The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Mon, 07 Oct 2024
Join me as I chat with Samir Chaudry, Co-Founder of Colin and Samir, we dive deep into the evolving landscape of content creation, technology, and the future of media. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro01:20 AR glasses10:46 The future of Content in an attention economy15:15 Samir’s Youtube and content strategy21:50 Content Formats29:56 Why it’s hard to standout on Youtube33:58 Samir’s thoughts on Monetization45:20 VR vs. AR50:35 Creators should build software56:58 Advice from Tim Ferris1) AR glasses: The next big thing? • Meta's Orion AR glasses left a big impression. Samir thinks they could replace smartphones... but not as soon as Zuckerberg predicts.• Greg’s timeline: 2035-2040 for mainstream adoption. Start experimenting NOW.2) Content creation is evolving FAST • YouTube's push for connected TV means:• 30+ minute videos• Organized into series• Netflix-like UI3) The "Exit Velocity" problem • On YouTube, if 70% of viewers are still watching after 5 minutes, you're CRUSHING IT.• Reality check: Audience retention is harder than ever. Hook them FAST or lose them forever.4) Monetization strategy: Value Prop Extension • Don't just chase any sponsorship. Ask:• What's my core value proposition?• Which brands align with that mission?• How can I extend that value to my audience?Authenticity = $$$5) The future might value INEFFICIENCY 🤯• As AI makes everything hyper-efficient, there will be a premium on verifiably human experiences.• Example: Paying $$$ for a live concert vs. streaming for free.6) Events are the next big opportunity for creators 🎉• Build community• Create unforgettable experiences• Solve the "loneliness problem" for your audience7) VR vs. AR: Place your bets • Samir's not sold on VR. He believes AR/mixed reality has a brighter future.• Why? People still want to be part of the real world, not fully immersed.8) The creator's dilemma: Opportunity rich, time poor • Biggest challenge? Finding operators who can maintain quality as you scale.• Lesson: Your content is still your #1 product. Everything else comes second.9) Final wisdom from Tim Ferris• Separate the rewards of podcasting:a) The conversation itselfb) The performance/results• Enjoy the process, not just the metrics!Want more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav)Get access: https://www.gregisenberg.com/30startupideas 🎯 To build your own portfolio businesses powered by community you might enjoy my membership.You'll get my full course with all my secrets on building businesses, peer-groups to keep you accountable, business ideas every single month and more!Spots are limited.https://www.communityempire.co/📬 Join my free newsletter to get weekly startup insights for free:https://www.gregisenberg.com/70,000+ people are already subscribed.To improve your rankings your business on Google and using AI for SEO, sign up tohttp://boringmarketing.com/FIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/FIND SAMIR ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://x.com/samirchaudryYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/@ColinandSamir/videosWorkshop: https://courses.colinandsamir.com/50-ideas-in-5-days-waitlistPublish Press: https://www.thepublishpress.com/
And the goal of a YouTube creator, which is also probably the goal of any startup founder, is to identify what the audience is reacting to and then double down in that direction.
How do you know if you have product market fit? If you're asking yourself, do I have product market fit? You probably don't have product market fit.
And I think familiarity is a metric that is incredibly important in the world that we are moving in. In a world where we have an abundance of choice, familiarity is going to win. The reality is today, content formats are not defensible. Personality and perspective is. And I think that's like the most important thing that everyone can do to position themselves.
for the future again if you look at where youtube is heading even with their announcements that made on youtube two weeks ago like that you can you can gather that they are heading in the direction of more and more connected tv viewership and you look at that it looks just like netflix so what the platform is is essentially signaling signaling to all creators is
Yeah, excited to jam, excited to have you here. What I wanted to talk to you about today is a little bit what I think is on your mind. I know you recently were at Google HQ. Little Birdie told me you were talking to Mark Zuckerberg during the Facebook Orion or Meta Orion demo. To me, when I think of entertainment and new media, you're my first call.
I just want to know what's going on in your brain around where things are going because I think a lot of people are going to come up with ideas based on where you're going.
Yeah, well, yeah, it's a weird, like it's always weird to go to companies as they like are announcing their new products, right? Because you can't, you have to take a step back and go like, how much of this is practical? How much of this is conceptual? Like the Meta Orion glasses, I think are a really great example. Like if you think about wearables,
Do you remember Google Glass, like trying Google Glass for the first time? I do. You know, that was probably 10 years ago. And this, this like exploration of like, whoa, is this the future? We're all going to be wearing these glasses. And we look like 10 years down the line and we're, we're still here where like, not everyone is wearing glasses, but wearable tech is more popular now, right? Like,
Like watches are more popular, rings are more popular, wristbands. And so it is moving in that direction. I think the Ray-Ban Metas are like the most compelling wearable I've ever seen and maybe the most compelling piece of tech I've engaged with since like a smartphone. But trying Orion, which is Meta's new AR glasses, was a really jarring experience.
It's a very seamless AR environment where you're experiencing screens and calls, and you're experiencing the world in a very different way. Now, the reason I bring all this up, it's like obviously the world knows us as the YouTube guys, is we're always trying to think about how audiences will engage with content and storytelling and entertainment. And I think in the world of wearables,
If that does become a reality, I'd be curious to hear your POV on it. It does feel like some of these products are the first products we've tried that feel like, could this replace the iPhone in a lot of years from now? And if so, what does that mean for how people are watching things? Today... the share of watch time on connected TVs for YouTube has gone up dramatically.
For our channel specifically, 58% of our watch time comes from connected TVs and viewers are watching on average 42 minutes on connected TVs. When we started on YouTube, people were watching on desktop. It wasn't really like massive share of watch time on mobile. And so you think about just like these devices are how we consume content. It's how we consume entertainment.
Does the world of wearables suggest that if we now get this pass-through environment back, then maybe we're more interested in audio content that we can consume while we're doing other things? Are we down to have videos playing in that world? Of course, I'm talking about a very distant future. But that's what we're thinking about. It's like, where do...
Where do audiences move in the future and how personalized does content get to an audience?
One thing that I think about when you paint that future vision is what stage are we in currently? When is this going to hit mainstream adoption? I know that Mark Zuckerberg said a few days ago that He thinks that by 2030, this platform is basically going to start replacing, like it'll surpass mobile phones. smart glasses will surpass mobile phones, according to Mark Zuckerberg.
Do you think he's high on his own supply there? Or do you think he is directionally correct? What are your thoughts there?
Potentially. I think that in terms of being directionally correct, it does make sense when you experience it. It's hard to explain if you haven't experienced it. But I think the primary thing is like, Using Orion felt like, both Colin and I said this, it felt like we got our hands back and it also felt like we got our posture back.
I think there will be a moment in human history where we look back and go, that was weird that we were all hunched over these black rectangles all day. I think that will be something that we're like, huh, that's strange. And when I look at, like my dad, you know, is a lifelong entrepreneur and he started a company back in 1970 when he, 1976 when he landed here in the States.
And the photos of him working.
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are him sitting at a desk with a telephone and a bunch of papers. And you think about like, what does someone working look like today? It's like a laptop in front of them. That was not the case for my dad or our parents' generation. And so it's not crazy to think about for our kids when they start to work.
Like when I'm a parent of a 20-year-old kid or 25-year-old kid and he starts going to work, like, work probably looks totally different. Like the way he engages with technology is going to look totally different. And so that's like, directionally, it feels like it makes sense. But I don't know, like adoption is the biggest piece. I think like people being very
human beings being very conscious of like their image and looking into each other's eyes. And like, that's where the question comes in to play is like, will we actually adopt this type of stuff? But it like being there in the moment, you're kind of like, yeah, this makes sense.
Yeah. I think, I think about this a lot because I want to be okay. When something hits mainstream adoption, I want to have been preparing for years, right? Because as soon as it hits mainstream adoption, there's so much competition from an idea building perspective that it was way easier to launch an app in 2009 that got a lot of traction when the App Store first came out than in 2019, basically.
My take on, and I saw some of the demos, some of the Orion demos, and I was blown away. Frankly, I was absolutely blown away. Um, that being said, I think, I think it's going to be further than Zuck actually, you know, predicts. I think that my take is it's going to be maybe 2035, 2040. And what that means is I would start experimenting within the next few years.
But experimenting with what? Like building apps for that environment or what?
Yeah, I'd start building apps. One thing that comes top of mind is when the internet first came out, some of the biggest companies were ad networks. Basically, what did people do? There was websites. They negotiated banner real estate deals. And then they basically were a marketplace. Nike, you want access to yahoo.com? We'll sell it to you. What does that look like when you put on glasses?
What is the ad network? First of all, amazing.
Yeah, these are the Ray-Ban metas. And I wish you could hear the sound they just made when I put them on. But these are like the clear ones. It's pretty incredible to see like how much tech is in these kind of glasses now. And I don't know if you've, have you worn these?
I've worn the older versions.
Okay. It's pretty compelling, especially now they have like this feature that's like a look and tell me feature. Meaning like you can look at a building and go, hey Meta, look and tell me what this building is and tell me the history behind it, right? So you're using voice to prompt AI there. And I think like the...
The question in terms of when you talk about ad networks and when the internet first launched, that being a major factor, I think the question is the fragmentation of attention. So if we keep going down that path of going, there was a point when we were kids where there was a lot of monoculture. Whatever was on TV was on TV. That's what we all watched.
And if you think about today, if you're walking down the street and you look around, you're like, okay, all of these people on the street today potentially listened to a podcast this morning, but it's probably likely that none of them listened to the same one. And that's pretty wild. And maybe there's overlap, like maybe five of them listened to the same one or something like that.
But when you extrapolate that further and think about like, wearables as well as AI, the question becomes like, how hyper-personalized does everything get to you? Is it actually that everyone can listen to a completely personalized version of a podcast in the morning or completely personalized experience through their own glasses? And then the question becomes like, what
Do you serve personalized ads to each of them? What is everyone's experience like in a world of incredibly fragmented culture?
The arc of technological progress, and I don't know if it's societal progress, I'm just talking about technological progress, is that the internet has become more and more personalized over time. And Right now, ad creative isn't personalized for the most part. But ad targeting is pretty darn surgical at this point with Meta and Google.
So it only makes sense that with AI, that AI is going to make the ability to create one-of-one ads that are going to show up on your glasses, on mobile, on web, in real time.
Yeah, you're looking at your closet and it's like, you know what's missing? Yeah, totally. This Levi's jacket. Yeah, right? Like, you know what would go well with these pants that you're wearing right now when you look in the mirror? There's this really interesting software that I was sent yesterday called Notebook LM. Are you familiar with this?
I am, but for people, explain it for people.
For people who don't know, I mean, this is as far as I understand it and how I used it, but essentially Notebook LM is a Google software where you can load in sources. So the example would be load in like, I loaded in three articles, one about the new Snap AR glasses, one about the new meta ones, and then one like just kind of think piece on the world of AR.
And it gave me a nine-minute podcast that was two hosts talking, essentially developing a podcast, using the source material about all these, essentially giving me a podcast about the state of AR, the difference between snaps, glasses, metas, glasses, and all the above. and it's compelling.
It's not like it's, it's obviously you can tell it's AI, but it's, it's like, there's a moment where the host clears his throat. There's a moment where like the two hosts talk over each other. Uh, there's a moment where they like make little quips and jokes and segues. And so then I loaded in like our, um, we have a newsletter that we send three times a week called the published press.
And I loaded two issues of that in, and it actually edited down stories and, uh, made segues and made things that made sense and didn't make sense. And, um, it was a glimpse into a potential future when you think about, from a content perspective, you're like, I have a 20-minute commute and I want to know about what just happened in the world of YouTube.
I want to know about the NFL and fantasy updates. And I also want to hear a takeaway from the VP debate last night. And you load those in and it's like, here's your podcast that's 20 minutes long, that matches your commute, that's personalized for what you just asked
Um, that's a really, I mean, honestly, as a content creator, it's like a, a little bit of a frightening future of how hyper personalized can this stuff get? Um, and what does that mean for the future? If like, it's a more efficient way to get exactly what I wanted. Is that, is that actually a great experience for, uh, audiences?
Uh, is that actually something we're going to want, um, over long periods of time?
Okay, so this is what I want to get into. Knowing what you know now, speaking to the Zucks of the world, how are you positioning yourself so that you and Colin and the Colin and Samir show to build a content and entertainment empire that is well positioned as technology evolves in this direction?
Yeah. We, you know, it's, it is challenging, right? Like competition is at an all time high for attention and like, that's like, it will continue to be more and more challenging to, um, not only capture someone's attention, but hold their attention. Like in a world of infinite opportunity, it's really hard.
It's something that we call exit velocity when it comes to like short form content or long form content or a podcast. Like it's highly likely that there's some people who clicked on this, maybe thought it would be interesting for them and then left. And so we think about that as like this term exit velocity, like how fast does someone check this out and then leave?
And you think about like short form content, like a TikTok or YouTube shorts or Instagram reels has the highest potential exit velocity, right? Like someone is firing through those just going like, let me see the next thing. And you have to have such a compelling hook to capture someone's attention.
Now, I think YouTube and social and creating content for these platforms is very much like a video game. It's like solving an equation of how to capture attention, how to write a compelling hook. I think if you're doing that strictly for the currency of viewership and like...
the video game reward of high viewership or virality, I think that's where you're going to get pretty lost over long periods of time. So Colin and I try and take a step back and go, first of all, what is our degree of difference? What makes us unique? What's our unique perspective? And what makes us uniquely human? It's a weird thing to say, but it is something that we think about.
And we try and lean into situations, formats, content that can bring that out. Because at the end of the day, the reality is today, content formats are not defensible. Personality and perspective is. And I think that's the most important thing that everyone can do to position themselves for the future.
So if I'm understanding this correctly, it's almost like a Venn diagram. So on one, one circle is formats and compelling formats and the other circle is what am I uniquely equipped for? Is that right?
Yeah, I think it's, it's, uh, We often talked about this as a concept of content market fit, which is three things have to be checked. One is what you want to make. That's actually something that it sounds ridiculous, but a lot of people skip that step. It's like, do I actually want to make this? Because to do it successfully, you're going to be making it for years and years and years.
And you have to just love the process of making it. So do I want to make it? The second is, is there an audience for this? Is this content that somebody actually wants? Which is another honest question you have to ask yourself. And then the third is, does this match the platform's wants and needs? And actually, those three can evolve over time.
Just because they're all checked and green light on all three one week does not mean that it's the same thing the next month. Those all kind of oscillate and change. Again, if you look at where YouTube is heading, even with their announcements that made on YouTube two weeks ago, you can gather that they are heading in the direction of more and more connected TV viewership.
Connected TV viewership means 30 plus minute videos that are organized into series that can be watched. They launched a new UI update for connected TV that's organized by seasons and episodes. And you look at that, it looks just like Netflix. So what the platform is essentially signaling to all creators is we're looking for serialized formats that look and feel like streamers.
Isn't that the opportunity? If YouTube is basically putting their money where their mouth is and making a bet that we want to be Netflix 2.0, we want to be the evolution of Netflix, and we're designing the product with those constraints, shouldn't we be hiring the best
you know, videographers in the world, the people who've worked on the best television shows and say like, hey, this is the niche we're in. Come and like work with us.
Maybe. I don't know if adding more crew is the answer to solving a content problem. I really don't believe that. I think if it's warranted, sure. If your show or format requires crew and a specific type of camera because you want it or a specific type of audio because it's what the format is asking for, sure. But one of the most prolific creators on YouTube right now is Ryan Trahan.
He can't make a video that does under 10 million views, but he shoots the majority of his stuff with his iPhone.
and just by himself um so you know we you also have to take a step back and go what what has he done really successfully again his unique personality his unique perspective that's an intangible some people have it some people don't um that's an intangible he's also been on the platform for a very long time and gone through multiple iterations he loves the video making process um
But he has found himself into some really successful formats. He does these formats where he tries different types of Airbnbs and those have taken off. And the goal of a YouTube creator, which is also probably the goal of any startup founder, is to identify what the audience is reacting to and then double down in that direction.
And again, that's directly aligning with the world of where content is moving and where... audiences are moving to go, if I watch Ryan Trahan, I tried OMG, or I stayed in OMG Airbnbs on my connected TV, the next video I'm going to jump to is Ryan Trahan, I stayed in underground hotels. It's like, okay, I stayed, I stayed, I stayed. Now this is a format that I'm watching.
They're all around the same length. They all have the same host. They all start the same way. It's familiar. And I think familiarity is a... is a metric that is incredibly important in the world that we are moving in. In a world where we have an abundance of choice, familiarity is going to win.
I think that's right. I also think, you know, I was watching this, do you know this guy Daniel Dalen? He's a new creator. up and coming guy that went from like zero to a hundred K subs in a few months. And he, he went viral within the entrepreneurial community because his title was POV. You're a, you know, a 26 year old entrepreneur living in China.
Um, and he does these POV videos and it's really like the POV of an entrepreneur. Um, and yeah, Now you have hundreds or thousands of creators copying him, being like, POV this, POV that. But that just actually lends, it's not the same, right? Daniel Dalen is getting, is the OG, right?
Yeah, I think the unfortunate reality is actually that in content that does work. And I'm not saying that that is a positive. I think as a creative, you should have integrity to be like, I'm not just going to take someone's idea one for one. But the reality of YouTube is like the flip side of what I just mentioned of familiarity is that you're not releasing anything into a vacuum.
You're releasing something into a content ecosystem where there's four different ways that audiences discover content on YouTube. The first is search. And I think probably people over, maybe think about search too much. It's actually pretty nominal how many people find videos through search. The next is browse. That means you open up the YouTube app and what's on my home feed?
What is YouTube giving me right now? It could be creators I'm subscribed to. It could be a video similar to one that I watch, but browse is the next one. The next one is suggested, which is I'm watching a YouTube video and then on the right side, I get suggested other content that's similar. And then the fourth way is the shorts feed.
So going through the shorts feed, you might discover a creator and then go to their channel and find their videos. When you think about like, why does that work? It's largely because of the world of, again, familiarity. When you go onto the YouTube homepage and you just watched this POV, I'm an entrepreneur. Now you see another one that's POV, I'm an entrepreneur in Los Angeles.
And it is someone taking it and giving their own unique spin on it. But the reason that works is because the audience is familiar with that format. They had a good experience with that format. And the YouTube algorithm is fully designed for viewer satisfaction, right? Like if you just think about how is it designed, it's like, did this person enjoy it?
And if they did, let's give them something else that we predict they will enjoy. And the metrics to track there are click-through rate. Was it a high click-through rate of they saw this thumbnail and they clicked into it? And then did they watch for a long time, average view duration?
And those two stats are going to give you the understanding if the viewer was satisfied, and then more content is going to surface like that. the reason you see people saying, I'm not just going to make my own format. I'm going to look at what works on YouTube and try and piggyback off of that. Cause that's like the quickest path to audience growth on YouTube, plain and simple.
Um, but again, I would say like as a, as a creative coming into the space, like I, I don't really have the stomach for that. And it probably like stunts our growth because it would be easier to just look at what's working and do that. Um, And we had a great conversation with Austin Kleon, who wrote the book, Steal Like an Artist. And I really believe in the principles that he talks about in that.
Can you talk more about that?
Yeah. I think there's a difference between good theft and bad theft. There's a really simple term that he talks about of even yourself being copied of... the elevator test.
Like if you get into an elevator with someone who copied your work or, uh, would they pat you on the back or would they punch you in the face where it's just like, uh, like we all know the feeling of if someone like take something we do, uh, and you're like, that's like way too similar to what I do. Uh, you would, you would be upset if they walked into an elevator elevator with you.
And then, you know, the feeling of someone who is inspired by you and they, they make something and you're like, dude, great, great job with that. Um, that's like a really, uh, simple, simplified version of it. Um, but you know, the, the other thing he talks about is, um, in the beginning, and we did this as creators, plain and simple.
Like when we first started as the Colin and Samir channel, we were desperately trying to be like Casey Neistat. I think everyone was at that era. Uh, he was like this amazing daily vlogger, uh, was able to tell stories about his daily life that, uh, it just felt like no one had ever seen before and everyone wanted to be like him. And we tried our best and failed miserably.
He's a much better storyteller and also lived a much more interesting life. But the interesting part about that is what Austin Kleon talks about. It's like you're taking apart the car. So you're like reverse engineering this thing you really like and starting to feel what it feels like to make that. And a lot of times creative people need like an impetus of like, what do I make?
Ideas are like one of the most challenging parts of creativity. It's not the technical ability. A lot of people can film and edit now. It's what the hell do I make? So taking apart the car, seeing the different parts, seeing how it all comes together, reverse engineering is a really great tactic in learning how to do something. But then you got to put it together in a different way.
You got to put it back together in your own way. If you keep putting it back together in the exact same way, it's just uninteresting.
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Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. What do you say to people who say that there's nothing new on the sun? So there's no format that hasn't been tried already. What's your reaction to that?
There's definitely merit to that. I think creativity is like looking through a kaleidoscope. You're just seeing different versions of light going through and getting changed around. I think there's a ton of merit to that. I think everything is a remix and I think you're constantly collaborating with your own inputs and things that you've seen. I agree with that statement, but I do think that
some of this is just as an audience you know when something feels fresh and something feels new and someone put their own unique spin on it versus when you're like it's kind of the same thing totally yeah it kind of reminds me of like in startup land product market fit the term product market fit you know i get that question a lot around how do you know if you have product market fit if you're asking yourself do i have product market fit you know
you probably don't have product market fit. But if you're trying to keep the servers up because you have so many customers coming through the door, you probably have product market fit. The same is true with copying, stealing, that sort of thing. You know deep down if you took someone's format and- 100%. Yeah. Right?
Yeah, but it's challenging. Plain and simple, it's hard to break through on social platforms today. It's hard to break through specifically on YouTube. And a lot of that is because of the barrier that's very different from other platforms, which is the thumbnail.
I'm sure you've experienced this now with putting your podcast on YouTube is a totally different game than having your podcast in RSS feeds, right? Yeah.
Dude, it's, it's sobering. Like YouTube has sobered me, sober me, right? Like I, I come from Twitter and, and just general podcasts and now putting, you know, I could record the most, what I think is the most value add podcast on the planet. I put it, uh, I, I launch it. I'm, you know, I, I, I press publish. I'm so excited. This is going to hit a million views. And click-through rate is 3%.
Average view duration is low. It's just not getting fed to the YouTube algorithm because of the title and thumbnail in a lot of ways.
The first rule of YouTube that we talk about, and this is part of our, which I'm sure we'll talk about our new businesses, but it's part of our course called YouTube Playbook. But the first rule is just if they don't click, they don't watch. It's just a really simple rule of YouTube.
And, you know, what's hard about that is like you're talking about a medium like podcasting where you're the behavior of an audience member on like who's listening on Spotify is going to be actually completely different than the behavior of someone who clicks into YouTube.
And the challenge is as a creator, how do you not totally miss that audience that's like just down with your podcast to try and hook an audience in this new environment, right? it's really hard. And, you know, earlier we talked about exit velocity, like,
you think about this world of like going to a movie, it would be really weird if you like walked into a movie, sat down and then like, you know, 30 seconds into the movie, you were like, yeah, this isn't for me, I'm out. But actually on YouTube, that's really common.
And like, if you retain 90% of people on YouTube in the first 30 seconds, you're like, damn, that was a really good hook, a really good intro. And if 70% of the people are watching after the first five minutes, you're like, holy smokes, dude, I'm like, we're really doing this.
thinking about that concept in the context of like a movie theater would be absurd if 30% of the people walked out of a movie five minutes in. But it's just the culture, like what YouTube is and how challenging it is to keep someone's attention. And so there's also the conversation around like, which environment do you create what content in?
Especially us as creators, when we think about, you know, we are YouTube creators through and through. We've been making YouTube videos since 2010, 2011. But we think about like, how do we balance our environments between permission and interruption? So, you know, YouTube is like an interruption-based platform. Like I have to interrupt your content
experience with a compelling title and thumbnail to get you to watch. Podcast feeds are actually permission-based as well as newsletters are permission-based. Because somebody has given you permission to give them that content, they're much more likely to spend time with it, give it a chance, slowly go into it. You have different... you have different levels of attention on every platform.
And so I think a lot of YouTube creators aim to, especially like YouTube creators like us who are more in the educational space or like thought leadership space, we try and get our audience as much as we can, the ones who want to give us permission to go from an interruption-based platform into a permission-based platform.
like a newsletter or exclusive content on an RSS feed or an educational course. We want to get audiences into those environments. Or like a Patreon, right? Those are more permission-based environments.
So I want to talk a few ideas with you. And I want to double down on that a little bit. I remember having coffee with you and Colin in New York City. You were kind of early with this idea around being a creator is a treadmill in a lot of ways. You were early to creating the newsletter and the business around the newsletter.
You were early to basically saying, I've got all this attention over here and I'm going to create content that I think is really cool and interesting for my audience here. Leverage is a bad word. It sounds like you're taking advantage, but you're just going to use some of those eyeballs to monetize it.
And I want to know how you're thinking about how creators can monetize and some new ideas around monetizing attention.
Yeah. So there's an abundance of ways to monetize, but I think the most important is that you think about it as like a value prop extension. So meaning like, what is my value proposition of my content? Who's the specific audience? What is the value prop? And then how do I extend that value proposition through what I'm offering? So-
An example of that is, obviously, for us, our mission is to educate and empower the next generation of creators. So education being at the forefront, what's the value prop extension? Well, it's more education. And so that monetizing through education, through courses, we also have a big piece of it that's community focused.
So now we're moving into events where we have in-person events that people can come attend. And our newsletter is further education about what's going on in the world of creators. So everything is like an extension of that. Now, in terms of the primary way every YouTube creator makes money is advertising.
That's going to be AdSense, which is just straight up what YouTube will pay through the platform RevShare. But then brand deals are typically the largest sum of every creator's income. monetization. And the same rules apply there of like value proposition extension.
So when we first started our show and it first started to get some traction, what we did is we wrote down every brand that shared the same mission. So every brand that we felt was like, which brands also educate and empower creators? Well, let's look at the brands that are offering software solutions for creators. Let's think about like Adobe. Adobe empowers so many creators.
Riverside is a sponsor of ours. They empower a ton of creators. So let's make a list of everyone who shares the same mission with us, and then let's go tell them our story. And that is how we got most of our first sponsors. Our first big sponsor was Samsung. They had the exact same mission. Hey, we think our new phones empower the modern creator. That's our mission too. Great.
It's always a more natural fit in advertising than trying to like jam something in. And we've done that in the past too, right? When we first started out looking for advertisers, like it can be hard to talk about something that either you don't use or doesn't feel value prop aligned, right?
And so, you know, that's like the core of monetization is like, what is my value proposition and how do I extend that into either telling you about someone else that shares that value proposition or offering you a good or service that is connected to that value proposition as well.
So events, I'm so happy you said events because this is something I've been thinking a lot about. I think that... There was this surge around online communities, paid memberships, and that's still going to continue to be and grow as a category. But I think that right now we're kind of early on this, I like this creator and I believe in what this creator says.
And the creator has to be somewhat niche. in my opinion. Um, and then, and then it's like, I'm going to go create an event where I'm going to bring this whole identity of people together and it's going to be amazing. And events are a hassle to create, but they are multimillion dollar opportunities.
They're hard. They're hard to nail, right? Like, um, Throwing a good party isn't easy. And you actually have to think about how it functions, what it feels like, the venue, the food, the coffee. And Colin and I, our biggest bottleneck as entrepreneurs is taste. So like we have very specific taste. We're uncompromising with that taste.
Um, and I think that's actually across a lot of creators and creatives. It's like, taste is going to be your biggest bottleneck. That's probably going to limit us from building massive companies, but, uh, that's okay with me. Like I'd prefer everything to be on my taste. Um, But events have been also the most energizing thing we've done.
The way we've thrown them, too, has been really, really cool. We don't mass promote them. We promote them exclusively through the Publish Press, our newsletter. So typically, there's an RSVP link at the bottom of the newsletter. It's like, hey, are you in LA? RSVP here. And that's been really cool because it's kind of like a if you know, you know.
And we do these mornings called Coffee with Creators. And a bunch of creators show up. Typically, we have like 100 to 150 people creators and creatives show up. There's good coffee. You're having coffee. You're meeting people. We do fun, kind of moving the room around, doing prompts so people can talk to each other. And typically, we have a Q&A with a creator or some experience with a creator.
And what's been really cool is that as many as we can go to, because I enjoy it, Colin and I go, but we've also hosted these events in New York where we aren't there. And I think that's been some of the most exciting is recognizing that this does represent a community. This is like a community brand. And that opportunity for scale is super interesting.
Being at one of these Coffee with Creators mornings, in my head, I was like, in the future, couldn't this be happening in LA, Austin, New York, and SF all on the same morning? Of course not. Um, that's a really cool future. Yeah. It's a really exciting future.
Cause I also think it's like, it's actually honestly transformational to like, I can see it on people's faces when I'm there that they're enjoying it and that it made a difference in their day, their experience, their career. And I think it solves like a real problem of loneliness and community and validation. And like so many of these human emotions that, um,
we needed when we were young creators. We needed to be around other creators and look at them and go like, this is hard, right? Or like, hey, what do you think I should do about this? I'm working with this brand and they're asking for too many revisions. Just even feeling the community around those problems is really impactful.
It's really interesting because we started off this conversation talking about AR, VR, and what would a minimal viable product to build now for that future be? And maybe it's events. Maybe it's IRL events.
My hypothesis about the future is that there will be a premium on inefficiency. So let me explain that. My wife and I went to go see John Mayer live at the forum in LA. And I went over there It's a pain in the ass to park. You buy this expensive ticket. You go in. It's kind of miserable. You have to go to the bathroom and it's really far. You get in.
And then John Mayer starts playing and he's like, it's super cool because he's riffing and playing his songs in a totally different way. He's singing them in a different way. And as I got in my car, we put on another John Mayer album. In my head, I was like, oh, putting John Mayer on on Spotify is the most efficient way to listen to John Mayer.
But the premium is we will pay hundreds of dollars for the spontaneity, the inefficiency of getting into this room with a bunch of people and hearing him play it in a totally different way and verifiably human. So I also think about that as like a future, right? Of like...
collective experiences that are verifiably human that don't necessarily value like incredible efficiency, uh, is, is really interesting because everything with AI is like, we're all talking about efficiency. It's more efficient to brainstorm with AI. It just is give me, you know, Hey, give me 10 ideas for a YouTube title. Um,
That happens more efficiently with AI than in a room with three other creatives. And as we go down and look at that, we do value efficiency quite a bit in work and business and as we continue going. But I think there's going to be also the inverse, which is the incredible value on inefficiency. So that's a very long-winded way of saying I agree.
100%.
By the way, I have this theory that all guys, comment if you disagree with me, or agree with me, all guys want to be like John Mayer.
Yeah, dude, of course. Of course, I don't think, is that like a hot take or like a theory? Because that feels like, it feels like relatively like squarely on the nose.
Like he's the guy's guy, right?
Yeah, I don't have the height to be like John Mayer. John Mayer is so tall, but he's like, he's super cool and smooth. And like to be able to sing like that, it'd be amazing.
I also think that, isn't it true that when you go to a concert, even if the concert is worse, like the sound quality isn't as good, Or they don't play your favorite song. When you get back in the car and you play Spotify, don't you enjoy that artist 10 times more all of a sudden? For sure, of course.
You have a deep emotional connection. You had an experience. I think that's a really important part of the future. I think it's just more and more important.
Yeah, that's why I'm doubling down on events. So 2025, you'll be I haven't announced it publicly, but I'll be doing way more events. And it's for this reason. I think the AR and VR component, we didn't really talk too much about the VR component, but let's say you're living in Mumbai, but the event is in Miami. Wouldn't it be great if you can have some of that same experience?
I'm not hot on VR.
Oh, here we go.
I'm not. And maybe it's also like... I don't know. I just think fully immersive experiences are very niche. Wearing an Apple Vision Pro and being fully immersed in an experience, I was like, this is, at least for me, it's not for me. I don't want to be fully immersed.
Wearing Orion and experiencing AR or mixed reality, I'm like, this is interesting because I'm still a part of the world and I can still look someone in the eyes, but I'm having a modern experience here. I think VR in the context of gaming, I think fully immersive gaming is interesting.
The first thing I thought when I put on Apple Vision Pro was courtside tickets to the Lakers would be really cool if I could buy them through Apple Vision Pro and sit courtside and look around. That's really cool. But I just think full immersion is incredibly niche and probably won't take off.
You don't think that in 2035, your Orion's 2035 edition will have like, okay, mixed reality. Okay. Uh, full, full VR. Definitely.
I definitely think they will have that option, but I don't think like VR bulky VR headsets are going to be widely adopted. I just don't think so. I mean, it's probably also a stretch. Like if we see a world where wearable glasses are like widely adopted, that actually would be pretty wild. Uh,
you know, like if everyone is wearing, it's, it's not weird for you and I, cause we like, I wear glasses as well. And we're in contacts right now. Like I've worn glasses my whole life, uh, to put on a different type of glasses. I'd be like, okay, cool. But people have never worn glasses. Like, I don't know. It's hard to imagine.
It's, it's more, it's easier to imagine a world where it's like headphones and like a wristband or something, uh, you know, with the option to like put the glasses on.
Yeah. Yeah. I, I agree. I, I'm with you. I think mixed reality will take off first. I do think that at some point, full immersion will be... I mean, think about if... We're going to get to a point where you won't even need glasses. It'll be like contact lenses, basically.
Maybe. Yeah. But like, how, is that, I don't, I don't know. Like I, I have no idea when I, you know, I'm, I'm actually, my wife and I are expecting, we're having a kid in January and I've been thinking a lot about like, what does his life look like in 15 years when he's 15 years old? That'll be, you know, 2040. What does the world look like when he's 15 years old? Because when I was 15 years old,
I had a Motorola Razr. You know what I mean? I experienced the world. So much has happened in that amount of time. How unrecognizable is his life going to be like to me in 15 years as a teenage boy? I don't know. I don't know what that looks like. I try and sometimes just sit and think about it and go like, what the hell is that going to look like?
I think you know the answer. I think you probably know the answer, but you're probably... afraid to say it. I know I am. I can just speak for myself. You're seeing what's happening with Neuralink chips being implanted in your brain. That seems to be the direction that technology is going.
Contact lenses, things implanted in your brain, AI being smarter than human beings, robots that look and feel like humans.
Can I, can I totally shift into pitching you a business idea and you tell me if it's a good or bad idea?
Yeah, let's do it.
It's one I've thought about for like a really long time and Colin and I have always talked about. So, um, we're, we're like, because we've spent most of our career, like in incredibly long editing sessions, um, we've always like experimented with different, uh,
you know, like whether it's caffeine or like nootropics, like, uh, L-theanine or like, um, you know, stuff like, uh, um, there's these, these mints called neuromints. I don't know if you've ever, uh, like tried those. And basically it's like caffeine, L-theanine and B12, like mixed into a mint. Um,
And it's always been a product we've been relatively passionate about, especially in the context of creators and creators being in our audience. Two different products. One is hydration, which has been wildly popularized by Liquid IV and Element and stuff like that. And then a nootropic brand like an AlphaBrain or... So just wanted to start there.
I've never explored CPG, but we've always talked about it in like, okay, we could literally have one at every episode. We could market this in the context of creativity and empathy with what our audience is going through. It's always been just like a very blue sky, like fun idea to talk about over lunch, but never, ever something we've actually explored.
Did you see that... I'm going to answer that question, but did you see that Mr. Beast is raising $150 million at, I think, $1.5 billion valuation? And he's doing it to double down on his CPG products. And I know one of the VCs who's looking at investing. And he called me up and he said, what do you think? He wanted my opinion on it.
And I said, I don't understand what's going through Jimmy's brain. Creating a CPG company is painful. The operations, the shipping, the consistency, it's no walk in the park. Jimmy has actually been experimenting with software. ViewStats is actually doing, from what I can see, quite well.
And I wouldn't be surprised if he creates a creator software tool company worth $1.5 billion on $50 to $100 million of revenue. My feedback, I was like, tell Jimmy this. I was like, just do more software. Do more digital products.
Yeah, it's a good note.
And so if I'm you... Would it be fun to do that CPG project? Absolutely. Would it be cool also? I can see the ads right now. You take it out, you put it in, people lock in. But I do think that if I were you, I would partner with someone to do everything. You guys are just advisors and co-founders. But if I were you, and this is a question for you, I'll bring it back to you.
Why aren't you doing more software?
Yeah, that's a good question. We've been heavily involved in a software called Spotter Studio, which is a ideation software for creators. It's really cool. Actually, the coolest part is that it exists now and we use it on a day-to-day basis. We just actually created a really dope thumbnail with it yesterday that now we're designing. So we're involved with that and that's been a really fun process.
I mean, honestly, that's my first experience with software, like truly with... even understanding what's possible in the context of software, like sitting with their team and being like, could it do this? So that's been really cool. And I think seeing like software come together has been a really powerful thing.
So the short answer is like, mostly because as creators, our biggest problem is that we're opportunity rich and time poor. And so partnerships are always going to be like the cleanest way to get into stuff where it's like, we're not running a software company, but we're supporting and consulting and advising.
but the uh you know the the push for us is into digital products specifically education the question is like can that can that type of stuff turn into can software be education um you know can that be an extension of what we're doing because i i i do think that sounds really really fun and really interesting and having this experience has been cool like i i'd never experienced anything like
Some of the best software products have education built within. I just logged into, right before this, it was just re-rented to kit.com, ConvertKit. And when you log into the dashboard, it's like, you know, video of Jay Klaus, how I went from zero to 50,000 email subscribers. Like there's, there's videos and education built in.
So I think that once I could see a world where your educational products evolve into software products, software products.
Yeah, totally. I agree with that. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, the biggest problem in the creator economy is operators. It will continue to be the biggest problem. People are growing and getting more opportunities than they can handle. And at the end of the day, we're still the arbiters of taste of our content. Some creators have really successfully scaled well and found people who can support their
their growth and expansion and keep the content engine running. But our first product is content. Our first customer is our audience. And the reality is when we wake up in the morning, that's what we think about. Everything else comes secondary. And so the challenge for us is to get to a point where we have support in that direction and we can go, okay, where else can we put our minds?
100%.
Dude, I've taken up too much of your time. You've been so gracious with your time. Thank you for coming on. Samir, where could people... get to know you more and just learn more about what you're working on?
I mean, first and foremost, Colin and Samir, just check our YouTube channel out. That would be awesome. If you are interested in YouTube and starting a YouTube channel or exploring how to get better at YouTube, we have a new ideation sprint that's about to launch. Just go to colinandsamir.com slash ideas. And if you want to learn about the world of the creator economy, subscribe to our newsletter.
It's called The Published Press.
I think this audience, I mean, this is an idea audience, so I'm sure a lot of people are going to be interested in that. And I can just speak for myself and just say that YouTube, it's such a good way to get your ideas out there as an entrepreneur and build an audience and attract like-minded people. So highly recommended on my end.
Love that. Dude, congrats on this pod. This is cool. It's cool to see it picking up like this.
I mean, I'm not like a professional interviewer like you. I'm building businesses and I just do this to spend time with cool people and to serve the community. But I'm learning.
A wise man named Tim Ferriss told me to bifurcate the two rewards you get from podcasting. The first reward is the conversation. Once the conversation is done, you should look back and go, that was an awesome conversation. I'm glad I got to have that. The second reward is the performance and the results of that episode and conversation. And so think about those as two different things.
That has really helped me along the path because performance is an up and down volatile experience as a content creator. But the reward is just getting to spend time and connecting with people and sharing ideas. That's a really beautiful reward that you don't want to let go of.
I love that. All right. Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate that. I'll see you around.