First Time Founders with Ed Elson – This Founder Makes Viral TV Shows For TikTok

Ed speaks with Adam Faze from Gymnasium, a production company that makes television shows for social media. They discuss the future of television, how to monetize viral videos, and using TikTok to effect policy change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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• 1:29Ed Elson?

  Scott, how much time do you think you spend on TikTok every day?

• 1:33Scott Galloway?

  I spend probably 10 minutes a day, maybe 15 on TikTok, 10 or 15. I'm spending more time on Reels. I think Reels has done a really good job. I don't, there's a lot that worries me about TikTok, but I really enjoy it. I think it's amazing. I would say I spend 15 minutes a day arguing with my son to get office phone where he's on TikTok. My son will go into the bathroom and then I'll look around 20 minutes later and he's still in the bathroom and I know he's on TikTok. And I'll bang on the door and it'll be like, privacy? And I'm like, no, start masturbating, but put down the TikTok.

• 2:11Scott Galloway?

  It's just, so my kids go into the bathroom so they can go on TikTok. I wish that, you know, anyways, not like, not like a good teenage boy should be doing, not like a healthy teenage boy. Anyways.

• 2:21Ed Elson?

  How much time do you think they're spending?

• 2:23Scott Galloway?

  Too much.

• 2:29Ed Elson?

  Welcome to First Time Founders. 1.6 billion. That's how many people use TikTok today with an average daily viewing time of 90 minutes. TikTok has become one of the most powerful platforms in entertainment. And with the rise of short form content has come the decline of the traditional film and TV industry. Since the pandemic, one in five moviegoers has disappeared. My next guest decided to take advantage of this shift by creating a production studio that makes television on TikTok. After launching in 2023, this founder raised venture funding at a $7.5 million valuation.

• 3:12Ed Elson?

  And with over 400 million views across multiple successful TikTok shows, he is well on his way to changing how and where we watch television. This is my conversation with Adam Faze, the head coach and co-founder of Gymnasium.

• 3:32Ed Elson?

  Adam, thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me. I'm going to start with a couple of stats and I'm just going to get your reaction to it. So since 2022, film and TV production in the US has fallen 40%. In the past decade, ticket sales for movies have fallen 40%. The unemployment rate in Hollywood is currently three times the national average, it's 12.5%. And I'm going to give you a few different stats, which is that the average TikTok user spends over an hour on TikTok every day. The TikTok user base since 2018 has sixxed. And crucially, 70% of Gen Z say that if given the choice, they would choose TikTok over any other streaming platform.

• 4:18Ed Elson?

  So. My first question to you is, is TikTok killing Hollywood?

• 4:23Speaker 05

  Yes, but I would also say that Hollywood's killing Hollywood. And I, and I say that as someone that worked in it for eight years. The reality is like, I'm one of those people in the last stat you mentioned. I would choose TikTok over any streaming platform. I just would.

• 4:37Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 4:37Speaker 05

  I worked in traditional Hollywood studios my whole life. I worked for producers my whole life. And the reality is it's too big, too bloated and too slow to ever make an impact in this generation. And when any kid out there with an iPhone and a microphone in their pocket can create something on a whim and post it within a matter of hours, you're just not going to compete with that speed. And that's what we're trying to do with Gymnasium.

• 4:58Ed Elson?

  So give us the story on Gymnasium. What is it actually doing? And just a little highlight here, you have accumulated over 400 million views on TikTok just from creating your own content, from basically treating TikTok like TV. Tell us about Gymnasium. What does the business do?

• 5:16Speaker 05

  We really think that short form content is the closest thing we have to the TV that you and I grew up watching. And so in our minds, Gymnasium is going to create the next generation of TV show hits. We create things that look and feel like TV. These are mostly unscripted formats that are mostly comedic, usually with rising talent. Our biggest show is called Boy Room, and it's where this girl investigates how disgusting men's bedrooms are and then gives advice on how to make them better.

• 5:39Speaker 06

  Levi seems to care about having a nice room, but then leaves piles of dirty laundry and like seven dirty dishes.

• 5:46Speaker 05

  The coolest part about all of this is you can hear an idea that you think is really good. You can go and shoot a pilot within a week. Let's say it's good enough to go shoot a few more episodes. You'll know pretty quickly, usually within the first four or five episodes, if the audience actually wants this show or not.

• 6:00Ed Elson?

  Right.

• 6:00Speaker 05

  And so the time it takes for us to know if we should, you know, continue on with the show or cancel it is probably the same amount of time it takes for Hollywood to set a pitch meeting. And this all kind of started because of the feelings I had in traditional. I was really frustrated with not being able to sell any formats. I was frustrated with the development timelines, even when I was just working on the other side of the aisle at a studio. And at the same time, during the pandemic, I became addicted to TikTok. I just did. And I saw that the more I was using TikTok, the less I was watching TV. And so there was like that light bulb moment of like, if that's me and I grew up being the most obsessed with movies and TV shows kid you could possibly find. And I'm in my mid twenties at that point. Anyone younger than me, this is just TV and we're cooked.

• 6:41Speaker 05

  And I remember going into my boss the next day and just being like, I, he was like, what's wrong?

• 6:46Ed Elson?

  Respectfully, you are cooked.

• 6:47Speaker 05

  And we sit down, he's like, what's wrong? And I'm like, I don't know what we're doing here. And he's like, what do you mean? I'm like, we're arguing over what hundred million dollar movie we should make that will come out five years from now, if we're lucky, that maybe 20 people on Brett would think is like riveting. But at the end of the day, like, it is not the center of culture that made us go in this industry in the first place. Like, that center of culture is now this thing right here. And at that point, it was also a scary feeling for me. I had never made digital content before. I'd never even posted a TikTok myself. And so all I had was there was an opportunity to move to New York to work for this web three startup. And they had enough sort of VC capital to take a bet on me believing that like, let's go see what happens if you go make TV shows for TikTok. So they gave me like a modest budget, 25 grand.

• 7:27Ed Elson?

  Wait, wait, wait. Let me get that. I didn't know this. So you go to work for a crypto company.

• 7:32Speaker 05

  I did, unfortunately.

• 7:32Ed Elson?

  They have too much money. And they say, and you want to make movies?

• 7:36Speaker 05

  I'll back up even further.

• 7:37Ed Elson?

  You use the crypto money to make movies?

• 7:39Speaker 05

  I'll back up even further. So this company.

• 7:40Ed Elson?

  This is what the crypto industry came to.

• 7:42Speaker 05

  I know, I know. And by the way, I will say, I was never a crypto person. I'm still not a crypto person. There was a time where I thought maybe I was the dumb one in the room. And then I realized, no, I was actually had some sanity.

• 7:51Ed Elson?

  I had screwed on straight.

• 7:52Speaker 05

  But this company had essentially sold a half a million dollars worth of NFTs to go make a dating show.

• 7:57Ed Elson?

  Wow.

• 7:57Speaker 05

  And they had never made a show before in their entire lives. And so somehow I get connected with them and they're like, hey, would you want to kind of move to New York for a few months and come like produce this dating show? The idea was if you owned an NFT, you could like vote in the bachelor, bachelorette, like in each episode.

• 8:09Ed Elson?

  Right.

• 8:10Speaker 05

  And we go and make the show. We spent half a million dollars making it. And parts of it were so unsuccessful, which was like online, I think in its entire run, we had something like 15,000 views on YouTube, like literally nothing. But we did do these like fun in-person premieres every Sunday where we'd have like a live audience, they'd watch the episode and then we'd go straight into a live talk show afterwards with like all the guests from that episode and like celebrity guest judges, whatever. That part grew from like 200 people the first week to selling out Webster Hall five weeks later with a thousand people in the audience. And so there was clearly like something like, okay, like this is reminding people of like the old days of TRL or SNL and like, it's messy, but maybe people will like the mess. But my biggest frustration was like, I just came to digital and blew half a million dollars

• 8:51Speaker 05

  through, you know, I think that 15,000 people watching, that's not what I came to the space to do.

• 8:56Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 05

  And so at that point, I sat down with the founders of the company and just said, look, It's TikTok. This is the thing that I use every single day. This is the thing that I think we can generate IP from scratch on. Just give me a budget of like 25 grand and let's just go see what happens. And so they said yes. And I started sitting down with the people that I thought were really great talent at that point. The first of which being Kareem Rama, who now hosts Subway Takes. Yeah. He's like, I have this one idea that I pitched to every network and streamer for five years. No one's wanted it. I was like, what is it? He's like, I want to hail a cab in New York and I want to tell the driver to take me to their favorite place in the city and keep the meter running. I was like, that's a phenomenal fucking idea for a show. Two days later, we're standing on Delancey. We're like trying to hail a cab. Each cab is just passing by. They're like freaked out from the cameras.

• 9:41Speaker 05

  Until this one guy pulls up and he's like, you want to pay me $300? I'll be in your show. And he takes us to Jackson Heights. We eat Pakistani food with him. And you could tell when you're filming it, you're like, this is like a magical moment. This feels like Bourdain. Yeah. We end up cutting it down. We post it on account with zero followers three days later. Taxi.

• 10:00Speaker 05

  Take me to your favorite place and keep the meter running.

• 10:03Speaker 07

  Where you want to go?

• 10:04Speaker 05

  I'll add wherever you want to go. And the next morning Kareem like walks into a bodega and someone comes up to him and is like, I fucking love your show, man. And he's like, wait, who are you talking to? Who are you talking to? And Kareem pulls out his phone and that one episode that was posted on account with zero followers had over a million and a half views. Unbelievable. And what we saw on the backend was 98% of that audience at that point was in New York City. So it's like overnight, he had become a celebrity in the city with a basically local television show that we had produced. That show went on to have over 100 million views on its own. It traveled to London. It traveled to Miami. It traveled to Egypt. And I think that really set the stage for what we saw as like this much bigger vision. And so based on the success of that show, I was sort of sitting there being like, look,

• 10:48Speaker 05

  my passion is being a producer. It's not working for a crypto company. And at the end of the day, I do think there's a world where the next great television studio is going to be made right here on this platform. The biggest question is just how are you going to make money doing that? Because this platform will not pay you. Are you making money? That's my question. Yes. And what I would say is like, it still is the wild, wild west, but we're trying to be a lot smarter about the shows we produce. Just to sort of like make sure that we can make money off of these things. The reality of the situation is like, I think Hollywood is going to start facing a lesson that the music industry learned 20 years ago, which is that the content itself is not going to be the thing that makes money anymore. And so for us, assuming that we're going to make zero dollars from any platform that we're on, we focus on sort of like two angles. One is brand integration into our content.

• 11:33Speaker 05

  And the other is seeing if the show that we're producing might actually generate a brand to come out of. And so what I mean by that is like on Boy Room, our biggest show right now, the reason we loved that idea so much wasn't just because Rachel Coaster is the funniest person we'd ever met. But we really thought if we can make this a viral show, there's a home renovation component to this. And maybe if we can convince like an e-commerce giant to come in and partner with us in the next season of the show, to start renovating men's bedrooms. That show blew up in a way that we had never experienced before. It got more press attention than any show we've ever worked on. And again, Rachel was someone who had 3,000 followers on Instagram when we found her and now cannot walk down the street in New York anymore without being accosted for photos.

• 12:15Speaker 05

  We started talking to these e-commerce giants pretty quickly as the press started picking up, being like, guys, we have this bigger vision for the show. And can we convince you to buy into this thing that no one's really ever done before? And after months of negotiating with a few of these companies, we just closed a massive deal around the next season of the show, where we are going to be able to actually start renovating these men's bedrooms in New York and LA with furniture from this platform. And so that's like a first of its kind thing. And I think there will be trials and errors as we continue to go here. But I will say in talking with these brands, they are for the first time realizing like, we're pulling spending on TV.

• 12:53Speaker 05

  We like sponsoring influencers, but it's not that great of a business for us. And so like, we need to find more of a mainstay home for where we can put our brand. And the reality is like, shows are a safer bet.

• 13:04Ed Elson?

  Presumably you're taking a hundred percent of the advertising dollars, right? If you're creating those direct relationships.

• 13:09Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 13:09Ed Elson?

  Which is great. How does it compare to YouTube? Because YouTube, you can make money. YouTube pays you. TikTok doesn't pay.

• 13:19Speaker 05

  Of those four hundred million views we've gotten, I think we've probably been paid maybe like fifteen thousand dollars from TikTok. So like it's just not even.

• 13:25Ed Elson?

  Is paying you, but they're just paying you terrible.

• 13:27Speaker 05

  Dollar.

• 13:28Ed Elson?

  Wow, okay, I didn't realize that. So how are all these TikTokers? Like, how are the?

• 13:32Speaker 05

  It's all brand sponsorship. I mean, I think I just read a stat today that said something like influencers made one billion dollars off of platform revenue this year, but they made eight billion dollars from sponsorship. So clearly there's a lot more money from sponsorship.

• 13:45Ed Elson?

  Yeah, well, that's exactly the way you should be doing it, right?

• 13:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:48Ed Elson?

  So let's just talk a little bit more about TikTok versus Hollywood. One thing that I find interesting is this idea of decision fatigue. Netflix watchers, people who watch Netflix spend seventy eight hours per year deciding what to watch. So talk to us about how your view on decision fatigue. How does decision fatigue play into the rise of TikTok today?

• 14:11Speaker 05

  I mean, the reality is like, I think that's where original TV was better in some ways. You could just scroll the channels and like you're eventually going to find something that you want. And I think that is what TikTok is tapping into. If I have an hour to spare and I am on my couch, I'm gonna go on TikTok. I'm not gonna open Netflix and do the seventy eight hours per year of scrolling. It's just, I know I'm not gonna find the thing that I want to watch. And so I think that that's the thing, like these platforms are so personal as to what your interests are at this point, that you're more likely to be entertained. And that is where, at the end of the day, like, look, our content is on every platform. We want to be wherever you are because we don't know what platform you're on.

• 14:46Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 05

  But I do think TikTok is the best player in the space, only because the consumer habit that makes you open it is I want to watch entertainment. It's not, I want to watch things for my friends. It's not, I want to talk to my friends. It's literally, I want to be entertained and that is what TV is.

• 14:59Ed Elson?

  Yeah, there's this other great stat, which is that forty three percent of TikTok users say that they use TikTok for, quote, mindless entertainment. How do you, as a TikTok production company?

• 15:11Ed Elson?

  Grapple with that. How do you grapple with the fact that you want to create content that is ultimately supposed to be mindless? Or is it supposed to be something else?

• 15:19Speaker 05

  I mean, I think the thing that I think about the most is like, for every person that goes on TikTok, you're probably consuming about 200 videos in that session. And that includes everything from like, a funny meme to some horrifying news around the world, to, you know, someone doing a dance, to a music video. Like, it's just like, it's so different. And so it's like, how do you create that concept that sticks out so much? And you watch that one episode and you're like, give me 500 more of these? And that is kind of what we strive for. So like, everything we've ever made is very much like a format where you can kind of plug and play. Every episode is a little bit different of the same thing, just so that you can go and binge. And what we've heard from our fans is like, even on a show like Keep the Mute Running, I have friends who found that show after episode 50.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  And they end up spending two hours in bed, binging every episode, but in backwards.

• 16:06Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 05

  And so I think like, that is what we strive for in any show that we make. And it does just mean looking back a little bit to like, the early 2000s of cable TV formats for inspiration.

• 16:15Ed Elson?

  So what do you think is the secret sauce then? I kind of think of you as like, the king of virality when it comes to TikTok and short form content. What makes a show great? Why, when, when Rachel said, I want to look at boys discussing rooms, what was so compelling about that as an idea?

• 16:32Speaker 05

  I mean, it's really, it's simple. It's, it's two things. You have to have the best talent.

• 16:35Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 05

  You really just have to have a star. And they're not easy to find, but when you find them, that, that's what makes this thing perform the best. The other is, you have to have a format that you can't look away from. When you're watching the opening frame of Boy Room, and it's some disgusting men's bedrooms in Philly without a door, you're gonna keep watching. And thankfully, Rachel can carry it to the end, because like, you, you now love her as a host.

• 16:57Ed Elson?

  Right.

• 16:57Speaker 05

  When Kareem gets in a cab, and he tells the driver, take me to a fair place and keep the Mute running, you're not gonna stop watching. Like, there's a party that's like- I want to ask that question to a cab driver. And so it really is those two factors. And the reality is like, we try so many different pilots internally and kill so many shows because it doesn't get to that point.

• 17:16Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 05

  We even just made a show called Bodega Run that we only did, I think, the 10 or 11 episodes of. And we canceled it because, look, the first three episodes actually got a combined like 30 million views across YouTube and TikTok combined. We didn't want to watch it. Like, it would come on my feed and I would scroll. And the last six episodes, I think, are representative of that because it had a combined like 200,000 views. And it's like, clearly, there's not a consistency here. You don't want to watch 100 episodes.

• 17:41Ed Elson?

  And what was the premise of Bodega Run?

• 17:43Speaker 05

  It was kind of like our version of supermarket sweep. It was like, we would go to real-life bodegas, we'd find someone outside, we'd say, you have 60 seconds, go find these three items and check out. And if you do, we'll give you $100. And they had these GoPros attached to their heads. It was like, very much like 360 camera, looking at what they're looking at. And we had cameras that would go into the bodegas. And it was funny.

• 18:03Speaker 08

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, where is? Where's the stuff at? Wait a minute. Where's the Campbell's soup?

• 18:08Speaker 05

  But it wasn't a hit show. It just didn't have that quality of a really amazing format. And so I think game shows are the space that we'd like to be in, but it's a little tougher to crack and have that thing that's like, perfect.

• 18:20Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 18:21Speaker 05

  Whereas diving into a certain world and crafting a format around that is always going to be more fun for us.

• 18:29Ed Elson?

  We'll be right back.

• 18:45Scott Galloway?

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• 22:25Ed Elson?

  We're back with first-time founders. You worked in Hollywood. You were a fan of TV shows and movies. And it kind of feels like what's sort of happening with the entertainment space is the virtues of long form, which is basically the virtues of narrative. It feels like narrative has basically been thrown away. Someone who can write a great story with a beginning, middle, and an end actually isn't useful anymore. What matters most is basically just the premise. It's like, can your first sentence be interesting? And that's all that matters. Do you feel like that's kind of what's happening to entertainment?

• 23:02Speaker 05

  Yes, and I to correct one thing, just because I don't want to be destroyed by, you know, the people I do look up to in Hollywood still. Like, I don't think movies and TV shows are going away forever. I think that we're going to watch far fewer of them. I do think that means that the ones you do watch become that much more impactful.

• 23:18Ed Elson?

  By the way, that's what the market is telling us because the the top movies are taking all of the revenue now.

• 23:24Speaker 05

  Yeah. And when you do have a moment like Barbie or Oppenheimer, it's like, yeah, everyone around the world watched that movie. That is a huge impact on society.

• 23:31Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 05

  And so I'm not dooming and glooming in that sense. But I am saying that like the old days of spending three hours flipping channels of your TV are completely gone. You're going to watch TV for sports. You're going to watch it for like the big hyped up Netflix show that everyone's talking about. But otherwise, you're going to be on your phone. And so on the like first three seconds of it all, it is super important. You do need to have a really interesting premise. I think there's people that have different interpretations of what that means. I think there's the side of Mr. Beast that's like, don't stop watching. We're going to blow up a school bus and like, okay, I'll I'll watch, fine. But I think we're trying to do something completely different, which is like, what's a really fun idea of just again, a world that you want to be in while you're in bed.

• 24:09Ed Elson?

  Something I've noticed, I mean, you mentioned that most of your shows are unscripted. All of them are unscripted?

• 24:13Speaker 05

  All of them are unscripted.

• 24:14Ed Elson?

  All of them. It feels like the TikTok, YouTube sort of creator economy trend is in the unscripted direction. I can't really think of anyone on these platforms who's creating really popular scripted content.

• 24:29Ed Elson?

  Why do you think that is? Why? Why are the winners here doing unscripted?

• 24:33Speaker 05

  Look, there's two sides where scripted comes into play. There's sketch comedy and some of these sketch comedy groups like Please Don't Destroy end up becoming sort of the stars of SNL.

• 24:40Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 05

  The other side is there's actually a really amazing generation of young horror filmmakers, who I think are like our generation's James Wan, who every single day are putting out some of the scariest fucking things I've ever seen in my entire life. Those people will be using these platforms to become the next generation of filmmakers. I think why you don't see more like dramas or sort of another side of the scripted narrative part is it's just more expensive. Like, as soon as you have a script, you need actors. As soon as you have actors, you need makeup, then you need props, and then you need a set, and then lighting, and then you need a grip and a gaffer. And then you kind of end up being stuck in the same situation.

• 25:13Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 05

  And so I think like it is the low budget formats that are going to thrive the most on these platforms. And if you look at just traditional Hollywood, the low budget, you know, genres have always been unscripted in horror.

• 25:23Ed Elson?

  It sounds like we don't care that much about quality anymore because the experience is only going to last 30 seconds and you can just scroll.

• 25:30Speaker 05

  And that's where, I mean, I think. I was always taught as a young person who made a bunch of short films was like, don't think that you need an Ari Alexa, think that you need a good script and that you need, you do need good audio. That's the one thing you really do need. But otherwise, like, no one cares what camera you film this thing on.

• 25:44Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Speaker 05

  And the other thing is, we're dealing with a generation of kids who have consumed advertisements since the day they were born.

• 25:51Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 25:51Speaker 05

  And so I actually think at this point, when they see an Ari Alexa filmed piece of content on their feed, they think it's an ad and they want to scroll immediately. We shoot everything we do on Sony FX3s. It's like the perfect balance of looking like it was made for you while still feeling professional. And so like, when you do scroll up on one of our shows.

• 26:08Ed Elson?

  But what do you mean by looking, looking like it was made for you? Like, sort of looking at casual?

• 26:12Speaker 05

  It looks like, it, it still feels like it, it fits on the platform. It doesn't feel like, oh, this person spent a million dollars and is trying to fit in. It's like, okay, this was like just lo-fi enough where it still makes sense here, but it's hi-fi enough where it's not just like an iPhone video. And I think that's probably the camera we're going to continue to film our content on forever in the short form space.

• 26:32Ed Elson?

  Why is, why is that important? This is something I've been finding really interesting about our generation where we have sort of this weird obsession with authenticity and we're extremely sensitive to bullshit. I think because we've consumed so many ads. I mean, the number is, we consume 300 ads per hour, which is up tenfold from what our parents were experiencing. So it does feel that we are extremely sensitive or we can just sort of sniff ads out, out of nowhere. But what you're describing is interesting because you're kind of saying, we are intentionally making it low production to make it sort of look more authentic perhaps than it actually is. Take us through what you're.

• 27:15Speaker 05

  What I would also say, it's a cost thing too. Like, shooting on these Sony FX3s, like, my sets have never been more than three people, you know? And so you have two people, both holding the cameras that also have the microphones on them. And you have a host and a producer. Like, that's what our, our crew looks like. And if I had an Ari Alexa, I would need a DP. I wouldn't need lighting. I wouldn't need a grip and a gaffer. And like, the reality is, spending all that money is not going to make a better piece of content on these platforms. So it's both something that I think performs better on the platform, but. It's also what allows our business model to work. Like, to put it simply, season one of Boy Room, we produced 22 episodes, only 14 of which came out. Some of the guys just either weren't messy enough, or like were pretending to be messy and we threw those episodes out. But of those 22 episodes that we shot, the entire thing cost us $48,000.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  That's impossible. That's a coffee budget on an HBO show. And so like, why, again, it's like, but then we found the market fit, right? Like, we know now that Boy Room is a hit show. And there's a world where that does turn into a TV show at some point. And like, this kind of turns into the comic book model, where it's like, we can go generate IP at a fraction of the cost of Hollywood and then decide what we want to do with it. I think there's a version where some of our shows turn into just 18 to 20 minute YouTube shows. I think there's another world where some of them turn into TV shows. But at the end of the day, it is creating IP at a fraction of the cost.

• 28:31Ed Elson?

  One of your investors is kind of peak Hollywood.

• 28:35Ed Elson?

  That is Jeremy Zimmer, who's the CEO of UTA, which is basically one of the biggest entertainment talent agencies in the world.

• 28:44Ed Elson?

  What does he think of you, but more generally, what does Hollywood think? Have people come up to you? Do they like you? Are they scared of you? What do they think?

• 28:51Speaker 05

  It's a combination of all of them. And I was so honored that Jeremy wanted to be in the round. He's become a close friend and it's been really nice to be able to call on him and take his brain. I think the older generation of entertainment sees the rising tide and knows to start looking at where, where things are going. I also think the older generation have kids old enough to recognize their viewing habits have changed. And can actually be a witness to the fact of like, oh, we're fucked.

• 29:17Ed Elson?

  They have to experience it.

• 29:18Speaker 05

  Whereas like the 30 something year old creative executive who grew up in a different industry, who's hoping to still have their big Oscar moment, they hate me and they hate TikTok and they hate the platform. And you can see it anytime there's any article or anything we produce, all the comments are like, can we just ban this thing already? I hate this thing. And it's like, I wish they would just download TikTok because I know they would have actually the greatest time of all time. And then they would, they would start agreeing with it. The other thing is like, we're not supposed to be competition. Like, come on in, the water's warm. The entire history of television can be recreated on this platform and it's not going to be done by just one studio.

• 29:52Ed Elson?

  You mentioned, can we ban this thing already? TikTok might get banned. What do you think of that?

• 29:58Speaker 05

  It's a touchy subject. What I will say is I think you can't put the short form content thing back in the hat. I think we love consuming content this way. And so if it were to go away tomorrow, I think some of that viewership would go to Instagram reels. I think some would go to YouTube shorts, although I think YouTube is afraid of shorts a little bit because it cannibalizes what's an amazing business for them, which is longer form content. I think there's probably space for a new app to come in, only because of what I said earlier, which is like that consumer habit about TikTok of just opening it to consume content is not the same on Instagram. Instagram, I'm going on first to see my DMs, to look at my stories, see things from my friends. And then maybe I'll get stuck in like a brain rot, you know, reels feed. But it's not the thing that I'm going on Instagram for.

• 30:43Speaker 05

  So I just think you can't put this thing back in the bag. And for us, like, we're going to continue to be on every single platform that's available because we think that we're going to forever have the best content on that platform.

• 30:53Ed Elson?

  I'd like to get into Instagram reels.

• 30:57Ed Elson?

  730 million active users on Instagram reels. So it's sort of, it's still behind TikTok, which is at 1.6 billion, but it's, it's definitely catching up. Break down for us why you think that's an important distinction? That Instagram reels is a component of the Instagram experience versus the entire product? Why do you think that makes it so substantially different from TikTok?

• 31:20Speaker 05

  It's almost too social, you know? And I think the thing that's so magical about TikTok is like, again, I actually don't want to see content from my friends because they probably don't make good videos. And when I'm like watching a funny video on TikTok from a stranger, the first thing I do is open the comments. And like, I read other funny comments and like, that's my experience. Like, I don't need to have my friends be on that platform. With Instagram, it's tricky. I think there's so many distractions on the platform because you have incoming DMs and you want to see posts from your friends. That longer form content that just kind of suffers on the platform. I will say like, BoiRum does pretty amazingly on reels. We get anywhere from half a million to a million viewers an episode on the platform. So like, still really happy with it. But I think like, when I open my reels tab, the average length of a video

• 32:02Speaker 05

  That I would say it shows me is probably around 20 seconds long and almost all of them are memes. And that works really well for the platform because the entire point of reels on Instagram is they want to show you content that you're going to send to your friends because that makes them watch the content. And like, you're more likely to send a meme to your friend than maybe an episode of a show. So I'm excited to see how they change that. I've heard rumors that they want to do longer form content, start prioritizing that in the algorithm. I hope they do. And we're just going to continue posting there until that happens. But the only difference for us as well is like on Instagram reels, in order to be in the algorithm, your content has to be under 90 seconds long. Sometimes our TikTok content will be two and a half, three, three and a half minutes long. And so we end up cutting our content differently based on the platform we're posting it to.

• 32:48Ed Elson?

  How have you found sort of grappling with the algorithm? I feel like that's, that's another huge part of this because in Hollywood, it used to be that the, the barrier to entry was could you get past the executives? Did the guy in the room like you? And it's now at a point where it's, does the algorithm like you? And in a lot of ways, that makes things easier because it means that you can just sort of pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just get involved immediately at very low costs. But also you don't even know what they want. We don't know how the algorithm works. It's this sort of mythical beast that we can't truly understand. You've kind of cracked it though. What does the algorithm want?

• 33:29Speaker 05

  Good shit. I've never disagreed with what it has made perform for us and what it hasn't. Like literally as a company, anytime we've posted something that hasn't performed, the next we've all been like, yeah, it kind of sucked. That, that was, that was pretty shitty. And I think like Bodega Run was part of that. Like by the end of it, it was just like, we didn't have any heart in the show whatsoever.

• 33:49Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  And so I don't know, I, that might be my famous last words and the algorithm shifts and all of a sudden I'm fucked. But I haven't seen that to be the case yet. You know, I think it's really good about testing content in front of an audience until it finds the audience that will like your content. You know, I'll say like a story from Boy Room. We posted the first episode on Instagram, gets like 250 K views. We're like, that's sick. Posted on TikTok. Gets 147 views. You're like, okay. Post the second episode on Instagram gets 300,000 views. On TikTok gets like 205 views. We're like, what is happening? This is an amazing show. Maybe it's not showing it to people. I'm starting to have conspiracy theories. I have 18 accounts on my phone. Maybe it's shadow banning me.

• 34:30Ed Elson?

  That's, that's the best. Everyone thinks they're shadow banned when their content doesn't perform.

• 34:33Speaker 05

  Your content just sucks. But I look in the backend and it's like, no, it is showing it on the for you page. And I can see when people are dropping off and it's in the first three seconds. I'm like, okay, what, what's happening in the first three seconds? And it's this like loud TV show intro.

• 34:45Speaker 09

  Welcome to Boy Room, the show where we investigate boys' roots.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  We're like, okay, episode three, no intro. We're just going to drop into the show.

• 34:52Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 05

  That one difference was enough to get 4 million views in 24 hours and over 30,000 followers on that account. It's good. It knows what it's doing and that change was the right creative call on that show. And so I think like, again, people think that they have to cater to the algorithm in the Mr. Beast way and we're trying to prove that you don't.

• 35:12Ed Elson?

  We'll be right back.

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• 37:35Ed Elson?

  We're back with first-time founders. You recently went to the DNC. Why did you do that?

• 37:41Speaker 05

  I actually always say that you can track the changes in consumption of media through politics faster than anything else. Like, I think about Obama going on Between Two Ferns in 2011, I want to say, to talk about Obamacare. I can even remember in 2016, when Trump won, the still remaining importance of the late night hosts, kind of like shedding a tear on stage for America of like, oh my God, Trump is president. And you look at it now, and it's like, Trump is going on Aiden Ross.

• 38:08Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 38:08Speaker 05

  Kamala is giving more access to creators and influencers than, you know, the press. And I think that's reflective of like where everything's going, because they need the people, they need the votes, so they're going to go where the people are.

• 38:20Ed Elson?

  Exactly.

• 38:21Speaker 05

  And so, politics just turns at a much faster rate. We were at the DNC because we brought city council member Chio Sei from Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights over there, who is someone that we've worked really closely with out of a just passion, really believe in him being a future voice of the Democratic Party. And we started working with him. Because last summer, New York's rent guidelines board was going to decide how much to increase rent stabilized rents and they were debating whether or not to raise it by 16%. This is post pandemic, people are struggling, a lot of people are going to be put on the streets if something like that passes.

• 38:53Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 05

  And she comes to me and my friend Peter McIndu, who started Birds Aren't Real. And he says, I need to get people to this hearing because the people that this policy will affect don't know that there's a hearing on Thursday where they are waiting to hear testimonies.

• 39:09Ed Elson?

  Right.

• 39:09Speaker 05

  He's like, I have 2,000 followers, I have no idea how to engage like the greater New York area, I think I'm fucked. And we're like, don't worry, we go to his office with just an iPhone, we script this video that like kind of gets that message out in just like a perfect, quick 60 second way.

• 39:23Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 39:24Speaker 05

  That video gets a million views in 24 hours from New Yorkers. Three days later, for a

• 39:29Ed Elson?

  Unbelievable.

• 39:30Speaker 05

  For a room that had a capacity of 250 people, over 1,000 people showed up.

• 39:35Ed Elson?

  Wow.

• 39:35Speaker 05

  And every single person in line, I have the video, shakes cheese hand and says, I'm only here because of your video. New York ends up only raising rent stabilized rent by 3%. So that for us was like our first foray ever into politics and figuring out how can we use what we know about these platforms to help push policy, to help make change around the country and maybe the world. And so I think for us, like, we have a huge interest in just kind of continuing that conversation and seeing what else we can do in this space.

• 40:04Ed Elson?

  So do you think politicians are underusing this platform? And was that sort of the idea that you wanted to get the word out to these politicians? You need to be on TikTok?

• 40:11Speaker 05

  I think there are two politicians that are amazing at TikTok. I think it's Congressman Jeff Jackson out of North Carolina, and I think it's G O S. That's it. I think AOC is incredible at using Instagram. I wish she would call us for TikTok. It is crazy to me how much every politician is still being led by like social, you know, marketing teams who want them to do these dumb trends and silly sounds and it treats young audiences specifically as idiots.

• 40:37Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 40:37Speaker 05

  People want to be talked to like adults, they want to hear what's going on in the world. Congressman Jeff Jackson was a freshman term congressman who just started talking to the camera as like America's dad about here's what's going on in Congress right now.

• 40:48Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 40:48Speaker 05

  He gets an average of like four or five million views of video. That's impossible, that no freshman congressman has ever had to reach that big. And so it's frustrating. I think it's like, people really think they need to dumb themselves down for people to like them and the reality is like they just need to be themselves.

• 41:02Ed Elson?

  What do you think of Brat? Specifically in its relation to Kamala. Because I mean, the reason I bring that up is because it feels very kind of adjacent to the trend that you're talking about, where the social media account of Kamala Harris, it was handed over to, I guess, a young person who was a fan of Charlie XCX and sort of associated brat and all of that teen meme culture with the Harris campaign. And it has exploded, but it feels, in my view, very similar to what you have described, where it's kind of, these politicians don't really understand these meme cultures, but they're being told by their younger employees, you should just do it because people will like it.

• 41:47Ed Elson?

  And it's resonated in a really big way. But I don't think, in my view at least, it doesn't seem that genuine to Kamala, but maybe that doesn't matter. What is your view on that whole internet sensation?

• 41:58Speaker 05

  It gets millions of views, it gets millions of likes, it makes everyone on Twitter love it that lives in New York City and LA. The reality is this election is 50/50. It's likely going to be decided by a few thousand votes. Young men have abandoned the Democratic Party. So it's all fun and games, but like, we're missing the point. And I think like, the Democratic Party specifically likes to usually blame this on so many different factors. It's their fault.

• 42:23Ed Elson?

  Yes.

• 42:24Speaker 05

  And they are not speaking on the issues that they care about to the people that matter most. And so like, I cringe the more that we talk about Brad Summer. It was fun for a day and I loved the meme and I loved all the new excitement when Biden dropped out of the race. But this is not speaking to those 5,000 votes that will decide this election.

• 42:40Ed Elson?

  Just want to talk about news as well. It's similar to what we're talking about, but 40% of Gen Z today regularly gets their news from TikTok and that number is up from 9% in 2020. So TikTok is fast becoming a news platform. I mean, it's, it is the new TV. So what are your thoughts on? The fact that we're getting on news from TikTok, is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Where do you stand on this?

• 43:03Speaker 05

  I think it can be an amazing thing. I think, again, this is a space that needs more trusted voices, that needs more serious shows, that have like the checks and balances that like ensure the right information is being said. My only fear about 40% of people getting their news from TikTok is there's very little fact checking on this platform. And I will see a video that is literal fake news come up in my feed. And no one leaves the platform when they're on it. It's not like, okay, I saw this video. Now let me go on Google and see if this is actually real or not. No one's doing that. What they do is they click on the comments and the comments likely validate that belief system because all of a sudden the comments are, I can't believe this is true. And it's like, I guess it's true. It's like, no, this isn't fucking true. No part of this is true. But now this person's going to repeat it in person as if it is.

• 43:48Speaker 05

  And the other thing, which is the sad part of these platforms is like, you are likely being radicalized by an algorithm that really knows what you like and what you want to see. And you're not seeing what's on the other side.

• 43:59Ed Elson?

  Do you think the algorithm is being engineered by the Chinese government?

• 44:04Speaker 05

  All I will say is, I don't know what to say there.

• 44:09Speaker 05

  In between a rock and a hard place.

• 44:11Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 05

  What I will say is I think we are our own worst enemy. And I think the issue with these algorithms is like, they actually understand human nature. And the reality is like, we, we like these things. It's like Trump didn't cause any of this. He was the effect of all of this. We are in very divisive times because we are really upset with each other. We're not really wanting to look at each other in the eyes anymore. I think that's the area that I'd like to focus most of my time on. I love this country. I think it's the greatest country on earth. And I want to get us to a place where we can be across the aisle from each other and still shake hands and realize like, we still want the same things. We just have different approaches.

• 44:53Ed Elson?

  As we wrap up here, I do want to get a sort of a sense of how things work for you. What is your production process look like? I mean, if someone wants to go out there and produce a TikTok show, what do they do?

• 45:05Speaker 05

  I'll give the boy room example because I think it's a really fun one. Rachel came into our office on a Tuesday. She pitched boy room. That Friday, we shot a pilot with my friend, Peter, that will never see the light of day because he was very upset with me. That was enough for us to realize we wanted to go make the show. The following week, we shot three episodes. The week after that, we posted the first two. So it's a matter of weeks and that for us is significantly longer than the average TikTok user, you know, us spending 50K in a season is a fraction of Hollywood. It's still more than anyone is spending on this platform. So you don't need anything. All you need is a really good idea and just know how to address your audience a little bit faster than usual and you'll have a hit. And I think the thing that I'm really surprised by is I feel like I've sort of been shouting

• 45:48Speaker 05

  from the rooftops for two years about like this being television, this being the space to create the next generation of formats. And I'm kind of shocked at how few people have taken the bait.

• 45:57Ed Elson?

  Yes, exactly. I was going to ask, are there any competitors that you're seeing?

• 46:01Speaker 05

  There's a few companies in the space who make really fun, you know, content, a lot of man on the street stuff. What I haven't seen in the space that I think we're really good at is creating like real traditional TV show formats. I think when people start seeing the business that is here, it might be a space that's flush with capital again and having people start these companies. I welcome it because I think the thing that will help most is having other things to point at as successes as you have these conversations with brands who you do need to help make this content. And so I, I want there to be more people in this space. I'm looking forward to a time that there's four or five other great studios. And until then, we're just going to try to figure out what show you want next.

• 46:42Ed Elson?

  I think a part of it, and I'm just going to speak from personal experience here. It seems kind of easy because of how short TikToks are and you just, you know, it's such a fleeting experience and it's a throwaway experience. And the fact that you can just scroll past it, it's like, what was the point of that? And I feel that from, you know, I also believe in the importance of short form, but I found that it's actually very difficult to mobilize that effort because it's a lot more effort and time than you think for a payoff that feels just a lot less satisfying. And, you know, if you release your hit movie and you do the red carpet and you get an Emmy and all this stuff. And it's like, it feels like a lot of the reason I would

• 47:26Ed Elson?

  imagine, just from my experience, why people are not doing it is because it's like, this is just fucking pain to have to do this over and over again.

• 47:34Speaker 05

  It is the least sexy business on earth. And I think like, again, a part of the reason why a lot of people from traditional haven't entered this space is like, you're not going to get a Deadland Hollywood article. Granted, our shows have been in every major publication on earth, but the behind the scenes of that isn't really reported on. So there is no red carpet. It's a micro budget. And the interesting thing now is like, because we've had so many hits, we are being approached by all the agencies and management companies offering up like pretty big talent, whether it's athletes or A-list actors who basically are, you know, upset that they don't have a digital presence of their own. Maybe they want to build a brand long-term in a space that they've never really talked about before.

• 48:09Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 48:10Speaker 05

  And they're positioning their talent. It's like, can they host a show? And the only thing that I say to them is basically what you're saying. It's like, if they want a Star Wagon on set and they think they're going to be pampered, like, it's just not the right opportunity. If they're really wanting to get their hands dirty and like, get in the thick of this thing, we will make a hit show together. And, you know, that scares certain people away, but it does attract the right crowd.

• 48:30Ed Elson?

  So did people say, no, not good enough for me?

• 48:33Speaker 05

  I think managers know their talent best. And so they know which of their talent could be open to this idea and not.

• 48:39Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 48:39Speaker 05

  I also think that like, the other scary thing about TikTok is viewership is public. And I think a lot of people don't want people to know how few people listen to their podcast or watch, you know, watch their show.

• 48:52Ed Elson?

  Yeah, it's so interesting. Well, I feel like we could go on for hours, but I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna start to wrap it up here.

• 49:01Ed Elson?

  We've talked a lot about people working in Hollywood, writers, producers. On a recent episode on Prop G Markets, we talked about, you know, what's going to happen to costume designers and what's going to happen to makeup artists, et cetera. Lionsgate just partnered with an AI company that's going to do their storyboarding. AI is coming.

• 49:20Ed Elson?

  Do you have any advice to people working in Hollywood who are concerned about their job security, concerned about the future of entertainment? What would be your advice to someone in that position?

• 49:32Speaker 05

  It's really hard. And I say this as a born and raised angel, you know? When I go back home, you can feel the despair. You know, I don't think people realize the below the line workers that make every movie and TV show possible. They're not thinking about the costume designers and the set designers and the PAs and the grips and the gaffers and the truck drivers. Like, it is a industry that is built off the back of middle-class workers. And you feel that in LA because restaurants are closing, stores are closing, people aren't going out the way that they used to because they have less money in their pocket. And I don't think that we can hope that Hollywood's going to come back. This might be what it looks like for a very long time. And so that's not the most uplifting answer, but it is a reality check that I think a

• 50:17Speaker 05

  lot of people need to start having with themselves.

• 50:19Ed Elson?

  Do you think that they need to just pivot to something else?

• 50:23Speaker 05

  They might need to.

• 50:25Ed Elson?

  Adam is the head coach and co-founder of Gymnasium. Adam, this was epic and I just agree with all of your takes.

• 50:33Speaker 05

  I hate to end it on such a grim note.

• 50:37Ed Elson?

  It's good. Maybe that's the kick that we need.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  I know.

• 50:39Ed Elson?

  It's important. Appreciate your time. Thank you for coming on.

• 50:41Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me.

• 50:47Ed Elson?

  Our producer is Claire Miller, our associate producer is Alison Weiss, and our engineer is Benjamin Spencer. Catherine Dillon is our executive producer. Thank you for listening to First Time Founders from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tune in tomorrow for Prop G Markets.

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