326: John Shahidi is the Architect Behind Your Favorite Digital Content

John Shahidi is a businessman, software developer, manager and producer. He and his brother started Shots Studios, a management company that produces content and serves as the creative studio for top internet talent. In this conversation, we discuss data-driven content creation, how audience is the new currency, why Shots Studios focuses on YouTube, the importance of Shopify, creators as a micro platform, and various monetization strategies for the modern internet. =============================== The Helium Hotspot is a new product that enables the people, not the telcos, to own and operate a wireless network in their city for Internet of Things devices. You can literally earn crypto for helping to build the network and providing connectivity to Internet of Things devices sending small bits of data. Join the movement and get your Helium Hotspot today with $50 off using the code POMP at helium.com. =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://www.pompletter.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. John Shaheidi is a businessman, software developer, manager and producer. He and his brother started Shot Studios, a management company that produces content and serves as the creative studio for top internet talent. In this conversation, we discuss data-driven content creation, how audience is the new currency, why Shot Studios focuses on YouTube, the importance of Shopify, creators as a micro platform, and various monetization strategies for the modern internet. I really enjoyed this conversation with John, and I hope you guys do as well.

• 0:44Anthony Pompliano?

  But before we get into the episode, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. The first is Helium. They've built the Helium Hotspot, which is a new product that enables the people, not the telcos, to own and operate a wireless network in their city for Internet of Things devices. The telcos have had a monopoly on the wireless networks for years. Helium is now democratizing that ownership. No longer are we going to be subject to the telcos. Now we, the people, can own the wireless network. And you can literally earn crypto for helping to build the network and providing connectivity to Internet of Things devices by sending small bits of data. You can join the movement and get your Helium Hotspot today with $50 off by using the code POMP at helium.com.

• 1:29Anthony Pompliano?

  I've got one set up, and it's pretty damn cool. Helium.com, use code POMP for $50 off. Also, don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology and finance. I break down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, pompletter.com. Alright, let's get into this episode with John. I hope you guys enjoy it.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 2:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright guys, bang, bang. I've got the man here himself, John. Thank you so much for doing this, man.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Of course, of course. Thank you. It's an honor. I was excited all week to jump on here.

• 2:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Listen, you are, uh, you're basically like the architect of, uh, of content on the internet. You've been doing this a while. So, uh, for like the couple of people who are watching this who don't know who you are, let's start with just, uh, your background and kind of what you did before Shot Studios.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, um, we actually founded Shot Studios 11 years ago. So my life before Shot Studios was a little irrelevant, even though I was in the, uh, the content business, but, but Shot Studios, when we first started, we were a production studio in 2009, um, trying to take talent that wasn't onto the internet and bringing them onto the internet and going really after, um, like mainstream celebrities, specifically athletes. So, uh, Mike Tyson, Usain Bolt, Floyd Mayweather, Chad Ochocinco, Cristiano Ronaldo, were like early guys that we were bringing onto YouTube. Back then, the, the, the social media and the internet was really YouTube and Twitter. There was nothing else yet.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Um, Facebook was out, but Facebook was private pages only, uh, private profiles. So, uh, I think we were a little early for our time, uh, because the monetization and the money wasn't there. And the guys that I just named right now are like used to bags of cash upfront for them to even like leave their front door. So, um, the monetization wasn't there. We were just trying to build an online audience, which was a little too early for anyone to wrap their head around. So then we made a pivot to our business. We had a very talented team. We had amazing relationships with Hollywood and that's when we moved to San Francisco and we launched an app called The Shots App. And, um, we were trying to get into the platform business.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  We said, alright, so if we're trying to help the platforms, but no one's really getting it, let's create a platform business, which is what we created was a, um, A social network which was pretty much Snapchat stories and Instagram stories before both of them incorporated stories into their platforms. We were the first, no comments, no liking, no like counts, no follower numbers, just post your day, don't overthink what you're posting and get on with the day. There was an option to delete it after 24 hours or the post could stay, the user could just decide whether they wanted a, you know, however way they had their settings. So we did that, but you know, what happened to us was really Snapchat incorporated the future and it kind of hurt us.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  You know, we were, you know, sometimes we in platforms take a future, it sometimes, not all the time, it helps that platform and takes the person that was initially the innovator out of business. Most times it doesn't work when platforms just copy features, but in the case of us it did work and it really hurt us. But during that time, a lot of content creators, like early content creators, like you know what you're called, you know, see now as like influencers or whatever you want to call them, we still call them content creators, were really emerging because of the Vine app. So that's when we went to plan A and instead of going after mainstream celebrities, we

• 5:40Speaker 02

  said, let's get these early, you know, these early stage content creators who really know how to build an audience in their own, with their own niche and help build a team around them, a studio around them, which is what Shot Studios is today.

• 5:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so one of the things that you guys are super well-known for is you're not what I call kind of the dumb content creator, right? You're very, very smart and intelligent, using data to drive a lot of the decisions that you do. You guys were pretty early in understanding that. I previously worked at Facebook on the Facebook Pages team and it always, you know, shocked me how as we were there building this growth team, like there wasn't that many people using the data that was provided in the analytics to actually inform the content that they created. You guys pioneered that in many ways. Like, talk a little bit about like, what was the original impetus for focusing on the data and trying to use that to actually inform the decisions you guys were making on the content creation side?

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know, when you talk about partnering up with an influencer or a creator, there's thousands, maybe tens of thousands. So we wanted to identify people in two ways. One is, what is a cultural fit for our company? And is there a real business to be made around this creator? And that's where the data came in. We have internal tools that we have built. Because the one good thing is, when we had our engineers with the Shots app, we were able to bring the engineering team to also pivot what they were developing into more backend stuff. And we have access to a lot of different APIs. Some are open, some aren't open.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  And we are able to, you know, just build our own internal software to see, all right, who is really driving watch time? Who can retain an audience? Who is growing in markets that we could use growth in? So we're not lopsided with just a US audience. And we could tap into some of these other emerging internet markets, such as Brazil, Mexico, India, some different parts of Asia. So, you know, but that all, you know, the platforms share some data, but not a ton. They share what's, you know, how you got here so far,

• 8:06Speaker 02

  but they don't really share where can you go? And that's where we built is, you know, where can we go with this person? Where can we go with this? You know, if you have 22 million followers on a specific platform, what does that mean? What else can we do? How do we go from 22 million to 50 million?

• 8:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and so there's obviously a ton of attention right now on content creators, influencers, right? There's kind of two buckets, I'll call it. There's one that is like more, I think, generalized as like the Instagram influencer, who just, they take photos, they get paid every once in a while to do some advertising. But it's pretty much a single revenue stream type content creation. They've got a single account. What you guys really have sorted to do it sound Sounds like is build entire businesses or ecosystems around these content creators and approach it much more as they are a business, right? You already mentioned the fact that like when you're evaluating talent, can we build a business around them? And so maybe talk a little bit, just kind of philosophically, how you guys think about these content creator led businesses and what that ecosystem kind of looks like

• 9:08Anthony Pompliano?

  today, when you're kind of designing them?

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we'd like to, if you look at all the different creators that we work with, and I believe there's 12 of them now, everyone is in their own lane, everyone, um, you know, one is, you know, one could be a comedian focused on a female audience, one's a comedian focused on a male audience. Uh, one has a very large Middle Eastern market, which the Middle East market is really growing. Um, you know, in the US and, and throughout all the Middle East and, um, and North Africa. Um, one has a very large audience out of Mexico, which is a really a top three market for Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, and I think it's Netflix's fourth largest market.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Uh, one has a large Brazilian of following. Um, one is being followed because of education. One's being followed because of music. So, so there's all these different verticals within a creator and we're looking at the different verticals that they create content for and, you know, go, you know, obviously we look at the first thing that I mentioned, are they growing? But two is, are they hitting a market where we could actually cross promote other creators? So when there's a major collaboration, it really benefits everybody. And those are the things that we look for. Um, those are the first two things we work, look for. Uh, later we look for, look into, you know, and this is the hardest part in the influencer world is monetization.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  You know, where, how do you create, which I'm sure we'll get into, but you know, uh, that's, that's, you know, that's, that's the third thing we look for. You've not got those first two, then you could, you could, you know, control your own destiny when it comes to monetization.

• 10:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And so once you know, kind of, hey, this is the right creator, they're growing in the right audiences. And we think that that audience has a lot of runway, right? So you talked earlier, you know, somebody's got 22 million followers. You think you can get them to 50 million and, and you kind of understand the audience building side. How do you think about the monetization? Like, how has that evolved over time? Um, given the various things that now kind of are available on the internet?

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, monetization is, you know, it's, it's, um, there's quick ways to make money, but ours also, you know, as we're looking into building long lasting careers, we're looking to building long lasting revenue flows. And, um, you know, right now, you know, we, we, we get calls every day. We even had two offers already this morning with just different offers on like, hey, we want, you know, you know, we saw you have this much engagement on Instagram, this much engagement on TikTok. We would love to pay to have these posts. Those happen all the time and those happen to almost anybody. Anyone who is on the internet could get those deals, especially if you have, you know, your email address in your bio, um, then, you know, advertisers are just crawling,

• 11:59Speaker 02

  looking for you. That's, um, that's the easy one. That's one I don't really, we pay, I pay attention to, obviously, but I don't really, I have a whole team within shots that handles that part. What I look forward to is how do we build businesses? How do we, we have our own audience. We, I look at a creator as a micro platform. So if you're a micro platform, how do we build businesses? Going back to the shots app, we never, when we were looking at building the shots app or when we had the shots app, you know, we had over 10 million users and, you know, we had at one point over 6 million active users. Uh, we never, monetization was never meant to be, you know, okay, so when do we start putting banner ads and sponsored videos?

• 12:43Speaker 02

  And, you know, um, all these different things inside the app that everyone else does. How do we, you know, we were looking for shots app and we're now doing that with shot studios is, uh, how do we build our own businesses? How do we, um, how do we get into the merchandising businesses? How do we get into beauty? How do we get to food and beverage? Uh, you know, how do we get into other consumer goods products? Whether it's a toy, a doll, backpacks. But how do we do this without one offs? You know, someone coming in and giving you a couple hundred thousand dollars for a few posts and bouncing? How do we actually own that? How do we create our own Beats by Dre? You know, then those are the things that we think of, you know? Um, you know, how do we create our own vitamin water? You know, and what 50 cent did with vitamin water?

• 13:27Speaker 02

  How do we create these products for each one of our creators? And those are the things we're working on.

• 13:33Anthony Pompliano?

  So to me, this is the most interesting thing in all of the internet, right? And the reason being, a couple of years ago, I started thinking pretty deeply about this idea of like, audience is the new currency. And I think a lot of people use that as like, oh, some advertiser is going to come pay me money and then I can simply, you know, post or do whatever and I get that cash. But what you're talking about, there's a very well-known author who one time said to me, if somebody is willing to pay me to reach my audience, that means that that audience is more valuable to me than it is to them. Right? And basically, I can sell my own things through all this kind of stuff. And he started to walk me through like, look, looking for very specific types of products that were high margin, that he could sell through, that he knew that there was a wide enough kind of interest in his audience. Like, he was very, very smart about it.

• 14:18Anthony Pompliano?

  And it sounds like you guys are thinking through a lot of that same stuff. Has it been driven at all? Or do you see corollary kind of analysis to what, whether it's Kylie Jenner, Kanye West? A number of these people have done where they already had built-in audiences and then they went and created a product. It feels like that's a much more repeatable, sustainable business model, given that you retain ownership of that audience, right? So you can build multiple products and multiple companies and keep kind of bringing them more and more things over time, rather than just an advertiser comes one time, you advertise once and then they're gone. Like, the company piece seems more sustainable and repeatable, right?

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Of course, of course, yeah, you could control it. I mean, especially in the influencer and content creator business is advertisers are afraid. They're afraid, you know, and their expectations are so high because people are comparing YouTube to television. They're saying, okay, well, you know, you've spent this much money on that TV show that had 2 million views. Well, I'm getting 10 million views, you know, so I'm five times more. And, you know, and there's always a tug of war between the creator and the advertiser. And then the advertiser eventually says, okay, someone at the office says, you know what? You might be right, let's give it a shot. And then the conversion is not the same. Because people on the internet just don't want to see ads. They don't have to see ads. On television, you know, you're

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Kind of stuck, you're forced, you know, unless, you know, you're you're you're previously recorded and you fast forward to it. Through it, but you know, or if you're it's a radio, you know, station like, you know, you're kind of forced unless you just switch the station, but. On the internet business, it's just like, you know, the conversion is so much lower. That, you know, then the advertisers out those that person was wrong. Oh, by the way, look at this guy, he's not swearing in his content, or he's smoking weed, or he did this, or she did that, and. And then, you know, and then someone says, hey, why did you do that? That wasn't children friendly, you know, and then all this whole mess comes in and advertiser pulls out. And we never hear from them again. So a- and and I don't blame the advertiser, right? It is the wild, wild west on the internet right now.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  People are just, you know, I mean, the more yourself, the better your content, you're better, your channel is going to grow. But the more yourself, the more, you know, you're less political, you're less. Um, phony, so you know, it's not what the advertisers are advertisers want to see, they want to see the picture perfect version of you. So um, so advertise, say, okay, this is not for us. So then where does that leave? You know, when you went back bragging about getting ten million views. How are you gonna now make money? You know, you're just gonna brag about the ten million views and live at home. Uh, or live on your buddy's couch, you know, so that's uh, that's when, you know, then you gotta go and you gotta create your own T-shirt. And create a culture and a following.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  And not a following the number, following somebody that really cares about you. And Bill and and have them join this culture, have them join this clique or squad, whatever you want to call it. And buy a product, and now that money goes directly to you, you know, Shopify. Since daily deposits, you know what I mean? So you're literally making money every single day when you wake up.

• 17:28Anthony Pompliano?

  How much data goes into determining what products or companies to build versus it's like the uh, creator's intuition and just personal interest?

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Um. I think uh, so.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  You know, it's like creating a video. You know, you're gonna, sometimes where you've been guilty of this, we'll create a video that we just wanted to do, and it just doesn't register with the audience. And we'll just keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it, until it's something that we're passionate about, and then the audience like, and then you see the views and engagement go up. I think a product, a product that a creator really wants to get behind, it's kind of gonna have to be the same thing. You know, you could take advice from people. You could, you know, right, like right now, CAA has CAA Labs, where like they really take, I haven't used it, but I've heard about it, and I know the people behind it, they're very smart people, so, you know, they're, they're going in, and they're, you know, they're looking at like your audience

• 18:29Speaker 02

  on across everywhere you are on the internet, and pitching creators, like, we think your audience is gonna like, you know, jarred pickles, and, you know, and, you know, seltzer, water, you know, whatever it is, you know, like, you know, I, I think that could work, but at the end of the day, it really depends on what the audience wants. You know, if you're a comedian with a very low following, I'm sorry, you're a comedian with a very young following, then maybe, you know, custom suits is not your thing, you know, so, you just have to kind of really understand your audience, no different than when you're making the video, or you're making the music, is what does your audience want? And the product has to be the same thing.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  At Shox right now, we're trying, trying to treat products like a creator, you know, and we wanna turn products into creators. And that's why, you know, I mean, I'm a big fan of this, Liquid Death. You know what I mean, like, this is content. It is, you know, people laugh, they, you know, they, you know, they ask questions. I had a call with their team last week about content ideas, and, you know, it's like, this is, this is content. This draws your attention, you know, it's like, what is that? You wanna know more? I've read everything on this can, all the labels and everything, just to get a kick out of it. And, you know, it's all standard stuff that they, legal stuff they need to put, but even like the fonts I'm looking at it, you know what I mean?

• 19:58Speaker 02

  It's just like got my attention. And that's turning a product into a content creator. And, and if a creator could get behind one of these... And do that with the product and you have these two things is just that much more explosive. And you see a lot of YouTubers do that with merch right now. The best merch that sells right now is merch built around their content and their fandoms versus like a picture of their face with their name on it. You know, those don't really convert well. People don't really want to buy your name on a T-shirt. They want to buy something cool that fun that you made that has been incorporated into your content. So then they're part of the following, they're part of the squad, they're part of the, you know, the, the, the audience that you've built.

• 20:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and how much of this is now being empowered by the Stripes of the world, the Shopify's, you know, all of these kind of infrastructure companies that have made it dead simple for creators to actually do this themselves? Or is it even if those companies didn't exist, this was already a trend that kind of people were moving towards? Because you saw it happening where people weren't using Shopify, Stripe and things like that?

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think any of this is easily said to do if there was no Shopify. You know, it's not, you know, it wouldn't be something I was like, just get up and do it, you know? Because when you, right now, when I tell you, you and, you know, your audience and whoever's listening or even our creators is,

• 21:28Speaker 02

  you don't have to worry about how to do this, you just have to do, worry about what to do and what to sell. You don't worry about how, how, how's the Shopify has made it so damn easy that it's not even like, like when we launched lilshop.com, which is our merch site, like Shopify and building property Shopify was like, action item number eight on our like 20 thing to do list. You know, it wasn't a, you know, before it used to be like, all right, build a website, figure this out and have analytics and, you know, figure out emails and all this, but now it's like, all right, just, it's like saying, create an Instagram account for the brand. It's just like, that's not an important thing. More important thing is what to sell right now, the quality of it.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  You know, right now, that's the, the, the top three priorities to us was Lil Shop and any of our consumer goods products is, you know, Something that the audience loves, make sure it's of quality and have great customer service like, like Zappos level customer service, you know what I mean? So the person comes back, you know, you did all this work to get them to go to the website and purchase and put in their credit card and you want them to come back. And those things are what makes it important. And Shopify has made it a world where creators can focus on those three things and not worry about how do I build a website? Who do I call? Do I outsource overseas?

• 22:51Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? Like, you know, I mean, you don't have to worry that I spent fifty thousand dollars on this thing. You don't have to worry about that, you know, because that's what a website would cost at the level of Shopify. When you're talking about all the backend stuff that they provide, all the analytics, everything, you know what I mean? Like, it's not just a front-end thing, it's the backend thing that makes it Shopify what it is.

• 23:13Anthony Pompliano?

  It's an absolutely incredible company and I think you nailed it in the sense of like, it's almost a foregone thought at this point, right? People just, oh, of course I'm going to have a Shopify. You guys are obviously creating content for all kinds of different platforms, but everything kind of starts and ends with YouTube. And then you kind of go to these other platforms. YouTube's been around a long time. It's obviously got a massive audience, right? I think of it even as like the second largest search engine in the world. But why do you guys spend so much time on that platform compared to, you know, whether it's a new shiny platform that's come up or other ones that are even larger in some cases?

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Um, a few reasons and they're all pretty much equally important. I would tell you, for one of them, one of the reasons is,

• 24:04Speaker 02

  there's no, when you're in the video content business, there's no limits on what you could create on YouTube. You can make it vertical, you can make it wide, you can make it twenty seconds, you can make it twenty minutes or two hours. You know, it's available, you know, the product itself is available everywhere, all mobile devices, desktop.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  All smart TVs, you know, Apple TV Roku, Chromecast, you know, all Firestick, everything. So it's available everywhere. The product's great. That's, that's, that's one of the reasons.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Another one of the reasons is to me, you know, just being around this for so long, just paying attention to the internet for so long. It's the safest place for our content. You know, one thing Google does not do is it just does not mess things up. They, you know, yeah, they've had some flops when they've tried to launch things from start. Google Plus, Wave. I'm sure there was a few other ones that we just don't remember, but we laughed at them when they tried to do it. But once a product is up and going, they don't mess it up. You know what I mean? They did not mess up Google Search. They did not mess up Gmail. They did not mess up Maps. You know what I mean? Like, you know, these are all products

• 25:22Speaker 02

  that, you know, once it's there, they don't mess it up. They don't make sudden product changes because someone got fired and someone came in and you know, came from here and convinced someone that this works. They don't do that. So to us, like, it's a safe place. Then another part is monetization. You know, the fact that there's monetization and, and, and very good money, you know. You know, I'll never get into how much money our creators make because that's really private to them and they don't really like talking about it. That's why you never see us on the Forbes list. They think it ruins the integrity of the content, which I agree. But it's no secret when you go and see what some of these top YouTube creators make.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  They make that. You know, I've been to YouTube creators' houses that, you know, that are $10 million, you know, in Calabasas. And they made it and they, I know the money that's being made there. So their monetization and the better you do and the, you know, the better you do and the less of an asshole you are online.

• 26:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Okay, alright, so I wanna make sure you

• 26:26Anthony Pompliano?

  You say asshole.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  I, once I said asshole line, meaning like if you curse on a, you know, piece of content, which is what I did. So I hope I didn't ruin your monetization, but,

• 26:36Speaker 02

  but podcasts are different. That's the beauty of podcasts. You just, now you can really be yourself. But, but as long as you do, you know, you can make a really good living off YouTube. Now, is it safe to be dependent on advertisers? No, but at least it helps you build that foundation. So you could go back to what we talked about with Shopify and all these other consumer good products and you could build products yourself and, and fund your projects yourself and not be dependent on advertiser, you know, whatever, one, two, three to come in. So that's another reason. And then, and then, and then one other part that's really important to us, and I always talk about this, is the people that work at YouTube are some of the greatest people in the world.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  They're the greatest people I work with. They're the people that when they call, I'm not rolling my eyes saying, ah, you know, because I get a lot of phone calls, lawyers, accountants, business people, other managers, you know, other producers, all this stuff will call me and I'm just saying, oh man, I don't wanna deal with this. But when someone from YouTube calls me, I'm like, oh, they're just, I don't know the culture, how they created this culture there, what Robert Kinsel has done to create this culture where everybody is happy. Everybody is honest. Everybody is open minded that we work with there. And that, like, that like drives us, keeps, you know, so we don't have to worry about that part.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  We know that the people that are behind the platform that we're creating on are good people. So we're just not ever thinking like, oh, man, you know, and I've been in this, in these shoes before in the past, like, you know, I'm in business here, but I can't wait, although they are not here, you know? And that's never really a thought. A lot of the platforms are really good people, but YouTube, who we've had this relationship with so long, just that's that itself. And that's why I'm saying all these things together. are equally as important for us to say, all right, we're a YouTube first company and everything else we're gonna build, we're gonna build around this because it's important to be everywhere. You can't be lopsided to just YouTube.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  You gotta be everywhere. You know what I mean? Someone's, you know, addicted to TikTok today and is gonna spend hours on TikTok. I can't miss that person just because their habit was, because they woke up this morning and got a link text to them to go about a funny TikTok and then they just got warped into this world of I'm just gonna spend the day on TikTok. You know what I mean? I can't lose that person because of that. I can't control where they're gonna be. So it's important to be everywhere. But at the end of the day, YouTube is, you know, the, to us, to our company, the most important.

• 29:12Anthony Pompliano?

  There's a reason why they're so big and they've been around so long, right? Doing something right. How do you guys think about TikTok and Quibi's another kind of newer video platform? What about those two?

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Um, well, well, Quibi, we never really got on. I just really wasn't sure. I'm not sure about it currently, you know? So it's just, you know, we'll just wait to see what happens. And as they build their audience, you know, we'll just take a look. And if they have an audience and it resonates with our audience and we could actually, you know, get a jumpstart with their existing audience, then maybe move our audience there. We'll take a look, but we haven't gotten there yet with Quibi. And that's how I felt about TikTok one year ago this time. And then about August, September of last year, I saw, all right, there's an audience here.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  And, and our audience does like TikTok by us just doing, you know, some R and D work. And, and then we launched our TikTok accounts. I think it was the last week of August last year. So what was that? 10 months ago. And now I think we have, um, we have like 15 channels and over 100 million followers on TikTok in just 10 months. Yeah, like we're, we have, you know, we have an account with 16 million, one with 14, two with 12. Yeah, we have a, we have a very large following on TikTok and.

• 30:41Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you attribute that growth? I mean, that's astronomical growth for any platform, but even for TikTok. That's super impressive. Like, why is that happening? Is that because you guys are better than others at creating content? Is it the content creators you have? What is the difference for you guys to have that type of success?

• 31:02Speaker 02

  I think it's.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  I think it's really us understanding the audience, you know, us understanding, spending some time sitting back and paying attention for a little while, who the TikTok audience is. It then, you know, understanding our audience and then doing some testing and going back to our development team and just having them to kind of take a look at, you know, does us, does us posting on TikTok help us in other places? And the answer is yes, specifically on Instagram. It really helps us with our Instagram. And our Instagram growth helps us with our YouTube growth. So, does that help? And the team came back and said, yeah. We said, all right, cool. Then that's when we put the foot down on the gas and said, let's just go big.

• 31:50Anthony Pompliano?

  And explain that more. When you say TikTok helps you grow Instagram and Instagram helps you grow YouTube? How are those connected?

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Well, they discover you because it's a whole different world. Can you hear me? Okay. Okay. When, it's a whole different world of people on TikTok, but it's a world that understands us. So, we're getting a lot of eyeballs on people who've never seen us anywhere else and are coming to us, you know, finding us on TikTok and seeing that, oh, I like this guy. I like his content or her content. Or her as a person or whatever it is. I want more. Well, I don't want to wait till tomorrow till they post again. Where else are they? And, and then TikTok has that feature where you could click on someone's Instagram profile and it deep links you to the Instagram map. Oh, great.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  They're posting something completely different, different side of this person. I knew I liked this person. Glad I did this. Who is this person? Let me read more. The link in bio, YouTube link. Oh, wow. YouTube video, this is going to be long. Oh, my God, I really love this person. YouTube link, you know, dang, this video is great. I'm going to subscribe.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Turn on notifications and and now you've got this person who start found you on Tik Tok. It's got deep link to Instagram, click the link in bio, almost all our links and bios are YouTube videos. And and came to YouTube and now we got them, you know, on three different platforms.

• 33:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and then it feels like you guys have done a great job kind of doing this for video. I know that another area you guys are focused on moving forward is podcasts. You've built on a podcast studio, you're gonna go kind of build that as one of the pillars of of the business. What's the intrigue or fascination with audio and the whole podcast world?

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that that world that I just told you about, come, let's just say like, that's kind of the cycle. Let me find you on Tik Tok, the hottest app out right now by far. Um, then let me see more about you on Instagram, then let me go. See even more and watch you more on YouTube and subscribe. We don't want to lose them there, you know, but you've already showed them a short video, probably something funny in 15 seconds. Show them a bunch of photos, you show them a longer video, what else? You really want to learn about this person, you really want to know now that you're really, you know, fascinated with this person.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  Like hear their brain, you know, subscribe, now go to wherever Spotify, wherever. And now here, you know, here's a clip on YouTube, go listen to this person on Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen to podcasts. And here's a one hour of this person, raw and uncut. You know, so it's kind of goes to that cycle. And while you're there, you know, go buy their T-shirt. You could really be in this person's world, you know, you're in their brain, you see what they like, you see what their interests are. You're part of their squad now with your your merch, your your shirt, your hoodie, your hat. And you know, and now you're part of this person's life, you know, now you got a friend.

• 35:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and I guess, how do you think about the different types of content on these platforms? So video obviously is a very specific medium, right? And so you can change the types of content that you post on a TikTok, a YouTube, an Instagram. Like there's different lengths, there's different types of content that does well on each of those. Audio is a whole different ballgame, right? Maybe you can take a, you know, podcast and you do a video and post it on YouTube or something like that. But for the audio only platforms, how do you think about a different type of content? You know, like what is the creators who are really good at video and on these kind of more traditional platforms? What are they thinking about creating in the audio medium?

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think in the audio world, and you know, I have to throw out this disclaimer that I'm still learning and our team is still learning and we're hiring people to run their audio side that have more experience than I do or than my brother, who's my, who's the co-founder of the company do. And we've hired some really great people. We have a, we have an amazing partnership with Spotify that was announced earlier this year with the podcast that we're doing with Lily Pons and Spotify has been beyond helpful as well to help in us learn. But the one thing I've got to say, and the reason why I even agree to come on your podcast is people who, your audience is tuning in right now to learn something.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  And, you know, I could come in and talk about all the cool thing, the cool things I've done and all the cool people I know and all the great life that I have. But the podcast audience is really tuned in right now to learn something. When you, when you interviewed Alex from BuzzFeed, or formerly at BuzzFeed, a big technology, Sherwin, Pichovar, Taylor Lorenz, you know, these are all former episodes of your podcast that I listened to. I didn't listen to you to know about them. They're, all three of them are actually my friends. I talk to them all the time. I know what they're up to, you know what I mean? I know Taylor's moving out of her apartment in New York City and going to another place. You know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? Like, I know Alex is starting up his own thing, but I learned something from each one of those podcasts.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  I learned, and I learned so much from all three of them, completely different things too. Three different people, three different businesses, but they... Are, you know, they, they got my attention because they sparked my interest. And that's what we've got to learn with our audience is what do they want to learn? You know, are we going to come and Laila is going to talk about how great her birthday party in Miami's been and how much fun she's having? Or is she going to actually like, someone going to walk away and, and say, wow, I did not know that. That was really interesting. Because that's when they go talk, you know, these are all like conversation icebreakers. That's when they go talk. I do it all the time. I'll learn something from a podcast and I'll go back to my best friend who's my fiancee. And I just, you know, I'll say something and she'll be like, how do you know that?

• 38:06Speaker 02

  I was like, I was listening to this podcast, you know, and I, I mean, like, and I think that's what people really want out of podcasts. And that's what we're learning right now. And that's what we're, that's why we're building this. It's a whole different side of us that no one's been able to get anywhere else that they're going to get. With, with the podcast studio that we're building.

• 38:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's awesome. And, and, and I think you're right in the sense of, um, because it's usually longer form and it's audio. There's definitely this learning element. What I've been thinking a lot about, and I don't have the answer to is, uh, how interchangeable audio content is. So for example, uh, I know a lot of people a couple of years ago with like the rise of Audible and things would say, hey, look, I don't really read books as much. I actually listen to them. So I started to get really big into audiobooks. It feels like now podcasts and audiobooks in some way compete with each other for time because both of them are learning. But it's not, you know, one's a book that's kind of very well thought out. The other is either an individual kind of, you know, uh, sharing content one to one, uh, or they're interviewing somebody, right?

• 39:11Anthony Pompliano?

  It, it just feels like it's a kind of a, an updated book or audiobook to some degree in some weird way. How do you think about, uh, the creators you guys have are a lot of comedians or kind of comedy focused content? How do they teach or, or do education being kind of more of the, the, the humor side of, of content creation?

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, you know, I kind of find a different word than education. When I'm, when I'm on my education, you're not going to like tune in and you're not going to learn from Laila's podcast, you know, um. How a Tesla is built, you know, like that's not the kind of the education, you know, you're gonna learn something else. She might teach somebody. She might teach somebody that, you know, her audience, right? Cause, cause it would be awesome to this for me. Or maybe even you to listen to a podcast that talks about how Tesla, it really is built. Uh, where do they get the materials from? Where, you know, what kind of metals are they using? Where are they mined? You know, all this stuff would be really interesting to me, but not Leila's audience.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Leila's audience might wanna learn, what are the best times to post on TikTok? Yeah, to go viral, you know, what are the best times to post on Instagram? Should I post videos or should I post photos on Instagram? What should the ratio be? You know, and though that's her audience and those are things that we're learning for each one of the podcasts that we're launching with each one of the creators. Is what does each person's audience want to learn? Uh, in the case of Rudy Mancuso, when he gets around doing a podcast, he might talk about how to direct. A YouTube video or and then how to direct a YouTube video that's forty minutes long.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  How to direct a YouTube video that's one hour long and how to get off YouTube and direct a film that's an hour and a half that could go somewhere outside of YouTube. Yeah, people wanna learn those things, um, especially in the world now with.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Sadly, I know almost over fifty million unemployed Americans. People are gonna look to the internet and say, okay, um, I don't think my restaurant's gonna open up anytime soon. Um, I got a couple of mouths to feed. I keep hearing about YouTubers making all this money. I feel like I'm interesting. I've never seen anyone do anything that's in, that my brain is generating to, to me.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  How do I start? Where do I start? Where do I, you know, what do I do? What cameras are these guys using? What, you know, I mean, like, and imagine a podcast that could break all that down for you. And, you know, you don't have to worry about, you know, whenever it's time to go back to work and trying to compete with 50 million other people to get a job back. What if you controlled your own destiny? But where do you start? And I think, you know, if, if someone like Rudy could create a podcast like that, or anybody, maybe one of your listeners could create a podcast like that, they've got something there. And I think those are the things that make podcasts so beautiful is that. Now, you have all different verticals of podcasts.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  You have talk shows, you have, um, you know, the, the crime stuff, you know, you have these other ones, but to me, you know, that's what we want to do. We want to take the things that we have learned over the years and share with, um, share them with the world.

• 42:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And so how do you think about, um, I'll call kind of the, um, uh, the maturation or the rise of a content creator, right? So many of the content creators that you work with, uh, started out online, for example. Then they've kind of moved over to YouTube. They've built these big followings, uh, TikTok comes out, they build a big following there. We've talked a lot about kind of how you monetize that, but there's also scenes, at least from the outsider view, looking in, um, certain inflection points from the, the popularity or the audience, right? So things like getting a Netflix show or getting onto traditional television. Um, are those things actually in the eyes of the creator and in the eyes of you guys, uh, seen as kind of, uh, further along in the maturation, uh, and popularity of a creator?

• 43:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Or is that more of just the external folks think that getting on television or getting a Netflix show is a big deal, but actually the creators, they're not even really worried about that stuff or aspire to do that?

• 43:29Speaker 02

  It really depends on the creator's interest and what they want to do, whether it's what their heart wants to do or what their talent allows them to do.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  It really depends. You know, we look at our company, you know, it's centered in the middle is YouTube. And then outside of YouTube, we have all these other ancillary businesses that Shots is building. And they're all like really based around what we feel like the world needs. Um, you know, one part is music, one part is podcasts, one part's merchandise, one part's consumer goods product, one part is other social networks. You know, we have all these different ancillary businesses that are built around YouTube. And I'm sorry, then there's a six parts, there's really six, and there's television and film.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  And it really depends on what the creator wants to do. Uh, we had tour touring as one of them, it's been a little bit on hold, but it really depends on what the creator wants to do. You know, what we do is we help them build, we help all our creators build their YouTube channels, we build our own YouTube channels, we have our own completely different original side that is really one to have originals ourselves for the company. For ideas that, you know, we could create and experiment and then share with all our other twelve channels to help evolve the channels as well. There's also, that's something else I always think about is, you know, there is a time where someone gets over somebody.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  You know, just because they subscribe to you at fourteen years old, does that mean that they want to watch you when they're seventeen years old? Just because they subscribe to you when they're eighteen years old, does that mean they want to watch what you're creating at twenty-one years old? People age up. So we create all these other business, uh, these other content, which we call Shots Originals to, um, to really experiment other types of content. So all our channels together could start growing. Um, so it really depends on where the creator wants to go. You know, they might have some other random idea, but we have all these different. Businesses within SHOTS that a creator could really do whatever they want. They want to get, become a musician.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  We have a whole record label that has songwriters, producers, relationships with all platforms, radio stations.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Obviously, we have our own video production company and SHOTS Studio, so they can make a music video. Everything, everything, you know, every, everything if someone wants to become an artist. We have a podcast studio now with now, as I mentioned, a team of producers that have come from different very successful podcasts that could help someone if they have an idea of a podcast, we could build it.

• 46:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and, and so you sit in a very interesting place, I think, because you've got folks who started out unknown and relatively small, but have built incredible careers and incredible audiences in the tens of millions in terms of content creation on the internet. You also are very close with people that I would consider more traditional celebrities, right? So this is the Justin Beavers, the Floyd Mayweathers and kind of that entire group of people who really kind of got popular, not on the internet, social media platforms, but because of the nature of what they do, they've got to be on those platforms, right? So you see, they've got these massive followings. How do you think about the difference in approach for somebody who's built their popularity and celebrity on the platforms

• 46:53Anthony Pompliano?

  versus somebody who built it elsewhere and then kind of creates content a- as a kind of a secondary piece to what their career is actually, you know, grown into?

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Well, Floyd and Justin, I met both during phase one of our business when we had the studio at first.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  With Floyd, he always was a believer in us creating this content around different celebrities, including himself, which we launched his YouTube channel many years ago, maybe almost 10 years ago.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  And and Justin, like I remember my first time I not met Justin, but first time I talked to him about the business was, you know, we were gonna build like a cartoon studio and we were gonna create cartoons with with with different celebrities.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  And then right around then is when they both actually invested in the company. Shortly after they invested, we realized that this phase is not working right now. And then we launched the app, which they were, okay, you know, they were perfectly fine with the pivot and they actually said, we actually maybe like this idea more. The app sounds great and the product, they saw the product and they loved the product. The product was flawless at the time. Like it was next level, like the team, they're up since now in San Francisco and always pay attention to other things they're building, like the best out there. Some of the apps, major apps right now that most people really love were built by the team that

• 48:23Speaker 02

  actually created shots. They've moved on, obviously not working with us, but um, you know, and then and then the app and then and then when it was time to go back to square phase one, I don't know why I'm seeing phase like it's coronavirus, but you know, but it's, you know, but but plan A, you know, um, they, you know, they they were all about it and they were supportive and, you know, they've just been real big supporters as in both investors and more moral support. With us to creating, to allowing us to create what we do. And that's why we have such a great relationship with both of them. I'm gonna say I talked to both of them, maybe, um, I don't know, seven days a week, you know, Floyd definitely, I mean,

• 49:04Speaker 02

  twice a day usually, just different things. He always has ideas and we bounce off each other and you know, then he's asking about the company and what I've been up to and, you know, how was the day and what's tomorrow look like and whatnot. And, you know, Justin does the same as well. They, you know, Justin obviously follows all our social accounts and we post something about a specific project. He always always the first to call. He's like, hey, what is this about? Well, you know, what is, how's this time and everything? How's, you know, this and that, you know, you said it's a teaser. Can I see the full thing and all that? So they're both incredible and been, I think Floyd invested in the company in 2010 and Justin invested in the company in 2000. 12 or 2013, I don't remember. And, you know, it's been quite some time. They've been so supportive of everything.

• 49:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's awesome. And it feels also like a lot of the more traditional celebrities, whether they're musicians, artists, athletes, whatever, they've gotten much, much smarter over the years about how, not only one, they can build the online audiences, but two, also monetize them as well, right? And you mentioned a couple earlier, you know, the 50 cent with the vitamin water and things like that. How do you think about creators as investors, right? Because I think one of the things that is already interesting is like, hey, I can build these companies or I can use my audience. Another thing is I can take capital that I have, I can invest it into a startup, a company, whatever, and then I can help them get to my audience, right?

• 50:27Anthony Pompliano?

  But I'm doing it not as the majority owner, just as a minority owner. Like, what has that conversation been like, if at all, with creators?

• 50:35Speaker 02

  It really, I mean, that all really depends on the creator or the celebrity and the brand. You know, it doesn't always make sense, but at some times it does. You know, I think Sherwin was one that really understood, okay, I've got this company, whether it was through his phone or when he worked at Menlo, was like, I've got this company. And I know the perfect person that can actually help this company. And, you know, he would, you know, fly down to Los Angeles. I remember those days, like you would fly down to Los Angeles and have meetings with the right people that were great for that brand, for that product, for that company. So he would always bring very, very smart entertainment money into the startup.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  And, and I think a lot of people have followed that path and a lot of people have done it, but some people still do it wrong. You know, it just, it doesn't make sense, you know, a for a, let's say a YouTuber who has a very young audience that watches him or her because they do pranks to invest in a medical device company. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I mean, like sometimes, but it happens, you know, sometimes, you know, the medical device company gets excited because the person has a lot of followers. On YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. And then this other person is sold on like, hey, you know, your fifty grand could become ten million dollars. This is how you invest. You could be part of Silicon Valley. And then this is like forced relationship and it just never really works.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  And then the creator gets over it. Because they posted about it and no one, you know, they called the company, said how to do, it's like I didn't convert. You know, you're not the right person and then creator's like, well, why I'm, what do you mean, I'm not the right person? You know who I am? You know what I mean? It becomes this big weird thing and then there's all this resentment built in. You know, like, and I think that's one thing that Sherwin did a great job with. I know there's a lot of firms have done a great job with it. And I'm just not thinking of who they are, but Sherwin was always the one I remember, um, really like pushing hard for um, companies that he had investment to fly down to LA and meet with. The, the, the perfect, yeah, partner.

• 52:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's awesome. And then how do you and the, uh, and the creators that you work with think about, uh, kind of the legacy media, right? In terms of, uh, we're now seeing, um, specific reporters focusing on internet culture. Right? So Taylor Lorenz at New York Times is obviously probably the leader there. Um, but, but have you guys thought about that, given that, uh, many of the creators are able to build such large audiences and talk directly to them via these other platforms? Like, is that even part of the strategy to leverage, uh, the legacy media and some of the, the more kind of incumbent publications?

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, um, yeah, I think, you know, people care. They have audiences, you know, their audiences are human beings. You know, I mean, like they're, they're still reading the New York Times or, or, or Wall Street Journal or uh, Ad Age, Billboard, Tube Filter. So, you know, they're, they're reading these, you know, and people care about them. They have audiences, like, I think this is bigger than more, more people that these, these publications are covering. Um, you just need to know as a reporter, who has that audience? And not the one off in the audience, who's not, not, I'm going to write about this person now, but they're going to fall off the face of earth in three months. So my story is really.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  Irrelevant in three, three months. And I think that's where someone like Taylor has nailed. She knows who has the audience, who is coming on. If they have gone because she was wrong, why, what happened to them? Yeah, I mean, so no, she's just gonna say like, oh, I messed up. I don't know what happened. No, no, no, this person self-destructed because they did this and they did that. They did this bonehead move and blah, blah, blah. You know, she really does. She's, she's the best. She, she, there's nobody like her, you know, and I've, I've told her that. I talked to her a couple of weeks ago. I don't, she probably thought I was maybe trying to pitch a story to her, but I didn't, wasn't even trying to do that. I just want to tell her how awesome she is and what she's doing for the internet culture right now. It's awesome. There's gonna be copycats, you know, I think maybe, I don't know, you've got to have some, you know, um, some, some of these publications are so.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  You know, um, old school thinking that I don't know if they would, you know, um, hire someone like Taylor. Who will spend some time with TikTokers and travel with TikTokers to see, you know, what is this, you know, this, this shift in culture. Um, you know, I think the, the one publication that does a great job and because they really focus on this business is TubeFilter. Uh, TubeFilter.com, like those guys really get it. And they're just, I mean, they're every article on that site. I'm just like, okay. Yeah. All right. I'm never reading an article saying this isn't for me, or this is BS or, or less suck. Like they, they really, so as, as, as a reporter, Taylor is the best out there. And as a, uh, and, and you know, there's a lot of other great ones. I just.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  She's, she's just stands out to me as the, the goat, you know, the greatest of all time right now. You know what I mean? Like she really is. She's, um. She's, um, and then, and then TubeFilter as a, as an actual site does an incredible job. Others are starting to copy them, but.

• 55:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And, and, uh, one of the last questions I have for you is, uh, as you think about creators as kind of this, um, platform or micro platform, right? And then you've got the products that you can, uh, really create as content. Help me understand the balance between what I'll call like more analog or physical products. So T-shirts, you know, uh, cosmetics, whatever. Versus software products. So working with a creator to actually build like a, like a more scalable technology company. That then gets piped through to their audience. How do you guys, uh, kind of think through physical products versus software?

• 56:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so um, right now, you know, our focus is physical products. It's something that, you know, because of Shopify and how easy they've made it. We're, we're going down the route of getting physical products that our audience would, would like, would enjoy, would come back, would not feel ripped off buying. And that's our focus now. Um, I've never thought of really virtual products. I mean, you know, I had one of the best apps in the world at one point. And, you know, it was like a little bit like I still a bit heartbroken on what happened. So I've never really, I get an itch sometimes on like building another app.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  But then, you know, I shoot the idea down within, you know, a few hours of thinking about the idea. And I just say, you know, don't be, you know, right now we look at us because we create for all platforms. We look at like the platforms as like, you know, as I use as example once. And I actually got some weird tweets about it saying bad example. So I'm going to do it again is, um, is, you know, we look at the platforms as like, you know, if there's like a big war, because they're all at war with each other. Um, we look at them as like countries at war and we're like the ones building the armory. You know, like we're just, you know, whatever your needs are. You need tanks, we got tanks. You need missile launchers, we have missile launchers. You need F-14s, we got F-14s. Yeah, I mean, we're the company, I always forget the company that, uh, the, you know, that, uh,

• 57:47Speaker 02

  that builds all these down in, I think, Texas. Um, but we want to be that for the platforms, you know? Oh, you got, you have vertical video that disappear in 24 hours? We got content for that, you know? You have 15 second videos, we got that, you know? You have, you know, even if we were to do something for Quibi, you know, which we haven't yet. But, you know, oh, you want videos that look both, you know, great vertically and horizontally? We could do that, you know? We could just do anything. You want audio, you want music?

• 58:15Speaker 02

  And, and so that's because of that, that's just like so fun. And there's such a need for that, that we don't really have, um, we're not really looking to build any software now. Now there are softwares that creators can team up with. And if we find the right company, we'll do that. Just talking to a friend of mine, um, FaZe Banks. Um, he's from the part of the FaZe clan and one of the greatest human beings in the world. And we're just catching up yesterday. We just moved not too far from each other. And you know, he was just telling me how, you know, how much money, you know, they're, they're, they're uh um esports um um crew. And he was telling me about how much money they make off like skins, you know, and the number was crazy, crazy, like way more.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  I'm just thinking like, oh, and that's all profit, you know, you don't have to buy the product and build a fulfillment center, which is what we've done and, you know, deal with shipping and deal with, you know, all this. So you're just creating skins like that's just pure profitability. So if we get to that point where we can partner up with someone that makes sense and it makes sense for our audience, we'll definitely do that.

• 59:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I love that. Uh, you've been doing this for a long time. What's uh, what's one or two of the biggest lessons you've learned over the last, call it decade or so in, in the content business on the internet?

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Um, always be evolving, can't be comfortable, you know, an average creator last career last three years. Um, you know, like I said, you know, eventually people age up, just like an average TV show last three years, you know, and you're, you're, you know, Game of Thrones and these other ones that lots longer, but an average TV show last three years and average creators last three years. So don't with the sink, i- if the sink is shipping, you don't have to jump, just figure out how to not sink and keep sailing, you know, so um, you know, that, that's, that's the one thing. I think, you know, when, when, when, when the, when the ship is sailing, you know, I feel like, you know, they either,

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  you know, you either drown with it or you just jump off, but I think, you know, you gotta always be evolving. There's so many things to do, you know, like we just named all the different things that we didn't even really get into Snapchat or Twitter or, you know, uh, I mean, who knows, you know, some of these Chinese platforms. Um, yeah, the other Chinese platform, not the TikToks, but there's, there's, there's dozens of other ones in China. Uh, you know, I mean, we haven't even talked about any of that. We haven't talked about, uh, what's the one that reporters are using right now to write their own articles? Um, yeah, not medium, but there's a like a medium.

• 1:00:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Some stack, some stack.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, them, you know what I mean? Like, these are all places where you could like grow audiences. So keep, just keep doing that and don't be lopsided in one place.

• 1:00:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I love that. Uh, one of my favorite questions to ask people now is, uh, what is the best decision you've made in your career? And what is the worst decision you've made in your career?

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  The best decision I've made in my career has got to be building this studio. And a studio that is not a, um, that is not focused on one thing, focused on different thing. Because I'm someone that does go to sleep with ideas and dreams of new ideas and wakes up with new ideas. And, you know, to take away my anxiety, um, or this, or not to take away the anxiety, but take away anxiety before it's built. Up is like just experimenting, you know, as a creative, many creative people, you know, they, they, they get their anxiety. Um, and which could lead to other bad, dark things where there's depression, or drug use, or anything like that.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  As you just have to, as a creative person, not let it sit in your subconscious mind and get it out. And I think that's one of the reasons why we built the studio, like we could do almost anything. Record music, record videos, or film videos, uh, podcasts is, is that. And it's really helped me and, you know, not everything that we created has worked. We've done a lot of things that haven't worked as well, but at least I did it. You know, at least I'm happy about it. I don't regret anything that I've ever created, whether it worked or didn't work. We spent a lot of money on certain children's programming right before children's programming. Um, took a hit on monetization. I don't regret it. I loved it. You know, and when now we're doing other children programming, that's coming out of it. It's such a beneath the B.

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  So, you know, like the, you know, there's things that I, you know, that, that's the one thing. That I'm really proud of is just keep creating and not have, and let anything stop us.

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  Um, the thing I'm not proud of.

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  You know, uh, you know, I mean, I mean, there's like maybe a lot of little things, but there's not like a major thing that sticks out. And I think everything's always worked out, you know, um, moving from LA to San Francisco and back to LA. Worked out, help save the company and help me meet my fiance, you know, like, you know, so I can't say I would have like been at the plate, you know, the, the. The same place and time I was, you know, to me her if I didn't leave and come back. So there's, I mean, there's nothing, no mistakes. I mean, the one advice I have to give to anybody listening is, you know, always save your money. You know what I mean?

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Like if you want to experiment something, experiment small. Don't go huge. Because if you save your money, you have money in your bank account, you could do the first thing I was just not talking about is you go to experiment anything you want. You know, so, you know, we were lucky. We raised a lot of money for the app. We saved a lot of it to be able to make this pivot. We didn't have to bankrupt the company and start another company. You know what I mean? Like it was confusing some investors who invested into the app. But at the end of the day, we did a service to everybody, every investor. They came along with the journey, you know, but we did that because we were very, always very careful with how much we spent. No matter what it was, and you guys know, and those who know, listening, you know, how expensive rent and developers in San Francisco can be. And we always, you know, we didn't go and get the biggest place.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  We always treated it as if we were running on seed, uh, seed round money. And I think that's the one thing that I have to say that, you know, mistakes that I've almost made, but I didn't make is like blowing through money. Um, you know, if you don't blow through money, you could save and evolve and experiment. You know, I said, you know, I mentioned R and D earlier. You know, we have an R and D division, but it's not an R and D division. Like it's four million dollars a year to build whatever it wants. You know, it's, it's like, hey, build this, you have a fifteen hundred dollar budget. You know, I know what I said, sounds like it's going to cost twenty grand and I want it to look like it costs fifty grand. But you have fifteen hundred bucks to experiment that.

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  You know, I mean, that's what, that's one bit of advice I have to give any content creator, anyone who's getting into the production business. You know, people blow through cash a lot. You hear about companies raising a billion and, you know, filing for bankruptcy years later, you know.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  You don't have to do that, you know what I mean? Like, um, you know, some, you know, it's like, it's like alcohol, sometimes the cheaper the better, you know? Um, so, you know, so, you know, you, you don't have to spend a lot of money to create content on the internet, so don't do it.

• 1:05:27Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. That's great advice. Uh, two questions to finish up and then you're going to get to ask me one. Uh, the first one is more serious, which is what is the most important book that you've ever read?

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  Most important book I've ever read.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  You know, I try not to read too many business books, so I don't can't really say. Recommend a book that is relevant to everything we just talked about this past hour. Think the most important book I've ever read has to be the autobiography of Malcolm X. It really, but I read it early. I read it when I was, I think.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  Fifteen years old and to me like it. It taught me a lesson at fifteen to don't feel sorry for myself, you know, like the world is gonna be very. The world could be very cruel. Hopefully not as cruel to me as it has been to other people, but if it is, just keep, keep your head up. And keep going. And that's the one thing I remember just always feeling and even if I felt bullied or. You know, felt down or just felt made to be inadequate growing up. That song that that book always gave me courage. I recommend the book and then I recommend the movie.

• 1:06:49Speaker 02

  With Spike Lindzen's all Washington after I don't recommend ever watching it before. Cause I, I don't know, maybe you can, but I watched the movie after and it just kind of like. Visualized everything I had just read that it, but the. Book is just something else that I tried to actually advise a lot of friends and they. Hit some off guard. I was like, oh, I thought you didn't tell me what to read the Steve Jobs. Autobiography. I was like, no, or biography. I was like, no, no, you can read that too. I'm sure that's good, but read the autobiography of Malcolm X.

• 1:07:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Love that answer. You're the first person to recommend that one. So that's a, it's a great recommendation.

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  It's great. I hope, I hope, please you, um, anyone listening, please let me know after you read it. Let me know if I was right, wrong. It's been a long time since I've read it. So let me remind me of some of your favorite parts.

• 1:07:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, for sure. Uh, last question is more fun, which is, uh, aliens believer or non believer?

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Um.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  Man, you ask somebody else this in a podcast. It's a question you always ask, right?

• 1:07:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  You always say, "Yeah, I remember hearing and I remember starting to think about it." And then I got freaked out, which means I've got to be a believer. Um, I don't know much. I probably don't know much more than almost anybody here except for, uh, who was the president? I, you know, I, I forgot what president. I think it was the president before Kennedy. Um, had a, like, there's like this article, like, online that he had a meeting with the aliens out in, like, the desert in California. Yeah, there's a, there's like one of the US presidents had a meeting. It was like a legitimate site. I don't remember which site, but it was, it wasn't like, you know, aliens123.net. Like, it was like a legitimate, like, publication that actually, like, written it, like, one of the newspapers back then read an article that so-and-so, um, had a meeting. So,

• 1:08:40Speaker 02

  you know, I, I think they're there. Um, I, I, I personally, you know, maybe this is like, just how I feel in just general life is I think they're harmless. You know, I don't think they're gonna come here and suck the soul out of us and throw us back or, you know, I mean, I don't think it's like that. Um, I think they're gonna, you know, but I don't know. Well, actually, maybe they're not though. Maybe they do do that, because I feel like we would do that to them if we landed on one of their planets. So, you know, um, you know, I know they're there, you know, are they gonna come after me? I don't know. Um, but I do think, I do think there's definitely, like, it's very egotistic, I think, to say there is not, um, any other life but us. You know, I think there's gotta be life out there.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  Now, I don't think it's how, you know, these Hollywood movies over the last few decades have kind of portrayed them, because they have no idea.

• 1:09:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I, I, I, I tend to agree with you, right? It's one of these-

• 1:09:33Speaker 02

  Just like we didn't get flying cars. You know what I mean? Just like they're, just like they were right about flying cars in 2000. Supposed to be now, wasn't it? You know, like, you know, um, yeah, I don't think they're right.

• 1:09:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Instead, we got, what is Tesla? They've got the like crazy mode or whatever. You press the button and

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  Oh, it's like a disco.

• 1:09:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and I think also just goes like incredibly fast or whatever, right?

• 1:09:58Speaker 02

  Oh, I didn't know that one. Yeah.

• 1:09:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, they got a button, I think, in one version of the car where you basically press it and it just, you know, takes off. And so it's like we get flying cars, but we got discos and like

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  I've seen a disco mode one. Disco mode, one of the creators we work with, she has a Tesla. And like she hits a button and it starts like doing something crazy. I don't know. You know, I think Elon was like on something, you know, like when he's designing those things, like God bless him in his brain. He's one of my favorite people in the world. Like, I've actually, because of Sherpa, and I actually have had expensive time with them. And the dude is just, you know, is what you see is what you get with him. And yeah, I think he's an incredible person. And I think when it comes to innovation, I believe he's just getting stupid. You know, I think this is all they want for Elon Musk.

• 1:10:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Love that. You get to ask me one question to wrap up. What one question you have?

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  Let's see, what, um,

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  I'm gonna ask that too basic.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  Where do you see, actually, I want to ask this, but more for me and even listeners, because I talked about podcasts. I'm like, where do you see podcasts going? Like, why, you know, where do you see it? And, you know, and kind of maybe a second question, but relevant to the first question is, and why has it been so explosive in the last couple of years?

• 1:11:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, so I don't know for sure, right? Obviously, just my personal opinion. The two things I would say is, I think, podcast, I forget who said this to me, it just stuck in my head when they said it. But the idea that right now you have AirPods in your ear and you hear someone's voice in your ear. That's a very intimate experience, right? You're just hearing them and it's just so close and kind of intrusive. Some way, but you're inviting it in. I think that is a really big piece of it. It's a very different medium than watching somebody or

• 1:12:03Anthony Pompliano?

  you know, consuming an Instagram post or whatever, for whatever reason. It's just like podcast, audio only in your ear, very intimate experience. So I think that is one piece of it. The second piece is it's very repeatable and it's very kind of action oriented, meaning that I can open up Instagram and I'm kind of at the wheel of Instagram. So the feed may give me your content and maybe give me somebody else's. It may give me whoever else's. Now they're trying to predict what I want, right? So there's an element of like, they're trying to give me that. But for a podcast, I actually have to click and say play, right? And so that action of like, I'm constantly coming back and I'm listening to John's podcast and I'm actively clicking in and playing it.

• 1:12:47Anthony Pompliano?

  It builds this habitual thing where like, again, to your point, like people become fans, right? They literally, they're there because they want to be there. It's not something where they just are kind of mindlessly scrolling and it counts as a view or whatever. And so I think that naturally people pay more attention to things that they actively have to engage in. And so when you think of it from that standpoint, it feels like a medium where if you can build the repeatability, right? And kind of the retention of people listening over and over and over again, that relationship between the creator and the audience is

• 1:13:25Anthony Pompliano?

  goes much deeper than let's say if somebody follows me on Instagram, right? So if you said to me like, hey, pick a platform where somebody is a follower subscriber. I would say either Twitter or podcast. Now Twitter for me is just because I create so much content there. Or the podcast is like, if I can get somebody to listen to a podcast every day or multiple times a week, like that is such a strong relationship with that person. They're going to understand, you know, everything that I talk about. They're going to share everything the guests talk about, right? They're going to learn a lot. But like, it's such a deep relationship that I think people probably don't listen to like hundreds of podcasts, right? They probably have, you know, 10 or less.

• 1:14:06Anthony Pompliano?

  And so you just go much deeper on that medium with those 10 people versus, you know, at this point, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, wherever, like people subscribe because the platform's been around for so long, so many different people that it's much harder, I think, to build that like deep relationship with the audience.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. And I think it's really maybe the only way to do it unless you actually do a thing where, hey, you could come and sit down with me, you know, one on one, you know, but you know, how are you going to scale that? Now, those are both very helpful and you're right, you're right about the AirPods in your ear. And, you know, and now you can find them almost anywhere. It's just crazy to me and I think about this all the time and I would think about this sometimes when my mom calls us Spotify is how did Apple not just own this? Like, how did they let this go? You know, like?

• 1:15:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's the thing. So I keep hearing this, right? And I hear from creators, I hear from like management companies, I even hear it from other like podcasts, like service companies, so whether they do hosting or whatever. But every single creator I talk to, fifty percent of downloads come from Apple. And it feels like, you know, I think to your point, like they're not even trying. Right? Like they're not going out and acquiring a bunch of content, they're not doing a bunch of things. Spotify has made a massive push, you know, it's a priority at the company, they're both a team and like, and they're really going after it. But every creator I talk to, fifty percent of downloads come from Apple.

• 1:15:41Anthony Pompliano?

  And I think, I think it's really just they're on the iPhone devices. Most likely, you know, for me, I think fifty, sixty percent of the audience is in the US. Right? So you only get forty to fifty percent outside the US. The iPhone market share penetration in the US is off the charts, right? And then Android kind of internationally, you know, really makes up for it. And so when you think of it that way, it's like, it's very weird that they haven't tried, or at least they it appears they haven't tried, but they still fifty percent compared to everyone else.

• 1:16:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, they're still fifty percent, but those numbers are going to change as the audience gets younger, right? Like now you're seeing a lot of content creators launching their podcasts, you're going to see a lot of TikTok creators launch podcasts. And that audience is, that's going to be a younger audience, which is always, almost has been Android. I mean, it was, it was almost all Android at one point and now they hand me down phones that, you know, are becoming older iPhones, but it's still Android and as the audience gets international.

• 1:16:45Speaker 02

  Into markets like, you know, say, get down to Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, you know, these are all top markets. I mean, Indonesia is not a really top market for Spotify. It was a top market for YouTube and, and, and others. But, you know, these, these markets, you know, as, as you, these audiences start growing, you know, podcasts become a thing in non-apple penetrated markets, you know, they're really gonna lose a lot more market share. You know, I could tell you right now, like, Apple music consumption for songs in Brazil is something, you know, is like, less than 10%. I, I even think, I don't, I know it's definitely less than 10%. I even think it's maybe even 1% or 2%. You know, and, you know, but music is

• 1:17:30Speaker 02

  a little bit different, because, you know, someone in Brazil, who, you know, which most of their population speaks Portuguese, will still listen to a song by, you know, a non-Brazilian artist. They might not listen to an hour podcast. So, but still, like, there's still, like, market share, you know, I mean, Brazilians, when, when Brazil gets into podcasts, I mean, and they have already, like, I know Spotify had like, a, some roadshow down there, and some, like, 600 different creators showed up at the Spotify one. So, but, once podcasts really blow up in Brazil, whether it's in Portuguese or, or English, Apple's gonna have none of that market share. Zero. You know what I mean? Like, music's only a couple

• 1:18:14Speaker 02

  percent. What's podcasts, you know, gonna be? So, and Spotify's just going to own that, or YouTube, whenever, you know, they're, you know, I mean, everyone uploads clips onto YouTube, but, or almost everyone uploads clips on YouTube, but if YouTube actually, you know, gets into, that has a podcast division, vertical team, you know, they'll, they'll be on Spotify or YouTube. And it just blows my mind that Apple, but, but doesn't blow my mind. I mean, like, I don't care about podcasts. You know what I mean? We're selling millions of these devices at thousands of dollars. Like, shut up about free podcasts.

• 1:18:47Anthony Pompliano?

  You got $200 billion of cash, or whatever it is, right?

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  That's what I mean. Like, maybe, like, we don't care. Yeah, we'll buy everybody. Well, you know what I mean? We're, yeah, yeah, exactly. We'll buy Spotify, we'll buy, you know, I mean, they can't buy any Google products, but they could buy Spotify. They could buy almost anyone else. It's not a, you know, top tech company. So, or top five type of company. But, um, Yeah, maybe that's what it is, you know, and I always think to myself, like even music, like, how are they not so much more bigger? But you know, or even a lot of things, even like the the Mac Mail app is so bad. I'm like, I don't care, go ahead and use Gmail, you know, I mean, just give us the thousand bucks for the phone. Okay, like, shut up and just give us a thousand bucks and three thousand dollars for the laptop and that's it.

• 1:19:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Somehow, everything keeps getting more expensive, right? Remember when the iPhone was, you know, six hundred bucks or seven hundred bucks, right? Now it's a thousand. I remember what computers right there keep seem to get more and more expensive, so.

• 1:19:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:43Anthony Pompliano?

  It's something.

• 1:19:45Speaker 02

  But there's something Apple did drop the ball on. And actually, Alex, I think Alex talks about it with you on your one of your previous podcast episodes is um. In home hardware. Yeah, like, how did they let that one slip? Because it's too late at this point. I mean, yeah, I'm I'm a Google guy, so I use all Nest products. But, you know, between Google and Amazon, you know, like, you know, maybe Facebook Portal, maybe. But, you know, between Google and Amazon, like, how are you going to come close to competing with that? So like, I think like that, I don't know, I don't know, I think, you know, I won't see the that changing, you know. But again, maybe don't care.

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  That's fine, go ahead, use the the the doorbell for two hundred bucks, just buy our phone, you know? It's not fifteen hundred dollars, it's not two thousand, it's now three thousand, you know? So.

• 1:20:37Anthony Pompliano?

  It's gonna be interesting to see what they do because they got the big push into services now. And, you know, they're they're doing pretty well, but I I definitely agree that there's areas where UI and others would have thought they went and didn't. So.

• 1:20:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:20:52Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, John, listen, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this, this is fantastic. I think you'll learn it on and we'll have to do it again in the future.

• 1:20:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would love to, anytime.