing, you know, if the title was like, I gave away a Lamborghini, you don't click on it and he immediately gives away a Lamborghini, right?

[00:52:54] Like he works his way up by doing a series of challenges, giving away, you know, Things that [00:53:00] lead to the Lamborghini and the challenges are not always like, it's not like it's like 25, 000, It's disproportionate.

[00:53:11] Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:53:12] Chris Do: Okay, there's a lot of like classic storytelling stuff that Hollywood has known for a long time.

[00:53:17] I, I draw the parallel for people, some people are Michael Bay fans, some people are Quentin Tarantino fans for very different reasons. I think Michael Bay's style of coming from music videos is to keep it at a frenetic pace for as long as possible, and then we become numb, and they're not dramatic pieces, whereas Quentin will build and build and build and you can't handle anymore, he'll let you off the hook for a little bit, he'll switch the timeline a little bit, and then you build and build, but it's just this one ginormous thing, it's like, and then Hitler gets burned in a theater.

[00:53:44] Like whoa, and then I feel like emotionally drained and satisfied and I experienced all the highs and lows I think mr. Beast does is probably better than anybody else and the numbers seem to show show it, right? You've had multiple conversation. You guys [00:54:00] are friends. So anything that you've ever walked away from an interview with him You're like, why didn't we ask that there was a moment and we didn't because of whatever reason.

[00:54:09] Are there any of those moments or do you get to make up for it on the next one?

[00:54:12] Colin and Samir: Luckily, we get to make up for it on the next one. But that happens not only with him, but with all guests. You know, like I think, um, I think it's a really challenging balance to be in your seat and the seat that Colin and I are typically in.

[00:54:25] Um, because you come in with a plan and you come in with empathy to the audience of here's what I'm going to try and do. You know, extract from this person for them and then the energy of the conversation is just whatever it is that day and it just. Your job is to be a good listener and listen to what the guests are saying and actually move the conversation in a natural direction and also keep the story in your head of where am I trying to go.

[00:54:52] Sometimes those two things are at odds and it's, it's hard to just navigate into places you want to go because the energy just isn't there. Like it's [00:55:00] still a conversation. And so I think that that does happen quite a bit. Mostly with creators, like I'm very interested as I get older and just more exploratory about things.

[00:55:10] I'm more interested in like the personal side of everything. I think the strategies are interesting. We've sat down with a ton of creators. I think their strategy, how they think about things is super interesting. And I think that's what our audience wants is to understand like how, but I get really deeply interested in why.

[00:55:25] Like, why are you like this? Why are you this person? And that, that sometimes I walk away from interviews wishing I got to push a little deeper in that direction of like, what made you into this person? The questions you asked me about the dinner table. Like I found, I found those to be some of the most, at least for me, like the most selfish questions is me wanting to ask that to the other person.

[00:55:46] I would say if anything, we're naturally going that direction with our interviews right now because it is following our interests. It's, we did many years of like. The conversation we just had right of like what matters with the title. Yes, yes, yes. What matters with storytelling like a lot of our episodes in [00:56:00] 2022 and part of 2023 were very much like YouTube fundamentals and then getting into the nitty gritty with each creator like watching a video with a creator and getting into the first 30 seconds.

[00:56:11] How do they do what they do? Now, sometimes we'll walk away from one of our episodes and then realize after the fact, Oh man, you know what? Actually, I don't think we really dug into their YouTube strategy. That's kind of like our, Oh crap.

[00:56:22] Yeah.

[00:56:23] Colin and Samir: Because that is like the basis, right? And sometimes we need to remember that even as we are like growing and evolving, we still need to like, Make sure we touch on some of those things

[00:56:35] Chris Do: you guys are bringing us some interesting things here I want to get your take on it, which is okay.

[00:56:39] I get it I'm part of the 99 percent that doesn't think about the title of the thumbnail first Mostly because I'm trying to have a conversation with somebody I've been on podcasts before I won't name names Where I feel like all their questions are driven around what search wants And they're not even listening to who, what it is I'm saying, I call them checklist interviewers.

[00:56:58] They have a checklist, they go through it [00:57:00] and bang, bang, bang. I could say I murdered somebody, buried him in the yard over there and like, okay. And so what did you do for SEO? You're not even really here, bro. You're not here. I'm not saying that there's a right or wrong, but I find that off putting as a guest.

[00:57:11] Like I could say anything right now and you go on to question three, four and five. And to your whole thing earlier about expectations and things like that, I find that I'm more interested in our conversation learning and allowing my curiosity to lead me to wherever realizing I'm doing what Mr. B says, you don't want people to watch your video, do you?

[00:57:31] But I'm finding that people who show up for these things, love the kinds of conversations and where the rabbit holes lead and they're in it for the whole thing.

[00:57:38] Colin and Samir: Well, look, it depends on what the outcome is, like what the goal is of the outcome. Cause I also think. So a couple things, one is like podcasting and podcasting coming to YouTube is a very interesting phenomenon because podcasts are permission based to permission based medium, meaning like you have an RSS feed.

[00:57:57] If you subscribe to that RSS feed on [00:58:00] Apple pods or Spotify, like it's something that on, you know, Monday mornings, your favorite podcast hits, it's there in your feed. You're like, Oh, great. It's Monday morning. I get to listen to this podcast. YouTube is an interruption based medium. So that means, like, how do YouTube videos get discovered?

[00:58:16] Well, they get discovered when you open up your YouTube app, either on your mobile device, your desktop, or your connected TV. Videos show up, you're browsing, a thumbnail is going to interrupt you in that flow, and you're going to get so curious, you're going to click into it and then watch that. That is interruption, right?

[00:58:34] And we think about like a podcast and a YouTube video are actually two different styles of audience behavior, but we've, we've put them across one. There's a few podcasters who have done this exceptionally well. One being Theo Vaughn. Theo Vaughn's thumbnails are whatever. They're just, they just look like Theo Vaughn thumbnails.

[00:58:52] They don't look, they aren't optimized for anything else, but familiarity if you like Theo Vaughn. So when you open up the YouTube app, you look and you [00:59:00] go, there's Theo Vaughn. I got to click on that. That takes a really long time to build, um, but it's the most high quality audience you can have is one that has given you permission and that wants to come back just for you.

[00:59:13] So you also have to zoom out and go, is it, is the thing that I'm building. Do I need 30 million people to watch this? Do I need a million people to watch this? Sometimes your goal is actually to build a really high quality audience of 250 people and you can monetize that. But if your goal is to reach the most amount of people possible, then you have to follow those rules, right?

[00:59:35] That's just plain and simple. And you can even follow the rules a little bit more to expand the reach a little bit further. Right. Because that is the reality of like, if you upload a YouTube video and people don't click on it, they won't watch it. Right. So the first task is solving why would someone click?

[00:59:54] That's the first task. But it's, it's actually not necessarily the case in a podcast feed. They might click [01:00:00] because you've built trust with them over years and they've given you the permission. Yeah. We're talking about brand overviews, right? And like views are incredibly available today. Like there are, there's a formula to get viewership.

[01:00:15] Not necessarily, uh, the same formula to acquire a brand that people care about, right? So we say often, like, not all views are created equal. Right. You're not looking for the most amount of views. You're looking for the right views. Right. And if anything, you're filtering a higher quality audience by packaging it the way you package it.

[01:00:32] There's, there's sometimes a lot of fear in YouTube videos because of what I described that like the first seven and 30 seconds or like, uh, we have the term called exit velocity, which is like the highest exit velocity. Um, medium is short form content. You ever watch someone go through Tik reels? I mean, they're like, you're on a plane and you watch someone before you take off.

[01:00:50] Do that. It's like you have half a second to, to pull them in. Right. Um, that exit velocity gets a little bit longer and a long form video if you've [01:01:00] earned their click. Exit velocity gets even longer, uh, in, in a podcast, like someone listening to this who has listened to your last five episodes on a podcast feed and was uncertain about who we were or if this would be interesting, would probably give it like 5 to 10 minutes on YouTube.

[01:01:16] They'll give it 30 seconds, right, right. So those are very different things. And then you go to like the lowest exit velocity is probably like if you bought tickets to a play. You're not going to get up and walk out five minutes in because you're like, nah, you're committed. You're committed. You

[01:01:30] Chris Do: got dressed up.

[01:01:30] Yeah. You're just like you're in

[01:01:32] Colin and Samir: it. As a storyteller, you do have to recognize and empathize with the behavior of the audience of like, did they give me permission to tell this story over the next hour? Do I only, or do I have to grab their attention? Right. Those are different, different ways to tell a story and pod, just back to the concept of like podcasting on YouTube, I don't think you have to reach out and grab people's attention in podcasting when someone's listening in their [01:02:00] car, but you do on YouTube.

[01:02:01] Yeah. And so that's like the weird kind of dynamic that's happening in podcasting and YouTube. Um, I love. My podcasts, I prefer, you know, I would, I prefer when they're like chiller and just I can settle into them, but I also only have a few that I've developed trust with over years of time. So, discovery of a net new podcast is really hard.

[01:02:23] Uh, and that's where YouTube comes in, where you can find new audience. Because

[01:02:28] Chris Do: podcasting is not a social media platform, right? No, but it is now. It's going to be, right? It's moving towards that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I wanted to ask you this question. And again, to both of you, what's an episode you were so excited about?

[01:02:45] You're like, this is going to be a banger. You do everything you can. It just falls like a rock. You still think it's a great episode, but you're kind of bummed that it didn't work. What is it? What do you think happened?

[01:02:55] Colin and Samir: Oh, man, it happens often. Let me pull up my phone and look at the thumbnails because I'll probably get it.

[01:02:59] Pretty [01:03:00] visceral reaction to some of them. I'm gonna give you the inverse quickly while Colin looks. Uh, we sat down with a musician named Jacob Collier. Yeah. Jacob is like one of the most creative people I've ever met. Uh, like I actually am like stunned by his creativity. I think he's one of the most thoughtful people.

[01:03:14] I sat down, we sat down with him and had a two and a half hour long conversation. And I was like, That was one of the coolest conversations I've ever had. I was unsure on YouTube how many people for our audience who deeply cares about YouTube strategy, how many people would listen to two and a half hours of, uh, a musician and of Jacob Collier.

[01:03:36] So I was really, I thought this would just be one of our worst performing episodes, but I was really proud of it. Right. We then sat and tried to work through the packaging of like, okay, if you don't know who he is, how do you describe him? We found the New York times described him as the Mozart of Gen Z.

[01:03:50] Well, that's kind of interesting. We interviewed the Mozart of Gen Z. Uh, and then one of the first quotes he said to us was, I'm not a genius. Although people call him like a musical genius, put that quote in the [01:04:00] thumbnail. We're like, let's see how this goes. And a million people have watched that episode and they've watched it for an average of 40 minutes.

[01:04:05] Right. So like, you're like, Whoa, that, that really, that was like one of those where I was like, this content deserves to be out there. And like, he's so thoughtful. And this was, this was a conversation I'm really proud of. I didn't know if it was going to work based on the packaging and the environment and it, and it did.

[01:04:20] Um, so that's, that's the inverse.

[01:04:23] Chris Do: Um, do you know how many subs you picked off that video? I can look. Yeah. Can you? Yeah. I'm just curious. Like how many Jacob Collier fans came in there? Like who are Colin Samir? We love Jacob. And then they're pretty cool too. And they create a space for our favorite artists to do this thing.

[01:04:39] Colin and Samir: I mean, look, the reality is the subscription feed is not a way people discover our videos or any YouTuber's video, right? It's just not, it's our number one is going to be browse. Number two might be suggested and sometimes they'll oscillate. So when you think about it, like subscribers, yes. Cool. It's a marker of how many people want to hop on board with [01:05:00] your thing, but it's not going to dictate how many views you get, right?

[01:05:02] It's it. Those are going to be dictated by browsing, right? It's tough. As I look, wow, you are so far back. No, the reason I've gone really far back is because I actually don't want to talk too much about our episodes in the last couple of years because they're all guest based. And so you're like making an assumption that a video will do well because of potentially the popularity of, of a guest.

[01:05:26] And it's kind of a weird, it's sort of like a weird space to get into of being like, I think this person like has a lot of fans or a lot of people will find them. And maybe we packaged it wrong and that's why it didn't do well. But like, that's kind of strange. But when you go back like three, four years ago, there was a time, honestly, like when we had like a lot of confidence, but we were experimenting a lot.

[01:05:46] And I can look at almost all of these videos and I thought they were amazing. Like trying the best burger in Los Angeles. I truly remember thinking like, this is such an entertaining, fun [01:06:00] video. How many views is that? This is, it has 38, 000, which like you got to put everything in perspective, like for us making a burger is not bad, but like that's five years.

[01:06:11] Yeah, it's five years of viewership. I bet you that video when it first came out a month or two months after it had like 4000 views. So let me ask you a question. How would we repackage that today? Like, because obviously like trying the best burger in Los Angeles, well here, here's the problem. No curiosity.

[01:06:26] I have a lot of questions about the best burger in LA. The problem though, it has so much more to do with the video that came before it and the video that came after it. So the video that came before it is why politicians don't use YouTube. Yeah. Okay. And the video that came after it is about Tik Tok.

[01:06:43] Yeah. What was the title of that? Stop Hating on TikTok Cringe, I think. Yeah, which doesn't even really make that much sense.

[01:06:51] Chris Do: I think you guys are trying real hard on the titles and the intention, right? I feel like we were trying, but we were missing the mark

[01:06:57] Colin and Samir: on

[01:06:57] Chris Do: why. But you're trying.

[01:06:58] Colin and Samir: I can see the thinking.

[01:06:59] Like, [01:07:00] imagine being an audience member of ours and like, all right, there's this video about politicians and what social media platforms they use. Like, maybe I'm into that. Burger Review in Los Angeles. Do you want more stuff like this? Yeah, do you want more stuff like this? Well, we have a video about TikTok coming out next.

[01:07:18] If you like the burger one. You're going to be really excited about our TikTok one. And then after the TikTok one is a video titled, Hey, it's been a while. Which just means we must have disappeared.

[01:07:30] Chris Do: So there's something to be said. You can fall in front of me and still fall on your face. Like, I think each one of those titles can be real interesting.

[01:07:36] Colin and Samir: No, those are not, Chris, those are not interesting. No, maybe they could be, they're not interesting in a vacuum. So here's the thing, right? The difference between like if we had been building a food channel, yes, that and we released best burger in Los Angeles. Maybe. Yeah. But in a vacuum where we're just throwing that out into the YouTube ecosystem and competing with other food videos, there's no degree of difference there.

[01:07:59] There's probably a hundred [01:08:00] videos about trying the best. Yeah. We did another food video that was like just, it's not a great title, but it's a hair better. It was New Yorker tries to find best pizza in LA. 190, 000 views. Almost 200, 000 views. Right? This is six years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But even that slight degree of difference and.

[01:08:16] tension, right? And conflict of like, New Yorker tries LA pizza. That has a lot of Think about how many more people Polarizing, man. Yeah. Watch that video. It's juxtaposition, right? And juxtaposition is a very important piece of titles. Like I, I have one written down where you look at like, there's a Ryan Trahan video that I wrote down here.

[01:08:34] I tried public sleep pods, right? That has probably, you know, 13 or 15 million views on his channel. Sleep and public are words that don't typically go together. One thing Ryan does amazing, I think Ryan's one of the greatest packaging artists on YouTube in terms of titles and thumbnails. He does not do anything over the top.

[01:08:54] He is in that video, he's like laying in a sleep pod and then there's someone [01:09:00] outside and there's like a speech bubble being like, hello. Right. And so it's like a really subtle tension of like trying to sleep in public. What's that like? I've been presented with information that Public sleep pods exist and that this guy went and tried them.

[01:09:15] The amount of curiosity there is high. Like I, I'd like to try that or I'd like to explore that and see that. And so I think like starting to recognize like different ideas also have different TAMs, meaning the different total addressable, uh, markets, or total addressable audience. And like that is a, is a, everybody sleeps sleeping in public is weird.

[01:09:36] That has a really high TAM when you come down to like, right? New Yorker tries best pizza in LA or tries to find best pizza in LA. It's pretty, it's, it's lower. It's like pizza lovers from New York who are on YouTube, who, who care about this, who care about, you know, who would trust a new channel. There's like so many things that have to intersect for that to go.

[01:09:56] Right. Um, so there, there's a lot that you have to think about [01:10:00] going into, uh, crafting a great title.

[01:10:02] Chris Do: Okay. I got to go back to the burger though. Yeah. You asked the question. Yeah. What would we call that video today? How would we repackage it? Yeah. How would you repackage it?

[01:10:10] Colin and Samir: I think we would have to rethink the concept completely because it's not just about trying the best burgers.

[01:10:17] There needs to be more to it, whether it's trying burgers that get increasingly more expensive, right? Or like the biggest burger in LA, like, and it's just this massive, the conflict is that it's like this huge oversized burger. If you just need to be novelty to that, there was, uh, a Buzzfeed show called worth it that nailed this better than anyone back in the day, which was 1 burger versus 1, 000 burger right now.

[01:10:41] Immediately you have all those elements. You have juxtaposition of low versus high. You have. Jenga storytelling of it's going to get increasingly more expensive. You have like curiosity and curiosity gap that you've been presented with the information that there is a thousand dollar burger and you want to know what that means.

[01:10:59] Like there's [01:11:00] so much in that title that obviously even to this day, Mr. Beast uses that formula too, right? 1 hotel versus a million dollar hotel, right? That stair step ladder system of like 1, 1, 000, 10, 000, 100, 000, million dollars. That's like, That will keep you going till the end. So, yeah, we, to do the burger video again, we'd have to fully rethink the concept.

[01:11:19] And then we'd also have to follow those rules of like the last rule. Do you want more stuff like this? Are we committed to making more burger videos or more food videos?

[01:11:28] Chris Do: Well, also from a personal perspective and possibly polarizing our audience here, I got into a debate at an airport with a lady. I don't remember where I was.

[01:11:38] UK talking about burgers. And why I think this burger is better than that burger. And she's like, no, you don't know what you're talking about. Then we kind of got into it. What is the best

[01:11:46] Colin and Samir: burger in LA? You know what? I'm going to go with. Don't play safe. I mean, people may not even know this burger, but it's called the window.

[01:11:53] It's here in Venice and it's affordable and it's so consistent. I've been having the same burger for [01:12:00] like probably four or five years now and I'm not tired of it. Yeah. It's consistent. It's consistent burger. Yeah. And it kind of tastes like it has like a McDonald's taste to it, but it feels a little healthier and higher quality.

[01:12:10] Okay. I mean, I would say, look, in that, in that episode, I think we try apple pan. We do in and out and we do assholes. It sells. It sells. It's a new Pono burger. No, no. You know, Pono burger. I do know. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. There's another one for

[01:12:26] Chris Do: you. It's pretty good.

[01:12:27] Colin and Samir: Cause I would say if someone's coming to LA and they have like one day and they're a burger fan, it depends on if they've.

[01:12:33] Been on the West Coast and had In N Out. And I know In N Out is like such a It's a

[01:12:37] Chris Do: standard everybody swears by, but I didn't even like In N Out. You don't like In N Out? I do not like In N Out. Really? Yeah. I'll tell you why. This is what got me in trouble because this lady was just arguing with me. This is the type of

[01:12:46] Colin and Samir: stuff that gets you in trouble.

[01:12:47] But yeah, I think it's like

[01:12:48] Chris Do: if you're from L. A., you have to just default, say In N Out's like a great burger. And people get in line for this stuff. I'm like, OK, it's underseason. I know everything's fresh. But here's where I think I, I think it [01:13:00] was, uh, Bourdain who said this stop talking about food being fresh.

[01:13:03] We don't care if the food is fresh. We want it. It's peak optimal flavor. And that's why we want an aged steak to say that the steak just was or the cow was just slaughtered and eat that. And so there's they have fresh potatoes and they have fresh meat. Nothing's been frozen. I like that from a marketing perspective.

[01:13:19] It doesn't add flavor. Whereas if you have, and I'm spacing on the name right now, and I'm sad, but there's a place up on 2nd Street in Santa Monica, right there by the promenade, you guys will probably figure out the name, Wagyu Beef, with aged cheddar, they make their own ketchup, Delicious. Are you talking about like the counter, not the counter, but like

[01:13:40] Colin and Samir: a place like that?

[01:13:41] Not the counter, because the

[01:13:42] Chris Do: counter is where you build your own burger. Yeah. That's its own novelty. The Pono is really great because it's about that much meat, but it's a wood fired oven, so there's a smokiness to it that I like. Sure. And like a brioche bun, so it's premium. Um, space in it. And we started talking about it, and she goes, that's a good burger, but not like this.

[01:13:58] I also like Smash Burger [01:14:00] if you're gonna go for a chain, because that kind of smash. Yeah. Is it called Smash Burger? No, what is it called? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There is one called Smash Burger. No. Shake Shack. Shake. Shake Shack. Shake Shack. That's Shake. Shake Shack is delicious. Shake, shake Shack like melt in your mouth.

[01:14:11] Shake in wealth. Yeah. Right. It's greasy as hell, but it's good. But it's good. It's really good. So in light of flavor profile for me. In and out is at the bottom of that. It's at the top of the other ones, but it's the bottom of these.

[01:14:21] Colin and Samir: Let me leave you with one thing, uh, while we're, because just to tie this together and keep this relevant to the conversation is, um, when we spent time with Mark Rober, he, he said to us, and he's like, well, he makes videos that get, you know, 20, 30, 40 million views.

[01:14:35] He said that most of his ideas come through conversation conversations like this, where he recognizes where the, when people get excited, when people light up, this is like, if, if the conversation becomes very. Exciting then that typically would make a great video. And it's interesting to go like, how do you get your ideas?

[01:14:55] You know, like that way of getting ideas is one that no one, like it's, it's [01:15:00] inefficient in a way. It's not like, it's not like some strategy. It's just like, Hey, Bring up your ideas. It's just awareness for what's happening in your everyday life. Like that woman, like striking a chord with her in an airport of her being like so angry at the fact that you don't like In N Out and you're choosing what sounds like a more like gourmet type burger experience.

[01:15:18] Yeah. Right there. We probably should have done like fast food versus gourmet. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. You could make a whole channel on fast food versus gourmet. Right.

[01:15:26] Chris Do: I know we're way over time. I gotta ask you this question though. You're making content 13 years and then, um, I think it was calling the Samir show us eight years.

[01:15:35] 2016

[01:15:36] Colin and Samir: was at least when we started the channel. Yeah, 8 years. Yeah, 2016. I mean, we started the podcast shortly after, like as a podcast. Right?

[01:15:43] Chris Do: Okay. Inevitably, people hate you. Inevitably, people say mean things. Maybe, maybe not for you guys. Oh,

[01:15:51] Colin and Samir: you're saying like

[01:15:51] Chris Do: now,

[01:15:52] Colin and Samir: today.

[01:15:52] Chris Do: I thought you meant like

[01:15:53] Colin and Samir: eventually.

[01:15:53] No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, Of course. They're in the

[01:15:55] Chris Do: comments somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it could be like, you have such a punchable face or I hate that shirt. Who do you [01:16:00] think you are? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever it is they say, okay? What do the critics say about you? How do you respond?

[01:16:06] Colin and Samir: What do the critics say about us?

[01:16:07] I think sometimes people call us industry plants. Yeah. Or that like we're a little corporate. Yeah. I think that bothers us. It bothers you? It bothers us just because like, I think we, it makes me think like we're being inauthentic. And, and, uh, you know, we've, that, that bothers me. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to be in a format where I'm coming across, uh, inauthentic or, or I have to examine myself and go, am I being inauthentic in this context?

[01:16:35] Some of it though, I think, is like, our first channel, The La Crosse Network, was very family friendly. Like, we built a company off being, like, family friendly trusted. Yeah. And then, we've kind of kept that with us a bit. And like, YouTube and the internet's a crazy place. People are saying crazy, provocative things.

[01:16:53] Yeah. Uh, and being truly themselves, which is great. And that's what makes the internet fun, but that's not like, we're not [01:17:00] in the business of saying provocative things. Right. And I think sometimes people push back against us for being like a little like clean. Yeah. Yeah, I think we're That's our biggest hate on you.

[01:17:11] Is it too clean? Maybe there's more. I mean, I would say that I'm I'm not very in tune with the negativity, I expect it when you decide, when you make this choice to put out content on the internet, it's a part of that choice, been doing it for 13 years, like I see negativity whenever I see stuff that, uh, I think Casey Neistat said this one time and it really resonated with it.

[01:17:34] He was like, when it's true, it's really painful. Like when someone's like feels like they didn't really prep for this one feels like they weren't being, I think it was a comment somewhat recently that was like, it felt like Colin is where we're being themselves that, that again, that's painful because I'll be like, yeah, I was a little kind of off that day.

[01:17:52] Like I didn't, I felt weird. So like that, that's where it, and they're picking up on that. It bothers me because I want to like my. [01:18:00] Hope is that as we continue to go in this career that I can select formats that that Work for the internet and are creative and fulfilling to me, but that I'm also like showing up as myself on camera I think anytime where I felt like I'm showing up not as myself is like a really uncomfortable feeling I think if I was good at that, I would have become an actor show business would have called me way earlier

[01:18:21] Chris Do: They missed our opportunity man.

[01:18:22] God and still not too late.

[01:18:24] Colin and Samir: So on too late They missed their opportunity, but I can't. I can't act. I mean, my whole team watched me try very hard on a zoom audition for a Lexus commercial, which I actually did get kind of plucked out of obscurity to audition for, and it was one of the most miserable, my job on this zoom, it was so Awful.

[01:18:44] My job was to attempt to start opening my car door and get startled by a biker, but the car informed me the bark biker was there. So I was relieved that that happened. This is a zoom audition to your credit is a lot of emotions at once. That's a lot of [01:19:00] emotions at once. They threw at me and I actually, so my issue was, I thought I was on a zoom call with the director, but I was put into an audition room with 16 people with their cameras off.

[01:19:12] Okay. While watching you, while watching me, who just gave me these instructions to act this way. I am not joking. I did it once. And they asked, have you done it yet? Like, have you gone? Oh my God. And the nerves that I got when they said blade it too safe. When they went, yeah, sorry. Have you, have you done it?

[01:19:35] And I was like, no, not I'll do it. I'll do it right now. I'll do it right now. And so the thing is, dude, this is in our last studio, which was a thousand square foot single room. And I'm in the middle of the room and the rest of our team is working. They're editing because I think I'm just getting on a call.

[01:19:54] Right. And now they're turning their head being like, what is he doing? Why is he, why is [01:20:00] he backing up away from the computer and doing this weird dance? How did he, how did he turn Hollywood so quickly? The audition was so quickly over. Like I did it a second time and they're like, thank you so much. No correspondence ever again from them.

[01:20:13] Yeah. Have you released that video? Have I released that video? What do you mean? I wish I had the video of the audition so I could watch that. It wasn't a self tape, it was a live Zoom. Are you saying like, a video about that story? No, I would love to, but I think that would be like a

[01:20:27] Chris Do: First non take take.

[01:20:28] It'd be a good like TikTok or something. It'd be a good TikTok or Instagram. Yeah, that'd be great. Like,

[01:20:31] Colin and Samir: uh, hey, did you know I, I don't know how I would start that. I don't know what the hook would be. The last thing I'm going to say about comments, I know we're very far from comments at this point, but how did I end up telling that story or something?

[01:20:43] And yeah, at this point, I think it's about knowing which comments to trust if you choose to read them. Yeah. Even on one of our last episodes, there were all of these comments about how great the intro was. For one of our episodes, but there were [01:21:00] also a few comments about how terrible the intro was that it was way too hyperbolic and dramatic and people are tired of these like hyper edited right podcast intros, it's a huge trend.

[01:21:11] And the the challenge I think of like a creative person is to make sure you stay in tune with your taste. Yeah. And don't just follow what works right. And when you see comments on both sides. I have a pretty clear answer of like, what do you believe in?

[01:21:25] Chris Do: Yeah. Okay. Here we go. Yeah. All right. Two hot takes for one word answers.

[01:21:29] Okay. Hot take is just tell me where you think it's going. All right. Sorry. If you don't want to answer just fine. Okay. You mentioned Casey Neistat. Where's he going? Hot take. Where's Casey going? I think he's done. Like going to Nantucket. Yeah. Like fatherhood. Okay. Like in terms of the creator stuff. Yeah.

[01:21:48] Yeah. Not like personally.

[01:21:51] Colin and Samir: Yeah, I think probably like, I mean, all I can say is fatherhood. Like, I think he's, I think that's where he's going. Yeah. But I always love when he [01:22:00] makes something. Yeah. Like, I'm so nostalgic for his creativity and like, grateful for the creative output he put into the world because I think it, it inspired an entire generation of filmmakers.

[01:22:10] Yeah. So I think equally pissed off because I tried so hard to be like him and just couldn't do it. But. wherever we netted out the, the, the, if you go back in time, like the impetus to make the change from even leaving lacrosse network and starting calling and smear was watching Casey.

[01:22:25] Chris Do: Yeah.

[01:22:26] Colin and Samir: So I'm grateful for him, but I think he's, I think he's going towards fatherhood, which I also deeply respect.

[01:22:31] Chris Do: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:22:32] Colin and Samir: Okay.

[01:22:33] Chris Do: As it relates to what's happened, one word answers. Yeah. So trying to keep the answer short. No, the one word answer is coming, but, uh, Mr. Beast is embroiled in a lot of controversy right now. What's your take? What is the, how's this going to end?

[01:22:46] Colin and Samir: Yeah, I mean, we've obviously talked a lot about this.

[01:22:48] I think it's interesting from our perspective because we are friends with him and look at him as, as what we would call like a model citizen, right? That like every creative [01:23:00] platform needs a model citizen that other creators can sort of aspire to and look after. Clearly a lot of things did not go like according to plan and things have not always gone well with like a variety of projects that he has going on.

[01:23:14] Um, I'm sure whenever this settles, there will be certain things where like he looks at it. I would imagine and be like, okay, yeah, those things happen. Those were unacceptable. Right. So then where do you go from that moment of like getting to a point where you realize some things went wrong, basically like you need to like acknowledge that like, yeah, these things didn't go as great as they could to, you need to like write wrongs as much as you possibly can.

[01:23:46] And then three, you just need to write the ship. make sure that changes are made, uh, so that those types of mishaps and mistakes just don't happen in the future or the likelihood that they will happen is just lesser. [01:24:00] Right. I think like that's like the best way I can sort of look at it without like speaking for him.

[01:24:07] Chris Do: He's going to land on his feet. Everything's going to be fine. You think? I think so. There's some legal things going on. Yeah.

[01:24:12] Colin and Samir: I mean, I can't speak to the legal things, you know, that there's a lot of things going on, but I will just say that, like, I agree with Colin. Like I, I think in knowing Jimmy as a person, like I think there's a lot of like this guy's evil stuff out there and I don't believe that I've spent time with him.

[01:24:30] I, uh, I think that his organization got really big. I think there's stuff that happened that again, like Colin said, I think when the dust settles, he'll admit probably that this stuff was unacceptable. And I think our collective hope as us and hopefully as a community is that he does right the ship in whatever ways he needs to do.

[01:24:49] Because. He has been a, a, a big part of like the model citizen of, of the platform and then what it means to build a creator business. So, you know, putting the [01:25:00] right people in place, solving these company problems. That's an important thing to do. Yeah. I think like when you're a creator and you're growing, no one makes you hire, right.

[01:25:11] Or build a company. Like you don't necessarily have to. That's not like. a necessity with this career. There are some people who like stay just themselves or they have a team of three. So it's really just about like as you grow a company and you have people who come into your orbit. Making sure that it's like a good environment for them and like being accountable.

[01:25:30] Chris Do: All right, here goes the one word answers. You guys know what a SWOT analysis is? Yeah. Okay, strengths and weaknesses are internal. Opportunities and threats are external.

[01:25:39] Colin and Samir: Yeah. Okay.

[01:25:40] Chris Do: So I say the word, then you just give me one word answer. Yeah. So this is internal. Strengths? Strengths. You said strengths?

[01:25:48] Yeah. What are your internal strengths? Like Colin and Samir? Uh,

[01:25:51] Colin and Samir: taste and storytelling.

[01:25:53] Chris Do: Taste and story, storytelling. Yeah, I was going to say taste. Okay, great. Uh, weaknesses,

[01:25:59] Colin and Samir: focus,

[01:25:59] Chris Do: [01:26:00] decision making, perfect opportunities,

[01:26:03] Colin and Samir: doing

[01:26:04] Chris Do: less. Okay.

[01:26:09] Colin and Samir: That's the first thing I thought was just like, like what's next overwhelmed was like opportunities.

[01:26:15] I was just like, there's a lot of opportunities. There's a lot of opportunities. So I think like, I'm going to break the one word answer rule right now and say, Uh, we have a ton of opportunities. The challenge is deciding on the one and I think that that's requires some like deep internal work on where to go next.

[01:26:33] The reason I said doing less is because I think right now we've, we're testing the waters a lot of opportunities. I'm extremely passionate about education. So if I'm going one, one answer,

[01:26:43] Chris Do: education, right, education, education, course or something. Right. Courses.

[01:26:47] Colin and Samir: Yeah. Yeah. I, I love it. I love it. I think it's like.

[01:26:50] I think courses can get a bad rap on the internet. We have spent three years developing a course. I can tell you right now. It's not like a, uh, uh, we've, we've done two cohorts. They [01:27:00] were probably the most rewarding experience of the past five years. It is not a profitable part of the company because we spend so much time developing this stuff and we don't release them, uh, you know, on a cadence that's, uh, uh, out there.

[01:27:15] So I think it's a, it's the biggest opportunity for us. Cause we like, it feels like making a book. Like it's like it's an equivalent of making a book. It's like I'm boiling down everything I know into curriculum and and terminology and examples and everything we've learned and putting it together. So that is coming very soon.

[01:27:33] Um, and that to me is our biggest opportunity. Okay. Yeah.

[01:27:36] Chris Do: I like that answer. That's actually more in line with how the phrase it. So yeah, opportunities, courses, being able to create IP from what you guys have learned, right? Perfect. Then what's the threat external? What's the thing that's going to mess up your business?

[01:27:51] Yeah. Competition?

[01:27:52] Colin and Samir: What kind of competition? Oh, it was just like, there was a time and place where we were one of the very few places for [01:28:00] creators to come and talk about their career. And I think that's just like, you know, by nature of the creator economy being a thing for a while now and the rise of podcasts.

[01:28:10] Right. Like there are so many places to go and share what you're doing with your creator business. And I think it's a threat, but it's also pushing us to think about, you know, what can we do that makes us singular? There's two of us. We have different perspectives. We have different. Uh, personalities. We have our own original thought and analysis doesn't have to do with who comes on the show or not.

[01:28:32] Right? So we're thinking a lot about like, what is it that 10 years down the line, 20 years down the line is defensible. My word is interest. I think as a creative. your personal interest is a threat to you at all times when you find something that works. Um, and I think that over, if we look out over the next five years, where our interests go is, uh, a potential threat to the company.

[01:28:59] [01:29:00] Okay. I don't, I, I don't, I'm not afraid of it, but it's, um, but it is an inherent threat because there's two sides of a Of like, if you're a real creative running one of these companies, there's the strategy side of the business and the creative side in decision making. What's the most strategic decision you can make next?

[01:29:21] And then what's the most creatively fulfilling decision you can make next? If you live in a world where this is very appealing to you, what's the most creative, creatively fulfilling thing to do next? A lot of times it does not align with what's the most strategic thing to do next. And so that's, that's what I mean by interests.

[01:29:36] Like if what we're interested in doing next is not. The most strategic thing to do next. That is a threat. And it's not a bad thing, but it's a threat. You go back to what Colin shared video about politics, video about burgers, video about TikTok. Those are interests, right? Those are not me and Colin sitting on a whiteboard going, what's the most strategic video to make?

[01:29:57] There's something really fun about that. Yeah, it's fun. Right? Like [01:30:00] we're, we're a lot of creative people are not consistent people. They're creative people. Few. Few. Very few people. Very few people. That are creative or consistent. Yeah. Yeah. So, when you find something that works, it requires you to be consistent.

[01:30:13] But then, you do something that works, it works, and you get lots of opportunities to do the same thing, but also different things. And you're like, wow, those different things seem real nice, like, after so much consistency. Full circle conversation. Yeah. Success as a creative is the opportunity to do more of what you're currently doing.

[01:30:32] Yeah, that, that I think is, uh, You know, I, I sit here at 35 and I'm like, you know, some nights I go home, I'm like, I'm going to buy a midi pad. I think I want to make music, you know? And when that hits, you're like, is that the right use of my time as a creative? Yeah, sure. Of course. I'll play around and make some music on Ableton.

[01:30:52] Uh, but as like a operating this business, like. Maybe not. Maybe not. So that that's like, as a, as a creative, your [01:31:00] interests are always a threat to your current thing. Yeah.

[01:31:03] Chris Do: There's this razor's edge between being so creatively interested in too many things and also just going tunnel vision and not experiencing life to the fullest.

[01:31:13] And you never know what side you're on. And I interviewed Morgan J for the first time. And he was like, been doing this for 13 years. Last year is

[01:31:23] Colin and Samir: when it took off for him. You know what's crazy about Morgan J? Thirteen years ago, we saw him host a YouTube event. You remember that? Yeah, of course. At the YouTube Space LA.

[01:31:33] And I thought he was so funny and so charismatic and I was like, that guy's gonna make it. I really think it was like 2012 or 2013. Yeah. And I remember, I remember seeing him and I actually ran into him, must have been like four or five years ago. And I remember I had seen him at YouTube space even more years ago.

[01:31:51] And I, he doesn't know who I am, but I just like stopped him in Venice and I was like, Hey man, I just want to say like, I love what you do and like keep doing what you're doing. Yeah. [01:32:00] Cause I knew he was like so many years in, but had yet to really pop. Man,

[01:32:06] Chris Do: for

[01:32:06] Colin and Samir: him,

[01:32:07] Chris Do: putting in the music, putting in the stand up comedy, and then the X factor was the autotune.

[01:32:14] And you never know when one of those weird mini pads are going to be the thing that just changes the game for you. So I say this kind of reluctantly because I know that's like catnip for creatives. Like, Oh, he said, do whatever you want and you're going to be successful. And that's what I'm saying. Focus, discipline, intentional work is what gets you successful.

[01:32:31] But when you have some of that success, don't forget that you're a creative person. Keep playing. Importantly, all those things into what you're doing, you're going to have an amazing time and it's a short life. You got to enjoy the ride. Colin Samir. Thanks for having me in your studio. Thanks for this conversation.

[01:32:46] I know we ran into each other, I think two years ago at that LinkedIn party. This is great. Glad we got to do this. Really appreciate it. Pleasure. Thanks, guys. Thank you for coming. Thanks for that.[01:33:00]

[01:33:00] Futur: Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Future Podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts.

[01:33:25] It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit the future. com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

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