Latest / Gimbal Podcast / "Let's Not Do That Again" | The Chaos of Beast Philanthropy's First Video

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"Let's Not Do That Again" | The Chaos of Beast Philanthropy's First Video · Gimbal Podcast

• 0:00
  We're going up against people who have done this for decades.
• 0:02
  What is your main title? What are four title options?
• 0:06
  That's insane, isn't it?
• 0:07
  My billionaire baby daddy is somehow also my father.
• 0:10
  Your first hundred videos are going to suck and they should suck.
• 0:13
  I didn't want to bring it up but I'm gonna bring it up because I really do believe in it.
• 0:17
  These companies need you more than you need them.
• 0:20
  My guest today is Hunter Peterson.
• 0:22
  He is a master YouTube strategist with years of experience across multiple channels.
• 0:27
  He was also the first head of production for Beast Philanthropy.
• 0:31
  And that's where this conversation gets started.
• 0:33
  Okay, Hunter. So you were the head of production for Beast Philanthropy in its earliest days.
• 0:41
  You flew out to North Carolina.
• 0:43
  What did day one look like of Beast Philanthropy?
• 0:45
  Day one was me realizing that there was a video that needed to go out in like eight days
• 0:50
  that was nowhere near done and did not make any sense whatsoever.
• 0:55
  That somehow sounds on-brand for Mr. Beast.
• 0:59
  It was especially at that time because there were a lot of pieces that weren't fully put together
• 1:06
  and we didn't really know what the narrative was but it was an important video.
• 1:09
  It was the first we built wells in Africa video.
• 1:13
  Oh, that's like one of the most viewed ones on the channel to date.
• 1:16
  I think that is still number one.
• 1:19
  But yeah, that was my first video.
• 1:21
  So when you landed there, they had already started something and you had to come
• 1:26
  and what, make sure it crossed the finish line.
• 1:29
  What were those first few things that you did to get it to that to the upload date?
• 1:33
  Yeah, first thing was I watched every single version of that video.
• 1:38
  And up until that point, there was actually another team that was editing it.
• 1:42
  There were no editors in Philanthropy.
• 1:44
  Like the production team, the editorial team, there was nothing.
• 1:47
  Everything was either remote on Discord or whatever.
• 1:50
  But like, you know, main channel, fleet of editors, whole department, stuff like that.
• 1:55
  Philanthropy didn't have access to that.
• 1:58
  Any video that was done by Philanthropy had to be produced entirely separate.
• 2:03
  So I basically sat down.
• 2:06
  I watched every single version of the cut.
• 2:08
  I went through every single card and I literally just wrote out sound bites.
• 2:14
  And I was just trying to extrapolate the best sort of nuggets.
• 2:18
  But I think I like maybe got like four hours of sleep in like the first two or three days
• 2:23
  that I was there.
• 2:23
  And I wish I still had it.
• 2:26
  I had like this legal notepad that had like four pages of just like chicken scratch notes.
• 2:34
  And I just wrote out the video.
• 2:36
  And I remember on a Discord call with this editor, I just read it to him.
• 2:41
  Of like, this is the story.
• 2:43
  Go this way.
• 2:43
  And then I recorded Vio as Jimmy for temp and I just asked him to piece it together.
• 2:50
  I put the rough in front of Darren.
• 2:54
  I think it was the same day that we were supposed to shoot the integration for that video.
• 2:59
  We spent like two hours together after the integration because I hadn't met him to this point.
• 3:04
  When I first flew out and I interviewed with the CEO, Jimmy was off shooting something else.
• 3:09
  I think he was shooting.
• 3:10
  I'd buried $100,000.
• 3:12
  Go watch.
• 3:13
  Go find it.
• 3:14
  The video that he gave to Ludwig.
• 3:15
  He was shooting while I was there.
• 3:17
  So I couldn't meet him.
• 3:19
  So I meet him for the first time to do this integration.
• 3:21
  And I'm directing him in this integration.
• 3:23
  And then afterwards he's like, sit down.
• 3:24
  He's like, okay, pitch me ideas.
• 3:26
  Just title thumbnail.
• 3:27
  Go.
• 3:27
  And we spent like two hours.
• 3:30
  And I had a note on my phone of like 60 ideas that I had written when I was on the plane flying
• 3:36
  out of like just title thumbnail, title thumbnail, title thumbnail of viral ideas.
• 3:41
  And I think about 20 of them.
• 3:44
  He was like, banger, banger, banger, banger, no.
• 3:48
  And that was incredibly formative of my time there.
• 3:51
  Seeing how quick of reaction it was.
• 3:55
  It was just so immediate.
• 3:56
  Okay, I have so many questions because this is just such a fascinating channel to explore.
• 4:01
  And you really don't get a lot of inside access to channels that are just this
• 4:05
  explosively popular on YouTube.
• 4:07
  Sure.
• 4:09
  My first question is you were full time on philanthropy.
• 4:12
  Were there other people in your boat too?
• 4:15
  In the earliest days of philanthropy, it was really just me.
• 4:20
  It was just the head of production for the longest time that sort of lead producer
• 4:24
  role and just working with a fleet of contractors.
• 4:29
  Interesting.
• 4:30
  You've uploaded the Wells video and the world has seen it.
• 4:33
  What lessons did you learn about storytelling for philanthropic content
• 4:39
  that you then applied to future beast philanthropy videos?
• 4:43
  Give them a reason to care immediately.
• 4:45
  Set the stakes upfront immediately.
• 4:49
  Because at the end of the day, humans care for humans.
• 4:52
  We are animals that for thousands and thousands of years we sat around
• 4:57
  campfires and we told stories.
• 4:58
  YouTube is a digital campfire.
• 5:00
  The best, and I get goosebumps actually thinking about this because I'm so story focused.
• 5:05
  The best philanthropy videos and the best videos in general are the ones that have such
• 5:11
  an innate story and a high level reason to care that you can't look away.
• 5:17
  And so we built Wells and Africa has such a larger connotation than just we did this thing.
• 5:24
  You gave life to someone in an area that has been, you know, war torn, downtrodden.
• 5:32
  However you want to describe it, waters the one thing we all need to survive.
• 5:37
  Setting the stakes immediately in the first two seconds and giving it such like the
• 5:44
  not to say over the top, but it's like, hey, wake up.
• 5:47
  This is important.
• 5:48
  This is why it's important.
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  So if you look at, I built a hundred Wells in Africa, the follow up video that was on
• 5:55
  Maine, it is immediate.
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  Like the wells are in construction.
• 5:59
  The water is already flowing.
• 6:01
  Like it's there.
• 6:02
  People need to see that you're not just saying you're doing it, right?
• 6:06
  And so a lot of philanthropy videos say don't show.
• 6:09
  Or what they do show is just pull it hard strings, pull it hard strings, pull it hard strings.
• 6:14
  I don't care about pulling at hard strings.
• 6:16
  I care about you actually helping people not saying you're going to help them.
• 6:21
  It feels a little counterintuitive to traditional storytelling because
• 6:26
  generally speaking, you want to set up the problem and you want to kind of explore what that
• 6:30
  looks like and then you kind of get to the solution.
• 6:33
  And it sounds like with beast philanthropy, the problem was really just stated in a single
• 6:38
  sentence and then you move on to taking action to get to the solution.
• 6:42
  I remember sitting down with Jimmy, I asked him of why is philanthropy so important to you?
• 6:48
  Like I know it is important because you wouldn't be doing it otherwise.
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  And he just kind of like took a second and he's like, because if I don't do it, no one else is
• 6:54
  going to do it.
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  And I'm definitely paraphrasing that.
• 6:57
  But what was impactful was just the immediacy of if I'm not no one else well.
• 7:03
  So I'm going to do it.
• 7:05
  And so like that direct to action in a lot of ways inspired me of like, cool,
• 7:10
  these videos are just we're doing it.
• 7:12
  We're there.
• 7:12
  It's happening now.
• 7:14
  Right.
• 7:15
  What did not make the cut that might have made the cut had somebody else worked on it?
• 7:22
  What actually didn't make the cut in wells in particular, we had this whole explanation section
• 7:26
  of like it was why Africa has such a problem with clean water.
• 7:31
  And the earlier version of the video felt almost like a window for productions video.
• 7:37
  And I love and adore Sam so much.
• 7:39
  Like I'm a huge fan of Wendover and jet lag and so on and so forth.
• 7:42
  Philanthropy is not Wendover and it was just so I know it's important.
• 7:48
  This is such good information.
• 7:51
  It does not belong in this video.
• 7:53
  And I think that was the biggest part where it's like, I don't need to further explain to you
• 7:59
  when in the intro and in the hook, I have already set the stakes so high that I'm giving
• 8:04
  you a reason to care and we're just doing the damn thing.
• 8:08
  Is that because it's an audience thing?
• 8:10
  Like you're trying to appeal to everybody including younger audiences who are very familiar with
• 8:14
  Mr. Beast. Whereas with Wendover, you can kind of expect them to have a higher degree of
• 8:18
  intellect.
• 8:19
  No, actually, because we had some explainers for the Ukraine video where it was we got aid
• 8:27
  into Ukraine, there was still like a bit of expository information that was very Wendover.
• 8:34
  It felt very similar in terms of the motion graphics and stylization and so on and so forth.
• 8:40
  But the thing here is Philanthropy is an entirely different beast joke very much intended
• 8:47
  than the other channels and it should be, especially even if you watch the Philanthropy videos
• 8:52
  now, they're longer and they're much more hearty of a narrative with information,
• 9:00
  explanation, depth than even the stuff that I was doing or even previous.
• 9:05
  And so I think there is a maturity level to the audience even with the demographic being younger
• 9:11
  because they understand the mission, they understand the purpose, they see the vision and they see
• 9:15
  the value.
• 9:16
  Were you looking for a specific average view duration that you were trying to hit?
• 9:20
  What are the standards at the beast team when it comes to that kind of stuff?
• 9:24
  So long as your APV is above 55% and your CTR is north of, I'd say, six, that's considered
• 9:34
  like good. Anything less is like, hmm, why?
• 9:38
  And nine times out of ten, you know, the biggest issue that we were having was integrations.
• 9:44
  Because it's like, how do I integrate a mobile game into a video about building wells in Africa
• 9:51
  that is going to not make people want to click off and hurt my overall AVD?
• 9:57
  But overall, no, there weren't really like data metrics that were supposed that we were looking
• 10:02
  to hit. It was more of like hit the baseline that we know works because like at the time,
• 10:08
  that's when Mario Joseph was there in Greenville and I spent a head of retention or something,
• 10:14
  head of retention and I spent a ton of time with Mario. In fact, the night that wells went out,
• 10:21
  we went to dinner together and he was watching the video and he was still tearing it apart
• 10:25
  of like things I could have done differently. I was like, yeah, okay, Mario, okay, that's fair.
• 10:29
  Thank you. But at the same time, like the thing that we were kind of up against with philanthropy
• 10:36
  is because these projects take a really, really long time to do, there's not a lot of like
• 10:43
  immediacy to data of like data to application for, you know, new videos. Like it's not like
• 10:52
  we're uploading on a Friday, we have new data within 72, 96 hours from there, making changes
• 11:00
  for the next video that's going to go out next Friday. Philanthropy was on a cadence of between
• 11:04
  14 to 28 days, depending. And so like, yeah, we were trying to stack projects back to back to back to
• 11:10
  but the thing is like it's, it's a very nimble team because the majority of the money, effort
• 11:15
  and resources is still going to help people, right? Like the production arm is, you know, entirely
• 11:23
  dependent on the nonprofit because of the charity navigator score, right? Like there is a very
• 11:29
  real need to make sure that the videos are not overshadowing the spend of helping people because
• 11:37
  I had to quantify every single cent of why I needed it, what it was going to do because otherwise
• 11:44
  it's going to be spent to help feed someone. That's how charity should be, high pressure, man. Yeah,
• 11:49
  exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's like, and so that data like, yeah, you hit the baselines
• 11:55
  and you look for outliers and you look for opportunities and you just sort of like note them down
• 12:00
  and like, cool, great, I'm going to put that in the next project, move on. I work exclusively with
• 12:04
  educators on YouTube and the metrics you hit are definitely higher than what I've seen in education.
• 12:10
  Like I think our target is closer to 50% APV. I mean, it depends on the length of the video. If it's
• 12:16
  a 45 minute video, you don't expect that kind of a dude, anything, I feel like I'm anything over 35%
• 12:22
  of like a video that long at that length. Yeah, yeah, I would. Yeah, you're, our sweet spots usually
• 12:27
  like 15 to 20 minutes. So we usually look for about a 50% APV. And then CTR, we usually land
• 12:34
  around 4% for educational videos. And I will say 5.5 is like kind of like five is sort of like
• 12:45
  minimum threshold, like a bare bare minimum. 5.5 is like, okay, decent, you know, like decent.
• 12:53
  And then 6 and plus is like, good, cool, double down. How can we get that to 7? How can we get
• 12:59
  that to 8? Everyone CTR can be higher. But at the same time, like, is it good packaging? Is it a good
• 13:06
  concept that is going to want to garner a click? Because again, YouTube is a decision-making
• 13:10
  platform with the exception of shorts. Shorts is just like, I'm going to pull the slot machine
• 13:14
  handle and see what happens. For long form, it's you are making an active choice to want to spend
• 13:21
  your precious, precious resources, your time on this thing. Did you see in Petty Galloway's newsletter?
• 13:27
  He said that some of the top teams are doing 10 different thumbnails per video. Yep.
• 13:34
  Yes, insane, isn't it? Well, and so we were AB testing like every 24 hours.
• 13:38
  Oh, I got a lot of questions on that. So are you stopping tests really quickly? Or are you letting
• 13:43
  them run out? Or what's right? We're letting them run out. But like, we're looking for early outlier.
• 13:48
  Yeah. So like, I would say first 12 to 18 hours from upload, you know, obviously you have your
• 13:56
  three mains. And then we were also like constantly testing titles. Like, and this was before the AB
• 14:02
  title tool was out. Because this was. So were you doing it manually? Or was it like
• 14:06
  the title test? The entire two buddy can do it, right? Yeah. I don't think we were using two buddy.
• 14:12
  We were using thumbnail. I think it was thumbnail test.com. Yeah. Yeah. It was thumbnail test.com.
• 14:18
  Or it was like an earlier version of that. So yeah, we were running like six thumbnails
• 14:23
  concurrently. And he was running like multiple tests at once. But yeah, we would manually
• 14:28
  tweak titles when things would go up immediately and then track them in a spreadsheet.
• 14:33
  Yeah. I see that a lot with like the top tier strategists. They're thinking very, very
• 14:37
  intimately about packaging in a way that, you know, middle tier creators or entry level creators
• 14:42
  are not thinking about like at what point does that become ultra important? Like at a certain point,
• 14:47
  you don't have enough resources. If you're if you're a starting out creator or if you're a middle
• 14:50
  tier creator, you might have the resources to pull it off where you might not have the bandwidth
• 14:54
  to pull off six to eight thumbnails. I would say anyone has the resources if you choose to spend
• 15:02
  the time to do so. And I still think it's important. It's just the level of hierarchy of importance,
• 15:08
  right? In terms of like where you're at in your content creation journey, you know, where you're
• 15:13
  sort of at like if you're sub hundred K and you have like maybe an outlier, understand why is it
• 15:19
  an outlier? Understanding what about this garnered a click and why did it test into new audiences
• 15:26
  and why does it continue to test or why is it no longer testing? That's sort of the first step.
• 15:30
  The second step I would say is when you're on like sort of the mid tier, I would say like the people
• 15:36
  that are like the hundred Ks to like even half a million subscribers, like kind of that gulf. That's
• 15:44
  when like there are so many tools out there that can automate things for you in terms of upload,
• 15:50
  in terms of testing, like even built inside of YouTube, like you should absolutely in your ideation
• 15:57
  be writing out what is your main title, what are four title options, four thumbnail options,
• 16:04
  every single video and just have those ready just to get into the practice of understanding like
• 16:09
  what is another way that we can look at this early on have them in your ideation process, right?
• 16:16
  I like to think about it of like if I'm going to pitch a movie and I have no idea what the
• 16:19
  movie is about what is the title of the movie and what is the poster of the movie and then I'm
• 16:23
  just going to figure it out from there. And nine times out of 10, that actually kind of works.
• 16:27
  So I think it's more a better alchemy of someone's time rather than thinking like, oh,
• 16:34
  Patty Galloway says I need to have six or eight thumbnails right now. No, you don't. You really do
• 16:39
  not. That's for I would say macro creators for people that are you know on the five mil plus.
• 16:46
  So long as you have two to four thumbnail and title options, all you're looking to do is how can
• 16:54
  I better repackage this information? How can I better meet a new audience where they're at? That's
• 16:59
  it, man. Getting bogged down with volume. That's the easiest way for you to just go into analysis
• 17:05
  paralysis and you're not going to get anything done. And understated thing that I kind of see
• 17:10
  in the space is people making their videos very intricate to execute on. And I think as a result,
• 17:18
  it takes up like 90% of their efforts. And then the 10% goes to the actual packaging of it. And
• 17:23
  what I like to suggest to people is find a way to help yourself succeed with the video making
• 17:28
  process. Like simplify the video itself so that you actually can allocate more resources to the
• 17:34
  packaging, which is ultra critical for success. And I think like the best example that I always
• 17:39
  think of is Casey Neistat, this legend on YouTube. He rode out his titles with a Sharpie and then
• 17:46
  he would just film them. And you know, on one hand, that's part of his style. But on the other
• 17:50
  hand, it saves a lot of time animating titles and that kind of stuff. Like you just film it and it
• 17:54
  does the same thing, right? Exactly. Because also like his low-fi aesthetic is so uniquely him.
• 18:00
  I think with new creators or creators who have followings of less than say 50,000 subscribers,
• 18:07
  many people fall into the trap of like trying to make something incredible. And I think at that
• 18:11
  point, you're still in Ali Abdul says, get going, then get good. And I can't emphasize enough,
• 18:16
  like even with this podcast, we're really bootstrapping it. Our priority is like making sure it gets
• 18:21
  done, right? Yes. Like getting something done is better than making something good because at that
• 18:25
  point, you're probably not going to get a million views anyway, even if it is great. So just
• 18:29
  continue your cadence. Like get it done. And to that point, that's so much more human. People
• 18:35
  are watching you for the sake of you. You know what I mean? Why do people watch Casey Neistat?
• 18:40
  Why do people watch Ali Abdul versus say faceless, you know, slop channels with an 11 labs voice?
• 18:48
  That has no soul. That has no connection point. But I can see Ali's face. I can see Casey's face.
• 18:54
  There is that human connection literally go to their first ever videos on their channel.
• 19:01
  Whenever I find a creator that I like for the first time, I start by oldest. I watch their first
• 19:06
  videos because it really gives me a sense of like, what was their journey to get to where they are
• 19:10
  now? Greatest example of this is Matt Armstrong. This is the car guy, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
• 19:16
  He literally buys wrecked hypercars and supercars. He started doing this when he still had a full-time
• 19:23
  job and he was fixing his girlfriend's wrecked Audi in a parking lot. And so it's like watching
• 19:30
  that and seeing that journey of like how he improved. He didn't make those videos for anyone,
• 19:35
  but really himself, man. That to me is like why people are watching, you know what I mean?
• 19:41
  Again, YouTube, like, do we forget the tenants of what this platform was supposed to be, man?
• 19:47
  Yeah. Like for entry level creators, they have a lot of, they've got good taste and they watch a lot
• 19:52
  of top-tier creators. But then when they make their own content, they're comparing themselves to
• 19:57
  those people who have already uploaded 200, 300 videos, you know, they they've turned this into
• 20:01
  their full-time job. And so they can afford, you know, the time and energy and the team that it
• 20:05
  takes to make something very high production value. And the reality is you shouldn't be comparing
• 20:09
  yourself to those people. You should be comparing yourself to them in their earliest stages. Like
• 20:14
  with Matt Armstrong having a full-time job and doing exactly, you know, something that just
• 20:18
  services himself like exactly what he is today. I mean, look, Jimmy has said this multiple
• 20:23
  other creators have said this. Your first 100 videos are going to suck and they should suck
• 20:28
  because it's like the fact that newer creators or business thought leaders or people that have,
• 20:34
  they're just waiting into the utter ocean that is this platform. They think they need to be
• 20:39
  good immediately. There are those outliers where it's like the first video at the gate is a banger.
• 20:45
  But again, more than likely if you look at them and then you talk to them, they have been students
• 20:50
  of the platform. And they went out, they had an idea, they executed on it in the way that they
• 20:55
  had resource and access to. And then from there, they simply iterated and they just doubled down.
• 21:01
  But your first 100 videos are going to suck. They should suck. You should learn from them.
• 21:07
  And you should expect that your first three years on the platform, no one will find you.
• 21:12
  That's personally my, my thought process. Get them out of the way quick. Just get
• 21:17
  you in as much as possible. Yeah. One percent better every single video. I hear you.
• 21:21
  And you know what's funny? Like, I'm sure that you've experienced this too. But with me,
• 21:25
  I've worked with creators who have achieved the success that entry level creators look up to them for.
• 21:31
  And those people who have reached that level of success still hate their videos in the same way
• 21:37
  that entry level creators hate their videos. Oh my god. Yes, man. Like, I'm sorry. I like,
• 21:42
  whenever I uploaded for either beast or sobri or for any of my other clients, I just think like,
• 21:48
  God, damn it. I could have done this better. Like, I still, it is like four years after wells.
• 21:54
  I still kick myself that the audio corrupted partially on the wells upload. And it's like
• 22:00
  slightly compressed. And I think about that. I literally have woken up in the middle of the
• 22:04
  night of like wells is audio corrupted. God damn it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's 50 million views later.
• 22:10
  And 50 million views later. And like Jimmy literally called me immediately after like the video
• 22:16
  went live. He's like, let's not do that again. I was like, yes, er, sorry. He's like, it's fine.
• 22:21
  It's we don't have a main channel video. So this is the video this weekend. I was like, okay.
• 22:26
  I want to do a hard pivot to something that's really intriguing to me and something you have
• 22:31
  to experience with. And that is licensing your back catalog to places like Roku or now to Netflix
• 22:39
  and that kind of stuff. Can you tell me a bit about your experience with that?
• 22:42
  Totally. So I come from an entertainment background went to film school did all that whole thing.
• 22:48
  So I still have a lot of friends in the entertainment industry. Entertainment industry as many
• 22:53
  people are aware is languishing. So you have traditional companies and you have traditional
• 22:59
  means of distribution, looking for content constantly. Only very recently has there been sort of
• 23:07
  this move for more traditional broadcasters to license back catalog horizontal 16 by nine content
• 23:16
  for channels. So best most notable example. Again, when Jimmy licensed his back catalog to Roku,
• 23:24
  that was a huge deal because it was the first real, you know, major macro creator to get a large
• 23:30
  scale deal. Now let's walk back here fast OTT fast stands for free ad supported television and
• 23:38
  OTT is over the top. So both of those together sort of mean the same thing but in different ways.
• 23:46
  Roku to be Pluto TV those are more of like your fasts right so they're almost like networked
• 23:53
  their programmatic and you'll have different episodes like kind of back to back to back to back.
• 23:58
  So it almost feels like the discovery channel that's fast and OTT. So like they're similar but
• 24:04
  different but for example, you know when I talk about back catalog optimization monetization
• 24:10
  and strategy it's simply how do we reach more audiences with content that is already made
• 24:16
  because also there are exclusive deals and fast. There are not really exclusive deals in OTT
• 24:24
  but OTT also nine times out of 10 you're talking to manufacturers. So Samsung you're talking to LG,
• 24:32
  you're talking to Sony, you're talking to Amazon doesn't exactly do this but you know you have
• 24:38
  the opportunity to license your content in multiple different verticals. So for example,
• 24:42
  if you have a back catalog of say 300 500 videos and that's their high quality
• 24:50
  documentaries. So say like a fern or a hug or something like that or mustard. Say it's mustard.
• 24:56
  Mustard has 300 videos and Samsung approaches them saying hey we would love to have the mustard
• 25:02
  channel on Samsung TV plus that's an OTT deal where it's a channel that is exclusive to Samsung
• 25:09
  TVs that exists on Samsung. But if they negotiate in saying hey, you know can we have X different
• 25:20
  deal for OTT but we still retain fast rights. Basically if you have a large back log catalog of videos
• 25:27
  you can then re license, resell the rights and opportunities year over year over year.
• 25:33
  The platforms are now getting more mature and creators are also getting more mature for the deals
• 25:38
  that they're doing. So the opportunity that I see for creators is find new audiences, get your bag
• 25:46
  for sure but then have other avenues to try new ideas because especially if they license your content
• 25:55
  on an exclusivity and then maybe say like hey your content's really performing well on our
• 25:59
  platform or on this network. If we gave you $50,000 to make the following content that hits these
• 26:06
  mandates would you do it. And that's where you're starting to see you know traditional S-fods like
• 26:11
  Netflix or Amazon like Netflix is you know clearly Mark Rober is doing really really well over there
• 26:19
  with absolutely yeah dude because that's a re license deal but that's really those re license
• 26:26
  deals for Netflix that's only for macro level creators like Netflix is not going to do that for
• 26:31
  someone who's like you know sub 10 million and I know this because I've also I've talked with
• 26:35
  Netflix about what they're looking for for that and they're like you know we're really looking for
• 26:40
  those those big outlier channels. I think there might be a little like they wish they got Jimmy
• 26:45
  and they're kind of like playing catch up a little bit with Amazon but on the side with Amazon
• 26:50
  they've got beast games now and that is a holy new audience it's a holy new format like that is
• 26:58
  an exclusive that is made for that platform so that's not bad catalog stuff that's original content
• 27:05
  right but it's clearly in my mind here and I don't know the robertime you know if you guys are
• 27:12
  hi yeah we got to get rober on the show like that would be I don't have anyone connect I knew
• 27:18
  someone who used to work there but she left the YouTube game a long time ago I just have a feeling
• 27:24
  that the rober back catalog license deal is a hint that there is an exclusive that rober is going
• 27:31
  to announce probably within the next year that's my guess when I saw that I was like there's an
• 27:36
  exclusive and this was a sweetheart deal just because like it I understand from Netflix's perspective
• 27:43
  of like hey we want to get new audiences but from rober's perspective it's what is this going to
• 27:49
  do for me right and so that's always like when I see those opportunities or when creators come to
• 27:54
  me being like hey I want to license my content I want to go pitch to Netflix like I've talked to
• 27:58
  a couple creators like hey you pitch at Netflix I want to pitch at Netflix my first question is
• 28:03
  why do you want to pitch to Netflix and they're like well I want to sell my content it's like
• 28:07
  Netflix is not going to want your content now if you have an original idea that's an opportunity
• 28:12
  but again they have their internal mandates and that's where it's like it's such a closed off
• 28:18
  kingdom and like big distributors that are outside of YouTube are so closed off they have internal
• 28:23
  metrics they have internal mandates they have internal wants and needs like there are executives
• 28:28
  that make the decisions and are the quote unquote tastemakers of what audiences should watch and
• 28:35
  that's where it's like in my personal opinion unless you're like a rober or a beast or a dude perfect
• 28:41
  you don't need Netflix you don't need these but fast is an opportunity for you to get more cash
• 28:49
  and not do anymore work I mean it sounds like it is a dream come true like content that you made
• 28:55
  two years ago is suddenly worth money and people are willing to pay for it with that being said
• 29:00
  how do you go about starting the conversations and how do you protect yourself like what do you
• 29:06
  need to watch out for very very good question if you're a creator with at least I would say probably
• 29:13
  quarter million subscribers half a million subscribers and your videos are averaging I would say
• 29:18
  probably around like 200 to 400,000 views and upload and on long form not short form and you're
• 29:24
  clearly growing like you know doubling tripling however you know you're growing more than likely
• 29:30
  you've been reached out by platforms in some way shape or form they have a lot of people who are
• 29:34
  data scraping you know I am very close with the studio 71 team and I have an understanding of like
• 29:41
  they're literally constantly watching and the second they see a channel that they don't have
• 29:46
  a connection to the isn't represented immediately goes out nine times out of 10 when a creator has a
• 29:51
  manager the managers have access and opportunities with a film rise or a studio 71 so I know night
• 29:58
  for example they work a lot with film rise and so like if a creator signs there nine times out of 10
• 30:03
  their content will get distributed over film rise and so on we move on but if you are a creator
• 30:11
  that's on the on the rise on the up and up nine times out of 10 these companies will reach out to
• 30:16
  the first thing is why why are you reaching out to me what do you want in the majority of fast
• 30:23
  and OTT deals with these very traditional companies there will be Hollywood accounting and what I
• 30:29
  mean by Hollywood accounting is there are double triple dipping of fees on top of fees where you
• 30:36
  think like oh well we only take 20% in reality that 20% is closer to 40% because oh well there's
• 30:43
  our marketing fee and then there's this and this and this and this and it's in this fine print
• 30:48
  what are they actually taking based on their math call them out on their math because especially
• 30:54
  if you're in a call and they're like yeah we take 20% and that's all we take you're then going to
• 30:58
  say hey no you don't you're taking closer to 40% so it's 20% or nothing and nine times out of 10
• 31:06
  these companies need you more than you need them you are in a place of power as a creator you decide
• 31:13
  your means of production and your means of distribution this is simply an added benefit to you
• 31:17
  in your bottom line so in these deals you really need to look at the accounting you need to understand
• 31:23
  their exclusivity their use and these are like very traditional things in the entertainment industry
• 31:30
  for you know commercials and voiceover and anything like that right also likeness understanding
• 31:38
  can they use you in marketing without any further compensation absolutely not I don't want to
• 31:44
  encourage people to go into these negotiations from a hostile perspective like you are working
• 31:50
  on something you know building a relationship with these OTT streamers and that kind of stuff and
• 31:54
  ultimately you're working towards something good but you know exercise caution because one thing
• 31:59
  that our YouTube industry like we're a very nascent industry and as creators we're going up against
• 32:05
  people who have done this for decades and to your point they know how to write out contracts that
• 32:11
  look really really appealing where they have you know hidden clauses that are intricately worded
• 32:17
  so just be cautious like going to do it and I want to be really clear I love working with these
• 32:23
  companies and if I'm if I'm coming off at all like slightly like hostile I want to protect creators
• 32:31
  right because you have such a valuable asset one of the first things that I heard when I was at
• 32:37
  film school was a good producer and a good negotiation is understanding what do you want what do I
• 32:42
  want what's the in between that's it man you don't have to be hostile you simply need to know your
• 32:47
  worth but also understand you know what what is their leeway and what's your leeway yeah it's
• 32:54
  just an imbalance of education at the moment I think in a couple years when this becomes more
• 32:58
  commonplace people will understand what it means to license your content but since it's still quite
• 33:03
  new to us in the creator economy and very very familiar to traditional Hollywood like now's the time
• 33:09
  to just be very careful entirely and I think we're going to seem even further maturity in the next
• 33:15
  18 months yeah the the landscape is going to look really really different now that Hollywood is
• 33:20
  finally cluing in like oh yeah we got to take creator coming very very seriously they're a serious
• 33:24
  threat I fully believe in like something that I've been working on in the background and I
• 33:29
  I didn't want to bring it up but I I'm going to bring it up because I really do believe in it
• 33:34
  Chinese micro dramas are such an indicator of what can be done on our platform and what can be done
• 33:41
  elsewhere and like I have started to put together like the makings of like a proposal to build
• 33:49
  a studio that's doing what Chinese micro dramas are doing but only for YouTube explain what this
• 33:53
  is for people who are okay with Chinese micro dramas okay okay so the reason why I know a lot about
• 33:58
  this is because in Hollywood right now the primary things that are being shot are not movies they're
• 34:04
  vertical dramas and you've probably seen ads for these on like Snapchat and TikTok and Instagram
• 34:09
  and they're like these over the trop like melodramatic like soap operas my billionaire baby daddy is
• 34:14
  somehow also my father like it's like insane insane titles like that that's what Chinese micro dramas
• 34:21
  and they're like a bit long right they're they're they're so short but here's what they do
• 34:25
  the first three or four episodes are free and you get hooked right but then they're behind a paywall
• 34:32
  and you have to pay money to unlock a season or so on so forth and so I'm looking at that
• 34:40
  and I'm seeing how like this is going to seem insane and I apologize but this is how my brain works
• 34:46
  when YouTube shorts first launched what were the clips that were showing up in your algorithm
• 34:53
  this like late 22 early 23 do you remember suits there were clips of suits that were absolutely
• 35:01
  ripping on YouTube shorts and then it transitioned over to TikTok and then it transitioned over
• 35:06
  to Instagram later that year in 2023 Netflix re-licensed suits of the first eight seasons I literally
• 35:15
  looked this up while I was sitting here estimated at a deal of around 25 to 50 million dollars now
• 35:21
  they did that I can't prove this but when you look at old TV shows that were out of syndication
• 35:29
  maybe not streaming anymore that start to pick up algorithmic growth and start to just be
• 35:35
  everywhere all at once that's where you start to see streamers pay attention and so what I'm
• 35:42
  going to with all this is people still like television but television is just going to look
• 35:48
  different and so it's like there are clips of blacklist or there's clips of white collar or burn
• 35:54
  notice or like all these shows that were like super popular dexter breaking bad all of these like
• 35:59
  super high-produced shows but it's like just the best moments from them just in short form right
• 36:04
  repackaged with like some funk in the background or like you know whatever
• 36:09
  Chinese micro dramas why I bring that up is they are the most
• 36:14
  schlocky but attention grabbing little precursors to where I think television is going to go
• 36:20
  and I think that's where people are going to start producing vertical television series that are
• 36:26
  grounded that have great acting that have great moments that are genuinely compelling you know
• 36:32
  we're seeing that with American high right now they are American high is a film company like they
• 36:37
  have done multiple like indie films and like they're well known and now they're uploading on
• 36:41
  YouTube they have an entirely separate division just to make YouTube content that's where we're going
• 36:47
  Chinese micro dramas are simply the more pay walled gated pieces of content you know they're very
• 36:54
  traditional in a way in terms of like narrative set up stories stuff like that's not creator economy
• 36:58
  at all but for creators that want to make movies right because there are those where they want to make
• 37:04
  movies they want to make television they want to make things that feel like oh I want to get a
• 37:07
  deal at Netflix I want to get a deal at Amazon no you don't you want to make your shows on YouTube
• 37:12
  and you simply want to distribute them differently like if you were to make a television studio
• 37:18
  that was producing your version of suits and you spelled it S O O T Z I don't know I'm just I'm
• 37:24
  I'm throwing something out and you shot an entire season for example for like $50,000
• 37:31
  and you put out the first say like 10 shorts that make up episode one you get people hooked
• 37:38
  but then you put the rest of the season behind a membership pay wall on YouTube
• 37:43
  that is suddenly you are now your own mini major indie studio but yeah like a dream of minus to build
• 37:51
  a studio that's only doing like micro dramas on YouTube and TikTok like that I that's where I think
• 37:56
  that's where I think this industry is going and it should if you are a emerging creator and you've
• 38:03
  hit the threshold that you mentioned something like 500,000 subscribers you know 200,000 views per
• 38:09
  video you know give or take a hundred thousand on either side whatever do you recommend for those
• 38:13
  people to be reaching out to the distributors to kind of get the ball rolling if it hasn't already
• 38:17
  come to them it is kind of a don't call us we'll call you sort of situation especially because like
• 38:24
  if you reach out first off 9 times out of 10 companies have policies of we don't take on solicited
• 38:29
  submissions that's very Hollywood but I think that's where it's like hey I'm interested in sort of
• 38:36
  like you know what is the next level of my business look like so instead of reaching out to
• 38:41
  distributors hey what does it look like to bring on a business manager that may have experience
• 38:46
  in entertainment that can do cold calling that has connections do I get a manager do I get an agent
• 38:53
  are those people looking where are those opportunities that I can like send in and submit because
• 38:59
  I'm personally of the opinion that the right things are going to reach out to you when you're ready
• 39:04
  for them if you search them out you're not going to get the same you know opportunities that you
• 39:10
  think you're going to get good example the voiceover agency that I'm with now which is a really big
• 39:16
  agency they're known as atlas when I first started out in vio I sent my stuff to them like every
• 39:22
  other month to try and get their attention but only after I booked a couple of characters and like
• 39:27
  hunk I star rail and a bunch of other like bigger games did they actually come calling because
• 39:33
  I had proof behind me if you don't have that proof companies have no way to know of like oh is
• 39:39
  this actually going to be worth our time but if you have a business manager who sees your vision
• 39:44
  sees the world in the way that you do and you pay them a percentage of you know ad revenue or
• 39:50
  their your agents or you even pay them a salary if you're already at that level which also by the
• 39:56
  way like congrats to you that's huge I would rather say though wait be patient because if you
• 40:04
  reach out and you find something you're then going to try and immediately jump on it and nine
• 40:10
  times out of 10 there will probably be a better deal that will come along later on takes a very
• 40:15
  high degree of maturity and patience to exercise patience yeah yeah yeah are there things that
• 40:23
  creators should be thoughtful about for future videos to prepare themselves for back catalog licensing
• 40:29
  do they have to hit a consistent duration do they have to follow a similar format to be
• 40:35
  repeatable enough to be put on a Roku channel and everything makes sense I wouldn't say there's
• 40:41
  a real need to be super formulaic about it so long as you make good content that is performing
• 40:47
  for an audience that's what matters so long as you're at or above your production quality
• 40:54
  you know video after video and you're just consistent that's really what people are going to be
• 40:58
  looking for on a back catalog because nine times out of 10 licensing deals are based on our count
• 41:04
  rather than video count so if you have say 20 hours of really really good content that's going
• 41:13
  to be worth more than if you have 100 hours of just like okay content right and so it's going
• 41:18
  to be sort of how can I up my production value my storytelling my whatever for my audience first
• 41:26
  with the added benefit of back catalog licensing the optimization what I tell creators all the time
• 41:33
  is organize your metadata organize your files save your project files like have with your editors
• 41:41
  have a big old external hard drive you're tracking everything man like every single video I make
• 41:47
  I assign to the production code nine times out of 10 it's like acronym of the channel underscore
• 41:52
  year underscore LF or SF long former short form and then underscore number that's the folder
• 41:59
  and it has everything inside of it and that's how I've done it for every single channel I've been
• 42:04
  a part of so that we can just have that metadata and those files in particular because sometimes
• 42:12
  on back catalog licensure like maybe you said something that they don't want you to say right you want
• 42:18
  you to censor it and the only way that you can do that is if you reopen the edit and if you don't
• 42:23
  track your files and you don't have good you know sense of production uh that's a concern you know
• 42:31
  and they're not going to want to license you and there there have been times that I've looked at
• 42:34
  deals where a quarter of the catalog was just thrown out because they didn't have the original
• 42:40
  masters organize your files up your production quality up your storytelling that's all you need focus
• 42:45
  on all right hunter who is a creator that's on your radar and is worthy of a shout out right now
• 42:51
  I mentioned him before and I wouldn't even say he's on the rise but he's just a creator that I love
• 42:57
  it's mad arm strong if if you are not watching mad arm strong right now good god it is so
• 43:04
  incredible the projects that he takes on but also his strategy of when he's done with the build
• 43:09
  on his mark two channel he'll literally take all of the episodes from the build and put them up
• 43:15
  as like a three hour upload and these videos have like 21 15 million views like they're huge
• 43:21
  I think newer creators can really learn a lot from what he's doing from a from the standpoint of
• 43:28
  process application and just doing it like his whole thing about hard work beats talent that is 100
• 43:34
  percent YouTube there is no better way to summit it for sure nice hunter thank you so much for
• 43:40
  coming on the show thank you it's been a pleasure speaking with you thank you so much for having
• 43:44
  me man and really looking forward to maybe speaking again soon let's do it let's set it up let's do it
• 43:48
  okay that's the episode thank you so much for watching or listening if you like this one please
• 43:53
  subscribe or leave us a review on the audio platforms it's really critical and important that
• 43:57
  you do that at this early stage of this show it's what's going to help it become sustainable
• 44:02
  down the road so please please please and thank you so much if you want to check out another episode
• 44:07
  you know the catalog is there for you thank you we'll see you next week