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    ENTREPRENEURSHIP
    Podcast 14 min read

    How to Sell Your YouTube Channel w/ Tyler Chou

    with Tyler Chou

    Chris Do and Tyler Chou examine what turns a YouTube audience into a business worth buying.

    Chris Do

    Chris Do

    Founder, The Futur™ · July 22, 2026

    A popular channel is not an exit plan

    A YouTube channel can attract an audience without becoming a business someone wants to buy. The distance between those outcomes is the territory Tyler Chou occupies: introduced by Chris Do as a former Disney, BuzzFeed, and Skydance lawyer, she now helps creators build sellable media companies. Her perspective brings an uncomfortable question into a culture trained to celebrate views: what, exactly, would a buyer own?

    That question changes the meaning of success. A growing subscriber count shows that people want to watch. It does not establish who owns the material, whether the audience can be reached elsewhere, or what customers will purchase beyond the next upload.

    Chou's central distinction is deliberately blunt. The channel, she argues, is “the marketing arm of your business.” Too many creators have built the marketing arm without building much underneath it.

    Attention is not the same as a sellable business.

    Her own move into YouTube began with a different kind of ownership problem. After nearly two decades as a Hollywood attorney, she says, the prestige of the role no longer compensated for the lack of creative agency. She had been the lead attorney on more than 22 feature films, yet struggled to identify a creative legacy that felt like hers.

    She describes studio work as tightly prescribed, with little room to be heard outside the assigned function. Rather than immediately leaving, she started a YouTube channel while still employed. According to her account, it reached 10,000 subscribers within the first few months; then she was laid off.

    The transition matters because Chou is not approaching creators solely as an attorney observing an unfamiliar business. She has experienced the attraction of publishing independently after working inside an institution. The autonomy that creators prize is part of what brought her into their world.

    It also creates the central tension in her conversation with Do. Building something valuable enough to sell requires structure. Building something enjoyable enough to keep doing requires freedom. Neither participant treats those goals as automatically compatible.

    Do pushes back when legal caution threatens to overwhelm the entrepreneurial possibility. Creators experiment. They move before everything is orderly. A business that waits for every uncertainty to disappear may never publish its first piece of work.

    Chou ultimately draws a useful boundary between advice and command: the lawyer identifies risks; the founder decides which risks to take. The purpose of preparation is not to eliminate movement. It is to make movement informed.

    That is the more useful premise behind the conversation's ambitious $100 million exit: not a promise that enough uploads lead to a windfall, but a test of whether creative momentum is producing an asset. Popularity is visible. The business underneath requires closer inspection.

    The valuation story has a product inside it

    The most arresting number in Chou's account belongs to an unnamed finance creator. She says she initially took his business to market at a valuation of $35 million, advised against selling, and later saw its valuation reach $100 million. Her explanation for the change is not a better thumbnail strategy.

    It is a budgeting app.

    The distinction deserves care. These are Chou's reported valuations for an unnamed client, not a disclosed completed acquisition. The conversation provides neither a buyer's documentation nor a detailed valuation model, so the figures function as her case study rather than an independently established benchmark.

    Within that account, however, the commercial logic is clear. The creator's content concerned personal finance, and his origin story involved learning to pay down debt. A budgeting product addressed a problem already central to the relationship between the creator and the audience.

    The app was not an unrelated business attached to a popular face. It extended the reason people were watching.

    Chou says the business grosses approximately $12 million annually. That number adds scale to the story, but it does not turn the conversation into a formula for valuing other channels. Gross revenue, the presence of a product, and an asserted valuation are not enough information to reproduce a transaction.

    A valuation is not a completed exit.

    For creators, the productive lesson is narrower and more actionable: a channel can demonstrate demand for a problem that a separate product helps solve. The audience provides a starting advantage, not proof that every extension will work.

    Chou describes technology founders and YouTubers as having opposite problems. A founder can have a product without buyers. A creator can have an audience without anything to sell. Connecting those two conditions is the opportunity.

    That distinction also sits behind the editorial premise of You Don't Need a Personal Brand. You Need an Offer. Visibility and an offer perform different jobs. One attracts interest; the other gives that interest a commercial destination.

    Chou's prescription begins with audience knowledge, not software development. She encourages creators to ask viewers about their biggest problems rather than inventing a product in isolation. A comment section becomes useful not simply as engagement, but as a place to hear what people are trying to accomplish.

    Her examples of possible extensions are straightforward:

    • A physical product that serves an audience need.
    • A technical product, such as the budgeting app in her client story.
    • A newsletter that begins a more direct relationship with viewers.

    The point is not that every creator should become a software founder. It is that the next business decision should follow from an existing audience problem. A product earns its place when it makes the channel's underlying promise more useful.

    Reach means little without a route back

    For all the excitement around products, Chou returns repeatedly to a less glamorous asset: an email list. Her concern is not aesthetic or fashionable. It is continuity.

    A creator whose relationship with viewers exists entirely inside YouTube depends on that platform to reconnect them. Chou tests that dependency with a severe hypothetical: the channel disappears tomorrow. The practical issue is whether any route to the audience remains.

    She recounts attending a masterclass with more than ten large YouTubers, each with audiences she describes as exceeding ten million. When she asked who had an email list, she says, only one person raised a hand.

    The anecdote is striking because it separates scale from resilience. A huge audience can coexist with a fragile contact strategy. Being widely watched does not necessarily mean being able to reach those viewers outside the place where they discovered the creator.

    Chou frames email subscribers as potential first customers. That does not make every subscriber a buyer. It gives the creator a place to introduce an offer without treating another successful upload as the only available route to market.

    The underlying audience question is closely related to Know Your Audience: attention becomes more useful when the creator understands who is paying attention and what they need. In Chou's argument, the contact relationship and the product decision belong together.

    That connection also explains her interest in professionals entering the space. She describes working with doctors, lawyers, accountants, therapists, and designers who have substantial experience but are new to publishing. Some are not primarily trying to advertise their existing practices.

    They want their knowledge to reach people they cannot serve individually.

    One child psychologist, Chou says, described a three-year waiting list and parents struggling with teenage depression and ADHD. Making videos offered a way to share information beyond the limits of individual appointments. The content began with a known problem and hard-earned expertise.

    Do recognizes a different motivation in these professionals: after achieving a personally sufficient level of financial security, some begin looking for impact. Chou connects that impulse to her own desire to leave a mark beyond the prestigious job title.

    This complicates the assumption that a creator business must begin with entertainment and monetize later. In these examples, the need comes first. Publishing becomes a way to distribute an existing body of knowledge.

    It also complicates the assumption that every useful channel should be prepared for sale. A professional can build a product, develop a direct audience relationship, and remain satisfied running the business. Chou explicitly allows for that outcome.

    The durable insight is not that every creator needs the same commercial ambition. It is that the ambition should be chosen. Audience size alone cannot decide whether the next step is a newsletter, a product, a larger company, or simply a more sustainable practice.

    The archive needs more than good videos

    A buyer looking at a creator business encounters something viewers rarely consider: the rights behind the work. The audience sees a finished video. Due diligence asks whether the business has the rights to the elements inside it.

    Chou calls this “clean IP, clean chain of title.” In practical terms, her questions concern footage, music, guests, and the documentation supporting their use. A successful archive is not automatically a clean archive.

    Do immediately recognizes the friction. Creators routinely use movie clips, music, memes, and reaction material because those elements belong to the language of online video. The habits that make content feel native to the platform can complicate an eventual sale.

    Chou's warning is about what investors will examine, not merely what has remained online without a complaint. A video accumulating views does not, by itself, answer an ownership question.

    Her diligence questions fall into several concrete categories:

    • Rights to video assets: Establish what footage, B-roll, and music the business can use.
    • Documented guest participation: Keep guest releases for podcast appearances.
    • Brand protection: Address trademarks before a growing identity becomes expensive to change.
    • Clear collaborator agreements: Record what partners and contributors receive and what they own.

    These are not decorative legal details added after the creative work becomes successful. They help define what the company actually controls. That is why Chou encourages creators to consider an eventual exit from the beginning, even if a transaction is years away.

    Her answer to a messy existing archive is less absolute than a demand to start over. A creator can examine whether older material can be cleaned up. Alternatively, some historical content may need to remain outside what can be sold or licensed.

    The value of the advice lies in making that distinction early enough to act on it. Continuing to publish and preparing assets for a transaction are related activities, but they are not identical.

    Trademarking introduces a similar mismatch between creative instinct and business preparation. A creator finds a name that sounds right, claims a handle, and starts building recognition. Chou warns that discovering a conflict after that identity has grown can make rebranding expensive.

    She reports handling three creator rebrands in the previous year that cost five to six figures. Those are her accounts of particular client situations, not a universal cost schedule. The larger lesson is that recognition can become expensive to replace.

    Nor does she describe registration as the end of brand protection. Monitoring and responding to infringements remain part of the work. An asset that matters to a business requires attention after the initial paperwork.

    Do's resistance keeps the legal discussion grounded. Entrepreneurship includes risk. The useful response is not to pretend otherwise, but to distinguish a conscious creative decision from an unresolved ownership problem waiting for a buyer to discover it.

    Success makes vague promises expensive

    The most revealing ownership dispute in the conversation does not involve a studio or an investor. It begins with a teenager and a best friend.

    Chou describes a client who started a channel at 17 and promised an editing collaborator half of every dollar the channel earned. There was no written agreement. When Chou recommended documenting the arrangement, the creator resisted because she feared upsetting her friend.

    Once advertising revenue climbed into six figures, the arrangement looked different to the creator. Chou says the collaborator then asserted that he owned half the channel. Negotiating an employment agreement took six months, and he left a few months after signing it.

    The friendship did not survive the dispute.

    Do refuses the easy interpretation that the creator was simply the victim of an unreasonable collaborator. A promise that felt acceptable when the project earned little can become inconvenient once it succeeds. Wanting new limits after the money arrives raises its own questions about fairness.

    That pushback gives the story its weight. Written agreements do more than protect a founder from other people. They require the founder to define what is being offered before success changes the emotional calculation.

    The same distinction appears in Do's account of starting a YouTube channel with a friend. He says they discussed what would happen if the partnership ended and confirmed their understanding by email. He wanted the equivalent of a prenuptial agreement before the relationship became complicated.

    About two and a half years later, their ideas about running the channel diverged. Even with the earlier written understanding, he says, separating required three months of mediation between friends.

    Documentation did not remove conflict. It gave the conflict a reference point.

    That is a more credible case for agreements than the fantasy that a signature guarantees cooperation. People can still disagree, resist, or reinterpret events. The business is simply better served when the original arrangement exists somewhere other than memory.

    The move from personal craft to operating a company is the territory signaled by Moving from Makers to Entrepreneurs. Here, the transition becomes concrete: making videos together and owning a business together are different commitments.

    Do's own preference is forceful: “Pay people what they're worth and just move on.” He would rather compensate contributors than create partnerships that become difficult to untangle. Chou also says she operates without a co-founder.

    Neither preference establishes that all partnerships fail. What the stories demonstrate is that friendship, enthusiasm, and informal generosity cannot substitute for an agreed structure.

    Chou extends the point to hiring. Interviews offer limited evidence of how people work together, and she supports a trial period before treating a relationship as settled. The underlying principle is consistent: test the working arrangement and clarify expectations before deeper commitments make a mismatch costly.

    Investment changes who gets a vote

    The conversation's promise of a large exit eventually encounters a less marketable truth: taking investment changes the creator's job. Money arrives with expectations attached. A person who built a channel to avoid a boss can introduce new oversight through the business itself.

    Chou describes the investor as someone who can look over the founder's shoulder and question the content strategy. A creative decision can become a commercial negotiation. What the creator wants to make and what an investor expects to earn are not guaranteed to align.

    An exit is a choice, not an obligation.

    This is why she places an explicit decision inside the creator's development: does the founder actually want to sell? Without that decision, preparation for a transaction can quietly become a default ambition rather than a considered direction.

    Do says he does not want the $100 million exit being discussed. His answer prevents the headline number from becoming the only respectable definition of success. A profitable independent business can be a destination, not an unfinished acquisition target.

    The same trade-off appears earlier, when creators receive offers to advise startups in exchange for equity. Do says AI technology companies approach him with such proposals, but future equity does not pay current bills.

    Chou recommends asking for cash alongside equity when the role requires ongoing time. Her suggested monthly amounts are examples of compensation to negotiate, not guaranteed market rates. The important distinction is between present work and a possible future payoff.

    A creator's participation also carries reputational weight. Do points out that association can signal credibility to an audience. A company is not merely buying access to the creator's schedule; it can benefit from the audience's trust in that person.

    That is the business tension suggested by The Costs of Being Internet Famous. Visibility creates opportunities, but it also makes the consequences of association harder to keep private.

    Chou describes being approached to serve as the face of a neobank, which she explains as a banking app or financial technology layer over a bank. She remained uncomfortable endorsing it while questions about failure and potential harm to users were unresolved.

    Her hesitation is more instructive than an easy declaration that creators should accept or reject every such arrangement. The company wanted the credibility of a public face. She was still assessing whether that credibility should be put at risk.

    Do contrasts that caution with creators repeatedly attaching themselves to questionable ventures. The money available in a deal does not settle whether the association serves the audience.

    The practical questions become sharper as opportunities grow:

    • Does the founder actually want an eventual sale?
    • What expectations will an investor bring to creative decisions?
    • Does an advisory role compensate the creator's ongoing work?
    • Does public association ask the audience to trust something insufficiently examined?

    Each question concerns something that a headline valuation leaves out: the terms under which the creator will have to live and work.

    Build the next layer, not fifteen businesses

    Chou's most useful correction concerns her own earlier advice. She once encouraged creators to open as many as 15 revenue streams. She now sees the operational burden in that recommendation: it can turn one founder into the chief executive of numerous fragile businesses.

    Her revised advice is to focus on three to five revenue streams that can be run well. Advertising revenue and brand deals already count. The creator is not being asked to replace the existing business overnight.

    That shift turns diversification from an impressive-looking collection into a question of capacity. Adding income sources is not progress if each new activity demands attention the team cannot provide.

    For a creator whose revenue currently comes from advertising and sponsorships, Chou recommends one product as the next addition. For someone not ready for that step, an email list and newsletter offer a lower-lift starting point.

    The progression is deliberately modest compared with the opening valuation. It depends on where the business stands now, not where the founder imagines it will eventually land.

    Her practical sequence can be expressed without turning it into a promised formula:

    • Begin a direct audience relationship through an email list or newsletter if none exists.
    • Ask the audience which problems need solving before choosing a product.
    • Add one useful product rather than opening numerous disconnected revenue streams.
    • Clarify rights, brand protection, and collaborator agreements as the business develops.
    • Decide whether a future sale justifies the additional preparation and oversight.

    These moves work together. Audience knowledge informs the offer. The offer creates something beyond a continuing dependence on advertising. Documentation makes the underlying assets clearer. The exit decision determines how far the founder wants to take that structure.

    None of this requires treating the creator's original instincts as a mistake. The ability to publish consistently, attract interest, and build trust is the advantage Chou wants creators to recognize. Her challenge is to stop confusing that advantage with a finished business.

    She reminds established creators that they have already demonstrated an ability to do difficult work. Building an audience demanded repetition and persistence. Developing a product requires a different application of effort, not an entirely different kind of person.

    Do's counterweight remains essential: legal preparation cannot become an excuse for never moving. The founder still has to accept uncertainty, make decisions, and publish. Chou agrees that her role is to explain risk rather than forbid it.

    Before the next expansion, the useful test is concrete. Is there a way to reach the audience outside the channel? Is there a problem worth solving with an offer? Is it clear what the business owns and what its collaborators were promised?

    A creator does not need a nine-figure ambition to answer those questions. The answers matter just as much to someone who wants to keep the company.

    Build something that can survive the next upload not happening.

    TRANSCRIPT

    Most YouTubers think their YouTube channel is their business. It's not. It is the marketing arm of your business. But the problem is most creators don't have a business. They don't have an email list. They don't have community. They don't have a product. So if your channel were to go down tomorrow, is that the end of your business? My guest today is Tyler Chow. She's the creative attorney. She's a former Disney, BuzzFeed and Skydance lawyer who's helped a lot of creators help to build a real sellable media company. We're going to talk about how you can have that $100 million exit. Tyler, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Chris. So you're a classical, like you're a real attorney, not just one that plays one on TV. That's right. You're a real attorney in Hollywood. I went to law school, yes. And then something kind of bit you and you're like, hey, maybe I want to do this other thing. Instead of playing in old media, I want to do new media. What brought you there? Three years ago, I had a midlife crisis and I asked myself, I said, you have been an attorney in Hollywood for almost 20 years. You have been the lead attorney on over 22 feature films. What is your creative legacy? What I realized is I was very unhappy. I mean, I had the prestige of being a Hollywood attorney, but I was miserable. What people don't realize is being a studio attorney, you're this tiny cog in a huge machine. You are told to do things exactly. I mean, Disney is this prime example of do things precisely exactly as we say, don't be heard, just be perfect. And it was pretty soul crushing. I'd have to say my 20 years in Hollywood, but I stayed a long time because I couldn't let go of the prestige of being a Hollywood attorney. So then I think after 20 years of being as one of the few female executives of color, I was abused in kind of the corporate setting. And so But I stayed a long time because I couldn't let go of the prestige of being a Hollywood attorney. So then I think after 20 years of being as one of the few female executives of color, I was abused in kind of the corporate setting. And so at some point I said, what's next? There has to be more to this. But I didn't quit my job. I just thought I'd start a YouTube channel on the side while still working full time and find some fun in doing something creative. It kind of blew up by accident almost. And I got to 10 ,000 subscribers pretty quickly in the first few months. And then I got laid off. Okay. That was a big turning point. This is awesome. As they say, as one door closes, another one opens. And this is a classic one where like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to have a job. And then this other thing, it's like something's starting to blow up. This is really good. The title of the episode is called How to Have a $100 Million YouTube Exit, which is super exciting. First of all, $100 million exit period is super exciting. And that you can do this by doing YouTube is even crazier. So what are the kind of things that you like to talk about in terms of how do I prepare as either a new creator or current creator? How do I build my company, my business such that it could be that valuable one day? So I love that we started with my origin story of how I started my YouTube channel, because here's the fantastic thing about being a creator and being a YouTuber. You all start from zero. You all have to upload that first video. And then you go viral, then you have to keep going. You make 50 more, 100 more, 1 ,000 more. For every YouTuber who's starting right now, I want to invite you to think about your content from day one as if you are going to exit five or 10 years from now. What you need to have is clean IP, clean chain of title. What B -rolls are you putting into your videos? What music are you putting into your videos? When you have a guest on your podcast, do they sign a guest release? Those are the kind of questions that investors will ask for when they do their due diligence. Do you have access to the assets that are in your videos? That's very important. If you have a reaction channel, that is worthless. Do they sign a guest release? Those are the kind of questions that investors will ask for when they do their due diligence. Do you have access to the assets that are in your videos? That's very important. If you have a reaction channel, that is worthless to investors. Do not have a reaction channel. Everybody that I know is using some illegal clip from a movie, probably some bootleg music, a little meme cut, you know, reaction thing. You're speaking very much like my attorneys, like, Chris, everything's got to be by the book. Creators are not by the book people. We just know this. So what options are left for us? If you want to not worry about the past content, then fine, right? Maybe that's just, you just can't sell that or you can't license it, or you can go after the fact and try to clean it. I do want to pull this back a little bit and push back and say, not every single YouTuber wants a hundred million dollar exit, by the way. I mean, do you? No. So let's normalize this, right? So yes, I have some clients who I will probably be able to sell them at a hundred million dollars. I definitely have one right now. The problem is most private equity funds want to buy a portfolio 10 at a time. I don't have 10 at a time. What creators have right now is an inventory problem. We don't have enough of these kind of high quality businesses, creator led businesses to sell to private equity funds or to the studios. The studios are starting to look right now too, but ask yourself, like, do you want an exit? If you don't, and you want to just use your YouTube channel as the marketing arm of your business, I want to say that twice. Most YouTubers think their YouTube channel is their business. It's not. It is the marketing arm of your business. But the problem is most creators don't have a business. They don't have a product to sell. They don't go beyond AdSense and brand deals. Most creators, like those are their two revenue streams. They don't have an email list. They don't have community. They don't have a product. So if your channel were to go down tomorrow, is that the end of your business? Do you have access to your audience? Do you have an email list where you can access that? I mean, I was recently in a room with, uh, in a masterclass of over 10 huge YouTubers, each over 10 million age. I asked them, how many of you have an email? down tomorrow, is that the end of your business? Do you have access to your audience? Do you have an email list where you can access that? I mean, I was recently in a room with, in a masterclass of over 10 huge YouTubers, each over 10 million age. I asked them, how many of you have an email list? One person raised their hand. Isn't that terrifying? So if their channels were to go down tomorrow, they would not have access to their audience. Let's talk about this a little bit more. I think a lot of people get into YouTube, especially I think everything for the last couple of years were people who didn't know what to do in their life and just enjoy this thing. Maybe they're charismatic, maybe they're like a theater kid or a failing comic, something like that. And they love video and video production. They just did this kind of as a hobby, but let's focus on those pure creative people because we don't, the business people know what they're doing already. So if you're a creative person and you want to be able to someday exit and maybe build an insurance program against you not being able to create content anymore and doing brand deals, what are some of the steps that we need to be aware of? So we have to have clean IP, intellectual property, clean IP. Okay. What is the next thing we need to do? Email list. That's very important because realize that your email list, those are your first customers. You had Matt Gray on, he said something great. You know, when you send an email to your email list, there's a hundred percent chance they will get it. When you put a video out on YouTube, there's probably a 5 % chance that anyone will see it because you are a victim of the algorithm. So an email list is really important. I think a product of some sort, whether that's a physical product or a technical product. I love technical products because SaaS, you build it once and you sell it a million or 10 million times. The story I like sharing about my client who is valued at a hundred million right now. I took him out to market 18 months ago, Chris, and he was valued at 35 million. And I said to him, I said, let's not sell. I think in three years, you'll be worth a hundred million dollars. And I was wrong because we hit that in 18 months. Well, actually less than 18 months, about a year. And the difference is we built a budgeting app. So very quickly, if you guys are trying to think of a niche to go into the, do you know what the two best niches are to go into? Because we hit that in 18 months. Well, actually less than 18 months, about a year. And the difference is we built a budgeting app. So very quickly, if you guys are trying to think of a niche to go into, do you know what the two best niches are to go into? Probably something with finance. is definitely one of them. So what humans care about most is your health and your wealth. So if those are the two areas that you have expertise in, heck, you don't even need to be an expert. I mean, my client with the $100 million, he worked in finance probably for a couple of years. He got really good at paying down his debt. And so that was his origin story of like, I figured out how to pay down all my debt. And that became the springboard to his finance channel. But I would actually take it a bit further, Chris, because you mentioned a bunch of entertainment. A lot of creators get their starts in entertainment. I'm actually seeing a new wave right now because a lot of my clients are actually educational, professional channels, right? The doctors, the lawyers, the accountants, the therapists, the designers, you know, who have had 20 years of doing something. And now they want to go and start a YouTube channel. And I will ask a lot of them, I will say, why are you starting a YouTube channel? Is this because you want to market your business? And they actually said, no. They said, for like a lot of doctors and therapists, they said, our medical system is broken. And I have all this information in my head. And I just want to share it with the world. One of my clients is a child psychologist. And she said, I have a three -year wait list to see me. There are so many parents dealing with teenage depression, ADHD. Like they don't know what to do, but it's in my head. So if I were to make some YouTube videos and share it with them, imagine how many people would benefit. And I love that new trend. There's a couple of things I want to talk about here. And the professionals that are entering to the space that have deep expertise, multi -decade experience, there's an interesting phenomenon. Once you make enough money, and enough is relative to each person, the desire is actually to do something impactful. So I think at the end of the day, I think we've been programmed to look for safety via financial means. And once you get there and you have enough, the ones that are more soulful... there's an interesting phenomenon. Once you make enough money and enough is relative to each person, the desire is actually to do something impactful. Yes. So I think at the end of the day, I think we've been programmed to look for safety via financial means. And once you get there and you have enough, the ones that are more soulful, look for something more. I didn't think I wanted fame, but I wanted to leave my mark on the world somehow. And when you were just talking, Chris, I sort of got goosebumps because I sort of feel that way every single day. I wake up super excited to be able to talk to creators, to protect them. My last video, so my YouTube video that talked about the $100 million exit, I typically get two or 4 ,000 views on my videos, but this one's approaching 100 ,000 views. And I got hundreds and hundreds of comments saying, I didn't even know this was possible. It really lights me up because if I can impart knowledge or information to creators where they didn't even think it was possible, and they're saying, you have really changed my life, my creator journey, because I saw this one video. I want to launch a product now. There are so many of you who have audiences that want to support you. I think this is what people don't realize, right? Is that when you are giving them free content for years and years, and you launch a product, people want to support you. They want to give back to you. They want to say, Chris, thank you so much for all this free content. How can I support you? Most YouTubers don't realize that they are startup founders. That's what they are. Now, they just have the flip problem that most tech founders have, right? Most tech founders have a product, but they don't have an audience or buyers. YouTubers have all the audience and probably buyers, but they have no product to sell. And so if we can bridge that, and that's why you're seeing a lot of startups and CEOs writing on LinkedIn, having a social media presence because people want to buy from people. They don't want to buy from companies. So the question I get the most is, how do I launch a product? So this is what I say to most YouTubers. You have to get to know your audience really, really well. Know who that avatar is. Like, what is the problem that they have that you could launch a product to help them solve? You also don't have to guess. get the most is how do I launch a product? So this is what I say to most YouTubers. You have to get to know your audience really, really well. Know who that avatar is. Like what is the problem that they have that you could launch a product to help them solve? You also don't have to guess. You could just ask your audience, hey, can you tell me in the comments what's the biggest pain point in your life right now? What I'm finding is real interesting is you said the tech founders and YouTube creators have the exact opposite problem. They have no distribution. They have no market. You have market and distribution, but you have no product. And I'm finding more and more today is AI tech companies coming out to me and said, we'll give you the back. We'll give you equity in your company. And the problem is I can't pay bills with equity in the future, but I can for a couple of deals. So this is what I want to say to the big creators out there who are like Christo, who get offered equity. You ask for cash as well. You say, you want my time every month to be an advisor to you. You have to pay me, you know, three or $5 ,000 on top of the equity because it's true, right? You might get offered equity in 10 companies, probably eight will be worthless, but two might hit it. And those are the ones you want to be a part of. I get asked to be an advisor all the time to startups and companies now, typically around the IP AI world. And in the past, I used to say no a lot to the advisor and positions. And I recently, you know, the, the billion dollar fund owner who was this badass Asian woman, she said, just take them, go be on boards, take advisory positions because it's the other advisors and board members that you want to meet. Cause she's on the board of bank of California. And she's like, I'm meeting so many amazing people by being a part of this. You know, I worry about being an advisor because a lot of creator led kind of businesses in the background want me to basically bless their companies and say, creators trust this. And most of the time they're very predatory and they're trying to take advantage of creators. And that's why I will say no. By association and by signaling to others, this is a good business. Right. You're, I guess, vouching and adding credibility to what they're doing. Right. I mean, I recently got asked to be a face of a neobank. So neobank is basically... And they're very predatory and they're trying to take advantage of creators. And that's why I will say no. By association and by signaling to others, this is a good business. Right. You're, I guess, vouching and adding credibility to what they're doing. Right. I mean, I recently got asked to be a face of a neobank. So neobank is basically like a banking app or a fintech that you lay on top of a real bank. But what creators have that all these banks want is creators have millions of customers. So if there's zero customer acquisition costs for them, banks, did you know that banks pay about $10 ,000 per like marketing to get a new customer to acquire a customer? So they love working with creators. And so one of these neobanks wanted me to be the face of it. And I said, I don't feel comfortable being the face of it. I'll be an advisor to you, but I don't know that I want to be a face of it because what if it fails? What if, you know, people lose their money? I don't know. I'm still thinking about it. We're doing due diligence right now. Okay. So you have way more ethics than a lot of creators because some of the biggest creators have been attached to so many weird scam rug pulls and things that they consistently do this. So at least you're for now drawing the lines like, I'm not so sure about this. It could work. It could fail. I just don't want to be associated with something that hurts people. Right. And I truly believe, you know, Warren Buffett said something I think that's great is you can lose anything but your reputation. You can't get that back. Once you lose your reputation and your trust from your audience, you can't ever get that back. So for me, that's not worth it. And my life's mission is to protect creators. It truly is. So why would I go do a deal that could potentially not serve creators or not be great for my audience? Yeah. Okay. You have to have a clean IP. You got to own your audience via email. You have to have some kind of product, either digital or traditional. What else do we need? Or is that the three core components? I used to say, and I actually recently took it back. I used to say you should have 15 revenue streams, open up all the revenue streams. But I realized that by asking my clients to focus on so many, it was like they're becoming the CEO of 15 fragile startups. So I said, you know what? Focus on three to five that you can do really well. And look, AdSense and brand deals are two of those. have 15 revenue streams, open up all the revenue streams. But I realized that by asking my clients to focus on so many, it was like they're becoming the CEO of 15 fragile startups. So I said, you know what, focus on three to five that you can do really well. And look, ads and brand deals are two of those because that's the foundation of your YouTube business. So I would invite creators to just launch one product as their next revenue stream. Or if you want to start on an email list and a newsletter, because that's a lower lift, that's great too. If you're already there, you have an email list and a newsletter, then start with the product. That's sort of the traditional path. I have my M &A business is called Creator Arc because it's a life cycle of a creator. There are actually seven steps to it. I think once you decide, because there has to be a decision in there that you want the exit. Because if you don't want the exit, then you don't need to go on this path. You can just have a product and then just have your business and be happy with it. But if you want to have an exit, then we can talk a little bit about what that looks like. Because what creators don't realize is when you take an investor money, that's not free money. You have to pay that back where they have to get a return. That's inviting in a boss that you haven't had sometimes ever as a creator. If you started your YouTube channel as a kid or right out of college, a lot of YouTubers have never had a corporate job. So inviting an investor to come in to take equity into your company, you're inviting a boss, someone who's going to look over your shoulder, who's going to tell you, oh no, Chris, I don't think you should make videos about that. We should go make these other videos because we think that's what's going to make money. It takes away some of your creative freedom that I think a lot of creators don't realize. Okay. Let's throw the mic back to Simon. How important would you say trademarking is? Thank you so much for calling that out because that is part of the IP portfolio that I forgot to mention. It's very, very important. And here it is. I mean, it's not terribly expensive. I mean, I charge $3 ,000 per trademark, but what's more expensive is rebranding. So last year I had to work on three rebrands for some of my creator clients and they cost in the five. forgot to mention. It's very, very important. And here it is. I mean, it's not terribly expensive. I mean, I charge $3 ,000 per trademark, but what's more expensive is rebranding. So last year I had to work on three rebrands for some of my creator clients and they cost in the five to six figures because here's what happens. When you're a YouTuber, you start a channel, you grab a handle name that sounds cool, like maybe the future and you don't trademark it. Then you get big and then the actual trademark holder comes out of the woodwork and says, wait a minute, that's my name. You have to stop using it. And second of all, you need to pay me a rev share for everything you've made off of my name for the last five years. That is what most creators don't realize. So one of my clients, Gabrielle Judge and I can share this because she shared it openly on LinkedIn. She was using anti -girlboss. That was her name. And it was fine in the beginning. Then she got bigger and bigger. And then Sophia's legal team came out and said, you can't use that. Girlboss is mine. And so we had to rebrand her and she can no longer use Girlboss. And that was a very expensive process. So I would say do your trademarks very early on, but that's something that a lot of creators miss out on. And later on, it becomes a big issue. So thank you so much for pointing that out. There's another issue that's happened to us several times in which you do something for a long time, Simon. You get really good at it. I use parlance. Some wanker will come in and try to trademark it behind you. And because you haven't protected it, you're the person who came up with it. And now they're going to tell you to stop. And that's messed up too. That happens. There was a creator. Her name was Jewel. And it was like, it's like a two word phrase that everybody use. Very mindful, very Jabeer. Right. So that was her phrase. And then some guy decided that he was going to trademark it from under her and it became like a fight. Now, if you catch it in time, you can fight it because she can say she had common law usage, you know, because she used it first. But that does happen a lot. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. As a creator, you say lots of things. was going to trademark it from under her and it became like a fight. Now, if you catch it in time, you can fight it because she can say she had common law usage, you know, because she used it first. But that does happen a lot. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. As a creator, you say lots of things that you didn't realize like it would matter to people. Then after some time, you're like, this is kind of cool. And you still don't think it matters. But someone listening is like, that was a bar. I could build a business around that. And then they trademark it. And this sucks. So we hope that common law first documented use of it can help, but not really. Right. Well, there has to be, you know, trademark is great, but that's the first step. That's sort of your shield. But you also have to monitor and go after infringers. Right. And this is why studios and big companies have an entire trademark division that that's all they do. Like at Disney, that's all that's what they do. Let's keep moving on. Okay. Another question, maybe. Hi, Tanner. Hi. So my question is, what has been the most challenging deal, the situation that you have to overcome so far? So here is a line of business or creators who come to me, I will no longer do this type of work is when people have their channels terminated due to community guideline violations or copyright strikes. What people don't realize is YouTube is doing major cleaning house right now. They're deleting and getting rid of a lot of channels that they consider not high quality, kind of scammy, kind of AI slop, things that don't give their audience a good experience. Because all the platforms want is for you to come on, have a great experience and keep staying on. Here's the biggest issue that creators run into when they're starting their businesses or their YouTube channels. Let's say you start a channel with your best friend, maybe they edit for you and it's nothing in the beginning. You say to your best friend, I'm going to give you 50 % of every dollar I make on this channel because you're helping me. And there's no agreement in place. And this is actually a real life story happened to one of my clients who was 17 at the time. And I said to her, I said, we need to have a contract in place for your best friend, even to your best friend, I'm going to give you 50 % of every dollar I make on this channel because you're helping me and there's no agreement in place. And this is actually a real life story happened to one of my clients who was 17 at the time. And I said to her, I said, we need to have a contract in place for your best friend. Even if it says like something, right? Like what he gets or like there's a cap on the AdSense. She's like, no, he's my best friend. He will get so upset. So sure enough, her AdSense starts climbing into the six figures and she's like, huh, maybe 50 % isn't a good idea. And I was like, can I put it under a contract now? And she said, yes. So we delivered this employment agreement to her best friend. And he was like, oh no, I own 50 % of this channel. I made you. And it took us six months to get him into this employment agreement. He signed it, but he ended up quitting a couple of months later because this whole thing ruined their friendship. So this is my advice. When you start something with anybody, get that partnership agreement in place from day one. That's the easiest time to get someone to sign, right? It's when you're in a honeymoon period. When you're at the exit end, the divorce end, no one wants to sign anything. Let's unpack all that because leave it to have an attorney in the room and all of a sudden the conversation went so dark. Trademark people stealing your IP, your partner stealing, who knows? Let's get into this. This woman that you worked with, whose editor she gave 50 % to, I find it super convenient when people are like, well, let's not do a contract. It's not because they love them so much. It's because they're afraid that they're going to quit. Yes. But it's also because they think what they're doing is not that valuable. So it's interesting to me, and this may not be the proper characterization of this client of yours. But all of a sudden, when you start making money, that starts to reveal the character. All of a sudden, you want to cut people out. You weren't actually a ride or die. Now it's like, I want to cap what you can do. And I want to put terms and conditions whether or not one person said this was the case or not. Now, in real life, when I started the YouTube channel with my friend, I had the business sense to say, look, we're going to do this. I need to know what the exit clause is. Let's do our prenup right now. Nice. Which we did. Okay. And all I needed to do was just have a conversation with them. This is what we're going to do in case we split, in case things don't work. Now, in real life, when I started the YouTube channel with my friend, I had the business sense to say, look, we're going to do this. I need to know what the exit clause is. Let's do our prenup right now, which we did. And all I needed to do was just have a conversation with them. This is what we're going to do in case we split, in case things don't work. This is what I get. This is what you get. Are we cool? We're cool. And then I said, I'm going to send you an email. You're going to send back your response to say, I agree. That's all I needed with him. I had something in writing. And sure enough, two and a half years into the channel, we had different ideas about how to run it. I said, let's get a divorce. He goes, oh, OK. And I said, this is what we agreed to. He's like, I don't want to agree to that. Now, I'll tell you this, even though we had a not a proper, but a deal memo stating what was going to happen, it still took three months of mediation between friends for us to actually exit. So I will say, look, an email exchange is nowadays more recognized in courts than it was five or 10 years ago. Five or 10 years ago, it's like, no, email is nothing. But now it's because of just kind of the pace of life and how we conduct business. Even having an email is good because the fallacy with human memory is two years later, five years later, you have no idea what you agree to. And you bring up a really point, Chris. When you're starting out as a kid or as a creator starting your channel, you never think it's going to do well or how much could it make? You just don't realize sometimes the ones that pop can really, really take off. So sometimes you don't think, well, I don't need a contract. Like I'm not going to make any money. I'm just going to make a few videos with my friends and have fun with it. So I think it does take a little bit of that like future thinking of your like your future self, like, oh, this could be something. So you clearly had that, which is good. But a lot of kids, a lot of creators don't have that sense of like, and they don't want confrontation. They're like, with my client, with her best friend, she's like, oh, he's going to get mad at me. Hey, I would advise everybody don't have partners. It's complicated. I'm sorry. I'm just someone out there. Tyler can disagree with me. No, no. I would rather you make them. I don't have a co -founder. Yeah. Pay people what they're worth and just move on. It gets super messy. I think she had said this or no, this was said before, like a date first and then marry, but everybody's. I would advise everybody, don't have partners. It's complicated. I'm sorry. I'm just someone out there. Tyler can disagree with me. No, no. I would rather you make money and pay people. I don't have a co -founder. Yeah. Pay people what they're worth and just move on. It gets super messy. I think she had said this or no, this was said before, like a date first and then marry, but everybody's just getting married without a prenum. Oh, I think Marie said that. And I loved it, actually. She called it a date to marry. Yeah. And I love that because I will say, this is my favorite phrase right now. I can raise cash all day long, but the hardest capital to raise is human capital. Getting the right people on your team, finding the right fit. I think having a trial pair is incredibly important. I think her saying the kind of date to marry, like just saying to everybody, especially if it's a full -time employee and my husband who works for a big architecture firm, like they do a 90 -day trial in their employment agreement. It's like the first 90 days, like you get to try us out and we get to try you out. And if it's not a good fit, then we call it a day. But yeah, it's like sometimes because you hire somebody based on an interview, maybe two, and then everybody can be on their best behavior, like when you're on your first few dates. But until you're working with them, like 30 days and 60 days, then you have no idea. I'd like to focus the conversation a little bit more about how we make $100 million exit versus like, oh, getting stuck in a quagmire of breakups and all the doomsday. Because if you listen, I'm sorry, no offense to the attorneys in the room. If you listen to all the attorneys in the room, none of us would do anything because we just take the safest route. And entrepreneurship is inherently, some risk is involved. Let's talk about that a little bit, right? Because I don't think we, I mean, I feel like we talked about the $100 million and then we kind of veered away from it because we were saying, well, like maybe that's not possible. But I think it is possible if you build towards it. Maybe it's not possible today. But for those creators out there who are ambitious enough, and maybe you're making, let's say, a million or $2 million a year right now, you can get to $5 or $10 million. By the way, my client who's valued at $100 million, he grosses like $12 million a year. It's not like he grosses $50 million. Do you know what I mean? It's not an impossible number. So grossing $12 million because of the multiples, the way it is right now in the creator space, and because he has a financial channel, like they're like five to eight, right? Which is not typical. a hundred million, he grosses like 12 million a year. It's not like he grosses 50 million. Do you know what I mean? It's not an impossible number. So grossing 12 million because of the multiples, the way it is right now in the creator space. And because he has a financial channel, like they're like five to eight, right. Which is not typical. If you have a finance channel or a, a health channel, maybe you're a doctor, maybe you're like a Huberman or talking to like high level people who are doing the same thing really lights me up. So if you're making, let's say one or $2 million, I have a client who's making about a million dollars a year right now. He also has a finance channel, but he has like over 50 content. By the way, that's a big untapped goldmine is like content for people over 40 or 50 because no one's making content for them. And those are people with money, right? You can sell to them and brands want to work with you because you can sell to people who can buy. So he has a channel that makes about a million dollars. And he had an offer from like a news station for $5 million. So like, and I'm like, you can probably get more than that. If we work on it for the next year or two, you could probably sell it for like 20 million. Right. So the path is possible. It doesn't have to be a hundred million dollars, right? Like a $10 million exit would be really nice or a $20 million exit. So how do you actually do that? And how do you actually have that product? And it is a little bit of a, you have to put in the hard work, but this is what I will say to creators. You've already done it, right? Like if you've grown your channel to a hundred thousand or a million, you're already 1 % of the 1%. Like you're 1%, you know, the 1 % having made it over a million. So you've already done that type of work. You know, you can do it. Why don't you think you can launch a product? And if you want a hundred million dollar exit, come talk to me and I'll help you get there. Here's something I do want to say. My job is to tell you the risk and your job is to decide what risk you want to take. So don't, don't let what I say prevent you from starting your YouTube channel or going fast and hard. Just think about it, right? You can talk to a lawyer and say, Hey, what are my risks here? You don't have to do what we tell you to, but it's good to know. Yes. And the opinion. what risk you want to take. So don't let what I say prevent you from starting your YouTube channel or going fast and hard. Just think about it, right? You can talk to a lawyer and say, hey, what are my risks here? You don't have to do what we tell you to, but it's good to know. Yes. And the opinions and ideas expressed on this show are not legal. It doesn't constitute legal advice. Tyler just told you go fast and hard and whatever happens, happens. This is not legal advice. Okay, everybody, because she's an attorney, this is not legal advice. Tyler, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I know I'll be running into somewhere else out in the world because that's where we run into each other these days. Thank you for having me. This was amazing. Thank you.
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