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

You have said we might be witnessing the death of the follower.

There's a new discovery layer of the internet, and I think that has massive implications.

Every time we hang out, I think it's so bizarre that you're a tech CEO.

The smartest people in the world are often wrong.

Oh, it's now more possible than ever, but maybe it's not.

I wish more creators knew that.

That's my honest opinion.

That's one of the best ones I've ever heard.

I can't have my creativity pay my bills.

What Name another business who doesn't get to reach their customers. It doesn't have to be that way. It just doesn't have to.

All right, Jack Conte, welcome back to the show.

Yo, thanks for having me.

Returning guest.

Returning guest.

Yeah, it's been a couple years.

It has been.

Yeah.

So you have said that we might be witnessing the death of the follower.

Yeah.

Can you explain that?

Yeah, the last 3 to 4 years on the internet have been very different than the previous years on the internet. And to be as quick as I can about it, one of the main things that came out of this era of Web2, this first wave of social media companies, Facebook in 2005, YouTube, Instagram, was this concept of the follower, right? Where I would follow somebody, And then every time they published something in the future, I would see it. So it's like, as a fan, I'm like signing up to like vote for what I want to see more of in the future. And that's kind of like how the internet was sort of organized for many years. You can imagine like different publishers and creators sort of building followings and people talked about followers and that's kind of how it was mostly until TikTok came around. And TikTok's main innovation, I think that the red herring is that it was vertical-first short-form video. That wasn't the innovation. I mean, it was one of them, but the main one was this concept of like the For You feed, which is, okay, you know this concept of followers, like where you have a feed of people you follow? Like, forget about that. We think, TikTok, we think we can build you a feed that you're gonna like more and you're gonna spend more time on than if you chose who to follow. And it worked. People spent more time in that feed and traffic started siphoning off of YouTube and Instagram and onto TikTok and all the legacy social media companies started freaking out trying to figure out what to do about it. And so they all replicated this concept, this core concept of like, okay, let's build a feed for you instead of you choosing what's in your feed. For you kind of became this new thing. And now people don't really spend time in follow-based feeds anymore. And it's, it's so hyper-focused on discovery that essentially what's happened in the last 4 years is YouTube built Shorts, um, you know, Instagram built Reels, TikTok is out there doing For You, Twitter built a, you know, algorithmically curated feed, um, called For You. And the net impact of all of that is you almost can't reach your followers anymore as a creator. You like make a post and, you know, 1 to 5% of your followers see your post. I think that's bad for creative people. I think it's bad for creators that like, you can't build a community or a business if you can't reach the people who chose to follow you in the first place. And I think what a lot of creators are realizing here is like, oh, this isn't my audience. I thought I was like building a following, building an audience. You're like renting that audience from the social platforms. Like it's not your audience, it's their users is what it is.

Mm-hmm.

And as a creator, that's like a hard place to be. And that's really, transformed over the last 4 years to the point where we are now, which is essentially the follow is just not really a meaningful thing anymore on the internet.

I agree with you that that's taking place, and whether it's on short form or long form, we speak with very established YouTube creators that are looking at their analytics, and they're telling us, hey, I'm still fighting for viewership here, but when I look at my number of returning viewers to new viewers, I'm actually just getting more and more new viewers and less returning viewers. So I definitely see that happening. For me though, I wonder, is the death of the follower just a consequence of the maturation of the creator economy? The fact that there are way more creators than there have ever been, and maybe the demand for content has stayed relatively stable, and the supply is able to be taken care of, by a smaller group of people making it harder.

100%. I think what's generally happened is, um, the platforms have basically realized that novelty and discovery drives session time and watch time. Um, and if your metrics are session time and watch time, which are the metrics that drive ad revenue, which is the core business model for these platforms, then you can drive ad revenue by over-rotating toward discovery, which is what I think has happened. But to be clear, like, I don't think discovery is a bad thing. Discovery is great. There needs to be discovery mechanisms. There are discovery mechanisms on Patreon. There need to be algorithms. Like, I'm not anti-algorithm, I'm not anti-discovery, I'm not anti-new creators. Like, All those things need to happen. It's a matter of balance, right? It's a matter of like, what other business, name another business who doesn't get to reach their customers. Like, that's not how it works. That's not right. It's not fair. There need to be, and again, I'm like, you know, I'm preaching Patreon's gospel here. So, you know, gotta take what I'm saying—

Fair.

With a grain of salt. But like, as a creator, I want a place where I get a deterministic line of communication to my core fans. If I don't have that place, I can't build a recurring community or a recurring business. And so it's not a matter of one or the other. It's really just like, do I have a place where I can reach those core fans and those most important members of my community and business? Or is it so over-rotated toward discovery that I can't reach them at all?

Okay, so I have a couple of thoughts here. One, as we're talking, I'm starting to feel like, isn't this what TV was when we were kids? Like, essentially the platforms are the networks. They dictate what is on our screens.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Which is what we had. When you wanted to watch MTV, you didn't have a choice of what was on. You just watched MTV and they told you what was on.

Yeah.

So like, is it actually just a really short period of time where independent creatives got to publish their work and reach people Almost without obstruction? Are we talking about a very short amount of time that we had? And then the second bit here is, isn't it almost also, I guess it's all reminiscent of a traditional model where greenlighting in Hollywood, right? Where it's like there's a lot of steps for you to get your work seen or to even have the opportunity to build fandom. We are all lucky that we caught that moment. where we could just upload stuff and it was all experimental, right?

Yeah. I mean, when I think about, it's so fun. I don't know if you guys ever do this. Like, you know, my band Pomplamoose that started publishing in 2008, Scary Pockets that started publishing in 2017, my personal solo channels on YouTube where I started publishing like 2007. I think back on those times and I'm like, that was so easy. Like, it felt so easy back then. Like, the bar was, and part of that is 'cause like the bar was so much lower.

The stakes The stakes were lower.

The stakes were lower. It was—

There also weren't that many people doing what you were doing.

Yes, totally.

Like, you found out about this thing, YouTube, and you're like, oh, I can upload here.

So here's the thing though. I don't— like, I hear what you're saying around, like, was there this kind of magic moment in human history where, like, we had this chance and now it's done? I don't think that. That's the— I actually don't think that. And here's why. I think, like, if you just think about creator demand. It's just free market stuff. Creators want to be able to reach their communities and build businesses and have strong communities. That is a huge need, and there is a lot of demand for that. The internet will catch up to that. I think we're in a little bit of a pendulum swinging moment. So I don't think it's like— actually, I was struggling with the title of the talk because death feels so final.

Mm-hmm.

I think the more The more true descriptor would've been the dip of the follower. But that's a little less—

Also specific because I believe right now, 2 things are happening. One is short-form content is driving more algorithmic discovery, and extremely long-form content is actually filtering for familiarity and followership. Meaning podcasting is at its probably all-time high in terms of cultural relevance, cultural impact.

But also saturation.

And also saturation. But the big podcasts, when I open Spotify to listen to a new pod— or listen to a podcast, the chances that I'm going to listen to a brand new show are almost zero. I'm going to go to a show I'm familiar with that I've been following for years. So I think that 2 things are happening because Same with YouTube. As content is getting longer and longer and longer, if I'm gonna commit to an hour-long piece of content, I'm gonna be familiar with those people, right?

Totally. And yeah, one way to think about it is that like there's a new top of funnel.

Sure.

Like we thought top of funnel was like YouTube, but now there's like a layer on top of that.

Yeah, yeah.

And what ended up happening is like TikTok, somehow moved up, right?

Mm-hmm.

It's like there's a new discovery layer of the internet. And I think that has, like, massive implications for what it means to be a creator in 2024 versus a creator in 2019 or 2020.

Yeah.

Because to your point, like, if you don't take advantage of that discovery layer, then you're probably losing out on a lot of audience and, like, you know, business opportunities. And, like, that's a great place to, like, find other people who might like your work.

work.

That's kind of where people are, uh, like, uh, you know, if you think about it as Amoeba Records, like when you're going through bins, like that's where people are going through bins right now. Um, is, is, is, is, is in short form. It's the top of funnel.

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

So this is— we— and we've talked about this before. I don't remember if we talked about this on the show, but we, we definitely have talked about this before. My— one of my beefs with the way that works with TikTok is that it isn't about the creator. The atomic unit of the platform is not the creator. It's the nugget of 30-second entertainment.

Yeah.

And so in a sense, it sort of commoditizes the creator. Like, the producer of the content is kind of irrelevant on TikTok. It's more like what you just said was like, any of those 30,000 things could satisfy my 30-second need to be entertained. And I, Yeah, by the way, it sounds like I'm probably crapping on short-form content like that. I think it's a very valuable thing, and I think it's a really good, in some ways, there are some really great things about it for creators. Pomplamoose has taken advantage of short-form, and I wanna—

Yeah, I probably watch more Jack Conte in short-form vertical now than in long-form, right? 'Cause you're doing those cool animations on your short-form, and I really enjoy those.

You and most people, actually, right? Like, people are seeing, our research shows that more people are seeing short-form than long-form now. People are spending more time on short-form than long-form. The strange thing about that is people are less likely to pay for short-form than long-form.

For sure.

They don't value short-form as much as they value long-form, but their hours are being driven to short-form. And it makes it, there's like a tension there as a creator between like discovery and business. And that tension will always be there, right? Um, but there is something like really strange about this. this like business model dichotomy that I think we're seeing right now where it's like what drives the short-form ecosystem is ad revenue, which is a time spent metric. And that makes sense to people. And so people like that. And so they spend more of their time in short form. But if you ask them what they actually value in their hearts, and if you look at what they actually pay for, it's longer form, more meaningful media.

We talk about like a very anecdotal qualitative metric of memorable views versus forgettable views.

Oh, I love that.

And that's just like, I think, plain and simple. It's like, at the end of the day, what did you remember?

Oh, I actually, that's one of the best ones I've ever heard. One of the things I wanted to talk about today is like, as a creator now, like, what are your metrics of success? Or do you even use metrics of success? Because I think there's an argument that's like, don't worry about metrics as a creator. But like, some of the metrics of success that I think are more relevant now, like it used to be like, follower count, subscriber count was like the thing. I don't want to say that's meaningless now, but it just doesn't matter. It's kind of a vanity metric. Like, it's this cumulative score that just builds over time, and it's kind of— it just is not indicative of like what you just said.

I think in a nuanced conversation, it doesn't matter. It still matters in the context of like top-line advertising. Like, when, when it— when somebody looks at you, I don't know how long it'll matter, but in like, it does tell a story.

So let me push on that though, because And I'm talking about brand deals and sponsorships.

I'm not talking about platform revenue there.

So even for brand deals and sponsorships, I think a more relevant metric is something like your V30.

Oh, I agree it's a more relevant metric. I'm not saying that is the most relevant metric. I'm saying it still plays a role.

It plays a role in trust.

Yes. Yeah.

It does.

Even if Colin and Samir is doing the same average viewership, but we have 5 million subscribers, I think we're having a few different conversations.

And we've had conversations with creators that have taken off very quickly on YouTube, and they might be doing 500,000 to 750,000 views on average, but they have 130,000 subscribers. And it does change the rates they're able to get because they're new to the market.

Yeah, 100%. And yeah, I think what you're pointing out is true, which is like, it's wrong to think about these things in a binary way. It's not like it matters or it doesn't. I think there's a second question though, that's like, what should I use to gauge my own success?

Oh, yeah.

And what do I optimize against? And I think more, when I think back to YouTube 10 years ago and what I was doing and how I was operating, and then this sort of wave of retention editing, and there is a path that is optimizing against follower counts. And I don't want to say that that path doesn't work. It works well. It can work for a lot of people.

Views are available.

It's available, but there's more that is more material and matters more. And now when I, you know, the internet's like, we're talking about 20 years of creators and media on the internet at this point. If you look at the creators who've been around a very long time and been through waves of the internet and technological changes, There's like a spirit and a heart to a lot of that work that has like persisted. And I'm not saying they never chased metrics, 'cause like, sure, I do that too. I think we all do that to some extent. But like even you guys, like you make important stuff that is like memorable and meaningful, and you can't measure that with subscriber counts. And I think it's just important to keep that top of mind as a creator because it's very easy. to get sucked down the rabbit hole of optimizing against a single metric.

I think there's 2 things that are distinctly different but have been misconstrued as the same thing, which is strategy and creativity.

Yeah, totally.

'Cause like TommyInnit, when he came on our show, this is years ago, he said, YouTube is a video game. And I took a step back and I was like, he is correct. This is a game. And people who are really good at game theory, or like if you look at some of the top creators are people who grew up playing video games.

Yeah.

'Cause they understand that, oh, actually these are levels. And if this, then that, right? And let me just—

I mean, game theorists like MatPat and Stephanie are some of the best.

Right, right.

But I'm saying, like, you know, you even talk to a MrBeast or Ludwig and you're like, oh, these guys are really familiar with game strategy. And so they understand this, how this landscape works. And I think creativity to me is a bit of a, it's a different thing. And strategy and creativity, They can mix, because I think at the top level, like a lot of creativity is problem solving.

Yeah.

But I think we've jammed them together into one word of like being a creator.

That's such a good point.

That is not actually like, I really, when I think about, I grew up playing in a band as well. And I think about when we used to write songs, that is so different than coming up with a title and thumbnail for a YouTube video.

Oh my God, so different.

Writing a song is, is a very creative act. And you don't even— I can't even explain. When I look back at how songs were made between me and my 4 friends, I have no idea. Sometimes it would start with me playing a small thing on my guitar and my best friend Mike would play the drums and I'd be like, that sounds cool. And then our bassist would play something, someone would write lyrics, and all of a sudden these things are happening that you can't explain.

I also think we don't talk enough about the fact that taste is a long-term strategy. Oh, right? Creators ask us, should I be optimized or should I not? And I'm like, I don't know. I think you should go with what you like. And we don't always do this. I wish we did. And we're getting better at it over time. But I'm like, choose what you like and you may get less people, but you will filter the people that like what you're doing more. And that's a long-term strategy.

But it is painful. It is painful. The game of comparison is painful.

Hard to say no.

And the game is painful.

What makes that harder is that algorithmically, even if you're making what you like, you will have a lot of volatility, right? Like if you stick to your guns with taste and you're like, I'm gonna ride this out and just make what I really want and build a community, you're still gonna have to deal with the fact that algorithmically, you're not even gonna reach the people every time that would like your stuff.

So that's why I think it's so important. And again, we're getting into like, what do you do about it? But like, I think it's so important to play the long game as a creator. Like every video is a swing. And some swings hit and some swings don't. But what you, at least what I, this is hard, but what I like to think about as a creator is like the 10-year portfolio of my swings, does that compound into something that like I'm proud of and excited about and motivates me? Which I think are things that if, again, if I were starting again in 2024, I would lean more toward those things.

2025.

2025, oh God, 2025.

No, it happened fast, Jack.

Like, I would lean more toward those things because being a creator is a long game. It takes a long time to build something valuable and meaningful to people. Like, and you go through phases 'cause the internet goes through phases. And like, if you have that anchor of like, this drives me, I love what I'm doing, it fits with my soul. And I'm not just being woo-woo here. Like, there's a way that like people say like, do what you love, follow your passion. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is like following a sense of taste as a strategy and staying true to that soul that is inside you gives you more longevity. You want to keep taking more swings, and it allows you to actually operate over a decade, which I think increases your chances of success in being a creator.

The only way to do that though is to not build a big business. And that's my honest opinion. Like, I don't think you can hire a bunch of employees, get a studio, 'cause now you're living in a world, What are you talking about? No, but this is what I'm talking about is that I think you have a— and I want to get to your report because you're talking about the research you guys did.

Yeah.

By the way, I asked our team, I was like, can someone print me out this data report? It was 280 pages.

Yeah, we did a huge— it was a huge effort.

Oh my God, you did a huge report.

Yes.

So I'm going to need you to help summarize it because I did not read all the pages.

Great.

There was one that really stuck with me, which is like over 78% of creators feel algorithms dictate their creative decisions. I think that's actually very true. I think it's very true for us. Like we can have an awesome idea and we will sit and go, is there a title and thumbnail for that? And if the answer is no, then it's like that idea is dead in the water.

Yeah.

And that is what it takes to pay the rent here. You can have a creative impulse and go, yeah, I would love to make that. But then you look at your balance sheet and your P&L and you go, but we can't make that, right? And that is where I agree with you in longevity. The question that I'm asking myself is how long can I not make the thing I'm excited about? You know, one of my most creative friends who made, you know, amazing concert visuals and just like the most creative dude I know, left monetizing his creativity and got a job inputting data into spreadsheets so that he could be creative. Because he was like, I can't have my creativity pay my bills. And I think that's the burnout conversation, the long-term is like, when I look at our career, Mm-hmm. I look at it in the context of how long can I have my creativity be responsible for my bills and my employees? Because that's strategy.

I think this is the crux of it. And again, if you zoom way out, there will always be tension between artistry and business. I believe it is possible, I know it's possible, and we have the data to prove it, to build systems that have a better balance toward artistry. And right now, my sense is that the way And again, I'm just, I'm on my high horse here about the internet. The way that these apps have constructed themselves, the metrics they have set, the layouts of the apps, my argument is that that is worse for creative people and creates an unnecessary amount of tension in their lives. And it's not even about algorithms. Again, I'm not anti-algorithm. Patreon has algorithms in our app. right now that are sending millions of dollars a year to creators. They're live in the apps and they have been for years. And we just launched Explore and Discovery, and we have a little module in our feed that recommends creators. And there are good versions of these types of technologies that benefit creative people. And then there are versions of these technologies that push people to make stuff that they don't want to make. Over 80% of creators right now are talking about this feeling of burning out.

Mm-hmm.

And where that comes from is this tension of feeling like I have to make for the algo as opposed to making for myself. And then you look up 5 years later and you look back at your catalog and you're less proud of it and it doesn't feel as good and you feel pressured to do things that are outside of what you want to do. And then you burn out. And that, like, that it doesn't have to be that way is my argument. Like, it just doesn't have to. Yeah.

But is that a symptom of making it, quote unquote, feeling closer than it ever has been? This fact that you can look at people who do things that works, and if you are creative, you're like, I could make it as some form of an artist. Whereas before platforms and algorithms, it was so clear to you. It was like, yeah, you want to get into Hollywood? You want to get into the music business? You're out of your mind.

Yeah.

Good luck. And you internalize that as like, yeah, I know. I'm I'm playing clubs with no one in it. I get it.

Right.

But even for you, the moment you saw a YouTube video, you're like, I'm going to put my music on YouTube.

It was literally the moment I saw a YouTube video.

And that's a symptom of like, oh, it's now more possible than ever, but maybe it's not.

Okay, so—

Maybe it's actually similar—

No, actually—

To pre-platforms. Maybe it's not as possible.

No, wait, wait, wait.

Sorry.

No, no, because I actually— because yeah, I realize that sometimes when I talk about this stuff, I sound doom and gloom.

And I'm being devil's advocate here. Like, our show is so pro-creator. No, I know. Like, you can— Believe you can.

So, so just, just, just to be clear about this, today, literally today, is the best day in human history to be a creative person. And tomorrow will be the best day in human history to be a creative person. And that is going to continue for a very long time. And that is what I actually believe in my heart of hearts. I don't even have to stretch to, like, believe that. It's what I actually believe. If you want to, like, just compare being a creative person now to 20 years ago, to 40 years ago, to 100 years ago, it has been, like, creative tools have become cheaper and more ubiquitous. Think about how much it cost to make a record 100 years ago. Actually, you weren't making records 100 years ago, you know, 50 years ago.

Or to make a movie.

Or to make a movie, you know, versus now. And then, like, the fact that, like, you can order this mic on Amazon and it shows up to your doorstep in a day. Like, creative tools are more ubiquitous and cheaper than they've ever been. Um, people are more connected. It is easier to find people that want to see or listen to your work than ever before in human history. Um, and the economics of creativity are changing dramatically, right? Like, the, the, even just like direct-to-fan market of the, you know, the creator economy is like over a $150 billion market. I think it's something like $174 billion market. I'll check the data in a second. Um, And that's just a piece of the overall $290 billion market that is the creator economy that includes ads and brand deals and sponsorships and that type of thing. That was not a thing 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and it was not available to a 12-year-old kid growing up in their bedroom in the middle of the country somewhere. So hands down, now is the best time ever to be a creative person. I just want the internet to be better for creators. That's what it comes down to.

I just think that, and this is, again, I don't want to sound like a cynical person, but I am like a, I am a creative who got into this world because I deeply wanted to make it in some way as a, like, expression as my business. Because when I was young, that's, that's like, I wanted it to be music when I was a kid.

Does it not feel like you've done that?

No, it does. Okay. It does. But as I'm here now and in this, I look at it and I look around and I'm like, when I see a young creative person, I just want them to understand what the reality of it is. And I don't know, the most creative people I know, I think would make the worst creator business owners. And that—

That's so sad. But I know what you mean.

You know what I'm saying?

I do.

I think there's a different way to monetize when you are a truly creative person.

Right.

Because I think there's a level of entrepreneurship that has entered into our world of The biggest creators are also, they're media makers.

Yeah.

When media making is different than creativity. I just think all these different considerations on a spectrum of, I am the most creative human being to, I am the guy who thinks you should make another Spider-Man because that'll put butts in seats, right? We call that an artist-to-distributor spectrum, right? Like a programming executive who knows what the audience wants next. and an artist who doesn't care.

Yes.

You just have to understand where you lie on that spectrum, and that dictates how you build your business.

Yeah.

Truly. I think if you're all the way over here, then maybe it's you and you have someone who helps you and you are more fan-funded, and that's great. And if you're all the way over here, you hire 100 people and build multiple formats and you build like a Jubilee, right? Where you have like tons of shows and you can build all this stuff. It's just depend— I just think everyone needs definitions to understand themselves because I didn't understand myself when I got into this.

So one way to think about that, and we've now seen this, right? We have, you know, hundreds of thousands of creators building businesses on Patreon. I have talked to, oh God, I don't know how many thousands of creators, you know, over the last decade. Um, and, you know, what we have seen is there's really what you described, sort of like, if you had to cluster them, like 3 rough, uh, creator profiles. There's like the, I don't wanna think about money, I don't wanna even talk about money, I don't wanna like think about business, I just wanna like make beautiful films, or I just wanna play guitar, like I just wanna like do my art. It's like ultimate like focus on craft. On the other end of the spectrum, there's kind of what you're talking about, and I would describe it as, very outcome-oriented creators.

Yeah.

Where it's not that they don't like the craft, they do like the craft, but like, you know, if you were to ask them like, what is the most important thing to you? They would tell you the metrics for their business that they're trying to move right now. And then there are various shows that are moving those metrics. And like, they're super like goal-driven and outcome-focused. And then there's this like middle creator in between. And truth be told, I actually think I'm I'm in the middle where for me, like, I love making things. I love telling stories. I love creating. Um, and like, I, you know, I, I like writing music. I like making videos, all that stuff. I also really enjoy the business of it.

Yeah.

Like, I really enjoy building businesses. Um, I really enjoy that Pomplamoose has figured out how to be profitable over the last 20 years and that we've been able to hire a team. I really enjoy that Scary Pockets has like, figured out how to build a live business and how to build a membership business and how to like—

I get excited about it because it feels revolutionary. It feels like history. Like when you're paving a new path as a creator for your business, it is the first time probably in history, especially when you were starting and when we were starting like 10+ years ago, everything we did felt like, oh my gosh, we were like one of the first people to make this type of business work for this type of content. And it just felt Like, is everyone seeing this?

Yes.

You know, like, is everyone seeing what's happening?

Like, one of the most frequent comments that we get on any Pomplamoose video is like, uh, they're able to like make records because he's the CEO of Patreon. Um, and I always want to say to these people like, no, like Pomplamoose is a separate entity and it's a profitable thing. And we've like figured out a business model that, that actually works. Um, and I think it's because I want people to like see that it is possible.

You were working when we were selling soap.

Yes.

USB drives with our music.

Yes.

Like, I really want people to know that.

Um, I love the, uh, I just want to relate on this thing because I can't believe how many times you did this. But in your Death of a Follower talk, there's all these images of you playing music to empty bars and clubs.

Yeah.

I did that once at the Cobalt Cafe in Canoga Park.

Yeah.

It was one of the most uncomfortable, painful experiences that I've ever endured.

Yeah.

I, I— that my 3 bandmates will remember it too.

Yeah.

Um, our parents drove us there.

Yeah.

And when the curtains opened, it was just them.

Right.

And, like, you're in the middle of your set, and you're like, should I still— should I keep going, or should we just end after one song?

Yeah.

But I bring that up because there's this graph that is the Colin and Samir channel over the past 8 years.

Yeah.

And for 5 years, it's a flat line. 5 years.

This is viewership.

This is viewership. 5 years we made videos that in the world of internet relativity, nobody watched.

500 to 2,500 views for 5 years.

That is playing to an empty club, especially because you don't even have the feedback of the guy behind the bar being like, that song was pretty good, man. You know that experience? So you don't have—

Yeah, actually the guy behind the bar when I was playing left. So it actually was empty.

This is too loud. Yeah.

Yeah, but keep going.

So I think I'm curious about the endurance for that in this era now.

I'm so psyched to talk about that.

Yeah, let's talk about that because that endurance I think we had, Marques talks about of like, if you really want to be a good YouTuber, you have to enjoy shooting hoops in the park by yourself.

100%.

Right? And it's complete— creative people are so irrational. That is irrational behavior to go 5 years in your late 20s and early 30s with making stuff on the internet that you're getting no signals that it's working.

Okay. So, so I can't believe this, but what you just shared, this is Pomplamoose's graph over the last 16 years. This is 7 years of flatland for us. This right here was when we started this song per week thing that we did in 2018, which was sort of like chapter 3 of Pomplamoose. I won't get into these various chapters, but That was the thing that happened to work.

Was that your first recurring format?

Yes.

I mean, our story's pretty similar.

That is like any creator watching right now, a format unlocks the world.

That's it.

Yeah.

It's like, it's consistency. Explain the format. Yeah, the format is like a repeatable thing that you can do over and over. That's like a double every week.

So I think in the line with the move from platforms from follower graph to interest graph, which means, I think we defined this, but if we didn't, it's like, here's what I follow versus here's what I'm interested in, here's what the algorithm's gonna recommend to me. I think YouTube also moved from, and actually all platforms, moved from your channel being kind of like a multi-format network to being just a show.

Yes.

Right? Like, I think actually—

That's a good way to put it.

A YouTube channel is a show.

Yes.

And everyone who is trying to develop, I also think like an Instagram channel is a show, a TikTok channel is a show.

Yeah.

You look at people like Adam Faiz in New York who's building shows on TikTok. They have a show called Boy Room, which is essentially, it's like almost old MTV formats that are getting changed where this host goes into a boy's room, it's messy, she remodels it. That's a show. And so I think that formats are the key because of that, because session time matters. So if I can go from one episode of Song Per Week to another episode of Song Per Week to another, I'm spending a lot of time and I'm giving a lot of signals to the recommendation algorithm that I will stay for this show.

But it also may be the best way to build fandom.

Yeah, for sure.

As well, right? Because the moment we went week to week on this channel with interviews with creators or episodes where Samir and I are talking about creators, it was like, oh, I can depend on them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right?

There's dependability here every week. And then we could start to see in the comments, okay, we actually are building a community. There's inside jokes.

I think one of the— obviously one of the first people that that made that clear to me was Neistat.

Mm-hmm.

When I was like, consistency over time is a lever. Like, it's a growth lever for a creator. And I wanna be careful about saying that because there are also a bunch of creators that I deeply love who do not have a format and who are not consistent. And that is also possible. Part of the beauty of being a creator is there are no rules, right? Natalie Lynn, does not have a format. Gox does not have a format.

They have a style.

They have a style.

They have a serious dedication to style and taste.

Bobby Finer's—

And that's their filter for, like, do you want to continue to follow?

I can close my eyes and imagine a Gox video.

100%.

It's style.

It's style, but it's not repeated every week at a certain time, right? He, like, he puts, I mean, I think there's a difference between, like, putting a boatload of effort into every bespoke piece of media that you create as its own snowflake and story versus putting a bunch of effort into a repeatable process that is a single every week.

But you're defining also this spectrum, because I don't— I watch Gox, but I don't know much about how he operates. I would assume he doesn't have an office with 7 employees.

No, he has a family, and his dad holds the camera for him sometimes, and his brother stands in for him while he shoots.

You can do that. You can do the, I'm not going to do a repeatable format, I'm not going to have consistency, when you are an artist. Because you can go 2 months without making something and go, it doesn't matter. I didn't get any ad revenue this month. Who cares? It's all good. But as a business owner with recurring costs, it's like, no, that really matters. So what do we do? What happens next? Because there's some studies that say the creator economy is growing. It's going to be bigger and bigger and bigger. There was also a Bank of America study that was saying that less and less people are putting content creator on their tax forms. And I think my prediction is that incredibly creative people who have solved storytelling on the internet, who like making YouTube videos or TikToks, they might become the next great creative employees in marketing departments, or they'll use that skillset in that way. The independent creator-operator either is going to capture way more of this, the lion's share of how the creator economy's growing. Goldman Sachs says it'll go to $400 billion by 2027. Like, I don't know if that is, if the creator economy growing means more creators or more money to the top creators. And I'm curious what, yeah, tell me.

Okay. So, so I, I do have some thoughts around this. So, okay. So first of all, yes, we, we largely agree over like $400 billion by 2027. And I'm looking at our, uh, addressable market analysis right now.

2024 is around What is addressable market?

Meaning for Patreon or for any creator?

No, no, no.

The creator economy. How much money is going to creators? How much money are creators earning right now and in the future?

How do you classify a creator in that definition? Is that a media company too? Is Viacom a creator on YouTube?

No. So the way we think about it, I mean, there's a number of things, but at the end of the day, it's like, are you managing a community online and producing recurring media and trying to build a business around that.

Yeah.

And yeah, so we sort of segment it into 2 buckets. There's like the— one way to think about it is like brands, ads, sponsorships, like anything where a company is basically paying you for eyeballs. That's like one piece of the creator economy. And the other is like your fans are paying you. That's like a consumer payments portion of the creator economy. That portion of the creator economy, we believe, is around, like, at least this year, $178 billion of fan payments to creators in one form or another across all of those categories.

Does that include like a Shopify or no? Like, like if a creator like Amanda Rach Lee, who has these incredible doodle journals, she makes YouTube videos about journaling and sells journals.

Yes, not all Shopify creators will be included, or merchants, or resellers.

You have to siphon, yeah.

There's a portion of them that are sort of more like digital media creators, and that portion we would count in this analysis.

Got it, okay. So that's like Patreon, Kajabi, Gumroad, a lot of these platforms where people are paywalling content or creating memberships.

So the categories of fan payments that we see are membership, which is around $28 billion, which is like, I'm going to pay you for your media that you're producing and you have bonus media available. Like, 3 of your episodes are free and 1 a month is behind a paywall. Or, you know, the first 30 minutes of your episode is free and the next 30 minutes is behind a paywall if you want like the full deep dive conversation. There's a bunch of different strategies now around freemium and premium segmentation that creators are doing, right? Media companies are also doing this. When you read like, you know, The Guardian now or, or, um, whatever you see—

Netflix.

Netflix.

Now ad-supported and everything is freemium.

There's— exactly.

Almost everything.

The, the, so the internet emerged, going back here, the internet emerged as free because the, the sort of tech companies that won the first version of the internet were like, information should be free. And then they thought of art as like a subcategory of information for like the first 10 years. And artists were like, no, that doesn't work for us. We need to be paid for our work. And media companies need to be paid for their work too. And so I think what we're seeing now is chapter 1 was everything is free. Chapter 2 is people are getting used to paying for stuff online. And actually when we ask fans now, would you pay a creator that you— one of your favorite creators? I think it's something like over 80% of fans say they would pay their favorite creator. And then something like over 70% of fans, somewhere around there, say they would pay one of the creators that they follow. So consumer payments has sort of been, yeah, I wanna say essentially normalized over the last 10 years on the internet. But the big categories are paid membership at like $28 billion. Digital commerce is another big category. That's like, I'll pay for wallpaper or I'll pay for an ebook or I'll pay for a specific episode even if I'm not getting recurring streams, or I'll pay for—

Podcasts.

you know, some type of, uh, some type of extra information that I can get in a, in a PDF or something like that.

Just to put a tangible example there, The Yard, I think, is a great example.

Great.

Those guys make an extra episode on Patreon. They have public numbers. They make $235,000 a month.

Yep.

From their membership. That is no joke. Yeah. Obviously you don't get fan funding without algorithmic discovery. Like they have, they play the YouTube game really well, built you know, large dedicated diehard fan base are able to now have fan funding at that scale.

Right.

The platforms have fan funding as well, right? So like, what is the relationship between like a YouTube and a Patreon? Of course they like support each other, right? Like in the case of The Yard, it's like, it's good for them to have algorithmic discovery and fandom that then comes over to Patreon.

Totally.

How do you see that playing out when you have like potentially a Spotify going into like more fan funding options or YouTube? continuing and maybe making their channel memberships a better offering?

The creators who are like serious about building a membership business, we see them leaning away from those products. And it's, it's, I don't wanna pretend like they're not competitors because they're certainly trying to compete in that area. But like, I'm not losing sleep over those products because what we find is if you're really serious about building a subscription business or a commerce business or you know, any sort of, um, direct-to-consumer business, creators are skeptical of putting all of their eggs in one basket. One of the things that we've seen happening recently is like creators are starting to diversify channels of communication and diversify business lines to sort of deal with the ebbing and the flowing of all the things that are happening in the world. Um, and so one of the reasons that you know, people are coming to Patreon and building businesses on Patreon is they trust that Patreon is going to be more stable through all of that versus like their income fluctuating up and down based on changes to distribution, right? So, um, so yes, they are. A lot of those companies are launching consumer payments offerings and subscriptions. Instagram has it. TikTok had it. Uh, you know, Facebook has it. YouTube has it. But what we're seeing is like, it works for like casual boost to your income. The serious creators that actually wanna like segment their offering into freemium and premium are really using some other service like a Patreon to do that.

I think one thing that's not talked about in that context is just culture. Like, I think you have to imagine the verbal call to action, and subscribe to my Patreon is a culturally accepted term.

Yep.

And I think that's something that is not discussed, and I don't know what it looks like to discuss a feature in a tech company, 'cause I really haven't been a part of that. But if I was a part of that, I would do practice calls to action of like, subscribe to my channel membership is not a culturally acceptable thing to say on YouTube. It's just not. It's not something that creators say. So you have to now say like, how could we create a culturally acceptable term And Patreon has had years and years and years of brand building in that context. So I think it's like, again, I always try and think about the more anecdotal, qualitative, cultural components here. I would feel comfortable saying that. I probably wouldn't feel comfortable saying something else yet.

Right.

Just because people are unfamiliar with it. And subscribe to my YouTube channel is a— now it's almost like you can't say it 'cause it became so commonly said.

Yes.

Like this video. These are things that are culturally acceptable to say on YouTube.

Yeah.

So you just have to think about like, what is culturally acceptable or what would be culturally cool if we spent 5 years building it?

That's a big piece of it. It's like, what are other creators doing? And what is kind of known in culture? And now a lot of YouTubers kind of know what Patreon is. They know there's going to be a membership. They know it's like, you know, some type of exclusive media that they can get access to.

And so it has worked really well in like I'd say, I don't know if this is correct, but comedy podcasts have led the charge, in my opinion, with cultural acceptance of Patreon. And comedy being a type of content that is like racy and can be at odds with platforms. So that builds like a really good narrative for—

There's also something to them looping in as perks, like access to tickets and going to concerts, which I think is like a good thing. It's a mobile audience. It speaks to like, Probably the future of fan funding too, is what we were talking about before we started recording, was like events, right? And moving in that direction too.

Right.

Yeah.

Podcasting has worked really well on Patreon. And I think part of the reason it's worked well is because it is episodic in nature, which means it's easier to segment into some portion is free and some portion is paid, right? Because it's like, I'm just making more episodes. I'm not relying on any one episode to go viral. So it's not like I'm putting a really valuable thing that could be my next 10 million, you know, view, like, episode.

Also marginal cost of production.

Yes, yes, exactly.

That's the most important thing there is that it's overwhelming to say, hey, double your output, but it's not if that means 30 minutes a week.

Right. And if it's repeatable.

Of the exact same thing that you are already doing.

Exactly.

From an audience definition standpoint, in terms of creation, you're looking at it as like, okay, this is actually the most core.

Right.

So I should know exactly what they want.

In the context of fan funding, does Twitch subscriptions fall into that or no?

Twitch is so specific to gaming that, I mean, yes, it does. Like, it is subscriptions, but again, like—

I just think about Kai Cenat. Like, over the past, I would say, 18 months, like, one of the most culturally relevant people to emerge from the internet is Kai Cenat. And during his subathon, I mean, crossed 350,000 Twitch subscribers. Like, that is In a form, fan funding, right? That's like taking out your credit card or—

Also a very socially acceptable one.

Yeah. Again, in a very socially acceptable form of fan funding.

You know, I really don't even think of it as fan funding. I know that's like where YouTube started. Like their product that they launched in 2014 was called fan funding. And like, and I get that. I don't think of it that way now. And we don't even like, we don't, It's funny hearing you guys say that because it is so different than how we talk about it inside the company.

Interesting.

What we find is fans want to pay for exclusive content and exclusive community. I don't even like saying the word content. Exclusive media and exclusive community is really what fans want to pay for. And so it's less about, I don't know, fan funding has crowdfundy kind of roots. The pages that are crushing on Patreon, They're not going out saying, please support us. They're going out saying, if you want our extra episode every month, you can get it. Um, like, that, like, business model has kind of emerged as, like, a very successful business model on the platform. It is different than, like, where Patreon started, right? Like, 10 years ago, it was more in the, like, fan funding, like, spirit.

Support our journey.

Exactly. Which is kind of where it started. But what we've seen is actually, like, That's not where it's evolved to. And that's not kind of what, like, that was a piece of culture back then. It still is a piece of culture now. It absolutely is. I'm not saying like that doesn't, that model doesn't exist, but like the podcasts that you're referring to that are like, you know, doing really well on Patreon, they're the ones that are offering real transactional value to their fans who really want to pay them for that media because they love it and they also get access to the exclusive community.

So the language is less support us on Patreon, more join our Patreon for X.

And we see both, right? Like both are still happening. But I guess I'm just pointing out that there is a bit of like a cultural evolution in like the psychology of it and what it kind of is meaning to a lot of creators and fans right now. Like people are, a lot of fans are getting used to paying for the exclusive media now, which just feels, it feels different than fan funding.

Doesn't it feel reminiscent of when I was a kid, like I asked my mom to pay for the sports bundle on TV? You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like just the amount, the sheer amount of subscriptions we are paying for right now feels like there's going to be some level of correction as there was during the TV era, right?

Already started.

Already started.

It's already started. And yeah, like largely we see even of a creator's super fans, you know, maybe 50 to 70% of them aren't willing to pay with a subscription. In other words, they are a super fan of the creator, but— and they would buy merch, and they would buy tickets, and they would download an individual episode, or they would buy a piece of wallpaper, but they wouldn't pay a subscription payment for media. And so one of the things that we've been thinking about is like, okay, how do we help creators build businesses with those fans that don't want to be like subscription-based, but they are core fans of that creator and they do want to participate in the creator's community. That's why we launched like free membership, which is essentially a follow. And we also launched commerce, which allows those fans to sort of do a one-time payment as opposed to subscription. So I think it's really important for creators to realize like there's not one fan profile, right? Like there's different types of fans that are willing to pay for different things. And I think having like a diversified business makes a lot of sense if you're starting out in 2024. Actually, First, I think you should find medium-market fit.

2025.

2025. Damn it, I keep doing that. But here, let me show you Pomplamoose's revenue distribution. I removed the y-axis here, but just to illustrate a point, here's— okay, so here's— and yeah, I think actually this is a good point. This is Scary Pockets revenue distribution. Can you see that? So this is live for Scary Pockets.

Live meaning live shows.

Live shows.

Yeah.

Like, for us, like, that's, that's our, that's a focus. And that's like a big business. Now this is like really low margin revenue.

How do you have time to tour?

Yeah, you have enough time to be touring.

What the hell?

So, so I don't, I actually don't, we can't do that. We can't build a live business if it depends on me going on tour. So we have an amazing—

Like an animatronic Jack?

No, no, no, no. We have, we built pockets in a way that is like less about me and it's more about what we make. And so we actually, like, a keyboard player, like, goes on tour with Scary Pockets instead of me. And we explain at the live shows why I'm not there. We're just like, Jack started a company and now he's like working a triple-time job. And so we still want to tour, but Jack can't be here. Um, and so we sort of tell that story on stage.

But is this representative of all of music? Like, isn't touring the number one for music across all bands or no?

No.

Also, let's explain what we're looking at here because I want to make it clear if you're just listening.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Live is the overwhelmingly bigger portion of the revenue.

It's the Burj Khalifa of the—

Yes. And then what are the 2 that look like they're tied there? And then I also see membership.

So, so this is ad revenue.

Ad revenue.

This is live. We have, um, merch, membership.

Ad revenue and streaming are about the same.

That's amazing.

This is streaming. Yeah. Now, now Pockets does well on streaming, you know, so, so it, that's like a pretty big revenue source for us.

Um, and 4th is membership.

Yes, but, but I, and again, to illustrate a point, there is no right way to do this.

Yeah.

There is no right way to build a business as a creator. There are a million ways to build a business, whatever works for you and your heart. And like, this is my partnership with my buddy Ryan, right? That's what Scary Pockets is. And like what he likes to do and what I like to do and our comp— the combination of us is one thing. I have another band called Pomplamoose that is, one might think, very similar to Scary Pockets, but here is Pomplamoose's revenue distribution.

Wow.

You'll notice live is not on there. Why? Because Natalie doesn't like playing live, and I have a full-time job now.

Oh, streaming is really— I mean, like, streaming and membership.

So Pomplamoose has, like, 1.5 million, uh, uh, monthly listeners on Spotify. So for us, streaming is, like, the core of our business. Like, we make a lot of money through streaming every month. Um, but, like, ad revenue and membership is, like, the next 2 chunks for us. So, but I guess my point of like illustrating this is like, first of all, it's pretty diversified, right? If something tanks, like, like for example, here's Scary Pockets, uh, 2024. But in 2022, when the world closed down, this, um, was Pockets. We still had a little bit alive because we were, we were able to sort of work in a couple shows, but we couldn't depend on it. So we had these other revenue streams to keep the business afloat. I think a lot of creators now are building like multiple revenue streams because they know the world is changing, technology is changing. Platforms are changing. And if you have multiple revenue streams, you can kind of have a robust business as a creator and sustain the ebbs and flows of the world around you.

Especially in the context, honestly, of fan funding, just because, you know, I've always thought about this. If we had 10,000 people, and that's ambitious, but, you know, a part of a Patreon or a membership model, and you lose 10% of them, it's actually, and they're paying $5 a month, let's say.

Right.

10%. It's actually not that significant of a hit to your revenue. If we lose 10% of our advertising revenue, that's a really significant portion of our revenue. Like, that would dramatically change our business, or 10% of our advertisers. So that's where I think I look at the future of building a creator business. We're diversified across probably more unique ways than other creators, but I think everyone has a different mix. Like, we have consulting is a big part of what we do. Speaking is a big part of what we do. So like, we have other elements that are—

You guys are very diversified.

Yeah, we're diversified, but actually we're not diversified against partnerships.

Yeah, we're heavily partnership.

Does that make sense? Like, there is a partnership with a company that is paying us a large sum of money across every revenue source. Outside of, I mean, I guess YouTube ad revenue would be a partnership still.

Yes.

But that's the only one that you don't have to get on the phone and talk to someone. Like a check just shows up and you're not like, there's not as much human touchpoint to that check that comes in.

Yes, makes sense.

But I, you know, like it has been really substantial. We launched a course on Kajabi where we did 2 cohorts at the beginning of this year. I mean, it's a very high ticket, course, and it was for a very specific group of people. And it was terrifying. It was terrifying to ask our audience to pay money for something.

Yeah.

We actually didn't even really talk about it on YouTube at all because we were— we just didn't— didn't apply to everyone. It was so specific to like a professional creator looking to increase their advertising business by 10%, and that would change their— like change the face of their business.

Yeah, that was a big learning that actually the worst thing that could happen is if we message that and we hit 100% of our audience.

Yeah.

Because it's not for 100% of our audience.

And also—

Why would that be bad though? Because there would be backlash?

Yeah.

Because 99% of the audience would be like, I don't do enough brand deal business to take that core. Right.

We have been doing this thing now of actually not just diversifying our revenue streams, but—

Channels of communication.

Channels of communication. Sell a course. Diversifying channels of communication.

I wish more creators knew that.

So we have 8,000 people on a waiting list for our course. We only allowed 50 people per cohort because we were like, we cannot handle giving a good experience to more than 50 people. But that is starting to turn into a significant business because the people who want it and see a tangible change, who can spend $1,000 or $1,800, and that actually— there was a creator who took our course who got a $200,000 brand deal after our course.

Right.

So you can have unbelievable ROI on that.

Oh, guys, that's such a good story.

It's a great story. And there's people who've done $60,000 brand deals and even $10,000. And you're like, that is an insane ROI for us to help you get there. But that is for 100 people have done that. But it's a 6-figure business that we've opened up. So it's a really interesting thing to now start to diversify channels of communication and segment, what are your needs? If your needs are over here, can we get you over here? And if your needs are over here, can we get you over here?

You guys are obviously very sophisticated because you do this for a living, right? Like, your living is the dissection and analysis of creative businesses. And so I think like—

We're fortunate to have spoken to a lot of people.

Yes.

Like, that strategy was only done because we spoke to Ali Abdaal about it. Right.

But I think what you guys are starting to, like, what you've clearly realized, you know, is that, you know, even for creators, it's not just diversity of, like, um, uh, of revenue lines and, and diversity of channels of communication. There's, like, diversity of businesses across audience segments.

Yeah.

Some of your audience is gonna have very high willingness to pay.

Mm-hmm.

And some other portion of your audience is gonna have low willingness to pay. And, like, different offerings for those different portions of your audiences Like, that's something to think about as a creator. Like, a lot of courses are like $1,200 or $1,500. And like, you're right, 99% of your fans don't want that. But 1 or 2% of your fans really want to hear deeper levels of insights from you guys and would, like, it is absolutely—

And have similar businesses to us.

Yes.

That through the cohort, we get to workshop together.

Right, exactly.

And that we believe we can support. And that was, I mean, again, it was terrifying because you don't want to You know, we put a lot of measures in place, like 100% money-back guarantee at any point, no questions asked. And luckily, like, the thing worked and it was valuable 'cause we spent a year building it. But it is a scary thing to start to, like, change the model of how you interact with your audience unless you segment them, which is when it has become much more comfortable now to go, oh, I know you're interested in this thing.

Yeah, and it's just a release.

And what we recognized is, so we believe there's 3 rules of YouTube, 3 definitive rules. The first—

I think I know what you're going to say.

Okay, but I'll tell you the 3 and I'll explain the third because it has to do with this. The first is if they don't click, they don't watch. That is the simplest rule of YouTube. If they don't click, they don't watch. It comes from lots of conversations with a lot of creators. I think MrBeast has said it many times, but it is the simplest rule. If you don't figure out how build titles and thumbnails, no one's watching your stuff. The second is respect their time, which means when I click on that title and thumbnail, I have to show that I'm respecting your time with my storytelling to get you to the end of this video, to tell you the story, right? I have to earn your trust again after you click by showing I'm respectful of your time by telling a great story.

You're investing in us, and this video is an investment Yes.

They're going to make it great.

Giving you a return on your investment.

Yes.

The third is, do you want more stuff like this? Which is a filter for your next video and for any business you build is saying, what is the value of my content? And does this other thing I just made answer the question, do you want more stuff like this? So like if you listen to one of our episodes and I want to build a platform or I want to build like a Patreon, right? A membership.

Yeah.

It can't not answer that question. It's, I'm asking you as an audience member of mine, do you want more stuff like this? If so, come over here.

Right.

But you have to then take a really hard look at what stuff like this means.

Exactly.

Because one thing that we recognize too is you can't go from, as an audience member, watching a free ad-supported piece of content to paying for a piece of content immediately. And what we did is we started going, okay, you finished this episode, we're talking, broadly about YouTube strategy. Do you want to join us for a live session where we go deeper? Totally free in exchange for your email. Now you're in that environment. Now we've gotten permission to go deeper with you via email. So it's like recognizing what you are doing and how to follow the threads.

The fan journey.

Yeah. And even on your YouTube channel, the best YouTubers at the end of their video are actually doing a call to action to watch another video of theirs. They're making a pitch for you. Do you want more stuff like this? Then click this video. So those are the 3 rules. And that last one I think is increasingly more important because if you do get the opportunity to build a fan, you have to offer them stuff with the same thought, right? The same line.

You have to build and earn the right to pitch them something that does cost money.

Yes.

Like the worst salesman or the worst ad is when you feel like you've been interrupted and you're just like, ah, stop.

Yeah.

I don't want that. I did not sign up for this.

Yeah.

Right? So you need to massage your way or find the right way to communicate to someone where you can ask.

There's so much there to talk about. Yeah, I mean, maybe the place where I'd start is, I think there's a real danger to focusing on number one, like if they don't click, they don't watch, without putting number two in, right?

Oh yeah, yeah.

That's where—

The 3 rules have to go together.

They have to be like, together. I would argue there's probably 2 ways to think about if they don't click, they don't watch, like 2 ways to get people to click. The first would be a hyper-compelling title and thumbnail that gets somebody to really want to click. The second way to think about it, which I'm increasingly thinking about more and more, is the body of your work and your audience's trust in you that you are gonna deliver something amazing and compelling.

Mm-hmm.

Like, I don't care. what Natalie Lynn's next title and thumbnail is. I'm watching the video. It could be a black card.

We've said that about Casey before on this channel. Casey could upload a video with no title and a black screen, and it might actually be a pretty good thumbnail. But I would click whatever it is.

Yeah.

Matt Chamberlain's video called You Totally Caught Me Making Soup, which is a ridiculous title and thumbnail, but it has 4 million views. Or a creator, Your Mom Ashley, Ashley Alexander, incredible creator, But you're getting videos of like NYC update number 2, you know, and hundreds of thousands of people are clicking on that. And that is familiarity is a way to get there. That just takes a long time.

Takes a long time.

Which is totally fine. But, but I think the reason we say that is it's a factual statement.

Yeah.

If people like, if when given through recommendations, a sea of content on the homepage or the browse, you know, or suggested content.

Yes.

if they don't select your video to watch. And again, that could come because I have a 5-year relationship with Marques Brownlee, and every time I eat lunch, I watch an MKBHD video. Or it could be because it's a net new video and it was— the one that we— example that we use a lot is Veritasium's, why are there 96 million black balls on this reservoir? There is nothing more that tells the story of an information gap better than that thumbnail.

Yeah, agreed.

Right? Where you're like, I've just been filled to the brim with curiosity. I have no choice.

I had no idea there were 96 million black bottles on this reservoir, but now I have to know.

But I have to know why.

Okay, so let me ask you guys a question because I have some thoughts on this, but I'm, you know, if we're thinking about what do I do in 2025? There's like media market fit first, right? Like that's step one. Make something that resonates with people. And Ideally, it's got to resonate with yourself too. I think if it doesn't resonate with yourself, with your heart, then you're probably going to stop making it in a year or two. So find the triangle where it's like, I like this, and an audience likes it too, and there's that relationship, right? So maybe it's not a triangle. It's just like, I like it and an audience likes it.

I call it content-market fit.

Actually, we've done this together and we have it. You animated this.

Oh, yeah.

Which is content-market fit.

That's right.

That's right. That's what we're looking for.

I've just stopped calling it because it's platform.

Yeah, the audience.

You like it, the audience likes it, and the platform likes it.

Okay.

You've already animated this, so we'll just play that.

Yeah.

Actually, you did a great animation.

Going around in circles.

Yeah. For this when we did it, because I mentioned that I actually think all 3 of those, you're juggling them at once.

Yes.

And they go out of sync sometimes.

Yes.

Like, you might not like it, but your audience and the platform likes it.

Yeah. Yes. And it's hard to like maintain that balance.

Yes.

But I think find medium market fit. And if I were doing that now, I would do it on Shorts.

Yeah.

Shorts is where people are, and it's the easiest way to break in.

It's also the easiest path from idea to publish. And I actually think losing that excitement is a scary thing. And it's happening with— we were talking to Iz Harris, and she was talking about the danger of batch production. Was it Iz who said this or no? Maybe something.

We've been talking, I forget who said it.

We've been talking to a lot of people about this, but I think we talked to Iz about it of like batch production is great in the context of efficiency, but in the context of creative excitement, it might not be great. When you're sitting on a video for 2 months, you have a different relationship with it. So anyway, this is a long way of saying—

Or we can just speak to this episode as an example. Like the best version of this episode for us and for the audience and probably for you is that it comes out the day after we We record.

Right.

It's not going to be the case.

There's one other element to that, which is the best version of this conversation is when it is the first and only conversation of the day. You're not doing 4 of these back to back.

Of course.

Right? Like, that's like, if you really batch, you know, it can feel like a chore as opposed to like, oh my God, I can't wait to have this conversation.

That's a long-winded way of saying short. I agree with you. Shorts are important because you can also get a lot of shots on target. You can feel yourself out, your tone of voice, and you can stay excited about So you can find your content market fit, your media market fit using Shorts. You don't have to make a title and thumbnail, which is great.

And, and I would, I would argue that like, um, at the beginning, before you've found media market fit, like the most, the best strategy is no strategy. It's like speed of iteration. Try a lot of things. See what you love. Find your voice. Find yourself. Find which aspects of yourself resonate with your audience.

AKA the first 5 years of our channel.

Yes.

Yeah.

And like me too, right? That's how it's worked. So like try a bunch of stuff. Okay, then like once you have that on Shorts, I think step 2, again, if I'm thinking about how to do it as a creator in 2025, you have to move beyond Shorts. Now you don't have to, But there are dangers if you don't. It becomes harder to build a direct-to-fan community and a direct-to-fan business. There are creators who have figured this out, but because fans are less willing and likely to pay for short-form content, and because when you're at the ultimate top layer of the internet, you are more subject to the whims of the platform's direction of traffic, There's a, it's a more volatile environment to build a long-term sustainable business versus finding a format like you guys have found where you've got this repeatable long-form thing that your audience enjoys every week. And you have these, you know, you have like these long conversations and people are listening to them and building loyalty to you and building loyalty to the format. I think there's a key step if I'm doing it as a creator is like find Build my audience on Shorts and then figure out after that, how do I build a long-form media format and a tighter community around that format? I would say that's step 2. I'd be curious if you guys agree with that.

Yeah, yeah, I very much agree. I think that transition is harder than just saying, what's a longer format?

It's a major strategic change.

Yeah, a major strategic change to a wider audience. So I think if you're a short-form creator, a zoom out and go like, what is my value proposition? Like, why do people follow me from a short-form perspective? Madeline Argy is a great example of this, like vulnerability, openness. Okay, that turns into a podcast of her alone in her car talking to the audience, super vulnerable, just longer form than what she was doing on short form. So then you have to follow the line of like value proposition. And then I think one thing that we don't talk about enough is the Vine to long-form jump. Because the original version of this— Oh, you're right.

I hadn't thought about that.

Is Vine to YouTube.

Yeah.

And to this day, the most popular creators on the internet are people who made Vines. And that was the ultimate top of funnel and also the ultimate cutting your teeth as an internet storyteller.

Yeah.

Like—

You only get 7 seconds.

Love them or hate them, the Paul brothers are some of the greatest marketers, you know, of our generation and understood the internet 'cause I think they had so many shots on target with Vine. And just got really competitive with that and tweaked it. But like, when Dobrik emerged and created his format, his longer-form version, like, I've heard him talk about how that was just a series of Vines, right? Like, David Dobrik's vlogs were recurring 6 seconds of action baked into 30-second stories over and over for 4 minutes and 20 seconds. It's essentially a Vine compilation.

Yeah. Right?

And so, This is a long-winded way of me pontificating on what you could do in long form, but I think you follow your value proposition. What were you offering in short form? Why are people there? How can you extend that?

I really think that's a great way to think about it. And this is how Pomplamoose has thought about it for a long time. We initially thought, what do people love about Pomplamoose? If you go back to 2008, we were like, oh, people like the weird sounds and the cool guitar tones and the our cool bass lines. And we thought this is what makes Pomplamoose Pomplamoose. And then I think as we made more things on the internet, we realized there was a common thread that was not those things. Because at some point Pomplamoose stopped being me and Natalie. Actually, here, I'll pull up the chart when I can show you exactly when Pomplamoose stopped being me and Natalie. It was here. Up until here, every Pomplamoose video, I was mixing everything, engineering everything, mastering everything. Natalie was singing. I was playing all the instruments except for bass and voice. And Natalie was playing all the bass lines. Like, we thought Pomplamoose is us. Pomplamoose is me and Natalie playing these cool things in our, you know. Right here is the first time we were like, let's have other instrumentalists play. A drummer, a bass player, a guitar player. And at first we were like, oh, that's not Pomplamoose. But what we realized is like, Pomplamoose, there's something else. If you read the comments of Pomplamoose videos, people talk about like, people will say like, thank you guys. After 20 years of my drums being in the attic, I just went up to my attic, took a cloth off of my drums, brought them down into my living room and played drums for the first time. Thank you, Pomplamoose. And like what we realized Pomplamoose was, was like watching the joy of creation and collaborative partnership in creativity between 2 people who were really excited about it. Or not just 2 people, but a group of people who were really excited about it. Like, Pomplamoose was inspiration to make is kind of how we started thinking about it after that.

Right.

Less about like Pomplamoose is me and Natalie and our cool arrangements, and more like Pomplamoose is something more fundamental. And so we took it into this new format, And then right here, we transitioned into Shorts. This was the first time Pomplamoose started experimenting with Shorts. This is just a couple years ago. Um, and, and we ended up filming these short-form videos of us in the studio arranging songs. It wasn't the final output of the music. It was us going through the creative process of working together. So it felt like you were in the studio with us.

Yeah.

And that was the insight there was the same insight when we made the transition to the format of song per week with other musicians. It was what Pomplamoose's spirit really is, is inspiration to make stuff. And it was right around when the Peter Jackson documentary came out on the Beatles, and people were talking about how great that documentary was because you get to watch the Beatles making things, and how a lot of my creative friends said they couldn't even get 10 minutes into that series without going and writing a song because it was just so inspiring for them. So getting to your value proposition as a creator, what is it about my work that is resonating with people? And being as fundamental as you can about that value proposition. It's hard to get there, and you're not going to immediately figure it out. It's something that sort of emerges over time.

And what value prop would I commit to for the next 10, 15, 20 years, even if I wasn't getting paid? I think that's really important. As much as we can talk about going from Shorts to long form and all of this sort of strategy for 2025, as woo-woo as it is, I really think it's like, What would you do?

Yes.

Even if you were making money in a totally different way, because it's the only way that this works. Samir and I think about it, like when we get a 10 out of 10 and internally we're like, it's all over, man. Like, this is it. The ship is sinking and it's over.

Yeah, happens all the time.

And we'll be very fear-based sometimes. And there was one moment this year where we were incredibly fear-based and I took a step back and I was like, you know what? This ship fell apart in 2019, and we basically quit and I moved home. But we still were going to make videos about creators 'cause we liked doing it and found it interesting. And I had to like think back to that moment because we have so much built up around us now and so many employees and things and so different. And I was like, you know what? I really like doing this and I will do this in so many different forms because I like doing it.

Absolutely.

And it's like, I truly believe that is the only thing that matters.

This is why I started by saying it is so important. It is so easy to get sucked into optimizing for the way the internet is set up right now. It's so tempting.

Yeah.

And what you said, I think there's a very long-term approach to that, which is like, how do I stay in the game for the next decade or 2 decades? Your creative career can be long. It feels short in the present. It feels like Now is the end of times if I don't get a 1 out of 10. But like, your creative career can be very long. And there's a wonderful creator named Adam Westbrook. He made a video essay. It's one of my favorite pieces of media on YouTube. Uh, it's like 15 minutes long. It's about Van Gogh, who lived in his parents' basement for 11 years, lived in his parents' basement making paintings every day while his teeth were falling out. His parents, like, nobody saw his paintings except for his brother. was the only person who saw his paintings, and his brother didn't even like his paintings very much. And Van Gogh did this for like 11 years, didn't sell a single painting, and no one saw them but him. And he did it because he loved painting. He just liked doing it. He liked exploring color and texture and framing and composition, and it lit him up. And so he kept going. It's like the YouTubers who are just— you can tell they just love telling stories and making videos, and they would do it if their ad revenue is up, and they do it if their ad revenue is down. And there's the creator in this video, Adam Westbrook, calls this an autotelic behavior. That's the word for it. An autotelic behavior is a behavior that you do for the sheer joy of the behavior itself versus some expected reward from having done the behavior. And I think as a creator, it's so important to find something that is autotelic for you, something you're gonna do in your parents' basement for 11 years, whether people like it or see it or not.

Mm-hmm.

And if you can find that and it works with an audience, oh my gosh, you're in an amazing place. It's hard to find that. But if I had one piece of advice to emerging creators right now, it's like, don't sacrifice that part of it. That part of it is so important to a long-term creative career.

Yeah, you need to think of yourself as potentially the Bryan Cranston of content creation. Bryan Cranston meaning He wanted to be an actor so badly, and nothing really hit until he was, I think, in his 40s, like 44.

Malcolm in the Middle.

And Malcolm in the Middle hit. And then even after that, it really wasn't until Breaking Bad hit where it's like his career totally turned over. And I'm not saying like, if you're watching or listening and you haven't quote unquote made it, that you have to wait 44 years. But I think there is a reality that's like, you gotta love the thing. And it's so woo-woo to say. It's like, yeah.

I know.

I don't think it's woo-woo to say, by the way. Like, I think it's only woo-woo to be—

But so many people say that.

I know.

So many people say follow I feel bad giving that advice.

I don't think it's follow your passion. It's just be honest with yourself if you like it. And sometimes it's not even being honest. I actually think the behavior you're talking about is oftentimes involuntary.

Yes.

You have no choice.

You don't have a choice.

And I think that's what it looks like to look at a troubled artist, because they aren't even sometimes happy that this is the fact that they have no choice but to get this expression out.

Yes. There are so many times at speaking engagements or events that we have where someone will ask us a question and then And it's generally Samir who says this. He has an eye for this and he'll just say like, well, I have a question for you. Do you like making those videos? And without missing a beat, the person is always like, no, not really.

Yeah, that's one of the most unbelievable things. I think people enjoy the results of making videos. And I think when you look at the spectrum of what making videos on the internet gets you, it gets you fame, money, and status. And I think those are really appealing things to human beings. And I think now that there's a math equation to get there, it is really appealing. But making videos and creatively expressing yourself is a very intangible thing that you cannot describe when you're in it. Again, back to writing a song. Writing a song is the most bizarre, weird thing that anyone creative could do, or drawing a painting. It's bizarre. You can't explain it. And so if you actually enjoy it, you'll do it for a really long time. But I find that in talking to a lot of young aspiring creators, you ask them that question, they're like, oh no, I don't really like making the videos. It's hard. It's hard for me and I don't like it. I'm trying to build a team around it.

There's something, at least I've found as I've gotten older too, where I'm less willing to do things that I don't like. I don't know if you guys have found this, but like, I just turned 40 this year, and I just, I have less tolerance for not doing what I want to do.

Yeah.

And so if you're not liking what you're doing now and you're 25, like, it only gets harder as you get older.

Right, 'cause if it works, you're gonna do more of it.

Yeah.

Which is the thing I didn't fully recognize, but learned a few times of like, If the thing you're doing works, you'll get the opportunity to do more of that thing. So do you like that thing or not?

Yes.

Especially if you're trying to do this. I want you to read the rest of your list and we will not interrupt you because we are on number 3 of how you would build a creator business in 2025. So let's just recap. Media market fit, shorts to longs.

That's as far as we've gone.

That's as far as we've gone?

So leverage short-form traffic to find fit on a medium or long form. So we're 2 in.

Yeah.

3 is once you find fit on Shorts, build that long-form format and find fit on a longer-form format because the short-form ecosystem is too volatile and unpredictable. That's 3. 4 is build a tight community around that long-form format. Um, and the thing I actually wanna talk about here is, what you guys are doing, which is events. I'm seeing a lot more creators right now start to do in-person events with fans. We were both at Max Joseph's film screening.

Yeah.

Beau Miles is doing these screenings that he's renting movie theaters, and he's doing these 1,500-person screenings of his YouTube videos. The more creators I'm talking to, and Patreon is doing this too, we're throwing events. We just did an event with Shannon Beveridge where we're like throwing an event for her and her fans, and 150 fans show up and we all hang out together and have a good time. time, and she does a live version of her podcast. Um, the more creators I'm talking to, the more I'm seeing this strong desire for like real human in-person interaction and like actual community building. And you guys have just started doing these coffee—

Yeah, Coffee with Creators.

And like, I think that's another like version of what, what I'm seeing largely across the entire industry.

I actually think that's connected to something you said earlier of like, um, make sure you're making something that you're passionate about. Because what that also creates is what we always call, and I think Seth Godin coined this in one of his, but it's like people like us. Like when you're building a community, you're looking for people like you.

Yeah.

And so when we started doing Coffee with Creators, which is essentially, you know, we send out through our newsletter, The Publish Press, an invite, hey, if you're in LA, come by. We rented out a coffee shop, 150, you know, sometimes 200 people show up. Coffee. We do these community things where you get to know each other. Then we do a Q&A, essentially like a live, almost like a live Q&A podcast. And what you realize is I like hanging out with those people. It does not feel hierarchical in the way of we're on stage and you're here to watch us. It's actually like, oh, these are all people I am enjoying hanging out with and they're enjoying hanging out with each other. Because they're there because of a common interest. We always thought about our, like our first YouTube business, Lacrosse Network, we thought about it as every time we uploaded, we were actually opening the doors to a convention hall for like-minded people to come in and engage with each other. So our videos were not necessarily just, hey, watch this stuff or get entertained by this or the information that's here. It's actually, this is now permission to engage with each other. But that becomes incredibly fragmented on YouTube because it only lives in one video.

Exactly.

So it's a long way of saying, like, I think—

We're basically the platforms now. We're doing the interest graph thing. Yes.

But in a— I think in a really healthy, good way.

Yeah.

Right? Like—

Well, hopefully in a way that's consistent and dependable and, like, leaves you feeling good about your interest, right? Because you've met some people in real life.

Yeah. Also, meeting people in real life is, like, fun and necessary to be a human. So So I, again, I think like sometimes we get over-analytical and actually it's just like, yeah, as a human, you need to interact with other humans and it's fun to interact with other humans that are into the same thing as you.

So the way I like to think about this is like, there's a difference between audience building and community building. Yeah, big difference. One is not better than the other. They're not hierarchical and you can be either as a creator or you can be a mix of the two. But there are creators on Patreon and on YouTube that are amazing community builders. And then there are creators who have really successful audience relationships. And specifically what I mean by that is an audience relationship, I would— the best example of that is I go to a concert, I watch the concert, I go for the music and I see the musician and they play. And then the concert ends and I go home.

Mm-hmm.

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

Yeah.

You identify as a Nerdfighter.

Right.

You hang out at bars with other Nerdfighters.

Right.

When something in the world happens that's scary as shit, John gets up and helps you feel calm about it.

Yeah.

And he explains the world so you make sense of the world together. You have shared values as community members, as a Nerdfighter, right? You know who you are. And if somebody's knowing— if somebody's wearing a Nerdfighter t-shirt, t-shirt or has a DFTBA tattoo on their arm, you're like, I know what you're like as a human. I know what your values are. And I know we could hang out with each other.

We've seen that on a smaller scale with our Press Publish merch. Like if someone's wearing it, we've seen people tweet at us or send us DMs of like, I just met someone because they were wearing that. You already know who they are. You know what they're into. You know their values.

You guys are building a community. And again, I'm not trying to make it sound like one is better than the other. You can build successful businesses that are both, but I do think it's important as a creator to know what am I building here?

Yeah.

And then to do the things that work for you and what you like. And by the way, there's a lot of creators who don't wanna build a community, and that's fine too, right? Especially like there's a lot of female creators who, where it's especially harder for them to have a relationship with their audience because it just feels worse, right? And so like for those creators, it doesn't even feel safe to build a community. And that like, you know, my wife, like she would rather just be very private. She just wants to make her songs. She doesn't like, want to have a thing where she interacts and hangs out with people. She's a bit more introverted, right? Like, so it just depends on what resonates for, for you as a creator and what it is that you want to do. But I think it's important to know.

Did we get through all 6?

Okay, sorry. So build a tight community around the long-form format. And the reason I'm saying that specifically is I think it's harder to build a community around a short-form format because it's harder to reach your audience. Okay. Number 5, I think it's important as a creator right now, and again, the audience should know I have a direct-to-fan company called Patreon.

Yeah.

So take my words with a grain of salt here, but if I were doing it in 2025, I would have an ads business and I would have a direct-to-fan business, and I would start thinking about the differences between those 2, and I would experiment with different types of direct-to-fan businesses, not just Membership isn't right for a lot of creators. So I would say like, if membership, if you're not an episodic media creator, don't try to force fit your stuff into a membership business. Like maybe you need to have, maybe you should do a commerce business or a courses business or a live business.

Or like a pay-per-view. Like again, comedy, what has happened with comedy and—

Comedy specials.

Ticketed digital live events is amazing.

Exactly. So, but the reason that's important is because, again, I think it's important as a creator to build a diversified business. Like if the economy crashes and companies simultaneously pull back their sales and marketing spends, and, or Disney leaves YouTube because there's some piece of media on YouTube that they don't want to be associated with, and then it cascades to other advertisers who leave YouTube, and then ad revenue drops in a month, month. As a creator, you want to be able to withstand that, right?

Sure.

And so you want to have a variety of types of income. And then also, the other reason I think it's important to build, to have both and to have a diversified business, is fans want that from you, right? A lot of fans want more from you. Anywhere we see between 5 to 10% of your fans 10% would be like the upper bound, might be your core fans. Core fans who like love everything you do. They follow you across all socials. They, you know, they go to all the shows, they have the merch, they have the t-shirt. They like, they want more from you.

Do you calculate that off returning viewers or average views per? Like if you were looking at a YouTube channel, would you go average views per video, 10% of that is like our core fan pool? Or would you— How would you calculate that?

So that's actually how we build, like, when we model this out, we do use conversion rates based off of, like, you know, views or followers or sometimes a combination of the two. Um, but yes. And then of course, as you get more followers, the conversion rate goes down, right? Because you're accumulating more casual fans versus in the early days of, like, content market fit, it's like hardcore fans that are finding you first, right? So But yes, we do use sort of like decreasing conversion rates as the creator gets bigger and bigger to model out what is the proportion of those fans that have that willingness to pay that creator for more things. And then 6, once you have that, by the way, we're like saying these things, it's like, okay, then start a direct-to-fan business. It's like, there's so much to say.

This is what, not how.

Yes, exactly.

I think that's important to say. Each one of these needs its own how to do it.

Yes.

And it's going to be different for a lot of different creators.

Right. One thing, by the way, we haven't talked about with direct-to-fan business, I think is really important, is like, it has not worked sometimes for some creators, or it's backfired, right? Like, we've seen a couple examples over the last 2 years where YouTubers go out to their audience and there's backlash. And I think it's important to understand why and what are the lessons learned from that.

I think it was also misguided for some of the short-form, like, TikTokers to launch memberships.

Yes.

That's just not the right value proposition, not the right audience.

Nope. And fans don't want to pay for short form.

No.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's another insight there, which is fans don't want to pay for something that was previously free.

Do you want more stuff like this?

Yes, exactly. These are our rules. Like, they're down to pay for something in addition, but not the thing that was already free. Right, right, right. Okay. The last thing is like, once you have that going, And this is a real big if you want, and if you're that sort of first profile of creator versus the other profile of creator, it's like hire so that you can make it sustainable. And there's a whole art and science to hiring that is very tricky. Now, I think that's like the last step here. The last step is like bring in people to help. Like if you don't love the work and you don't wanna do it yourself, then, you know, Don't just hire. I actually don't think that'll work. But I do think for a lot of creators, they're getting to the point where they're making, there are a lot of creators that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doing it themselves, and they feel burned out and underwater, and they don't realize like, oh, I can hire an admin to help me run my operation. I can hire—

I think you have to play that out in your head.

I would have no idea how to do that. And I'm this guy in this chair. Like, without Samir, truly, like, I, man, I would struggle hiring people and figuring it out. But I agree with you.

It's so hard.

I see the benefits of it to have the employees we have and like the way that they support us.

But at Coffee with Creators, this is a common question. How do I hire an editor? How do I do, you know? And one of the things I ask back, and this comes directly from our conversation with Tim Ferriss, is I just want you to close your eyes and imagine having a conversation with a person who wants a raise. And then I want you to imagine having a conversation where you have to fire someone.

Yeah.

Are you comfortable in that conversation? If not, it might not be your thing. And that might be very black and white of me to say, but I, again, I live in these, like, I just want everyone to know the realities of what you're doing. It can be amazing. It can be fruitful, incredible. We've had incredible experiences. But it can also be this new thing where someone texts you in the morning, what am I supposed to do? And you're like, whoa, whoa. Yeah, leave me alone. Let me just be my— let me just go about my day.

It really depends on what you want as a creator. I think there's a lot of creators who shouldn't hire, right? There's a lot of creators who don't want to build an empire and grow, grow, grow. A lot of creators don't want to do that. And for them, hiring is probably not, you know, you don't want a 10-person team.

Yeah.

I would say probably even for those creators, well, there's probably some people who just want to be fully alone, 100%. But, you know, again, these things aren't black and white, right? Like, I've, like, a couple, couple, you know, things that I've learned. I've found it easier to, like, work with people on a specific project.

Yes.

Project-based, short-term contractor relationship to start.

To start. And then you're like, if you like work with 20 people like that, 2 or 3 of those people, you're gonna be like, oh, I love working with that person. And I'm giving them more work every month. And you sort of naturally gravitate. And then you're like, okay, well, this is kind of a repeatable thing. And then you can start thinking about, okay, what does it look like if this person works full-time? Okay, the hard part about that is what you said is like, okay, what if the internet changes and your views crash? Then what do you do?

I also think we're at a— we're on the precipice in 2025 of like quite a bit of change. And maybe sometimes I get concerned that Colin and I have just been in rooms where we see a lot of technology and get— but like, I think we're entering into one of the most different eras of creativity.

No doubt.

I actually think it's one of the most— it's about to be one of the most self-reliant versions of creativity.

What do you mean by that?

What I mean by that is like, in the past, I don't have the technical skills Colin has when it comes to editing and design. But actually, if you've looked at over the past 5, 10 years, I can now do things that I could never do because of the advancements in AI, the advancements in platforms like Adobe, Canva, ChatGPT. Like you wanna write 5 different versions of a script in 60 seconds, you can do that now. And I can look at them. And now instead of sitting in a room and brainstorming, collaborating with 5 other people to get to those, I just do that by myself. So that's what I mean by self-reliant. Soon enough, you want an intro animation, you used to hire a collaborator to make that. Soon you won't, you'll just type it in.

You know, like the eyedropper tool in Photoshop where if like you see a color that you want and you're like, I really want that color? The future is that eyedropper tool for every single—

For anything.

Every visual media.

Color correction.

Yes.

Like character design, script writing.

Visuals are going to enter a Napster moment.

Right. Where they all can be taken and remixed.

It does not mean you need taste and that the people who have the skillset and the ability will be able to work some of these tools better than anyone else in a way that no one else can in a human way. I totally believe that. But the stuff that's coming is wild.

Yeah, no doubt. Okay.

You're a big-time tech CEO.

You've seen this stuff.

Don't act like it's like, let's not play the game here that you haven't seen this stuff.

The stuff that we've seen is not It's not behind closed doors. You've been to all these events.

Okay, so—

Some of it is behind closed doors.

It's crazy. Look, one thing that happens, and, you know, maybe I'm totally wrong here. So nobody knows what's gonna happen right now, right? There's a lot of people pontificating and postulating about what the future is gonna be like. And we have to remind ourselves, nobody knows. It's just the truth. Nobody knows what's gonna happen. As confident as people sound when they're talking about the future, It's important to remind yourself nobody is a fortune teller, and the smartest people in the world are often wrong. So at the end of the day, it comes down to what do you think? I really think that's important in how you live your life and navigate the world and operate. So I'll just offer sort of what I think. I am so impressed by a lot of these new technologies and by AI specifically. When I found Midjourney—

Oh my God.

I felt like I was 10 years old finding a camera for the first time.

Totally.

I felt like I was double-clicking the record button and moving the clay figure a little bit and double-clicking and moving the clay figure. And then I'd watch back those 4 seconds and I was like, my heart was exploding. I was like, I'm going to be an animator. Like, it was just like the most exciting thing I could possibly imagine. I had that feeling as a 38-year-old using Midjourney. I was like, This is incredible. I was designing synthesizers and recording studios and, like, a Russian space station plus a 1976 Wurlitzer and making, like, keyboards that were the size of a room. Like, I was like, it was explosive for my mind.

I just kept asking, what if Wes Anderson did this?

Oh, I mean, beautiful. Now look, no doubt that these technologies are incredible and will make a lot of changes for a lot of fields and a lot of people over the next you know, long, long time. Over the short term, I think there's going to be less change than people think. I think people love people, and I think there's a, there's a portion of work that is out there that is based on human connection, right? When I listen to a Kendrick Lamar album, it's not that I care about the output, the work that he has created, so much as I care That I am hearing the experience of another conscious being who lived through some serious shit and suffering and, like, pain and life experience. And it is that feeling of connection that is at the core of why I listen to Kendrick Lamar or Elliott Smith or Big Thief or you name it. Like, there is a feeling of, like, I know what you're talking about, and I have felt that too. And I think a lot of great art and work, and even this show and podcast, a lot of it, the, the like really good stuff is stemming from that feeling of connection to another human being. So maybe all that to say, I think the craftsmanship of creation is going to change, but I think for a very long time, longer than most people think, I believe humans will be at the core of creation. I deeply believe that for a long— now I'm not saying it could never happen that like we're watching 100% in AI-generated movies about that. Great, maybe that happens someday, but we're a longer way from that than most people think right now.

Yeah. I mean, we started this conversation talking about hiring. I'm not concerned actually, at least in the short term and even the mild long term of AI replacing creators. Human stories are scarce and they will always be, and that's great.

Yes, totally.

And we'll share them. I don't know if I'm concerned or what, but I think what is changing, like you're saying, is how something gets made. Like, when I talk about the eyedropper tool, the accessibility of how is getting opened up to everyone. Great thing, scary thing.

Which is really exciting, right? Because like, think about what that's done for—

Unless you make a living off of what that eyedropper tool used to do.

Then it requires adaptation and change. Otherwise you get replaced by an eyedropper, which is, yeah. But like, I do think there's an exciting component of it. And I know a lot of creative people, are scared of AI and, and angry at AI too, for, for like good reason, just to be clear. Like, like creators deserve to be paid for their work, full stop. Like taking creators' work and not paying for them, that's not going to be the way the future works. Like what hap— what's happening now with like the, you know, the, the lawsuits, you know, between New York Times and OpenAI, like that's just the version of what happened with YouTube and Viacom, you know, playing out again. It's just cyclical. Like that stuff will be fixed. Creative people will be paid for their work.

Yeah.

So look, there's like— there's clearly problems with it, but, you know, I think it's really exciting to think about, like, a kid who can't manage a team or negotiate with Hollywood execs or build a budget is going to be able to make a 90-minute movie now. That job was previously inaccessible to that kid, like a 15-year-old kid was not able to make a 90-minute movie with special effects and science fiction spaceships and blah, blah, blah, you will be able to do that soon. Soon we will be hearing and understanding and watching the stories coming out of people who could not afford or didn't have the skills to make things previously. And that component of it, I think, is really exciting, like making creativity accessible to more people.

Yeah.

I'm personally, I'm pumped for that. We've never had that before. And think about what's happened to music over the last 50 years. The engineers at Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles made all their records, they wore white lab coats and they had to understand ohms and resistance, and they had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of technical equipment to patch cables in and route music and record on tape. And it was a very technical profession. Now, like, 10-year-old kids are making records better than that quality on this thing.

Yeah.

And like, and we're seeing that trend just like continue and accelerate. I think that's exciting. Like, this did replace jobs, a lot of those, you know, old audio engineers, but there is a good trade-off of that, which is like, now you can be a 12-year-old and make an amazing album. And it's cool to hear the album that a 12-year-old makes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, the emphasis will be on not— the emphasis will be on, do you have a story to tell?

Yeah, right.

Less on like, do you have the ability to tell that story?

100%. It's funny because it's like less about ex— I think it will be less about execution and it will be more around quality of idea and narrative, which I think previously, execution was like a really big piece of it, but execution is getting easier and easier over time as tools get more and more accessible and cheaper and available.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's good for creative people. Honestly, I think I'm very optimistic about how this is playing out for creative people. As tough as it is, like, on the internet right now, I do think as media moves offline to online, we've experienced 20 years of that now. I think over the next 20, and then again over the next 100, I think artists come out the other end of this in a fundamentally different place than the last 5,000 years of artistry. I think artists come out of this phase of the digitization of media with more control, more leverage, more options, more creative control. And I think that's fundamentally gonna be a good thing for artists. We will always have the struggle. Artists will always have the struggle of like, do I make for the market or do I make for my heart? Like, that struggle isn't going to go away. But I'd rather have that struggle as an artist than have a media executive telling me that my song isn't cool enough to be in their pipes and they won't distribute it.

Mm-hmm.

I'd rather have to deal with my internal battle than be blocked by a person. And I think that's the world largely that we're entering now, is like the struggle of being an artist is gonna be an internal struggle that is available to all of us should we choose that path.

Yeah.

Versus not, you know, versus an external struggle.

That's funny.

That's a good point.

Yeah, I like that. I actually feel very optimistic right now after being in this career for so many years, and a lot of what I'm trying to do now is look at 2025 and imagine myself in December and say, and look at our channel and look at our work and be like, am I proud of all of those visually? Am I excited about those? And I feel more primed actually to do that now than ever in our career because of how much we know.

Yeah.

And also a little bit of, like, confidence. And I think it is getting older too and being like, I don't have much in me I don't have much time anymore for like making fear-based decisions. You know, like I just don't have as much of that in me.

That's such a good question. I think about that all the time. Am I proud of what I made? Pride in your work, I think, is one of the most important like metrics of success for yourself. And it, like across genres, right? Like even at the company, at Patreon, like we talk about like, Like, one of our values is like, build with craft. Which is like, when you build something, like, are you proud of what you've built? Are you proud of what you've made? That's such an important thing. Like, if you're not proud of what you've made, like, why are you making it?

What are the biggest problems you're facing as Patreon right now?

The biggest—

Like, what are your—

Like, you mean like—

Hurdles you're trying to overcome as a platform?

Yeah, I think it's the same as the problems that like creators are having. It's literally the same thing, which is like, it's harder and harder for creators to, um, to, to, to rally their audiences around their work. Like, if you make a post on TikTok now, okay, and you have an effective CTA, yeah, to like, go buy my merch or go buy my tickets to my show, and it— the first 10 people who watch it go buy the tickets because you're a really good storyteller and your CTA is good, TikTok deranks that post in their algorithm. They're like, oh, people are bouncing off of TikTok when they watch this post, so we're gonna push that to the bottom of the feed now, or we're just gonna wipe it from our distribution because, like, you're driving people away from the app. But, like, that's what creators need. Creators need somebody to buy their merch.

Um, like, yeah, that's pushing us further into the, uh, the aligned incentives with the platform, which is advertising.

Which is why—

Yeah.

And that is the— so that is the core of one of the problems that we're trying to solve for creators is like, and it's one of the reasons we built free membership, which is like, how do we help creators not be reliant on platforms to drive traffic for them? Because essentially the platforms are failing on that responsibility. They're not letting creators, keeping people on instead of letting people go off the platform.

But that makes sense for their incentive structure.

It does.

It's not like you can't blame them, really.

It's not evil. It's a function of their business model.

It's just how their business works.

But you may have known this. I did not know this, but Patreon has free memberships.

Yes.

So essentially we could upload our show, same time, same cadence to Patreon and start building a following there and say, you don't have to pay for this because that's for free on YouTube too.

In the first year of that, creators got 30 million free members and doubled their communities on Patreon. Yeah. So it's a very—

And again, I'm assuming the conversion from a free member to a paid member is—

There are hundreds of thousands of free members converting every month to paid members.

Right. Because they're already in an environment where they understand.

Do you want more stuff like that?

And now we're building dashboards that show creators, here's your free-to-paid conversion and here's your—

You love a dashboard.

You feel like I love a dashboard?

Yeah.

Of course I love a dashboard.

No, I know, but I just feel like you love a dashboard. I don't know what else to say about that.

I just want to be careful with dashboards.

I'm not saying I don't like it.

Yeah, you got to be very specific about the metrics that you put there because they're going to incentivize behavior.

I like dashboards too. Exactly.

Yeah.

You have to be very thoughtful about dashboards because it can be Pavlovian in the wrong direction, right? You can train people to care about this.

Well, yeah, you're informing them what they should care about.

And that is such an— oh, it's so important, right?

You should just have a dashboard that has the front-facing camera. Like when you open your iPhone and it's like, are you proud of yourself today? You're looking at yourself and you're like, oh my God. You click a button, yes or no.

That's the best idea. That's one of the best product ideas I've ever heard, actually.

I'm surprised that I don't know there are free memberships.

I'm also surprised because I feel like we've been on calls with Tom about it.

Yeah, but the fact that I think I have heard it before, but the fact that I haven't retained it feels like that's also a problem.

Yes.

It's like, whoa, that is huge because that's so low risk. And again, I don't want to sit here and sound like I'm We don't have a Patreon. We could have started one years ago. We don't have one. We're always thinking about it.

Yeah. Jesse makes a pitch every month for Patreon. Yeah.

But the fact that that message isn't clear, I think, is a problem because it's incredibly low risk, I think, for creators. Yeah.

Part of the challenge is—

Well, maybe by the time this episode's out, we'll have a free one. I mean, that's actually—

Right? Because what's the problem? What's the problem? It's a free version. It's free.

And it allows you to put stuff behind a free wall.

Meet us over in that environment.

That's like, hey, you get the email address and the person gets the thing behind the, you know, free wall, which is like a, that's a value exchange. That's like, yeah, I've never seen that create backlash for anybody. So there's, yeah, like part of the challenge though is that we actually are building like a lot of stuff like that right now.

Mm-hmm.

And I think people think of Patreon as like, okay, here's the core challenge. This is it. You called it fan funding.

Yeah.

We don't think about it like that at all. And what you're describing as like, how come we don't know about free membership? We're trying to help people reimagine what it actually is, which is not fan funding. We are helping you build your direct-to-fan infrastructure and business as a creator, which includes free, it includes commerce, it includes memberships, it includes ticketed live streaming. Like, it's your full direct-to-fan layer now. There's no— yeah, that was going to require cultural shift and brand shift and helping people understand what that actually means. But that's probably the biggest shift.

Every time we hang out, I think it's so bizarre that you're a tech CEO. I mean, just that, the sheer amount of responsibility that you probably have accumulated during the time that we've been talking. You know what I mean? I get anxious about that. I'm like, oh my God, I probably Oh, I'm anxious about it too. So many things that I need to do right now, but I can't imagine. That must be insane for you like that.

Yeah.

So thanks for spending this time. It is. So thanks for letting that accumulate.

Thank you guys for having me. This has been so fun.

Coming back on the show.

Hell yeah. It's always great to talk. It's even better when we get to record it.

Hell yeah.

Actually, yeah, it's not a requirement to record it. We can also hang out. Thanks for hanging out.

Thank you guys for doing this. Yeah, it's like, honestly, I feel like, Yeah, we were talking about this a little bit. Like, I would have this conversation anyway. It would be a joy, and to be able to record it is an even bigger joy. So thank you.

Thank you.