HIBT Lab! Colin and Samir: Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry

Hello and welcome to our very first episode of How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Roz. And what is how I built this lab? Well It's a sandbox, a place we can experiment with all kinds of ideas around entrepreneurship.

You can still expect to hear a long episode of the show every Monday, as usual. And every Thursday A shorter episode of how I built this lab. And what's the difference? Well, on this edition of the show, we're gonna talk with entrepreneurs working on world-changing ideas, people building the creator economy.

and even past guests we featured on the show to find out what they're up to today. So Let's get started. Today we're gonna hear from Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry. they're better known as YouTubers Colin and Samir.

Now ten years ago, this sector, the creator economy. barely existed. But today, the creator economy is estimated to be worth more than$100 billion. And it's growing because marketing and advertising is increasingly moving away from traditional platforms like television and radio. and towards social media. And this new economy has inspired thousands, maybe millions, of people to try and make a living from creating content.

Now to be clear just a teeny tiny fraction of those millions are actually making a living from TikTok or YouTube alone. Even Colin and Samir, whose videos attract more than a hundred million views a year. can't rely on YouTube alone to sustain their business. They started back about a decade ago making lacrosse videos. Samir actually started a sports channel on YouTube called the La Crosse Network.

Colin joined forces with Samir because Both of them had played lacrosse at college. But eventually, they branched out, making videos about everything from skateboards to their favorite coffee shops. Today, their videos focus mainly on other content creators and how they do what they do. They interview creators, they break down news within the creator world.

and they offer insights on how to make a living in an industry that has the potential to reach a trillion dollar valuation? within the next 10 years. Colin Samir, welcome to How I Build This Lab, great to have you guys. Thanks. Yeah, thanks, guy.

Alright, let's start with your origin story. Uh because you you got into content creation because of lacrosse. And basically you would uh document la cross games, upload them online onto YouTube. Samir, you were in LA, Colin, you were in Boulder, Colorado. How did you guys meet? We met on the internet. Uh, we met on YouTube. I had graduated college and I grew up playing lacrosse and I I had this

Idea. that I felt like the sport lacked coverage, it lacked media, there wasn't a way to connect with other people who were playing the sport. So You know, I was a film major and I wanted to use my film degree in one way uh or the other, and I tried my hand at Hollywood.

And and didn't really like the experience of working in Hollywood. So decided to just take matters into my own hand and film the community that I was passionate about that I wanted to tell stories about. So you you You basically started a YouTube channel, right? That called the La Crosse Network. That's right. I spun up a YouTube channel. I thought about it as the NFL network for lacrosse.

And By no means did I have the financing to do that, but I had a camera, I had a laptop, and I had a bunch of ideas. I mean this is how Mark Cubin started broadcast dot com. He wanted to air basketball games, and he wanted to be able to hear them wherever he was. So the idea of taking lacrosse, which nobody really known was doing And trying to create a channel around it is a is kind of a cool idea. Meantime

Colin, who you didn't know. Colin, you were a student in Boulder. at the University of Colorado and you were also a on the lacrosse team, right? Yeah, but I I would say unlike Samir, I was not a film major. But once I graduated, I wanted to be a filmmaker.

So for me You know the good story that I knew I had access to was my college lacrosse team. So I had just graduated, bought a camera, and started a web series.

The story about the team, the cross team. Yeah. So I I had graduated, I was paying my bills by working at the front desk of a hotel. But when I would get off work I would go film The lacrosse team. learn how to edit and I would put out these episodes on YouTube and my first episode that I put out had I think less than a thousand views, but one of those views was Samir.

And he ended up sending me an email. And Samir, what was the video? I mean, was it like a story? Was it just like highlights? Was it interviews with the lacrosse players? What made it compelling? So the video was a trailer. It was a trailer for a show that Colin created called Club Ball, and it explored what it was like to play Club lacrosse at the University of Colorado. And At the time what I was uploading was highlights. Full games.

some news and analysis, but this was the first piece of storytelling I had seen in lacrosse where it was more about the players than it was about the game. It was a story about young people coming together. and and trying to achieve something, at least that's how it was portrayed in the trailer. Uh, and it just so happened they played lacrosse. And immediately I knew it was the type of content we needed.

to make this network work. So you reach out to Colin and you're like, Hey, um I'm Samir and I'm doing something kinda similar and do you want to maybe talk? And is that literally what you did? That's exactly right. That's exactly what I did. And I think I was met with a I'm good. Don't worry. Like I'm I I'll just do this on my own or something something around Colin not being that excited. Samir came with a lot of demands.

So I was coming from the perspective of a first time artist who was very passionate about the music and about the storytelling. And I was interested in what Samir was saying, but for him You know, he said if you want to put this out on our YouTube channel, you're gonna have to change the music. Everything needs to be copyright free and I was using whatever I wanted to use. And of course for you know for the network that Samir was building that wasn't gonna work. So pretty soon after you reach out to him, Samir, you actually convinced him to move to LA and to join forces with you. I mean, which is a pretty risky maneuver. I mean, you could you could have hated each other, but why did you think he was the right person to to try this out with?

So I I had another co founder with me and both him and I, we felt like we could do the broadcast side, but we knew we were missing this storytelling side. So I was very convinced that it was the stories about the people who played the game. that were gonna take us to the next level. And Colin was the guy to help us do that. I thought that what Samir and his co founder were doing were was really interesting and exciting. And again

You know, I wasn't a film major, but this is what I was interested in. So the prospect that someone would pay me anything at all. To use my camera. was very enticing to me. And that's what it came down to was hey, here's

Three months. We called it an internship where you come out to work for the La Crosse Network. And I said, Why not? Yeah. So you move out there and you guys start to

Build up. the lacrosse network. And how did you get the content? I mean you couldn't physically record every lacrosse game that was being played at colleges around the country. So how would you get the the footage? There was times and days where

We would get a call that there was a game going on in San Diego at five o'clock and it was eleven AM in LA and we would just get our gear together and drive. and go film it. But as we started to recognize we needed more content, we started to license content. And over the course of the next couple of years, it went from one channel

to sixty different channels about lacrosse. We We also at that time put ourselves on camera. because we realized in Southern California there's only so much lacrosse that we can film.

But we can talk about lacrosse. Multiple times a week. And that actually was uncomfortable because I never thought I would be on camera and be sort of a quote unquote YouTuber. But

It really unlocked. our channel and and the success we were able to have because we could upload really consistently. I mean I'm curious so you didn't I don't think you guys had a whole lot of money, right? Did you raise any money, Samir? We did not raise money. And the reason that I positioned it as an internship to Colin was because we had no money really. Um I you know, the money that we had was

partially my savings account. And That went a lot quicker than I thought. I had written out a a financial model and a business plan around the lacros network and

Um, you know, I had this per video budget that was around four thousand dollars when we first started. Now we never spent that money because I showed it to someone who actually worked at YouTube. And I was trying to get them to to get excited about our idea. And he was like you're gonna spend four thousand dollars a video, you're gonna go out of business. That is not what YouTube is. A YouTube video has to cost you zero dollars.

And you have to be able to do it over an extremely long period of time. Hm. And there was a moment where I did try and raise money and I got on the phone with an investor that I connected with through my brother. And he had experience, he played lacrosse, he had experience working in sports broadcast, and he was working at a at a big venture capital company. And I got on the phone with him and I started to pitch him.

What we were doing. And about ninety seconds in To my pitch, I said We're broadcasting games. And he stopped me and he said

I I wanna stop you right there. You just use the word broadcast. I've worked in broadcast. What you're doing is not broadcast. What you're doing is making home movies. And to be honest, you're not that good at it. Wow.

This is not a business. This is a hobby. Hm. Alright, twenty fourteen, so tears in, you get acquired actually by by a a sort of a new uh kind of upstart.

sports network called Whistle Sports and I'm assuming uh uh that that this was not Going to make you financially independent for the rest of your life. It wasn't that kind of acquisition. That's right. It it it was an aqua hire.

you know, there was a cash component of them purchasing RIP and the network, but the main part of it was that We got jobs. You know we Real resources. growing the the network.

It was money. you know, people who had done this before or something like it, not on YouTube, but had done something like it, media expertise, um, and community. We got to be a part of a group of people who wanted this reality of you know, sports networks or the modern day sports networks existing online and recognizing that n niche communities had value on the internet. But a couple years in, um I guess

the two of you started to experiment with videos at Didn't always have Anything to do with lacrosse, right? H how did that start? I think what we started to realize was that So much of your identity is wrapped up

In who you are as a creator, the image that you put out online. And for Samir and I, even though we loved lacrosse and we were super passionate about it, That was four years plus of our image being all about lacrosse.

But at that time, YouTube had also changed drastically, and you've got guys like Casey Nystat, who have YouTube channels just off the base of their own name. And they're building these huge businesses. And so Samir and I looked at each other. and felt like we developed this skill set. Two

succeed on YouTube. And it doesn't maybe necessarily it doesn't have to be. in lacrosse. Maybe it could just be under the name Colin and Samir, and we'll tell stories about whatever we want. and we'll really get to express ourselves fully. Hundred percent. Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, uh, but when we come back, we're gonna hear how Colin and Samir pivoted from lacrosse to creating their own

YouTube videos that had nothing to do with lacrosse, so stay tuned, you're listening to how I built this lab. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Lab. My guests are Colin and Samir. So before the break, we were talking about Of course, the lacrosse network that that you built, Samir and Colin that you helped to to grow, um But you guys decide.

Which was making content around Uh well, initially inspired by Casey Nystad, who was on High built this a couple years ago. What was the thing you guys were gonna do? There's only a few times. in your life and in your entrepreneurial journey. where you're lucky enough to be as naive as we were in that moment. And the reason I say that is because we had

For some reason, no fear around the fact that we had no idea. And We stepped out. Um Even my dad and my family was very confused why we left.

You know, it was almost it it sounded like it should have been exactly what we wanted to do. We were getting paid really well. to make lacrosse videos and sports videos. But we just knew That

We wanted More. We wanted more a more diverse set of storytelling. We wanted to explore ourselves. differently. And so we didn't really have any ideas. And we just started making whatever was interesting to us.

our first video on the channel. is just an exploration of the street Fairfax in LA. The next video after that, I think is us going to our favorite coffee shop. But quickly we started to recognize that the audience that we had built in lacrosse. was not that interested.

in us talking about Fairfax Avenue in in Los Angeles. And we were where we thought we were starting from A position of We've built an audience. We've done this for four and a half years on YouTube.

We were actually starting from zero. And I think that was one of the most startling experiences to go through. Right, because you were all of a sudden I mean

The the lacrosse audience was a niche audience. That you had cultivated. But th they weren't necessarily interested in your coffee. choices or or other content. So you had to start from scratch.

Entirely from scratch. And the scary thing is we also had to start from scratch when it came to Building a business. Because YouTube clearly, again, was not going to be a business. So now we're finding ourselves freelancing again, doing all of these odd jobs and production projects, which is not what we set out to do. This is I think around two thousand eighteen, right?

And This is when you decide to launch What what you call the Colin and Samir show and already By twenty eighteen. You're hearing a lot of people say, Hey, YouTube is saturated. There's no space to get to break in, it's all the big creators are already dominating it, and I'm sure you are hearing that.

two from people who were like w Who are you guys? What are you making? Was w were you was any of that discouraging at initially? Th the the years between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty would have to be some of the most discouraging of of our careers. Um

It was not because YouTube was oversaturated. It was because we couldn't figure out what we wanted to make. There's this great quote about making movies that you know, talks about how making a movie isn't the hard part. It's figuring out what to make the movie about.

That's the hard part. And that that was our experience. We were making All types of different content. We made a show called What's Good about good news. We started to make our own skateboards and made a show about making skateboards. We were just trying to find ourselves online And all the while, again, like Colin mentioned, struggling to build a business and doing odd odd jobs to to get enough cash to keep going.

And We describe this term burnout. as creative output without direction. And That's what we experienced.

I also think We got a little bit humbled. When we left the lacrosse network, we were really confident. Borderline overconfident. About our abilities.

we're able to do. Then two, three years later, we find ourselves really struggling. And I think that was a gut check for us. It was tough to internalize and you had to start asking, are we actually As good as we thought we were when we left that job. You you you eventually landed on An idea.

To actually Focus on Content creators. About

people who are YouTubers and and creators, how did you land on that idea? It it wasn't a Kind of decision that we sat together and made what happened was during the time when we were trying to figure out what to make content about.

We would have these conversations over coffee. about the world of creators and this community that we were a part of. And one day we just thought W what if we just turn these conversations we're having in the morning.

into videos. And so we started writing scripts about our thoughts on Yeah. Creator space, different creators. And over time what we started to recognize Was that we were doing the same thing we did in lacrosse.

We were making content for the community that we were a part of. telling stories about the people in that community. you know, as the pandemic happened. Everyone's attention. started to shift to online media.

It's where the global conversation was happening. We had a universal experience and a universal topic that shifted everyone's focus to online creators. And a lot of people became online creators during 2020. A lot of people became more interested in online creators. And it was just this this moment in time where that audience just expanded in twenty twenty. It gave our show a real reason to exist.

I would say. Because For the first time it felt like All of these people want to be creators. It's one of the most sought after careers. But it also is one of the least understood.

And so that's where I think we finally found not only just the audience, but our value prop. and how we were actually going to start transforming the people who were watching. And that I would say is what really made our channel start to take off. Hm.

So let's let's talk nuts and bolts here, guys. Um You started to Make videos about content creators. And I should mention these are very extensive videos. These are uh anywhere from a half hour to some of them are two hours long. They're very well produced videos. First of all, walk me through

How you kind of divide up the labor'cause there's a lot of work that goes into each of these videos. For us when we look at our business, it it's always kind of worked where I'm more of the business, revenue, partnerships.

And Collins more of the creative director. And that's that's naturally been how it works. It's kinda funny that I'm the one that went to film school and and he's not, but that's just how we operate. Um And I think it's really important to have those two sides to a creator business, the kind of operational side and then the creative side. And I wonder how did the economics of of YouTube work?'Cause I've

You know, I I've heard different things. Like you know, we we know of the PewDiePie's or the Mr Beast, and we hear these stories about YouTubers making ten, twenty, thirty million dollars a year. even if you it w with a video that has a million views, right? From what I understand, as a YouTube creator, you don't make that much money off of that video. Is that right? Yeah, I mean I can actually give you kind of a high level of how much the platform has paid us over the past couple of years. So in twenty twenty

Five point six million views. And we made sixteen thousand dollars. In twenty twenty one. Our channel did 107 million views.

And we made a hundred and nine thousand dollars. And in twenty twenty two, so far. uh we've made fifty thousand dollars on 73 million views. So You can kind of understand from there that we have a team of six people who work on the show.

that would be hard to sustain a business just on what the platform pays you. Yeah. And I think what we see with a lot of YouTube creators is a couple of things. One, that you know, no two creators have the same roadmap. So they're all taking bits and pieces of ways that other creators are monetizing.

And Another thing for us. And a lot of creators when it comes to those brand sponsorships. is that not all views or not all listens are created equal. For us, the people who are listening are a certain type of

Person. And there are advertisers who are more interested in those people than there would be other advertisers. And that's where it really comes down to The benefit of having a niche audience. and why so many creators can build a valuable

living, even if their topic is very niche. Yeah, this is. aggregating an audience of a certain type, building a community, and then finding the most relevant business for that community. Tell me a little bit about your plans beyond what you're doing now. I mean, what other products and and things are you working on that will

help you continue to build the business, the Colin and Samir business. Yeah, I think I think to start, you know, what we wanna do right now, we wanna focus on is delivering our value to the audience. as best as possible and as in as many ways as possible. And a lot of that is telling a diverse set of creator stories. So we can educate people on the different roadmaps that exist. We do that right now on YouTube through our show. We do it across social platforms. We do it on our podcast and we do it in our newsletter, the published press. So we get to hear a lot more about what's happening in the creator space. We get to get to work on that project and build an audience in a completely different way.

And an audience that we own. And I think that's a really important distinction. When you think about All of us as creators were building Our companies on rented land in a sense, right?

Like YouTube could change Tomorrow. I don't think it will, but it could, and we would lose our our access to that audience there. So what we're doing with building this newsletter allows us to aggregate this audience that we're passionate about, deliver value to them in a different way, in a way that we have more ownership over.

And as we look to the future, I think it's expanding upon this concept of education moving in that direction where we can roll out more education and more ways to deliver that value to the creator audience. The newsletter. is not called Colin and Samir's newsletter.

And that was very intentional. It's called the published press. Because scaling yourself as a creator is one of the hardest things to do. Casey Istat can't scale himself. Necessarily, right?

if he doesn't want to upload. There's no Casey Neistad on YouTube that day. And the same. Pertains to us. on the Colin and Samir channel, there's there can be a cap to that.

But with the published press we have a writer. And of course we're in the edits. And we're looking at it very closely. But that's Uh machine.

that can deliver the same value problem. But we're not as heavily involved. And that's really exciting for the longevity of our careers and the impact that we're able to have.

We've gotta take another quick break, more from Colin and Samir in a moment and we'll find out how they built a business around creating YouTube videos. Stick around, you're listening to how I built this lab. Hey, welcome back to how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. So I'm talking with Colin and Samir of the Colin and Samir show on YouTube. And they're talking about how they built a business around their YouTube channel. Um you know the this creator economy, right? It has a market value estimated to be uh bigger than a hundred billion dollars and and I mean this is like

YouTubers and podcasters and influencers. So let's talk about how you build a business around being a content creator. I mean uh you've learned from a lot of people. You guys are are doing it yourselves. Um How do creators sort of Generally start out. building a sustainable business. Um I mean you obviously h have to have viewers and advertisers, but but where do you begin?

You know, I think the mistake we made when we stepped out of the La Crosse Network and started creating was We didn't think about the audience we wanted to create for. So I would say that a a a large part of starting out is thinking about an audience. And a value prop.

And thinking here's the people I want to make content for. What do I want them to feel? How do I want to transform them? So for us, you know, once we started to figure out what we wanted to do in our format, it was okay, we want to make content for creators. We want them to feel educated. We want them to feel empowered. We want them to feel less alone. And that gave us a guiding light. Now the next thing that was missing

was process. And that's an extremely important part of being a creator. Because what was happening for us was we were having some pieces of content that would do really well, that would get millions of views. But we would try and reverse engineer and say, how do we do that again? And we couldn't figure it out. And so when we decided to turn this into a podcast, into a talk show.

That's when we could actually understand and build a foundation for process. And process also enables team, we were able to bring team members on to help us with that process, and it also enabetization. 'Cause then you're able to communicate to the industry

You know What? Do I do? What can you buy? What's the product that I offer? Um

And that's a really important piece of the puzzle. And you can also look out in a year and say, Okay, you know, for us, we upload every Monday, we take six weeks off. That's how much inventory we have. You can buy a 60 second ad slot. And because we're talking to creators and we want them to feel educated, who are the advertisers who have that same mission? Let's talk to them. And let's see if they want to support our mission as well.

Because we're aligned. And so I would say those four things to solve audience value prop process and and monetization. Um It really is kind of the creator business plan.

Now to get to that point even, you kind of just have to create a lot to find yourself and figure out what you want to create. Um, because it's a really long road. It's taken us ten years to get to this point. And You know, obviously we uploaded all types of different content to get to the Colin and Samir show. How important are numbers are subscribers? I I I hear this all the time. I've got X number of subscribers, this number of subscribers, that number.

Is it is it Is it really the key to to to to building a sustainable business, having a massive number of subscribers, like millions and millions of subscribers? I think in reality what's more important is the average number of people who are listening or are watching. every time you upload.

That's a lot more representative of your actual community. That's there and cares. When it comes to subscribers. That's this. aggregate number that can be built over a long period of time.

But it doesn't necessarily mean you can reach all of those people. I think the opportunity that we're moving into right now. Is for more niche audiences. I think what's amazing on the internet is you can find content about almost anything, and you can find really well developed communities about all kinds of different things.

And so I think the future or the present right now is growing a depth of connection with an audience rather than growing wider audiences, growing deeper. And I think that's something we're gonna see a lot of as we move forward in in the creator space. I think there's a lot of different opportunities to meet those communities where they are and find the right monetization strategy. Some of that might be a Patreon or, you know, some of it might be merchandise or some of it might be ad supported. But I do not think you need millions of subscribers to grow. I think you need a passionate community.

To build a business. What explains why somebody blows up on YouTube? Is it Is it what they do? Is it how long they've been around? What do you what do you think? There's a lot of factors, obviously. I think the really interesting thing about some of these creators that reach

millions and millions and millions of people. Their content transcends language. So YouTube is a global platform. And f you know, the majority of the views come from outside the US.

So if you're a creator who's making Visual content. whether it be kids content or dude perfect who's doing these amazing trick shots or Mr Beast who You know, it's giving away. thousands of dollars. You don't need to speak the language to see the reaction on that person's face when they receive it.

So how how does it make you guys think about how what you do? Because when I see your videos, I think they're similar to what I do. It's like slow T V. Like this is slow media what I do. Right, but I'm not doing trick shots and I'm not this is not a fast paced show. Like you have to have patience to listen to how I built this. And I feel like there's a an element of that in your videos. They're very thought and d does it can it translate into You know, into a world where that is your primary source of revenue.

I mean, in our experience right now, the experience we're having, the answer is yes. And I would say that Similar to what we talked about before. It's about Uh depth. And that depth of connection. Now you do it's not as easy.

getting 40 million views on a video, like your advertising rates are going to be fantastic. But it's also a lot harder to produce a video that gets 40 million views. And you know, we've spent time with Mr Beast. We've spent time with Dude Perfect and watching them make their videos, it's, it's hard work. And You have to study the algorithms, you have to study the metrics, but you also have to want to do that. Do you think there's enough space for everyone in the creator economy?

I mean Do you think that anybody who wants to Make a business out of this could. Theoretically do that? I think

It's a tough question. I think right now there's a lot of people who are gonna try. Uh the the barrier to entry has been significantly lowered.

And a lot of that is because of TikTok or YouTube shorts, this short form vertical content. People are having a lot of success. And most importantly, they can take a lot of shots. It's not as hard to make a video anymore. um with short form vertical content, but it is hard to sustain an audience over a long period of time. I think a lot of people can can make money right now in the creator economy. But to make a career.

I think is extremely challenging. And I think it's just like any other entrepreneurial venture. And I think it's really important to recognize that the term creators. Creators are a subset of entrepreneurs. It is the it is it follows the same trajectory of how hard it is to launch a startup.

our product just so happens to be media. Yeah, I think If you want to be a creator, the question you should be asking yourself is Does creator have to be a career? Or can it be?

A tool in your toolkit. Two Help. Your business. or to make some extra cash on the side, doing what you love.

There are unique people who really want Creator to be a career, and there are some people who before they know it, Creator has become a career. Because they have developed the audience, they have the viewership that will sustain a business. But it doesn't have to be that way for everyone. Yeah. You guys have been at this for ten years now.

And It's a it's a grind. There's a lot of work that goes into producing I mean, w is it fair to say that you're actually working harder now than you were When you started?

I would say that's absolutely fair to say. Um you know, we reflect on on the last ten years and say that it it took us ten years to get our ticket to enter the race. Now we're in the race. But at least we have direction.

Because in the past we didn't know where we were going. And there's nothing like running, but don't not knowing where you're supposed to end up. Or when to stop. So I would say, you know, whether it's we just entered a race or we just entered a marathon, I would say we haven't even hit mile one yet. And um, you know, to have have the stamina to do this, I think it's it's helpful to have a partner. It's helpful for us to keep each other afloat and it's not easy. You're dealing with algorithms, you're dealing with audiences, you're dealing with a creative output that's

not easy to do on a week to week basis. So we're lucky to have a team. We're lucky to have, you know, started to to build a business out of this and started to build a company and a culture where people can support each other and um we can put some process around this and try and make this Try and make a real run at this. Hm.

I know this is a question that I get all the time, and part of me Thinks when I'm asked this question, well, if I had the answer, don't you think that other people would have the answer to this question? But I'm gonna ask you it anyway. Where do you see opportunities for people who want to get into U two.

I think there's a lot of opportunity. when it comes down to the topic that you choose to talk about. I think if our history has shown us anything, underserved communities. are communities that are going to be excited about your videos and they're gonna come back again and again, whether it was the lacrosse community or now the creator of community. It was the decision to

talk about a community that we're a part of that happens to be underserved. That has led to us actually being able to Yeah, A community. uh that we can then

Find ways to to monetize. I also think to remember that If you want to make it on YouTube specifically, YouTube is a search engine. So thinking about searchable topics is really important as a starting point. You know, a lot of times it's it's important to start with

Searchable topic within underserved communities so that you can aggregate that initial audience and then introduce your personality into that as well. Uh I think the mistake we made was starting to think about just making whatever interested us and there were just wasn't an audience for it yet. So I do think you need to take a lot of shots. And getting yourself in a space where you can do that and where you aren't relying on YouTube or relying on social, which was what we did. So don't do that. But just take a lot of shots, think about it as a search engine and think about how to serve an audience that's underserved.

I know it's impos it really is impossible to predict the future. You know, ten years ago, if you ask people, what's the future of X, Y, and Z? I don't think people would have Predicted TikTok. Right. But if you if you if you if you tried.

the creator economy is headed. In ten years time, do you still think that YouTube will be the The dominant force? Yeah. Uh I definitely do.

I think there's something about the power of You know, search. But also the length of the content. I think when you sit with someone

For five, ten, fifteen minutes. you're building a depth with the creator. That you're not necessarily getting In fifteen seconds on TikTok. And

with the TikTok for you style page. It prioritises the videos and not the creators. So if you took the biggest creators off of TikTok. you can still enjoy TikTok.

But people come to YouTube specifically for the creators. Because they want to watch them for long periods of time. And once you have people watching for a long period of time, that's actually when you can build a career. off of whether it be advertising. Or

selling a product or a service. Yeah, I think on TikTok, you're a cog in their algorithm. You're going through it and you're just seeing what's next. Uh and it's learning about what you like in terms of what's next. It's much less about the creators and much more about the experience of the For You page. And I think if you look back in time, history has shown us that people follow people. Whether it was the radio, television stars, movie stars, musicians, like we're interested in people. And YouTube lends itself really well to building relationships with people. Collins.

Thanks so much, guys. Thanks, guy. Thanks, guy. Hey, thanks so much for listening to How I Built This Lab. You can follow How I Built This on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening right now. You can binge all of our episodes ad free by subscribing to Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.

If you want to follow us on socials, we're at how I built this on Twitter and Instagram, and I'm at guy on Twitter and at guy.Roz on Instagram. This episode was produced by Carla Esteves with editing by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Andy Hewther. Our music was composed by Ramteen Arab Lui. Our production team at How I Built This includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, JC Howard, Chris Massini, Liz Metzger, Sam Paulson, and Carrie Thompson.

Our intern is Margaret Cirino. Neva Grant is our supervising editor, Beth Donovan is our executive producer. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. How I built this.

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