Lessons Every Creator Must Know About Growth w/ Colin & Samir

who is this for and why would they watch those are the two unbelievably simple question in YouTube that some people forget to ask who is this video for and why are they watching and you have to answer those questions fear is a really interesting collaborator in the creative process but there's a Tipping Point of that right there's a Tipping Point of the scarcity mindset that pushes you over to a place where you're not creating as authentically as you want to be Crea it could paralyze you when we found success the fear of losing it I find to be more stifling and paralyzing yeah than the fear when you're trying to build something for the first time however the world sees a profession is how the broader world is also going to understand it so it's like wait that's possible you can get a $60 million deal with Spotify when you make YouTube videos that's when people started taking it really seriously there's three rules of YouTube and the first one is if they don't we are two creatives who are at each other throats every day and in this episode you're going to watch us try and come to agreement finally we may it could happen we are Colin and smar 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 uh top creators on YouTube um and we have a show called The Colin and smeir 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 world of the Creator economy as well as specifically the world of YouTube 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 that's perfect well done so let me do this official way welcome to the show everybody as you can tell we're not in the regular studio we're here in Venice my old stomping grounds um the first house I ever bought was just down the street from here but it's been many years since I've been here and you guys we met at I think a like an influencer party or something with LinkedIn right in Venice it was in Venice it was there was food outside it was cold rooftop we started talking and I know I knew of you guys and I and I want to reference this I couldn't find the video again but it's like you guys in a car talking about creators yeah and there was something really refreshing and raw and I thought is it the dialogue is it the subject matter or 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 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 personal personalities and different cultural references and backgrounds to come together to work I get a certain vibe from each one of you how do you guys describe yourself to someone who doesn't know just kind of like the top line I want to see if it matches to how I see you when it comes to our Dynamic I often tell people that Samir is more on the business side I'm more on the creative side okay 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 we can make that documentary for you we can do this for you then he comes back to me and he's like all right we're doing it okay and I help him try and figure out then you got to figure it out it's very interesting that you describe and I see you buying in on this like you're the business guy and you're the creative side but there maybe there's a different way of looking at it like you're front of the house you're back house yeah right you row people in you wind and down you charm you're kind of like the the more outwardly facing person but you're in a back call and like dude let's get the order out it's got to be hot and fresh and this is not meeting my standards and then that way he's right writing checks with his mouth that you're going to have to cash something like that a little bit Yeah I 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 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 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 waiting to be discovered yeah I'm waiting somebody's going to find me you're you're always ready though you're always ready for that and my happy place is like staying behind the computer 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 camera like the reason we even ended up on camera together was the first business we started was called the Lacrosse Network and it was you know I had this idea when I left that editing job in Hollywood I had this idea that uh 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 started a channel called the Lacrosse Network and shortly after Met Colin who was uh making documentaries about the Colorado uh club lacrosse team and so I treated it like a TV network that's how I understood YouTube in 2010 and 2011 this is TV for the internet Colin was making documentary let me license that programming right uh the pitch was we'll carry your programming we'll split the AdSense with you we'll do the distribution and marketing you make the content business pitch I see it yeah and so uh you know obviously at that time AdSense for lacrosse based content was not significant but we were having a lot of fun recognizing that Wasing Aon of people and we had different programming on every day we literally treated it like a TV channel I studied the surf channel the Tennis Channel and I was like every day we have a new show um 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 but when we ran out of programming um we had a third member of the team who was like it's YouTube you guys gotta you guys got to be on camera okay and you got to keep feeding the machine yeah okay like we got he was ad in that this is actually what people want on YouTube they want like lowii right connection to 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 so our first video ever although we were good with cameras we needed just we were editing so much other stuff highlight packages uh documentaries profiles on players that are host stuff was shot into a Macbook and edit uploaded without editing so wow our first videos on YouTube are just us talking into a Macbook camera pressing publish and that's it okay and over time that developed into US setting up a DSLR and talking at 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 uh surprise each other with jokes or like we just learned everything about you know 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 uh 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 is that all the people watching can talk to us yeah like if you if you were watching ESPN and you could be like hey actually do this tomorrow and then the host did that 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 and that was like you know I mean that that's a lot it's over a decade ago but that was a light bulb moment for us and I think what really developed our cretive 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 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 right like like good driving force when at the time we weren't really making that much money 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 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 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'm not saying it's good or bad but just how do you get over that because the benefits seem so great like especially where you guys are now 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 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 you for showing us that game or that highlight and then I was also not on my own like Samir said we were becoming friends yeah 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 to you on camera who knows who you are off camera yeah right like the second you uh portrayed yourself as someone that you are not even if it's just like portrayed yourself as awkward he's going to laugh or call it out 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 yeah so there was no time really to like think about it and I was getting so many reps at being on camera yeah that's an important point is at first you suck but if you keep doing doing it you make small improvements eventually you get pretty good at or at least comfortable enough doing it it felt very safe like I didn't feel like my friends from high school were watching these videos because they weren't yeah right like lacrosse fans were watching it so it felt like a safe place to experiment I yeah I do think the point there it's 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 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 F before you do anything it's like who is this video for and why are they watching and you have to answer those questions because as filmmakers or creatives when even when we first started Colin and smeir which was years and years into YouTube we didn't ask that question and we were just like SE are cool videos right and actually they were for us not necessarily empathetic towards a broader audience or a 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 uh 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 okay the value is I'm teaching them okay great and we were able to find videos through asking those two questions like one of our most viewed videos on the cross 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 so it's like you can 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 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 I think that's the meat of what we want to talk about today is is you move across country you're going to go and work with a guy that you don't know 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 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 how do you guys make it work cuz every time I see somebody who's made it work it's a it's a miracle for me um feel free to Air any dirty laundry if you wish 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 in economics an Italian major and like I just didn't see it as a path for myself and when I started working with smeir we were getting so many ear early wins creatively that felt so exciting and I never felt like I was like deserving of way more like everything was like already the icing on top 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 and then it's like I 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 and I felt that way like very early on and I still feel like that now that 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 so unbelievable and outside the bounds of my expectations what about for you how do you make it work I think uh 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 years that we not only you know we we just had like really weirdly similar uh experiences in like our uh teenage years and I think uh and and college Years and I think that all like really informed both our taste but also our um ability to work together and our ability to share common vernacular and language like we it 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 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 uh companies are not families they're sports teams 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 yeah 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 you can get traded 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 yeah and like that I think comes from this like really wild loyal and commitment from an early stage of doing this project which was the Lacrosse Network that didn't make any money for 3 years 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 that's a really important moment for an entrepreneur a a Creator anyone in the world like to have that moment of validation without it I don't know where we where 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 and that 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 some people who work together and one side puts in one part of it one side puts in another part of it and 1 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 so what I'm hearing you both say is like you had an early indicator that work together worked M 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 for however long and I'm going to be grateful for every moment and finding how you guys create that energy together that's awesome I'm G to ask this question if it's not a good question we move on to the next one right I always worry about this because this happens in every partnership I've ever had work ethic Focus Vision egos they all rear their heads one person feels resentful for the other person 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 uh 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 yeah it works better for me 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 like hey somebody's getting you know way more attention like there's that No Doubt video video where they just pushed the band out of the way and it's always on Gwen even though the ban 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 I don't know that that happens but I think like I I don't know that we had experiences of that 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 like where are we taking all this and also Samir and I didn't start as creative Partners or friends I was technically an employee yeah like so like Sam like the the way we started like Samir is my boss right and even our working relationship was like he pushes on the business on the vision uh and I'm here to like craft it and bring it to life so I 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 I the 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 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 most likely I'll never feel it but that the game of that is pretty exciting for me and 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 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 don't think 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 like if a ridiculous offer comes in that feels insane to say no to yeah but it's a little off focus doesn't really make sense how do we how do you make a decision and I think as you go like longer in your career in a creative partnership like the thing that I'd like to work on now with us is decision Mak tracking like time to decision 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 uh it 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 and I think sometimes my frustra 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 it I just want to touch on a cultural thing here forgive me if I'm painting too broad of Strokes everybody white American I'm grateful everything is great if it ends tomorrow Asian immigrant American like oh my God I'm a disappointment to my family you got to go I just want I have some friends who are Indian or or either first generation American or first generation immigrants I just want to know what the indianamerican experience is when you said you're 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 can you share an example either you did something you thought 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 because I think I know Colin's perspective there so yeah man uh I was a really bad student in school I didn't get good grades Harvard westle come on yeah I went to one of the best schools yeah you did and you can't just get into that school by not being I mean I think 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 though I was on academic probation at that school I was not a good student and that in the Indian Community is like you moved to America your dad works his ass off to put you in the best school right and then you're on academic probation that's like immediate you are what the hell is wrong with you 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 okay uh me couldn't get into USC yeah right so like there's there's like that just to understand where I sit in the family but um what the dinner table conversations were like my dad's an entrepreneur he built a company from the ground up in 1976 when he moved to America just true classic American Dream but no matter how we we could never gauge how you know successful his company was as young kids we could 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 right and so that is the experience that no m still even with us no matter where like when you're a child and that is the conversation that you hear and not over here you you are a part of right 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 right and so I've had to do a lot of work as a you know creative and as an ENT as a as a businessman to like uh live in facts not stories right um 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 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 uh how many boutiques were customers versus Big Box retailers I was also attending dinners with big box retailers uh like I was at a very young age a part of that whole process 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 and we got to be we got to dress nice to that dinner right so like we're working you're not going to the beach where dad's got a deal and you need to like sit properly quietly I don't want to paint a picture like we didn't a good time but like everything was through the lens of like we're going to be productive here I get it yeah okay I totally understand so now now everybody gets who I am and where I come from yeah that is my like my work is to is to explore my way back into constantly back into like uh free creative spaces creative spaces that are absent of of fear because fear is a really interesting collaborator in the creative process can actually be really interesting fuel uh but it also there's a Tipping Point of that right there's Tipping Point of the scarcity mindset that pushes you over to a place where you're not creating as authentically as you want to be it can paralyze you if you go I think fear is better in the creative process or the creative Journey when you feel like you haven't achieved what you want yeah not that we have like achieved everything but when we found success the fear of losing it I find to be more stifling and paralyzing yeah than the fear when you're trying to build something for the first time yeah yeah so what what I'm getting from both you guys is a slightly different energy but common goal which is I think your approach is be grateful be ground at the moment don't have any expectations what tomorrow holds I'm also though a little more competitive than that like I am very great grateful for this yeah and I try and like take a step back and Center myself that way but like when we were building the Lacrosse Network and 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 so I think I am able to like match some of samir's energy yeah uh yeah when it's needed 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 pickle ball we play like like LaCrosse or Street Lacrosse or like basketball we'll just compete super hard 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 um and 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 yeah well what I was going to say is 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 you know you got to just keep going and and I I feel when you said what you said so many of the audience that our immigrants are going to be like I feel so seen and Hur right now I'm just feeling it yeah 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 yeah and then my mom and dad fill out the paper oh my God I mean they're 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 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 and I I totally understand it relate to that and that creates a different kind of driver trying to get to the place where you are where it's just like you know what I whatever happens happens and if we lose it all we'll rebuild from ground up and I'm grateful for every day yeah and and there's a balance there of like wanting something being super competitive and also saying like it's a pretty good day today yeah I'm alive having more on friends I'm doing something I love and everything else is a blessing on top of that okay let's let's do a hard switch here and let's get into the creater economy I foolishly am in the creater economy but I don't even know what that means I got into debate with somebody and I was wrong I apolog and admit it to that person later I 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 yeah a Creator is someone who produces uh media on the internet and 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 say this as the guys who talk about the Creator economy you know the most probably there's a great tweet that Colin showed me that said the Creator economy otherwise known as the economy 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 crater economy is because that access was democratized 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 I realized wait no I can just upload YouTube so like if you wanted to create a radio station in the past you couldn't just do that now you can so the democratization of media has led to independent uh 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 uh companies like double click the current CEO of of YouTube Neil Mohan was very instrumental in this but creating a system where there was an auction-based advertising Network across the internet that could then share with the Publishers that's what created the Creator economy like that is that is what it is it means that today if I have an idea for a video I can upload it uh without having to pay anything I can just upload it to the internet and then I can actually have a mechanism to get paid for that 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 okay components I want to do a test 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 newspaper I created media I'm getting money for it but I'm working for someone 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 a bad example if I'm Tom Cruz and I publish a video on YouTube am I a Creator yes okay so that's the old entertainment meets new entertainment and is there any other criteria that we have to look at because then it seems like and 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 is a Creator but there's actually a lot more to it well again I think you have to look at this from the terminology that has come to understand all of this it's not necessarily defining terminology of who are from an identity perspective right like that's an important distinction but yeah the questions are are super valid and we our prediction we've said uh a few times is we think the word might go away Creator um because again like we if we go down this path is Haley Bieber the most uh you know someone that we know primarily through Instagram and social media is she a Creator uh she captures a ton of attention launched uh a brand off of that attention and monetizes in that way and does brand deals on Instagram 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 Ronaldo 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 that's how we understand that term right 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 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 in the immediate term it very explicitly describes like the independent uh uh formerly unknown person who Rose through these social platforms 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 like they are looking for those traditional terms as well to Define themselves 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 is a YouTuber and you're trying to to position yourself as a more professional person 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 you're a YouTuber I'm like 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 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 a Creator and there's no weird you know that you got to fight through right it's aspirational when we first started and you know when I first started making YouTube videos it was not premium to say that very nice way to say that was not a sub premium yeah it was it was a sub premium thing to say to tell people that I worked in advertising and kind of hope that it just stopped there right 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 20s to say I make YouTube videos especially when they weren't successful and there wasn't aspiration around it then it's like oh you make YouTube videos for like a couple hundred people and you make Z okay that's cool your basement now it's like all right you know what what however the world sees a profession is how you know the broader uh world is also going to understand it it's like when the Mr beasts rolled around when uh we started seeing deals like even Alex Cooper and call her daddy like she started by making YouTube videos so it's like wait that's possible you can get a $60 million deal with Spotify when you make YouTube videos you know that's that's when people started taking it really seriously it's like oh wait this is this is real um 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 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 VMA his name is Bradley CER he's a uh uh DOR he's a creative he takes he does photography he'll put together amazing video and like he is someone who you bring on to direct something or creative direct something he is a creative right he can make amazing YouTube videos and do all that but he doesn't chooses not to do it he chooses not to be a distribution platform I think that that's like the difference between a creative and a Creator right is like a creative uh does a creative act and um produces creative work a 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 okay I like that 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 and this is just all part part for the course you you make a living because you make stuff that's cool okay now scanning through your channel top viewed videos there Mr Beast Mr Beast Mr Beast so let's let's talk about Mr Beast for a second okay is it arguable he's like most the influential impactful Creator on YouTube yeah not arguable right fair to say okay you've talked to him so many times he's an animal Mr Beast I get it in your conversations with him what were things that you learned that surprise you or that you think are worth noting for people I'd love to hear from both you guys like your 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 do well seem so obvious in hindsight that they didn't do well right like he just looks at the platform and it's very cut and 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 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 like you're not following the rules and I know you know the rules it's like oh yeah he's calling you oh yeah he call about his video or videos oh my God and sometimes you know about his videos to talk about his videos but yeah he 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 you know early on when we first met we met just by talking on the phone and talking 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 he called me he was like pitch me your next five videos and I was like uh I think I've only thought of one he was like that that that's a problem think of like you should be brainstorming way more videos you shouldn't have just your next video plann 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 too right because 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 how the title should be 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 yeah um like a creative problem and yeah that was really interesting still happens today uh and I would say that five years into our 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 he has way bigger you know challenges in running a 300 person organization you know uh a lot of those challenges have been very public like he he's dealing with a lot now but he still when I talk to him and spend time with him he 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 so there's always multiple sides to every person the person that you see the person that's presented and 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 nature of that 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 does any of that come AC I mean is is is there any truth in this idea of an obsessive creative who is trying to do the very best with a team of 10 20 300 people 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 um peers but you know I think that's that's again it's just who he is it's like he 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 right I I think we're kind of like that you know like we really struggle like I think taste is our biggest 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 because I would be so concerned with everything that is going out and getting my eyes on everything that goes out it even it happens in this small studio with you know a limited amount of employees and 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 so as you scale are you going to still want to like I need to look at the edit I want to sit down and trim here I think it's a conversation of how far you scale and I think what I'm realizing is as much as 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 I actually don't think I want 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 okay but to do less things okay yeah I would love to do one project at a time really well rather than 10 projects yeah at want Colin do you remember when Mr Beast calls you up and says yeah that title's not working 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 I mean he mainly calls Samir so okay uh what I hear is generally why do you hate views is a common thing he love um a specific title and thumbnail you can but um 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 you could make alterations that I know you know yes to have this reach more people and you're not doing it for some reason you're not time you guys just haven't spent enough time yeah you haven't spent enough time like you haven't taken it seriously cuz look there's there's three rules of YouTube and the first one is if they don't click they don't watch that is the that's the first rule you can't get to anything else unless you solve that and that is the rule that he focuses on the most right which is if they don't click they don't watch the the 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 the video and it always bites Us in the ass uh you really want to reach the most amount of people the game of YouTube is is a compelling type and thumbnail and then back it up with a great video rule two is respect their time so what that means is if if you if you earned the click if I earned your click through uh instilling enough curiosity through my title and thumbnail that you want to click I need to now respect your time the first thing we track is first 7-second viewership then first 30 second viewership the thing I have to do after I've earned your click is write a compelling hook that first backs up the title and thumbnail and second introduces a a new question that you want the answer to by the end of the video right 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 so the first thing I have to do is promise you that return the second thing we uh or the sorry 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 uh created something that was worth your time and that backed up the thumbnail that we generated the third rule is uh do you want more stuff like this uh 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 uh you know again capture attention which was the first two rules and the third monetize attention if I want to monetize attention then typically I'm selling brand deals into it or I'm selling my own thing so do you want more stuff like this is uh the third rule because you think about the value of your video and any moneti has to answer the question do you want more stuff like this so if you know Colin and I are show it uh the value of the show is to teach you about YouTube our sponsors should be in line with that value right 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 uh or do you want more stuff like this great we have it watch another one watch another video right because because what happens with YouTube is not I made one great video It's Made I made a Catal 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 like 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 and the answer was no yeah you know I was like all right let's change it up right yeah so that is uh those are the three rules 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 that that I had to get to a point where I was like what are the rules 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 and ways to 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 beautiful do you remember the example I'd love to give the audience make 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 I want to try to make it concrete yeah yeah yeah I can it doesn't have to be from Mr be it could be anything you guys have done yeah I'm going to pull up okay uh an example here all right so I'm I'm Gonna Give You examples that I've seen I I to be 100% honest I like literally can't remember one from our Channel there's been a lot uh that we changed quite a bit maybe we can give one specifically about uh a title that we we interviewed Austin Cleon who wrote the book steal like an artist and the episode The impetus for the episode was about plagiarism on YouTube and it was like basically plagiarism on YouTube is 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 Cleon to talk about you know how to steal like an artist and you know we loved that we got to talk to Austin Cleon 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 okay let's let let that sink in was the original title let's talk about plagiarism on YouTube okay everybody got that yeah Okay cool so then we uh actually used AI uh we used chat TBT to go can give us like as many variations of this as possible and one thing that came out was the copy and paste culture of YouTube it's much more interesting much more uh of what we call a curiosity gap which means like I'm presented with uh level of information and I want to know uh you know more information and that Gap typically gets you to click so you it's like a term that's a little more creative it you don't really know what it means yet um and that paired with the thumbnail which was two exactly same thumbnails from two different creators uh saying this is theft up top that interplay supported earning The Click there's a lot in there I'm going to give a few more specific examples uh that we can Workshop even right now I'm going to give you a title now I I bring these up because celebrities are starting to join YouTube and their titles are all wrong because they're assuming that because they celebrities people will watch them right so Chris Hemsworth put out a video called 24 hours in Spain what is the issue with that right one of the first issues is like it's a little abstract uh it doesn't really tell me what's going to happen if I invest my time in this sure I'm going to see Chris hems where spend 24 hours in Spain but I have so many other options of what to watch today 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 we're not there yet yeah but working in that direction was a note that I wrote down of like if I ever talked to Chris hams or 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 the the problem with these is that the story's over yeah right once you hear that title you've it's a closed it's done it's done yeah you you don't have any questions you get it so the the reframe there could be like pro NFL player roast Tom Brady highlights parenthesis 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 okay we know he's an NFL player he's like an NFL expert or NFL player um roast 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 o that's fun it might like go in a weird direction or like it gets weird something like that like they're they're just like a little bit pushing me in the direction of curiosity yeah rather than closing the loop like you mentioned or if it's like his worst they watch his worst plays and they get increasingly more embarrassing yeah right like you're like H how embarrassing can these plays actually get right where Tom Brady's 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 and you pull out the pieces you know that the end of 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 so when you think about compelling or a compelling YouTube video it follows the same thing tension has to rise as time goes on 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 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 yeah but you don't actually want a consistent rise right 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 like he works his way up by doing a series of challenges giving away things that lead to the Lamborghini and the challenges are not always like it's not like it's like $25,000 $50,000 $75,000 it's disproportionate okay there's a lot of like classic storytelling stuff that Hollywood has known for a long time I I draw the parallel for people some people are Michael Bay fans some people are Quenton Tarantino fans for very different reasons I think Michael Bay style 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 Quenton 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 he build and build but it's just this one ginormous thing it's like and then Hitler gets burned in a theater yeah like whoa and then I feel like emotionally drained and satisfied and I experien all the and lows I think Mr Beast does this probably better than anybody else and the numbers seem to show show it right you've had multiple conversation you guys are friends so anything that you've ever walked away from an interview with him that you're like why didn't we ask that there was a moment and we didn't because of whatever reason are there any of those moments or do you get to make up for it on the next one 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 um because you come in with a plan and you come in with deep empathy to the audience of here's what I'm going to try and 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 and actually move the conversation in a natural Direction and also keep the story in your head of where am I trying to go 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 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 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 to uh understand like how um but I get really deeply interested in why like why are you like this why are you this person uh 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 I would say if anything we're naturally going that direction with our interviews right now because it is following our interest we did many years of like the conversation we just had right of like what matters with the title what matters with storytelling like a lot of our episodes in 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 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 kind of like our oh crap yeah 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 okay you guys are bringing us some interesting things here I want to get your take on it which is okay I get it I'm part of the 99% 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 once and they're not even listening to what it is I'm saying I call them checklist interviewers they have a checklist they go through it and bang bang bang I could say I murdered somebody buried him in in the yard over there and they're like okay and so what did you do for SEO yeah you're not even really here bro yeah you're not here I'm not saying that there's a right or wrong but I find that offputting as a guest 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 ever realizing I'm doing what Mr B says you don't want people to watch your video do you 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 well look it it depends on what the outcome is like what the goal is of the outcome because I also think um so a couple things one is like podcasting and podcasting coming to YouTube is a very interesting phenomenon because podcasts are permission-based it's a permission-based medium meaning like you have an RSS feed if you subscribe to that RSS feed on 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 um YouTube is an interruption based medium so that means like how do YouTube videos get discovered well they get discovered when you open up your YouTube app either on your mobile device your desktop or uh 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 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 uh one being theovon theovon thumbnails are whatever they're just they just look like theovon thumbnails they don't look they aren't optimized for anything else but familiarity if you like theovon so when you open up the YouTube app you look and you go there's theovon 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 so you also have to zoom out and go is it is the 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 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 if 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 that's the first task but it's it's actually not necessarily the case in a podcast feed they might click because you've built trust with them over years and they've given you the permission we're talking about brand overviews right and like views are incredibly available today like there are there's a formula to get viewership it's 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 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 are 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 Tok or Instagram whe I mean they like you're on a plane and you watch someone before you take off do that it's like you have half a second to to pull them in right right that exit velocity gets a little bit longer in a long form video if you've earned their click um 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 they'll give it 30 seconds right right so those 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 5 minutes in cuz you're like nah you're committed you're committed you got dressed up yeah you're just likeing in it so 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 or do I have to grab their attention right those are different different ways to tell a story and 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 car but you do on YouTube yeah and so that's like the weird kind of dynamic that's happening in podcasting and YouTube I love my podcasts I pref 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 uh and that's where YouTube comes in where you can find new AUD cuz podcasting is not a social media platform right no it's only for us it's going to be right it's moving towards that yeah yeah I wanted to ask you this question and again to both of you what's an episode you were so excited about 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 and what what do you think happened oh man happens often let me pull up my phone and look at the thumbnails because I'll probably get a pretty visceral reaction you I'm going to give you the inverse quickly while 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 like I actually am like stunned by his creativity I think he's one of the most thoughtful people I sat down we sat down with him and had a two and a half hourong conversation and I was like that was one of the coolest conversations we'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 CER 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 genen Z that's kind of interesting we interviewed the Mozart of of genz uh and then one of the qu first quotes he said to us was I'm not a genius although people call him like a musical genius so put that quote in the thumbnail we're like let's see how this goes uh and a million people have watched that episode and they've watched it for an average of 40 minutes 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 is a conversation I'm really proud of I didn't know if it was going to work based on the packaging the environment and it and it did um so that's that's the inverse do you know how many Subs you picked off that video I can look yeah can you I'm just curious like how many Jacob k fans came in there like who are calling US Air we love Jacob and then oh they're pretty cool too and they create a space for our favorite artists to do this look the reality is though subscribers like subscription feed is not a way people discover our videos or any YouTubers videos it's just not it's our number one is going to be browse and 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 your thing but it's not going to dictate how many views you get right it's those are going to be dictated by brows and suggested it's tough as I you are so far back no the reason I've gone really far back is because I I actually don't want to talk too much about our episodes in the last couple of years because they're all guess- based and so you're like making an assumption that a video will do well because of potentially the popularity of of a guest yeah and it's kind of a weird it's sort of like a weird space to get into of be 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 and I can look at almost all of these videos and I thought they were amazing like trying the best burger in Los Angeles like I truly remember thinking like this is such an entertaining fun video how many that have this is it has 38,000 which like you got to put everything in perspective like which for us making a burger not bad but like that's five years I bet you that video when it first came out a month or two months after had like 4,000 views maybe 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 marginally here's the problem really no curiosity I have a lot of question 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 yeah what was the title on that stop hating on Tik Tock cringe I think yeah which doesn't even really make that much sense I think you guys are trying real hard on the titles and the intention right a burger review we were trying but we were missing the mark on why but you're trying I can see the 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 yeah do you want more stuff like this yeah do you want more stuff like this well we have a video about Tik Tok coming out next if you like the burger one if you like the burger you're going to be really excited about our Tik Tok one cring and then after the Tik Tok one is a video titled hey it's been a while which just means we must have disappeared so there's something to be said you can follow formula and still fall on your face like I think each one of those titles can be real interesting no those are not those are not interesting maybe they could be they're not interesting in a vacuum so here's the thing right you have to look in the the difference between like if we had been building a Food Channel yes then 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 there's probably a hundred videos about trying the best brother in Los Angeles 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 uh tries to find best pizza in La 190,000 almost 200,000 views right this is six years ago yeah yeah but even that slight degree of difference and tension right and conflict of like New Yorker tries La Pizza that has a lot about how many more people man yeah ju Theos right and ju Theos is a very important piece of titles like I I have one written down um where you look at like uh there's a Ryan Tran video that I wrote down here I tried public sleep pods right that is has probably you know 13 or 15 million views on his channel sleep and public are words that don't typically go together and one thing Ryan does amazing I think Ryan's one of the greatest uh packaging artists on YouTube in terms of titles and thumbnails he does not do anything over the top he is in that video um he's like laying in a sleep pod and then there's someone outside and there's like a spe bubble being like hello right and so it's like 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 the amount of curiosity there uh is is high like I I'd like to try that or I'd like to explore that and see that um and so I think like starting to recognize like different ideas also have different Tams meaning the different total addressable uh markets as we call them or toal dressable audience and like that is a is a everybody sleeps sleeping in public is weird that has a really high Tam uh when you come down to like 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 right there's a lot that you have to think about going into uh crafting a great title okay I I got to go back to the Burger though yeah yeah yeah you asked the question what would we call that video today yeah how would we repackage it yeah how would you repackage it I think it we would have to rethink the concept completely because it's not just about trying the best burgers 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 there just need novelty to that there was a 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 immediately you have all those elements you have Jos of uh low versus high you have uh Jenga storytelling of it's going to get increasingly more expensive uh you have like curiosity and a curiosity Gap that you've been presented with the information that there is a$1 th000 burger and you want to know what that means like there's 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 um that that stairstep lad system of like $1 $1,000 $10,000 $100,000 a million dollar 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 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 well also from a a personal perspective on possibly polarizing our audience here I got into a debate at airport with a lady I don't remember where it was maybe it was in the 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 okay what is the best burger in La you know what I'm goingon to go with don't play safe I mean people may not even know this burger but it's called the window it's here in Venice and it's affordable and it's so consistent I've been having the same burger for like probably four or five years now and I'm not tired of yeah it's consistent Burger yeah and it kind of tastes like has like a McDonald's taste to it mhm but but it feels healthier and higher quality you need to add something to that St I I wasn't going to let him stop there I I was continuing there I mean I would say look in that in that uh episode I think we try Apple Pan we do uh In-N-Out and we do castles cassels cassels Cass did you Pono burger no no do you know Pono Burger I do know Pon yeah there's another number one for you it's pretty good cuz 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 been on the west coast and had In-N-Out and I know In-N-Out is like such a it's a that's a standard everybody swears by but I don't even like In-N-Out you don't like in- and 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 type of stuff that gets you in trouble by yeah I think it's like if you're from La you have to just default Satan and out the like a great burger and people get in line for this stuff I'm like okay what is it's under season I know everything's fresh but here's where I think I I I think it was uh Bordain who said this stop talking about food being fresh we don't care if the food is fresh we want it its peak optimal flavor and that's why we want an age 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 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 Second Street in Santa Monica right there by the prominade you guys will probably figure out the name it's wagu beef MH with age cheddar they make their own ketchup it's delicious are you talking about like the count not the counter but like not the counter it's like that it's not the counter because counter you build your own Burger that's his own novelty but Pono is really great because it's it's about that much meat but it's Woodfired oven so there's a smokiness to it that I like sure and like a Brio bun so it's premium but um space in and we started talking about it and she goes that's a good burger but not like this I also like Smash Burger if you're going to go for a chain because that kind of Smash is it called Smashburger no what is it called yeah yeah yeah there is one called smash no Shake Shack Shake Shack that's one Shake Shack is delous season well right it's greasy as hell but it's good it's good it's really good so in light of flavor profile for me in out is at the bottom of that it's at the top of the other ones but it's the bottom of these 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 he makes videos that get you know 20 30 40 million views he said that most of his ideas come through conversation conversations like this yeah where he recognizes where the when people get excited when people light up because 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 you know like that way of getting ideas is uh is is one that no like it's it's inefficient in a way it's not like it's not like some strategy it's just like hey bring up your ideas just awareness for what's happening in your everyday life like that woman like striking a cord with her in an airport of her being like so angry at the fact that you don't like in and out and you're choosing what sounds like a more like Gourmet sure type Burger experience right there we probably should have done like fast food versus Gourmet yeah right right right could make a whole channel on fast food vers Gourmet right all right we're I know we're way over time I got to ask you this question though okay you're making content 13 years and then um I think as was Callin Samir show is it eight years 2016 was at least when we started the channel years yeah 2016 I mean we started the podcast shortly after like as a podcast podcast okay inevitably people hate you inevitably people say mean things maybe maybe not for you guys oh oh you're saying like now today I thought like eventually they're in the comments somewhere and it could be like you have such a punchable face or I hate that shirt who do you think you are whatever it is they say okay what do the critics say about you how do you respond um the trolls what do the critics say about us I think uh sometimes people call us industry plants yeah or that like we're a little corporate yeah I think that bothers us does it bother you it bothers us uh just cuz like I think we it makes me think like we're being inauthentic and and you know we that that bothers me like I I don't want to I don't want to 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 some of it though I think is like our first channel to Lacrosse Network was very familyfriendly like we built a company off being like familyfriendly 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 uh and being truly themselves which is great and that's what makes the internet fun but that's not like we're not in the business of saying provocative things and I think sometimes people push back against us for being like a little like clean yeah yeah I think we're we're we're clean that's their biggest hate on you is you're too clean uh um maybe there's more I mean I I I would say that I'm I'm not very in tune with the negativity okay 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 yeah been doing it for 13 years like I see negativity whenever I see stuff that I think Casey ni had said this one time and I really resonated with it he was like when it's true it's really painful uh like when someone's like feels like they didn't really prep for this one feels like they uh weren't being I think there was a comment somewhat recently that was like it felt like Colin hisme weren't being themselves in this or something and that that again that's that's painful I'll be like yeah I was a little kind of off that day like I didn't I felt weird so like that that that's where it and they picking up on that it bothers me cuz I I want to like my 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 any time 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 but they missed opport they miss their opportunity I not too late 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 to audition for and it was one of the most miserable my job on this Zoom it was so awful my job was to attempt to start opening my car door and get startled by a biker but the car informed me the B biker was there so I was relieved that that happened okay is a zoom audition to your credit is a lot of emotions a lot of emotions at once they threw at me and I actually so my issue was I thought I was on a zoom call yeah with the director right but I was put into an audition room with 16 people with their cameras off and while watching you while watching me 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 played it too safe when they went um yeah sorry have you have you g you have you done it and I was like no not I'll do it I'll do it right now I'll do it right now and see the thing is I you unplugged the internet dude 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 cuz I think I'm just getting on a call and now they're turning their head being like what is he doing why is he why is he backing up away from the computer and doing this weird dance the audition 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 yeah yeah uh Have You released that video have I released that video what do you mean I I I wish I had the video of the audition so I could watch 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 I think that would be like first non take take like TI it be a good Tik Tok or Instagram hey did you know I I don't know how I would start that I don't know what the hook would be last thing I'm gonna say about comments I know we're very far from comments at this point but how did I end up telling that story actor or something that's right yeah um 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 these comments about how great the intro was for one of our episodes but there were also a few comments about how terrible the intro was it's way too hyperbolic and dramatic and people are tired of these like hyperedited podcast a trend right now there a huge Trend 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 have a pretty clear answer of like what do you believe in two hot takes four one-word answers okay hot take is just tell me where you think it's gone all right sorry if you don't want to answer it's fine okay you mentioned Casey and iight where's he going hot take where's Casey going yeah he done like yeah like Father fatherhood okay like in terms of the Creator stuff not like personally yeah I think probably like I mean all I can say is fatherhood like I I think he's I think that's where he's going but I always love when he 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 yeah I'm so I think equally pissed off because I tried so hard to be like him and just couldn't do it but wherever we nett it 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 was watching Casey yeah so I'm grateful for him but I think he's I think he's going towards fatherhood which I also deeply respect okay as it relates to to What's happen said one word answers yeah I trying to keep the answerers short no the one word answer is coming but okay uh Mr Beast has embroiled in a lot of controversy right now what's your take what is the how's this all gonna end yeah I mean we've obviously talked a lot about this I think um 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 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 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 happened 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 two you need to like write wrongs as much as you possibly can and then three you just need to write the ship and 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 yeah right I think like that's like the best way I can sort of look at it without yeah like speaking for him he's going to land on his feet everything going be fine you think I I think because there's some legal things going on too yeah I mean I I can't speak to the legal things I you know 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 I uh I think that his organization got really big I think uh there's stuff that happened that again like Colin said I think when when the dust settles He he'll admit probably that hey this stuff was unacceptable and I think our Collective hope as us and hopefully as a community is that he does write the ship in whatever ways he needs to because he has been a big part of like the model citizen of of the platform and in what it means to build a Creator business so you know putting the right people in place solving these company problems um that's 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 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 a accountable all right here goes the one word answers you guys know what a SWAT analysis is yeah okay strengths and weaknesses are internal opportunities and threats are external yeah okay so I say the word then you just give me one word answer okay so this is internal strengths strengths you said strengths yeah what are your internal strengths like Colin Samir uh taste and storytelling taste and storying storytelling yeah I was going to say taste okay great uh weaknesses Focus decision making perfect um challenges oh I'm sorry opportunities doing less okay first thing I thought was just like like what's next overwhelmed yeah was like opportunities I was just like there's a lot of opportuni there's a lot of opportunities so I think like i' G to break the one word uh answer rule right now and say uh we have a ton of opportunities the challenges decide on the one and I think that that's requires some like deep internal work on where to go next the reason I said doing less is because I think right now we've we're testing the waters with a lot of opportunities I'm extremely passionate about education so if I'm going one word answer education right education like course or something right courses yeah yeah yeah I I love it I think it's like I think courses can get a bad rap on the internet mhm we have spent three years developing a course I can tell you right now it's not like a uh uh we we've done two cohorts they 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 so I think it's it's the biggest opportunity for us because we like it feels like making a book it's 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 and um terminology and examples and everything we've learned and putting it together so that is coming very soon um and that to me is our biggest opportunity okay yeah I like that answer that's actually more in line with how the you 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 competition what kind of competition there's just like there was a time in place where we were one of the very few places for creators to come and talk about their career yeah and I think that's just like you know by nature of the creater economy being a thing for a while now and the rise of podcasts right like there are so many places to go and 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 that doesn't have to do with who comes on the show or not right 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 uh my word is interest I think as a creative uh your personal interest is a threat to you at all times when you find something that works 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 okay 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 a 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 and then what's the most creatively fulfilling decision you can make next if you live in a world where this is very appeal 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 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 Tik Tok those are interests those are not me and Colin sitting on a whiteboard going what's the most strategic video to there's something really fun about that right like we're we're a lot of creative people are not consistent people they're creative people almost I me very people that are creative or consistent yes yeah so when you find something that works it requires you to be consistent 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 success is a creative is the opportunity to do more of what you're currently doing so yeah that that I think is uh you know I I I sit here at 35 and I'm like you know some nights I go home I'm like I'm gonna 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 um as a creative yeah sure of course I'll play around and make some music on Ableton uh but as like a operating this business like maybe not maybe not so that that's like as a as a creative your interests are always a threat to your current thing yeah there's this razor edge between being so creatively interested in too many things yeah and also just going tunnel vision and not experiencing life to the foest and you never know what side you're on I interviewed Morgan Jay for the first timei yeah he was awesome and he was like been doing this for 13 years last year is when it took out for you know what's crazy about Morgan J 13 years ago we saw him host a YouTube event remember that yeah of course space La do comedy nights 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 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 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 cuz I knew he was like so many years in yeah yeah but had yet to really pop so for him persistence man putting in the music putting in the standup comedy and then the aut Factor was autotune autotune 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 now that's what I'm saying Focus discipline itional work is what gets you successful but when you have some of that success don't forget that you're a creative person keep playing and fold those things into what you're doing and 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 I know we ran into each other I think two years ago at party and I'm glad we got to do this a real pleasure thanks guys for coming thanks man