00:00Don't be afraid to spend the money if you want to scale your business. Sometimes you have to take losses. Was there like a really smart financial decision? What is the biggest AdSense you made on one video? It's off one video. Oh my God. But oh, what if we give you $100 million for one single video? What would be that video that you would create? But if it was me, I would buy a country. I have a better answer. I would buy a country. Oh. What the. So if you were the CEO of YouTube for a year, what would you do? Well, that's a very good question. It's the way then.

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00:32Welcome to driven, the podcast, where we go for a drive with some of the world's most well-known YouTubers, the ones who turned their channels into a business. On today's episode, we have a father son duo who's done exactly that Jordan and Hudson matter Jordan starred as a photographer and picked up YouTube in his 50s, and now he runs one of the biggest family channels on YouTube 31 million subs, billions of views.

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And he even picked up a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award. Hudson, his 19 year old son, is also building his own YouTube empire. He has 2 million followers in with 200 million views. He's building systems and he's thinking like a founder. In this week's episode, we talked to Jordan and Hudson about everything they've done to turn their channels into thriving businesses the creative bets, the wins, the losses, the risks, the strategy hires, and everything that goes into helping those channels thrive. All right, guys, let's go for a drive.

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01:25Val Jordan and Hudson, thank you again. And we're super, super excited to have you guys here. Before we jump into your YouTube journey, we want to take you on a little adventure. And we have a surprise here in front of you. And you guys have guessed, he said it's a Mercedes and he said it's a Tesla. So we're going to see which car it is.

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Jordan Tesla's definitely wrong on this. This is actually pretty sick. Do you, like, which one of us gets to keep it? How do we do that? Do we split it because we live together?

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Val Yeah, we'll cut it in half before you guys leave from here. We could just share it. All right guys, so we're gonna do this reveal. Let's go three two one go

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Jordan Oh, this is a Rolls-Royce Actually, I've never been in a Rolls-Royce. That's pretty cool. All right. I'm driving it Do not trust Hudson do not trust Hudson to drive it. I'm getting in don't trust Hudson I'm driving it. Oh, it's a Rolls Royce ghost. Oh my lord. How much does this car cost? This is so I thank you so much for giving us a Rolls Royce. I appreciate that. This is amazing actually Hi, I'm gonna keep this you don't get you to get this you can have my car.

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Hudson That's okay. I drive I drive a 2004 minivan so it's okay

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Val Bye

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Jordan Chris. You never

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Hudson Yeah, I'm not I do not trust me with Hudson. You're gonna be terrified to drive this one

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Jordan No, I don't. I've driven for a couple years. Does it have like sensors? You know how much money you have to have to be able to drive this and relax? We're gonna go fast. Let's see about the pickup.

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Val Oh, let's go.

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Jordan I need another margarita. I've only had two today. So if we can pull over and get a third margarita. That was a joke.

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03:13Jordan When Hudson was 10 years old is when I first started talking about YouTube, right? So I guess I've been doing that nine years now. wow, has it been that long? And I started doing photography videos and I was posting there. I was getting some traction because I was working with kind of well-known dancers from Dance Moms. And I didn't know what I was doing. And I talked to Hudson, who's always had a remarkable brain for YouTube. So I asked him his advice. And he said, if you're lucky enough to be successful on YouTube, it's because you found a lane. And if you leave the lane, people are going to stop watching. But if you stay in the lane too long, people are going to get bored and stop watching. So the only option you have is to expand the lane while staying in it. That was his advice when he was 10. So he knew a lot more than I know now when he was 10. So that's kind of what we've done from the beginning. I was doing photography challenges and then evolving into bigger challenges, bigger challenges, and more famous people. But at some point, the pivot came with working with Salish. And then that just was a right turn. And at a certain point, I just put down the camera.

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Brian Amazing.

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Jordan And that was kind of listening to Hudson's advice from the beginning and being able to do something where it was kind of consistent with what we had done before because we started by doing photo challenges with her. But it was something that was much more universal because you see a relationship between a parent and a kid and it gave us much more longevity.

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Val Yeah, and the fun challenges that you guys do together. They're like, it's so fun to watch, like to have that kind of dynamic because a lot of times, you know, kids are scared of their parents.

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Jordan Could you just please convince Hudson to be in more of my videos, please?

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Val Yes, Hudson. I'll be like, Hudson, you want to be in a video?

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Jordan And he'll be like, yo, bro, I got a lot of meetings today.

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Val Oh, now I'm scared.

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Jordan I just wanted to go. They're like, what? Are you sure you were kidding about the margaritas?

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Val Yeah, he's not. I was kidding about the margaritas.

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Jordan I don't even drink, especially in the daytime. All right.

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05:15Val um okay go ahead yeah so let me ask you let's say i give you a hundred million dollar budget for

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Jordan one single video what is that video that you would create for me uh i would i don't think the 100 million dollars or a hundred dollars would dramatically change the number of views we'd get and the reason is because we don't do those kind of videos it's the audience doesn't care if we're spending money or not or how big it is they want to see kind of interpersonal connections and so would I take a spaceship to Mars or something like no I wouldn't I actually wouldn't what I would do is if I had to spend 100 million dollars I would make it the most incredible vacation that we could go on and then use that as an excuse to make a video to be totally honest because because for me at this point it's all about it's just all about the experiences that we get to have together I'm not joking I'm not I'm not saying it's not a talking point I know it's a cliche but I recognize this is a limited time. I'm like, I'm dependent on them for my content. It's not like it's, I can continue on with these kind of videos if I, if neither of them are in it. So I'm dependent on how long they want to do it, right? And so for me, I know that there's more videos behind us than ahead of us in this capacity. So I'm very aware of the fact that each week that I get to do this, I want it to just be special and fun and memorable. And if that happens, if we leave the video, for example, a shoot and Salish said that was fun, I don't even care how the video does. But the fact that it was fun will make it a good video.

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Val Absolutely. And we can see that as audience, I can see you're having a lot of fun. Salish is having a lot of fun.

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Jordan Right, so we can have just as successful video in Target as we could in Paris. More so in Target probably 'cause it's more relatable.

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Val Right.

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Jordan But if I had $100 million, Hudge, could you imagine the plane we would rent? We would rent the biggest plane and fly it to the biggest yacht And it would be super wasteful and we would do it because we had to spend the money anyway. Or a much better way to do it would be just to take all 100 million and give it to people who need it. And they make a video about doing that. I would, if it was me, I would buy a country. Can you ask me the question again? No, no, no, don't switch to my mind. I'm not going to do anything like that. Could you ask me a question? I have a better answer now.

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Val No, no, wait, wait, wait.

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Jordan I have a better answer. It's okay.

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Val What if we give you $100 million for one single video? What would be that video that you would create?

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Jordan I would buy a country. Yo, what the? right and I get with that country I would then wait wait wait stop something like I've heard that answer before like I hate it like I was like oh like this is why like I shouldn't even do podcasts I'm like oh I would go on a really expensive trip or give it all away and he's like buy a country it's such a better idea wouldn't that be so cool though um can I uber back oh my

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Val Oh my

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03:13God, me too actually. Let's go in the Uber. It's like an Uber, how's that fun? You can come sit here.

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Jordan All right, here we go. Leave it in the boy. We are in Rolls Royce Ghost. You ready? Yeah. We're in a Rolls Royce Ghost and

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Hudson What's up, what's up? It's just a Tuesday, what can I say? I feel like, oh gosh, this is terrifying. I'm just like, I feel like I'm learning to drive again, straight? Yeah.

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Jordan Are you nervous? Should we test the acceleration? Hudson, are you nervous to drive this car? Watch this. No, no, Hudson, stop, stop, stop, stop. Actually, don't, we're, speed bump, speed bump, speed bump. Yeah, I see the speed bump. I don't know about this. Okay, okay, let's not, no, no, no, no, Hudson. Okay, wow, wow, he just ran around. I didn't, it was all yellow.

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08:40Val So let's say you guys exchange your channels for one week. What is that one video you would go and delete on each other's channel?

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Jordan Wait, we could delete one video on somebody else's channel?

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Val Oh no, you can on Hudson's and Hudson can on yours.

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Jordan For me, selfishly, each one of his videos is a moment in his life. I just like that that's recorded.

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Val Wow, that's so nice. And I love your videos too, by the way. What you've been able to accomplish in such a young age, when I was 18, I didn't know anything.

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Jordan I mean, I think what's really cool about his videos is he's done a lot of travel videos. Like, we'll be at home, and he'll just casually mention, "Oh yeah, I'm going to Paris tomorrow." And he'll just fly to Paris to make a video, then fly from there to somewhere else in Europe, and then fly back. And so, first of all, I think that's super cool, especially for a young guy like that, to be doing that, having employees, all that. But I also think it's really awesome that you're getting that travel kind of documented for later in life. I'm all about the memories.

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Val Awesome. You're driving great, Hudson. I'm giving you...

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Jordan At the end, you're going to tell us which one of us is a better driver.

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Val What's that? Good.

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Jordan No, you're going to have to pick someone. This is YouTube. Everybody wins or loses.

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Val Yes, that is true. Okay, so let's see if Hudson can park and get through the lane.

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Jordan Oh, no. Oh, is he going to go back to the back?

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Hudson What is the matter with you?

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Jordan I'm always driving. I think it's very... I respect it and I'm proud of him for being so independent. But I also want to help him as a dad and he won't accept it. So it's frustrating but I also appreciate it.

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Val But you gave him the best skills of having a YouTube channel. I think there's no...

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Jordan Like I said from the beginning, he taught me about that. So I can't really take credit for anything he knows about YouTube. So as of now he hasn't changed that.

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Val But at least being a YouTuber and actually looking up to you.

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Jordan I don't know if he looks up to me so much. I would just say for the most part he's independent. it's almost like we're not related. And I would like to be a little bit more like a part of his journey since I do it too, but he's kind of determined to do it on his own. All right, let's lock in.

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Val All right, Hudson, so this is your true test now. I got this. Let's see.

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Jordan The test is not just this part. This part is not that hard. The test is the turn you're gonna have to make when you get to the end of it.

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Val I know, and that dumpster is right on the road.

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Jordan Yeah, the dumpster's right there.

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Val This is hard. Okay. We did it. Hudson.

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Jordan All right, so who did better?

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Val Who did better?

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Jordan I think I have to go with Hudson. Can I just say, can you guys replay that weak high five? He gave me a limp-fisted high five. Give me the high five.

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Hudson Dude, high fives are very, like, 2010. High fives are Obama first term. All right, we did it.

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Val Yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed.

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Hudson Thank you, thank you. I made a few, we made a few wrong turns, but it's okay.

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11:38Brian All right, awesome, let's get started. Jordan, Hudson, welcome to The Driven Podcast, where we dive into the business, your channel on YouTube and everything it takes to run one. So we know that your channel got started with photography. So we don't need to kind of go back through all of that here. But one thing that we'd love to start with is when did building the channel move from maybe a hobby to feeling like a true business? Oh, wow. Your question.

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Jordan That was a while ago.

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Brian We got a bunch of these.

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Jordan I didn't know you could make money on YouTube until after we had 100,000 subscribers. So we were not monetized. We just were doing it to get... The original idea was Sandy, who is the head of production now, said to me, if we could make a YouTube channel and get 10,000 subscribers, then you get access to the YouTube studios for free in Chelsea, New York. So we did that to try and get 10,000 subscribers, not thinking we ever could get there. And then once we found a formula that took off, then we started getting views before we understood what that meant. I was at a party in Brooklyn and some guy was looking at the YouTube and saying, wow, like how much are you making? I'm like, what do you mean?

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Val I can do that.

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Jordan I had no clue. Why didn't you tell me? You probably knew it. I had no clue. So much money has been lost.

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12:57Brian You could have gotten your own Rolls Royals. So, you know, so in the beginning, you're not making money. You're you're doing it as a passion project, as a hobby. When was there? Was there a single indicator revenue milestone? Was it the first dollar? Was it something else that made you go, okay, let's go all in on this, or let's put more energy into this?

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Jordan It was a combination of views increasing and revenue, but primarily views, because the idea that we could reach that many people was shocking to me. So there were a couple of milestones that didn't have anything to do with revenue. Actually, revenue's really never driven it for me. It's always been about the creative part. The first milestone was getting a million views on a video, which was just mind-blowing. It blew my mind. It was just a photo shoot with someone in the middle of the street for a one-minute video.

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Val Was that in New York?

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Jordan Yeah, it was in New York. And it started with all photo challenges, mainly with people who nobody knew about. They were like ballerinas and stuff because I was a dance photographer. So that was the first thing. And then the second thing was we went to Australia, Sandy and I, to create some content. And we got into Melbourne and then this bus pulled over and all these kids were like smashing the windows and screaming, I was like, what is going on? I was like, look, what's happening? I had no idea that that was for me. Oh my God. Because we had just been making videos and staying in our own little bubble. And then when we went out somewhere that wasn't New York, suddenly I realized continents away, there's a huge busload of kids that all knew who I was. So then that really kind of represented the reach. Do you remember when we came back and then we went to Times Square and it was that same thing. Yeah. And then we, Hudson and I did a video on Times Square together. And it happened that we picked a location where there were like, it was like a middle school or high school or something, I think, high school, I think. They were all doing photos, class photos, and they all knew who I was. And so there was a sudden recognition, like this is happened quickly and I didn't see it coming. And I think those two things excited me more than the revenue. 'Cause I was already making good revenue as a photographer. So I wasn't really focused on that. It was more about the reach.

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15:02Brian What was the team like at that stage of the channel building. You and Sandy? Yeah. Just you guys? Yes. You're the editor.

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Jordan No, he was.

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Brian He was, got it.

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Jordan I was doing the ideas and I was on camera.

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Val And how did you meet Sandy?

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Jordan Remember? I have no clue. I was doing a photo shoot and he reached out to me. He wanted to film it and he came and he filmed it really well. And so we would do videos from time to time and put them on Vimeo.

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Brian Yes, of course. Yeah.

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Jordan And then eventually we ended up turning it into a YouTube. And again, it was his idea. I had no idea anything about YouTube.

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Val Yeah, I heard your podcast where you said like Hudson and Sandy actually told you to start putting your stuff on YouTube. And of course, you just like blew up on that.

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Jordan So Sandy suggested we do YouTube. Hudson, can you just tell me, because I'm actually confused about this. How did you know so much about YouTube?

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Hudson Yeah, actually. He was 10.

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Jordan Great question. And he wasn't, you weren't doing YouTube.

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Hudson No, I think it was a lot of it was just like, obsession with, I guess when I was at school, like a lot of my friends were just like obsessed with YouTube. So I would kind of be surrounded by that. And this was during the days of like Casey Neistat, Logan Paul, David Dobrik were just like huge inspirations. So I just, I guess learned through there.

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Jordan Well, yeah. Okay. But I know your friends that was there.

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Hudson Yeah.

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Jordan So I saw their obsession. Their obsession was with fame. Sure. was with analytics. And I think that that's an interesting distinction there. I don't know that you've ever sought or had interest in fame, but it seems like you're very, very interested in like the...

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Hudson Well, I guess that's how it kind of came about. It was very more so like I wanted to be cool because I was not very popular when I was younger. So I was like, oh, all these kids are into YouTube and they watch it, so maybe I can try. And then I watched it and even a few of my friends made YouTube channels and so and then I did and I was like oh this is cool and I guess I just stuck with it longer but I think I learned a lot of it through trial and error and then also just through basic research

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Jordan but the truth is I have no clue how I know it's really an instinct thing more than anything yeah

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Val so you started your channel before yours no no no this was probably I mean I was probably

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Hudson I was 13 when I started the channel that currently exists and then I started I made videos like for fun when I was like 10 or 11 with other friends. So I've got a very, very random question for you,

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17:47Brian Hudson. What's your favorite color? My favorite color? Oh gosh, turquoise. Okay, can we get some turquoise action here? Got a little reveal for you. Here you go. I love it. This is a critical moment in the show. A lot of our viewers are going to be creators who are maybe on the rise trying to figure out how to build a business. So sounds like in the early days, Sandy was a major catalyst because he was bringing to you knowledge that you didn't know. And also some expertise around editing and getting things up there. We want to know about the next phase of when you knew you needed to bring on extra help and who was that help? It maybe doesn't need to be individually the person, but what was the role and how did it change things for you guys?

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Jordan Wow. What was the first? I mean, we did that for so many years and so he would he was the editor always the editor and he would do it all himself so the first thing was to get him some editing help because as the videos got bigger and he was filming them and he was also in pre-production creative meetings meaning he and I were the creative meetings and then I would throw out ideas and I would decide what to do and then I would direct while we were filming but he was the one that was filming it and then editing at that time it was one camera uh two audio so I would have audio and then the dancer would have audio and he would sync all that, he did everything. So the first thing was, he hired a couple of people to help him with post-production. And then he hired a couple of shooters. All the hires initially were on the production side. Eventually, I brought on a creative person who became the creative director. I think Rowan might have been my first hire. In all seriousness, Hudson was, he was never a hire, but he was a creative partner before I had any other creative partners. So I would talk to him more than Sandy about ideas often. And then he was like, you know, growing up and doing his own thing. And so I'd say production is the first thing to get. Right. You want to. And then the question becomes like, what is your aesthetic as a creator? Are you a well-produced channel or are you a vlog channel? Are you, you know, an iPhone channel? Like, I think that's important. The one thing I'd say for any creator, invest in audio first. You can use a phone.

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Val Right.

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Jordan But you don't need a fancy camera. But if you have bad audio, it really takes you out of it.

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Val And then I always feel like being a YouTuber is like having a startup. Like you just explained, you have to hire so many people. It's not like a one-person game like Instagram or TikTok could be. You could just kind of do everything on your own. But in YouTube, you have thumbnails. I'm sure you have a different guy for that.

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Jordan But you can do that all on your own. I think that we did it for years. It was just the two of us.

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Val So, I mean, for many years.

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Jordan I'd say three years at least before we hired anyone.

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Val And when did it change? Was it a revenue number?

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Jordan No, it changed when the videos got more complex. Neither Sandy or I wanted to waste any money on hiring anyone. It wasn't like we were killing it. We weren't making $100,000 a month or something. We were making money. I had already a photography career, and I was trying to balance those two things. I didn't want to give up the photography career because I didn't know if YouTube would last. So we were very frugal about what we were doing. So you can do it all completely on your own. It's really just about consistency and about by consistency. I mean, posting consistency, but also creative consistency. Like you should make videos that all look equally good.

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Val And before we continue, we would like to give a big shout out to our sponsor today, Fundmates, who's helped make this episode possible. If you're a creator looking to grow your channel today, then Fundmates is the perfect solution for you. They give you capital to scale your business, to invest in production and to build your team. So check out Fundways today and start scaling your channel.

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20:50Brian We're talking about team. Team is critical for building any business. Was there an early maybe hiring or kind of investment in team decision that in retrospect, you wouldn't make again, knowing what you know now? You should answer that question. Love to hear from Hudson.

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Hudson Oh, wait, why?

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Jordan Because, well, I think your new hires are more recent. And you've had a couple of, I don't know where you're at in terms of like what you want to about but there but it's i think your hiring journey is interesting i mean you were 17 when you had your first hire right

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Brian wow that is so incredible 17 he's hiring somebody and the person is twice his age

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Jordan so i'm interested in that dynamic and when you decided to hire somebody

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Hudson i've always seen youtube in more of a business sense than i think he has at some some way so i thought it just made sense to scale quicker so i hired someone to basically just run all the the stuff I didn't want to do. So like editing or just that I was like terrible at. So like editing

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Jordan and videoing, just having someone consistent. So where you hired that that was the same person, right? Yes. So he hired a Sandy. Yeah. Right.

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Hudson Yeah. Yeah. More or less. And then I, I probably did like 30 or 40 job interviews for that before I found someone that was good. And I mean, yeah, we've worked together for, yeah, like two and a half years um and how did you find him i found him on a website called youtube jobs.com

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Brian yes shout out a shout out i didn't i didn't create it but it's a cool website ytjobs.com uh but anyway so i found

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Hudson him through there and uh yeah no i just i it was a good match he lived probably like an hour by me and then basically what we did i mean i was still in school so basically what we did is like once once a week we just i'd get off of school maybe like 1 p.m and then we'd he'd come over at 1 30 and then we'd just shoot from like 1.30 to like midnight. And then we'd do that once a week and the videos would be like one camera, one audio device and then we'd be editing them together and then we'd create the, like come up, it would basically be like we'd shoot on Tuesday so we'd come up with the Idea Sunday and then the creative outline Monday and then shoot on Tuesday.

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Jordan Wait, that's a very fast turnaround, really?

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Brian Yeah, that's a very fast.

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Jordan You would do it in 48 hours?

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Hudson Yeah.

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Jordan What happened to Wednesday through Saturday?

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Hudson Editing. And then also planning like new concepts and things. So, yes, I did that for like two years straight, but that was also prior to me like editing videos like myself, which I was terrible at for three years straight. So, I mean, my recommendation, honestly, is just like if you have the money, then, you know, if you if I spent, you know, probably like 150K for two. No, no, no. Maybe like 120K for like two years of his employment. And then I made back like or no more than that. Sorry. But like, you know, one 100 or 150K somewhere in that range. And then I probably made back like $400 to $500 just based on that hire. So it's like if you — I just think if you can spend more money because a lot of people are apprehensive. But it's like, you know, it's kind of like running ads. If you run an ad and you put $10 in and then you make $15 in sales, it just makes sense.

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Brian This is great. This is exactly what we were hoping to learn from you.

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Hudson I mean I was young. So like I was 17.

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Brian You was. I love it. You was. I still am.

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Hudson But I was like I did not know anything about hiring people. I was a teenager. I was in like high school. So I like had no clue. and I knew it was a very competitive industry. Like if you talk to any creators, you guys probably know, like they're always looking for editors, always looking for camera people. They're always looking for creative people and it's hard to find.

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24:18Brian Quick question on the hiring process. You interviewed 40 people. What stood out about the person that you ended up bringing on? Because you've got the experience, you've seen your dad's channel grow. So you've probably seen maybe wins or losses there. How did you know that that person, and nobody can be sure, but how did you know that that was the one pull the trigger on?

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Hudson Great question. I think, I mean, one, a lot of the people I interviewed were, I'd be like, all right, you sound great. You know, where, where are you based? And they're like, Chicago. I'm like, no, I said it has to be in LA. Um, cause that's one of the issues with like YouTube is everyone's so young in the industry. It's a very new industry. So because of that, every, like you don't, they don't know how to read job descriptions or people are from overseas or whatever. Um, but so that was a big part of it. Maybe like 10 or 15 of the people were in LA. Also, I think a lot of it was just his obsession with YouTube. So like he was genuinely, he's just, he was very, he still is, but like very, very smart and also just cared a lot about YouTube. He's been in YouTube since like the Smosh days and has been learning a lot. So for me, I look for almost three qualities when hiring people. I'll be like, how trainable are you? So are you okay to like take new information and then utilize it quickly? Are you already passionate? And then are you already knowledgeable? And he was checked all through those boxes.

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Brian Do you like being a manager?

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Hudson Yeah, I would say so. I mean, it depends. I'm not necessarily the best at it, but I hope to be better.

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Val And we also heard that you started your own consulting business for brands. I mean, talk us through.

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Hudson Next Wave, right? That's amazing. Yeah, yeah. You guys did research.

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Val Do you use the same team or it's like separate entities?

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Hudson Well, kind of. So right now, I mean, yeah. So that's like my number one priority. I'm basically building like a consulting brand for celebrities and brands on YouTube. So building out their brands and we can talk more or building out their channels and we can talk more about that. But yeah, that's like the main goal right now. And in terms of like right now, I'm pretty much doing it all myself because and this is something I actually didn't want to bring up.

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26:15Hudson But I think one thing I have noticed recently or tried to learn about more recently is the idea of like if you want to scale your business, sometimes you have to take losses. So in terms of like let's say I'm because my goal, one of my goals is I want to be like super, super wealthy at a young age. Right. And I don't want to maximize it. But like, that's like one of my goals. Right. So if for me, I'm like, OK, if I was making hypothetically, let's say like half a million dollars a year on YouTube. Right. And then let's say I were to be like, OK, but how scalable is that really? It's like you look at you and you're one of the top creators in the world. But it's like, OK, you have super, super high ambitions. Maybe YouTube and being in front of the camera isn't the way to do it as much as like a full on agency. Right. So then I'm like, OK, I'm going to basically take a loss for a year in revenue, which I have. And so like this year, I'm just going to build up like an entire like my goal is to build like a really full fledged agency that can scale. And then hopefully it will make a lot more money. But I had to go through that loss period. So tied kind of a tangent. But that was just something I've learned about recently. So right now I'm pretty much just doing like everything myself. But yeah, I want to hopefully start hiring people in terms of just like the content side for it and things like that the next like three months

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Val that is so cool actually i totally agree to like scaling individually is so much more difficult than scaling for everyone and you can take a percentage and especially celebrities

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Brian do not have good youtube channels and now that youtube is the biggest streaming platform in the world

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Val i also heard your podcast where you said like you know you're able to build relationship on with the youtuber because there's a 20 minute long video on their life it's not the same with with like TV or OTT and all that.

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Brian with like TV or OTT and all that.

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Val So now YouTube, I know, especially from India and Bollywood, now they are actually releasing one of their movies on YouTube.

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Hudson Because they don't want distributors.

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Val They don't want to pay people for no reason where YouTube is already there. So you're like on such an amazing path to get these celebrities out there.

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Jordan to get these celebrities out there.

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Hudson It's a huge, huge opportunity for sure.

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Brian But I think what's also interesting about what you just said,

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Jordan that a lot of people that are probably watching your podcast might be stuck in this situation he's somewhat stuck in. If you think of his job as YouTube and now his ambition as his consulting company, then he's basically pulling back on YouTube and there goes the revenue so that he can build a consulting business. I'm sure a lot of people watching are wondering at what point do you stop doing whatever it is that's bringing your revenue, your day job or whatever, and commit 100% to YouTube. So it's a hard decision, right? Because he knows that if he was putting time into videos right now, in the short term you would be making a lot more money and if your ambition is to be wealthy it's hard to say well I want to be wealthy and here's like low-hanging fruit money waiting for me the more videos I make the more money I'm going to make but I'm going to stop doing all that and I think that's consistent with what people think when they're like you only have so many hours in a day so if you have a nine to five nine to seven job how are you supposed to also create content but the job doesn't make you happy or it's not making as much money as you would hope, and you wanna make that leap, so how do you know when to do that?

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Brian And that's the problem, but one of the things that we had outlined is what we wanted to ask you about was about opportunities, where there's a fork in the road, and you've gotta make a decision one way or another. How do you guys think about that right now? You just outlined a really good example with what you're going through right now, Hudson. Maybe Jordan, is there any examples of the past where you feel like that was critical? Thank God we did that, it led to X, Y, Z.

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Jordan I had a month's long waiting list as a photographer. So I was making good money. And I was trying to do YouTube consistently. And we've always been consistent.

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Brian We've posted every week, almost every week since we started eight years ago. It was Thursdays.

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Jordan Now it's Saturday. Wow. Since we started. I mean, we've missed the occasional week. But Hudson can tell you I'm obsessed. He makes a joke. Look, guess what? The world is still spinning. And you didn't post, right? Because to me, consistency is so important.

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Brian And discipline.

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Jordan Yeah. But consistency breeds discipline, right? If you commit to the consistency, you will have to be disciplined. And the biggest place that creators fall off is they start getting distracted. Like, oh, now I have opportunities. Oh, I'll go do this. I'll go do this. Wait, I have money. I'll go on vacation. And they stay away from the consistency. They stop being consistent. And the audience goes away. There's just too much content out there, right?

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Brian You've got to keep feeding them.

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Jordan The way I look at it is friends would have never taken a week off randomly. You wouldn't turn on NBC at 8.30 and go like, wait, where's friends?

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Brian wait, where's friends?

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Val For those of you who are under 50,

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Jordan Friends was really popular.

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Val Even for me, it's super popular. Seinfeld is better. Friends is good.

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Brian So, but okay.

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Jordan So, so I had to make a decision. And so what was happening is my commitment to YouTube was starting to pull away from my photography business. I was missing deadlines. I was having to cancel on clients. I was having to travel to the collaborators because the channel's always been built on collaboration. So they weren't all in New York at all. I had to go everywhere. And I had to make a choice at a certain point. And I was making more money in photography than I was in YouTube, for sure. And I love photography, so it wasn't like I was unhappy. And I built this out of nothing, from nowhere. I built this incredible business. So to walk away from that, knowing that I couldn't go back, there were 100 photographers ready to take all those clients I had.

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Brian They were ready, and I knew they wouldn't be there if I left.

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Jordan That was a very difficult decision, and I prolonged it as long as possible. And I tried to double dip as long as possible. And eventually I had to say, no, I got to go full steam on this. And then that's also when we went from New York to L.A. Because if I'm going to give up on my photography business, then there's no reason to be in New York anymore. At this point, go to L.A. where all the collaborations are.

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Val Right. All the creators live here.

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Brian That's scary. And you took a massive risk.

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Jordan It is. I mean, you know, it's a wonderful risk. You know, I think it's a bigger risk if you have a job, a family, you don't know if you'll be able to feed them. Like I already knew I was making enough. I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't. The way I look at it, Hudson and I are different. Like he's optimistic. Like he looks at the high end of his revenue and I look at the low end of my revenue. So he's like, I made X, so therefore I can do Y. I'm like, yeah, but you might not make X next month. He's like, no, I'm going to do it. Right. So that's one attitude. That's very entrepreneurial in a way. For me, I think, okay, what's the lowest? So we've made this. So let's say 25% lower than this is all we'll ever make again. Will I still be able to feed my family and have a home? And if the answer to that is yes, go for it. And that, because I just didn't want to, it felt like at that point we were at a high point where I did it. Actually now it looks like an extreme low point, but at that point it looked like a high point.

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Val Wow, that is incredible. Like your whole journey from moving to New York, from New York to LA, and obviously also changing and pivoting your content, which we love. Like I wish Salish was here too, but hopefully next time we get the most famous. Good luck with that one.

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Jordan Salish's thing is once a week she films, right? So we film our videos on Sundays. And the rest of the week, we don't talk about it. For me, I haven't wanted my relationship with her specifically to be defined by working together. For Hudson, since we like this stuff, we like to talk about it. So I love talking about it with him. But since she's not really deep into all the analytics and the algorithm and all that, We try to keep it more of like a normal relationship and then the films on Sundays.

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34:05Brian So earlier you were talking about consistency breeds results, essentially, whether they're good or bad. The consistency is also about habits, process, systems, behind every great CEO, entrepreneur, founder is some kind of system. Every business has great systems. This is something that a lot of our creator audiences are maybe starting to form or starting to experiment with or trial and error. We'd love to know a little bit more about what it is that keeps you consistent, how are you able to do that on a constant basis and deliver? Creatively consistent, you mean? Or just creative?

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Jordan Or just creative?

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Brian It's creatively, but it's also team, it's also production.

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Jordan You have to, I think the sticking point, tell me if you agree, the sticking point for most people's consistency is editing, right? If the editor can't get it done every week. So I've been very fortunate, Sandy has, we've never missed a week due to editing, ever. And that's pretty incredible, eight years. Now he's had to hire editors to get there, but every time YouTube moves the goalpost, eight minute videos, 10 minute videos, now we're at to 30 minute videos, because it's pretty clear that the longer the video, the better they will be received, or the better they'll do. So he can't do that by himself. And then we went from one or two labs to eight, and one camera to four. And so everything has gotten bigger, so he brought on more. So as long as you can stay consistent with the editing, usually you'll be able to stay consistent.

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Hudson I also think for, you know, you have a lot of, I don't know how much you want to touch on this, but like have a lot of challenges in terms of like the creative of each week.

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Jordan Yes.

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Hudson And I think part of that, just speaking on behalf of you is, you know, he's very involved in terms of the creative process, even more so than other stuff that he could be allocating resources to. I think a lot of that is like just passion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know if you want to talk about that. So what goes into that for you guys?

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Jordan he's right see i think hudson is a natural born entrepreneur i'm a natural born creative i'm not an entrepreneur actually um if i was i would have built a much bigger business with a lot more like offshoots of this because the opportunities are there but all i can do is focus on this week's video has to be as good as it can be and therefore until i have like a t it's almost impossible to build a team creatively that thinks like you do. And it's almost like you don't want that because you want to be surprised. And we have a great creative team, but I'm still heavily invested in the creative because I really want it to be consistently good and continue to get better. So if I look at our videos from a year ago, like, oh, it could have gotten a little deeper there. But still, I look at these now and I still think we could get deeper.

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Brian You're obsessive.

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36:51Jordan Yes, yes. And because I'm obsessive, I have a hard time delegating. And so then I take a lot of the responsibility on myself and I think that's good and bad. I think one of the reasons, I'm obsessed over why do creators go from here to here? I heard that it's a five-year lifespan when I started YouTube. You go, it takes you a few years to go, ride this way for a couple of years and then you start doing this and why does that happen? I really think it's that they lose control over their own story and their message. I've met so many creators, very high level creators who have such a big production team that they almost don't even know doing on set when they show up.

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Brian Right. They just show up like actors.

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Jordan I love that idea and I can't fathom that idea. How? You're telling your own personal story, right? But it becomes formulaic. Oh, this challenge and we're going to break through this thing and there's going to be this and there's going to be that. And rather than telling a personal story, I also think that longevity is about intimacy with the audience.

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Brian So if your channel is a Mr. B, I think he's the exception in so many ways.

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Jordan Like he does these things that are so big that he's almost breaking a lot of rules that setting. I don't think that that's the journey. I think a lot of young creators want to do that. They see that and they want to do that. I think the journey is more like finding a way to build a relationship within your videos that then the audience can aspire to have with you.

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Val That is so true. And do you think like this is because creators also get to like create a burnout because they've been like you, you're making content for so many years. So every time coming out with something new.

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38:15Jordan There's two different kinds of creative burnout. One kind of creative burnout is you're doing the same thing over and over. And it's just like a certain point, you're like, oh my God, there's a formula. The other kind of creative burnout is you want to do something new every time and your mind just isn't, it's just like not expanding enough. You're like, we've done that, we've done that. Like there's only so many ideas in the universe. And so then the creative burnout, that was one of my hires also was Ideator.

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Brian Oh. Yeah.

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‍Jordan So he used to work with Mr. Beast, his name is Harrison. We hired him to give us monthly ideas. A lot of creators do think tanks, right? You've done think tanks too for yourself. A little bit, yeah. Yeah, ideas, fresh ideas are super hard, which is why you see everybody copying everybody.

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Brian And part of that is building the team. It's getting that ideator. And it's, in a way you did delegate though. You hired an ideator.

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Jordan Well, but that was recent.

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Brian Okay, all right. That's like this year recent, right? Like a few months ago recent.

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Jordan That's after eight years of shooting on Sunday, waking up Monday and going, okay, what are we gonna film next week? And then just, it's just, it's so mentally exhausting. Now that we have more people bringing us ideas, the next thing is like, then you say, this idea is great. Now, how do we make it deep and engaging? We were looking for 50% retention with a 30 minute video. How do we get there? How many storylines can we have? And then you start, it sounded like a good idea, but you spent two days in creative realizing, actually, it's a surface idea

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Brian actually, it's a surface idea

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Jordan that you can't get more than 15 minutes out of. Now we got to go back. Now it's Thursday and we still have to film Sunday because of consistency, but we don't have an idea yet. That happens all the time.

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Val Right. And I heard you said like if Salish doesn't like the idea, it's gone for a don't.

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Jordan And she might nix it. Right. Like, okay. So, all right. We're not doing that. Yeah. So there's a lot. It's a lot.

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40:03Val Awesome. So tell me this. Like, how do you scale your channel? Are you reinvesting all your profit from AdSense or like, are you taking funding? How does that work? Maybe that shifted over time.

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Jordan I've always been profitable because I've always kept the expenses much lower than the revenue. Initially, it was just one of us, a photo shoot of zero. It cost us actually zero cents to do it unless we bought a Starbucks in the middle of the photo shoot.

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Val And your time.

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Jordan Yeah. Yes. But I would do my full photo shoots anyway. So I was just doing the thing that really sucked just to go back, honestly, was doing balancing YouTube with photography meant I was home very little.

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Brian And that sucked.

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Jordan I feel like I've made up for that now for the last few years, being able to work with them and we're all together all the time. But that period of time of balancing two full-time jobs and not being home for dinner or whatever, I'm sad about that period of my life. But I'm happy because it took me here. But it's a big decision if it's not just you. If you have a wife, if you have kids, if you want to be with them. But then also you want to keep growing and expanding and building what you've created.

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Val but it takes the time away from the personal stuff yes and i heard your wife was extremely supportive

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Jordan when she's insane she's incredible she's really really supportive but that that that's great but you're still not there right like i'd still not be there and that that was a bummer

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Brian yeah it weighs on you i'm a founder with a four-year-old and i feel that yeah it's hard there's a constant uh sacrifice thing going on in your mind of like do i go home do i do it i I gotta do it. Right.

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Jordan Well, I think that the thing is, is that it's a sacrifice unless it's successful.

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Brian The biggest fear is that I'm gonna commit to this.

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Jordan I'm not gonna be with my family and it's gonna fail. And then I'm gonna look back. I'm like, I missed his first steps and it didn't lead to him.

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Brian and it didn't lead to him. So it's just like, I just like failed both sides.

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Jordan And I think that is the fear that keeps a lot of people from trying is they've already got a full day and they have to make the money and they have to see their family. and where's the time?

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Hudson It actually reminds, do you guys know Alex Hormozzi?

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Brian Yeah. Big fan of him and it's interesting

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Hudson because I was listening to something he said recently where he was like people under us, or like he was talking to people who were in their 20s and he was like, you know, if you're talking about work-life balance, you have the wrong perspective because people talk about work-life balance in terms of like years versus decades. So if you like put all your eggs into one basket and then it works and you spend from like 22 to 32 doing that, then you can hypothetically have 32 forever for just life. You know what I mean? So there's something.

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Brian You know what I mean? So there's something. That's an interesting point. Yeah, very interesting. So one of the, you know, back to the kind of finance business stuff for just a couple minutes, was there like a really smart financial decision that you think you made that was a catalyst? Was it just bringing on the editor or was there something else?

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43:03Jordan Hudson, as I've made it pretty clear, has been an advisor. and he's also kind of had this business mind and he did say, and I've listened and agree, don't be afraid to spend the money. That the return, the ROI will be more significant. In other words, if it costs, our budgets, I mean, I can be transparent, our budgets sometimes are $1,000 for a video and it can get up to 20,000. So we're not near the $100,000. And a lot of people are.

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Brian A lot of people are spending six figures.

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Val I heard Mr. Beast said it takes him $3 million to create.

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Jordan Yeah, but you kind of have to take Mr. Beast and then never talk about him, to be honest. Because he's not even an outlier. It's just like a different world. And then everybody else is over here, right? That also is probably why he's successful. Thinks about it better. It's not that he thinks about it better. It's that he was the first to do something extremely well. and then he had a bunch of revenue come in and what he did is invest 100 of everything back in right so he's his unfair advantage is that he's willing to not make any money right so then as a result he just pours it all in and it's very very um motivating because wow he's showing there's a ceiling that keeps going higher and higher maybe doesn't yes and so i think almost everybody else's

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Brian ceiling that keeps going higher and higher maybe doesn't yes and so i think almost everybody else's

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Jordan fear would be if I hit that ceiling and I made all this money and I didn't keep any of it, like that's crazy. So I'm going to start keeping some and then then you lessen the production. So so I feel like for but for us, we have seen it doesn't always it's not a direct correlation that if we spend more money, we'll get more views. But if the concept is a good one and it requires us to spend the money a few years ago, we would have been unwilling to spend that money. And now we're willing to spend it. So I'd say the best financial decision was taking his advice and starting to invest in bigger concept videos, because the bigger concept videos tend to get you into the algorithm more, because there's a lot of other creators that are within our demo peripherally that are doing it. And so then you ride their kind of algorithm as well. Those all those build videos, for example, those cost a lot of money to make, but the return is significant.

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Val those cost a lot of money to make, but the return is significant. So have you ever lost money on an idea or a video you know you put way more than actually how much it made no never no wow no really

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Jordan really yeah on an individual video never he's lost tell him a couple like he's yeah let's hear it yes let's hear it how much are you losing talk about the biggest what was the biggest like traveling to japan or europe or something i don't know there have been some pretty bad ones like i

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Hudson last year i think i i spent a lot of money on a video i thought i would do well and it didn't do well like I tried to build a theme park in a school and it was cool but it just didn't do that well um I don't know there are a lot of like big production stuff I'll do and then but a lot of it's like from a few years ago where I wasn't as knowledgeable I don't know it just depends when

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Brian you look back on that video do you understand why it didn't do well yes and no I think yes in terms

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Hudson of like audience correlation and interest and things like that no because I thought it was a good idea I still do and I know that if

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Brian good idea I still do and I know that if if someone else had done the same idea would have done well

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Hudson so I think that was one of the biggest learnings for me was as how you know not every I mean I knew this to some extent but like you're I'll go on a quick divergent but so let's say you share an audience with someone and or you think you share an audience with someone and then they do a concept and then you make an iteration off of it so an example would be what I just shared where like I share audience with like the Stokes twins or um like Ben Aslard or something right and then they do a video that's like we built a theme park in our house and then I have a lot of videos that are about theme parks that have done well and then also a lot of videos about like my first time in high school or whatever that have done well so I'm like okay what if I combine them and did I built a theme park in a school makes sense so I was like oh this would be a perfect total no-brainer video it costs a lot but I'm pretty sure there's going to be a high ROI so I did it and then it was like an 8 out 10 like didn't do well at all so for me my experience that was like okay you have to think about it deeper you have to get uber specific with not just the channels your audience shares but

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47:25Brian like what what is your actual audience right um and that was just something i did not know at all

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Hudson and i i just failed on and honestly i mean a big part of it is like i don't i still don't know exactly why it didn't do well but you know

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Jordan can i tell you one quality in hudson that i i think is incredible and it's kind of the equality that anybody who wants to be a creator or an entrepreneur should have um because the highs and lows don't they're they're daily it's not it's not like

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Brian this was a good year it's like this was a good hour right and um i remember i don't remember

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Jordan what the video was but i remember you were super psyched about it it was gonna kill it was gonna be a banger it was gonna be the best like invested time and effort money early on too in your YouTube career. And this was your big idea. You put money into it and everything. And then it bombed. And I remember it was a 10 out of 10. And I saw that. I was like, oh man, oh man, this poor kid, right? He's going to be devastated. And you were. Yeah, I could see it. When I went in and saw you, you were really, really bummedout. I went out for a jog. And when I came back 45 minutes later, he was on the phone enthusiastically talking about the next idea with Jake. as if that had not happened.

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Brian And I think that that temperament,

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Jordan when I saw that, I'm like, he's going to be successful. I don't know when, but he's going to be successful because if you can get knocked down and get back up that freaking quickly and get right back onto the task at hand and you can do that consistently, more important than any other quality is that get up, get back up thing. Hudson, is that a glass half full mindset?

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Brian I guess so.

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Hudson I don't know why. He's very glass half full.

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Val I don't even remember that that well. But I think the number one thing to be successful is to believe in yourself. And that's what it shows. If you can just wake up and be enthusiastic again, that just means, you know, it's going to happen. If not for this video, then it's like the next one.

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Jordan And then the other thing is to be very open to the idea of pivoting. He's a YouTuber, been a YouTuber. And then suddenly like, great point. How do I scale this? Right. Imagine I imagine he becomes one of the top 10 YouTubers on the planet. he still has to be in the video in order for the video to do well. He makes a great point. His channel, his, his idea for his consulting company has a much better chance of being successful in five to 10 years than I do. Absolutely. Because I would have to continue to make videos. We've built this entire thing on me and my daughter, like everything. If either one of us stops, it's completely over. It's a house of cards. So you're, so it's a short term investment, right? And then you think, okay, so how can we build something from this? And that's what he's done is that okay well i know youtube i have connections i've built my own channel so that's proof of concept and now i can go out and do this for others and i can build something that scales i think having that willingness right to see an opportunity and pivot to it is you know is the reason that anybody is really successful if you just stay in the lane and you just keep running that same lane as he told me when he was 10 then it's just eventually the lane's going to narrow to the point where you're done yeah and that is what that five-year thing is for creators they They just don't pivot and they don't expand.

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Brian You know, for every founder CEO, the bigger your company gets, the more responsibility you have. Typically, I heard a CEO break it down where there's kind of like five things. Maybe it's finance, maybe it's product, maybe it's tech, maybe there's managerial layer or operations or something. And maybe one or two of the things that you do in the early days gives you a lot of energy and joy. And then as the things get bigger and bigger, in order to keep scaling, the things you get to do that bring you energy and joy contract. And because there's just a lot less of that you're doing because the business has to grow that way. So Hudson, what would you say that is for you? Do you have any signal yet early on on where you think you get the most energy? It's a great question.

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Hudson I think, I mean, for me, I really like marketing. So I mean, that's just, I guess in comparison with YouTube, like I think marketing is like titles and thumbnails, right? So like, how can you market this video the optimal views and I think so if you kind of translate to that to this it's like how can I get clients how can I you know run the most optimal ads right how can I get warm leads etc like those that's what I'm really obsessive about but then also I mean I'm just obsessed with YouTube ever since I was like 13 so I I think the the fact that you know I would get to in like you know a year I could get to work with a lot of big talent and and transform them into youtubers which the reason I'm doing this is like I genuinely believe that YouTube is the future and I kind of

‍

Brian compare it to uh like you know Accenture like the Celtic company like I almost compare it to

‍

Hudson a startup version of that where they got their start because they worked with um a lot of these big companies during the internet boom and then they made them like online websites and they built out their portfolio on there and things like that. And then now they're worth like half a trillion dollars. So for me, I don't know if YouTube has that level of scalability, but you know, there's something to be said about, and you know, maybe you can think about this in terms of like AI and things like that. But for me, I'm like, my knowledge is within YouTube and social media. And I think that is the future with all businesses and with all celebrities. And if I can capitalize on that and like have a monopoly, I think I'll be very successful. So that's kind of the way I see

‍

Val Wow that is actually pretty awesome and I totally agree to your point as a YouTuber you can't scale as like you can scale as an entrepreneur you can sleep and your money could be increasing in your bank account because you've done the work before you guys are making insane amount of money so I want to ask you like what is the biggest AdSense you made on one video if you want to share

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53:11Hudson let me I'll pull it up so I can give you an example

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Val yes let's see it I've never seen the YouTube studio somewhere

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Brian So we're about to hear the Hudson Matter revenue

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Hudson Okay, I don't know which camera I should look at.

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Val Can someone take a video of his AdSense?

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Hudson It's 66. 66K off one video.

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Brian Oh my God. Let's go, Hudson.

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Hudson This actually didn't even get that many views. First payment on the Rolls Royce.

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Brian This wouldn't even be enough for a down payment.

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Jordan Hudson is 19 years old and didn't go to college and can make $66,000.

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Val On just one video, guys. Like one.

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Hudson This was also a compilation, and this one, the reason it has made so much was because it had, what was it? Yeah, it had 42% retention, and it was an hour and five minutes.

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Brian So were you just refreshing your analytics when this was going down?

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Hudson Well, no, actually no, 'cause this was over a period of maybe six months. Oh, okay. Yeah, so it wasn't in like a week. I've heard those stories, but no, it wasn't that crazy.

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Jordan But yeah, it was cool. By the way, you can't really do these compilations anymore because YouTube has done a new policy now. We have to keep posting original content, but the compilation model, while it was working, a lot of creators were using it. You can't overuse it, but every once in a while, they take a bunch of their videos and put it into one video, and that's a much longer video. And if you did it really well, what you do is you do an original video first. So the first video, so your core audience isn't annoyed with you, you gave them a full video. And then you just add on three additional videos that are in that same world, whatever that theme was. And now you've taken a 20 minute video and turned it into a 90 minute video. And there's a huge fall off after the first video 'cause people have seen the second one, but not a hundred percent fall off. So those people keep watching that increases your AVD to a point where your RPM goes up and you make a ton of money potentially.

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Brian Hudson, I feel like we've got the start of a sense of your vision for what maybe the next couple of years look like building next wave, scaling the channel, but maybe to your dad's point earlier, where there's some trade-offs there. What's next for you guys?

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55:15Jordan So for us, we have, I've always wanted Salish to know that she could be done at any time, right? We've gone through a lot to make sure that she has like quote, "normal life." She goes to school full-time. She goes gymnastics full-time. She films one day a week, the rest of the time. She's off doing her own thing, hanging out with friends and stuff like that. And I've never really wanted to think too big because I didn't want to put too many, any burden on her shoulders but she's become more and more invested and interested in continuing um so the first big thing is that we're going to launch a product in september and we've never done that but we really believe in this specific product in a way that we think it's giving back to our community and so we're comfortable doing it and it's with a big retailer and i think it'll be really exciting so that's the first like step beyond that's the first like scalable thing as Hudson would say that this will eventually be able to live on without her and giving her the opportunity to be part of, you know, building a brand outside of YouTube.

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Brian And that's your first kind of extension of products and beyond the chance, right?

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Jordan Yeah. Oh, for sure.

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Brian So how did you think about making that leap? Like, obviously, this is kind of a risky call or outside of the norm.

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Jordan It's it's a it's not risky.

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Brian Not risky.

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Jordan Really, it's a good opportunity. There's a white space. I think first you have to, I think a lot of creators think, I get a lot of views. I must be popular. Therefore, people will buy what I'm selling.

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Brian And we've never wanted to go down that road.

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Jordan Instead, it's like, is there an opportunity for something that we think would resonate with our audience that we feel good about selling them?

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Brian Because it's giving back.

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Jordan It's something they need and would enjoy. And that we have the opportunity to line up our audience with this white space. And there's not a lot of those, to be honest. There's not a lot of white spaces anymore, but this is one of them in a way. So it seemed like it made a lot of sense. We were able to raise a lot of money very quickly. And I'm not gonna say it's gonna be big. I'm just gonna say that we've put a lot of effort into making it as successful as possible.

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Brian I think a lot of the creators I talked to was like, okay, how do I go beyond, especially for Instagram and TikTok content creators. And we had the merch, kind of the merch theme for a little while, and then that fell off. And then it was custom brands. and that's only seen a little bit of success there, mostly with big celebrities. What do you guys think is the combo formula that where somebody could sell something to their audience? It has to be authentic?

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57:47Jordan I think you have to have some humility. Okay. It's really easy to get intoxicated by views and selfies.

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Brian Right. And screaming, right?

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Jordan It's like, I must, I can do anything, right? Like, this is crazy. They love me. Not really. Like, you know, they enjoy, you may have algorithm hacked. They might enjoy your content, but not really know you so well. Maybe they want the selfie because they know of you, but they're not gonna stand in line to buy your thing. They don't wanna wear your hoodie, right? So merch is the perfect example of you need to have a deep connection with that creator in order to wanna wear their merch. Obviously, like Logan Paul was the best at that. Whereas if you say instead, what is a product that could live without me? So it's not about me. There's too many creators like, it's me. Look at me, look at, aren't I great? Look at how awesome, how successful I am, right? And it's all about them versus I have a platform that will bring a lot of eyes to something. What is that thing? But if that thing doesn't, it could, it's a great thing whether or not I exist and then I'm the cherry on top. So it's all about the white space and about the product itself and less about your popularity and your views and your fans. Like we would never use the word fan, for example, Because it's like it's too much about you're a fan of me versus you enjoy the content we create. But I can't count on that to mean you'll buy something just because I ask you to.

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Val Right. It needs to solve a need.

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Jordan Humility, folks.

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Val Humility.

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Brian Hudson, what do you think on that?

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Hudson I mean, I pretty much agree with everything you said. I think if you can come up with a way to scale. I almost think there's like a few ways to go about it. One is the more Emma Chamberlain, Ryan Trahan way of very personal content. The other one is more scalable, bigger productions. Obviously, there's tons of in-betweens. But I would say, like, think about those two. I think it would be a lot easier for you to scale or for you to, like, sell merch or products or things that people want to buy with you. Like if you see with like Ryan Trahan's Joyride Candy or even like, you know, with what I think you guys will do for the mystery product. It's like, you know, I don't know. I think I think what they've done really well is they've been able to kind of combine them where they have obviously high production value. But then also they have very deep connection. And, you know, like there's this website that they look at that basically tracks like the most famous people in the world. I'll take your talking point because he always says this.

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Jordan Surprisingly, I didn't.

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Brian Yeah, I know. What's it going?

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Hudson It's basically called Famous Birthdays.

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Brian Oh, Famous Birthdays.

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Hudson Yeah, it's like every, I don't know, teen girl from 12 to 17 or whatever uses it. And so with that, over Taylor Swift or Billie Eilish or whoever the famous celebrities are, it's like Salish is number one.

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Brian Wow. And he's number two, actually, which is pretty cool. So I'm more famous than Taylor Swift, apparently. Yeah, exactly.

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Hudson Wow. But yeah, so that's just an interesting way where they obviously have higher production value, but then they also have that intimate connection. So I think if you're able to kind of crack both, I think that's ideal.

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Jordan And I think what you see, the success of Joyride, is directly related to his relationship with his audience.

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Brian Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Jordan And a lot of time, micro-influencers who have 100,000 followers, but the followers are really connected and committed, can sell out a product in five minutes and somebody with 100 million views, and I've known them, the creators, they'll go into a mall and nobody shows up, right? So it's, so it, there is algorithm hacking, but then there's also storytelling and emotional connection. I think what Hudson's saying is the ideal is you try to get both.

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Hudson It's interesting too, because it brings up a thing too, with like short form versus long form content. Yes. I was talking to someone, I won't say who they are, but they have like a, I think nearly 10 million subscribers, but they're pretty much all short form. And, and then I was talking to someone from their team and, and then I knew they launched merch or something. So I was like, oh, how'd that go? And they sold like five t-shirts. Oh, brutal. Right. And it's like. To 10 million subscribers. And they get like 20 million views of short, you know? So it's like an interesting thing. That being said, do short form all you want. But like, it's just an interesting thing.

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Val Yeah, it's a very interesting point because same with Instagram and TikTok. Now, no one is famous because people are just going scrolling randomly and like algorithm is feeding you the content. It's not even like, it's on YouTube. It's like you go, you type Jordan Matter. I mean, you should think of YouTube as Netflix in a way. Yeah.

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01:02:16Jordan The way I use Netflix is I want to watch something. Hudson wants to sit down. We want to watch something. if he doesn't have an idea, I'll turn on Netflix and start scrolling to find something that interests me. I think for the younger generation, that's YouTube. And they sit down, they just go on YouTube and say, now what do I wanna see? Obviously they're recommended what YouTube thinks they're gonna see or they search it. We have a video right now that came out and it really tapped into our audience to the point where it's doing very well, but the search traffic is massive. And usually that means the video is not doing well. But if search is number one, It means they can't find your video or YouTube isn't sharing with them, so they go and they search. But in this case, it's doing so well because our core is so fascinated by this particular subject. Oh wow. And as a result, they're searching it like crazy. That's also, you know, you're feeding them 30 minutes a week of them sitting in your home, right? And the analogy I like to make, because when we were about to sign on with the company that's gonna launch the product, they asked me, well, why should you do it when Ariana Grande's product failed.

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Brian And I said, well, do you like Ariana Grande?

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Jordan And she said, of course I do. I said, okay, what's the color of her bedroom?

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Brian What's the name of her dog? Wow. Who's her brother?

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Jordan And she couldn't mention any of that because it's not an intimate relationship. It's like you see Ariana on a stage. You don't expect to meet her.

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Val With YouTubers, you know everything about them. Everything, you're right.

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Hudson And to be fair though, I do think, and again, I don't want to get on too much of a divergent, but there's something really interesting about what you said in that I remember we saw Rihanna recently at like some kind of

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Brian Oh, we could go off on this one.

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Val Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. We must have gossip.

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Hudson No, no, but we saw her in like in just like a movie premiere. And what was so interesting is like you think of her as a celebrity, right?

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Brian Versus you think of a YouTuber as a friend almost, you know what I mean?

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Hudson Like, okay. And I think this is a big appeal they have. It's like, oh, I want say like a 12 year old girl can watch Sailor. She'd be like, oh, I want her to be my friend or I feel like she's my friend, etc. And I think there's something interesting there. And I don't necessarily think celebrities have that same appeal, which is, by the way, one of the reasons building Next Wave.

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Brian Just plug there.

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Hudson But like, you know, and I think, however, I think there's something really interesting about the celebrity nature, which works really well for them. And I'll give you an example. Like, I'm a big Playboy Cardi fan. Like, he's my favorite artist. And I went to his concert like a few weeks ago. And I was, no, part of this is because of his mysterious nature, but when I saw him in real life, I was like, holy s***. I was like, dude, this is my favorite person, and I'm seeing him. And I wouldn't feel that way about any YouTuber.

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Jordan I think- So the scale of celebrity is all-inspiring.

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Hudson It's so much greater.

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Jordan But does that mean you would buy a Playboy Cardi product?

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Hudson I mean, I did, so yeah.

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Jordan You brought merch.

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Hudson Well, he wouldn't drop that. That's not him.

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Brian That's also a paradigm that's norm. normal right exactly exactly and people are used to it i think there's would you guys agree that there's with ariana grande as an example or rihanna's example there's this big extract abstraction between who her character is on stage and a lot of mystery yeah over here about what else is going on and that yeah protection and it's also part of that industry but what happens

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Jordan and the thing with the rihanna thing was interesting because we were there um and there was an advance So she was going to come and do a few interviews and then watch a movie, right? And we were one of the people that she was going to talk to.

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Brian So we were like on the press side in a way in that moment.

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Jordan It was for a video that they had asked us to make.

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Brian But the interesting thing to me was there was an advanced team.

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Jordan Advanced team comes. They kept saying, we have to clear the space. We have to clear the space. There was a whole entourage that came. There was a whole apparatus of celebrity.

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Brian There were eight security guards around her.

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Jordan And I think all of it's necessary. But at the same time, also, it is such a disconnect. Versus us, we'll go to a mall, we just go to the mall. Now that means that there's going to be people that want photos, that feel like they know you and they want to come up to you, but we're accessible. And I think that what's happened with YouTube versus celebrity is that we are seen as celebrities because we're accessible. whereas rihanna is seen as a celebrity because she's unaccessible yeah she's almost aspirational

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Brian yeah she's like a like a a goddess character in our minds right so that causes a lot of clicks and stuff but can you then move product right because you don't have if you if nobody has any

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Jordan idea about you right why would they want to buy your trinket or whatever it is versus if they hang out with you every day we found this stat that 27 of our viewers watch a video every day on our channel at least one and we only post one week so i mean six days a week they're watching old content they've seen before just because they want that personal emotional connection and i don't know i mean i think that music is is music is the exception i don't think that acting does that i think music definitely not i think salish with billy eilish she listens to it every day and i think it gives her a certain sort of feeling she probably feels that intimacy and that connection with billy much

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Hudson like our viewers feel with us i think also they're so sorry to cut you i would just say like last thing about this too i think there's something really interesting about the combination of both and you look at someone like hayley bieber where she would make youtube videos that she's like when i pitched people on on next wave like she's a big example i use but like for her she will you know know she made youtube videos she was very intimate people know her life very closely because she shares it on like instagram and socials and youtube and whatever but then and then because of that but also she has like this celebrity appeal right she's she's married to justin bieber she's been famous for you know decades and then because of so she has the rihanna impact plus the youtube impact point so she could fill out a stadium but then also just sold road for like over a billion dollars or has you know makes millions of dollars on that smoothie from air You know what I mean? So there's, I think if, and again, not to fill up your whole podcast with Next Wave promotion, but like that's another reason, which is like, I'm so passionate about this idea because I think if you take a celebrity and then you can, and that has that, you know, like wow effect, and then you apply that to YouTube and show this data of like,

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Jordan That's true.

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Brian That's true.

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Jordan That's such a great, she's such a good example of somebody who's been done in crossover. Will Smith was another one pre-Smack, right? Like before that, he was brilliant. But you know, when he had the most viewed TikTok recently, right, with that dance? Yeah. And he was so good at humanizing himself. And so you use YouTube as a way to almost humanize yourself to an audience. And then they have both. They get the best of both. For us, it's just humanizing. We're not celebrities, really. We're just people that they've seen on YouTube. But for Haley, for Will, they're celebrities who are also accessible on YouTube. And Haley was in her bathroom doing all those interviews.

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Hudson Right, right. Exactly. Perfect example. Yeah.

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Jordan Yeah, he's right. Like, that's the gold standard. Become famous and then do YouTube. Or do YouTube to become famous, but then you'll never have paparazzi.

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Hudson Alternatively, there should be a company that does what I would want to do, but the opposite, turn, like, YouTubers into celebrities. And, I mean, people do that. Well, that's PR. Right, right, right. But, like, yeah. Yeah, I guess so.

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Val No, but that actually makes a lot of sense because similarly, like, with all these celebrities now, there is no relatability. So now even on Instagram, they get way less views than actually the creators who started yesterday.

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Jordan Because they're not putting any effort into it.

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Val They're not putting any effort.

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Jordan You've had some meetings where they're like, you know, it's just a time thing. Like she just doesn't have time. Well, that's the thing too. A big part of what I do, I have to explain like the impact.

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Hudson Like I'll text you if I can keep this in. But I was with, he was there actually. I was with Bethany Frankel in Cannes. And I was like, we're talking about doing YouTube because she's like a potential client. and I was like that was a big thing for her was like I don't necessarily have time but I was like okay how much time are you and this is something I talk to with a lot of celebrities or top talent that I'm trying to pitch is like how much time are you spending on main on like social media stuff or on um like marketing in general like ads and whatever it is and they're like oh this much time like they maybe have like 10 hours of marketing a month or whatever it's okay if you just took 20 of that time and put into YouTube you'd see so many more like effects from that if you work with the right people and use the right strategy.

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Val And Ronaldo has been doing YouTube now.

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Hudson Yeah, exactly. It's been insane.

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Val So you're saying exactly the same thing. Like, you know, all these celebrities can be that. If Ronaldo can do it.

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Hudson Yeah, exactly.

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Val He's the one with no time. And obviously all the money in the world. But again, relatability is so important.

‍

Brian So fantastic insights. Like some stuff that maybe you guys haven't shared on a podcast. Oh, yeah. This is all new. This is all new. This has been so fun. We are coming to the end of the segment. There's a question we want to ask both of you guys. It's a little bit more in the business, but definitely about YouTube. So if you were the CEO of YouTube for a year, what would you do?

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Hudson That's a good question.

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Brian Start with Jordan. You go first.

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01:11:43Jordan I think Neil's doing a really good job, first of all.

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Brian I'm making enemies. No, no, no, no, but actually I think

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Jordan he's doing a really good job, I know him. And I knew Susan pretty well, and they both are committed to creators. Like they put creators first. And I think that that is, I would want to continue that tradition. I think if I was the CEO, having been doing content for many years, I would have a much more intimate understanding of what it takes and how creators could be boosted. But one, that's a very good question.

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Brian What would be a simple change I would make?

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Jordan I think that YouTube sometimes keeps a lot of the recommending engine kind of secret.

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Brian We don't know why,

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Jordan we don't really know why some things get pushed and other things don't and how they measure audience satisfaction. And I think I would just, I would start building more of a transparent relationship between all creators

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Brian and exactly what drives views and how to be better.

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Jordan Like we all wanna get better. I would love YouTube to help us get better.

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Brian Because theoretically that's helping them too.

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Jordan Theoretically it's helping them too, but the way it works now is people talk amongst each other, but you don't actually have YouTube helping you too much understand exactly what you as a channel could do to get better. I think, yeah, I agree. Neil is doing a great job.

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Hudson I do think that the next CEO of YouTube, whenever that is, should be a creator. I think that just wouldn't make most sense, or like an ex-creator. There are a lot of like small things, I think, I don't know, it's really good. I like what you said about satisfaction. I think one thing for me would be adding the amount of creator liaisons there are for smaller creators.

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Brian Yeah, that's great. 'Cause I think there's

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Hudson some feeling about kind of there being like an unfair advantage for bigger creators, which is not true and you know, we can break that down. But like in terms of just support, there might be some inequality, which again, makes sense. If you have 20 million subscribers or 20,000 subscribers, the 20 million subscribers will need more help.

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Jordan If Jimmy's video is restricted, it's gonna be unrestricted real quick. Right. You know, and if somebody with 10,000 subscribers is restricted, they might not have anyone to talk to.

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Hudson And I think in terms of just like, they're from a PR perspective, I think it would benefit them a lot to have more. 'Cause right now, I think there's just one public one, Renee, and he does a great job, but like, I think if there were, if they had like 20 to 30 official creator liaisons that we're all in charge of smaller creators, like a million subs and less, I think that would be super, super, super beneficial. So that would, if I just had one thing, I would probably say that off the top of my mind.

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Jordan So to be clear, creator liaison is like, we're having an issue as a creator and we don't know how to resolve it. And they're the liaison that goes to the part of YouTube that you need the department that can help you with that thing.

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Brian Like the ambassador. Like a partner manager, right?

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Jordan Yeah, partner manager, but as of now, I only know of SPMs, right? Like, I don't, if you, senior partner managers are the ones that handle more, you know, maybe creators with larger subscriber numbers. And then the smaller ones used to have partner managers because I did when we had under a million.

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Hudson They still do. It's just, they, yeah, they also had to let go a lot because of like AI and things like that. Yeah.

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Brian Which they just killed AI. I know, yeah. Yeah. I know. That's huge, actually. I think it's a good thing.

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Jordan And I'm a big advocate for that. Me too. Because that was about to take over. Yeah. I would have given that a year before there were no more human creators, right?

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Brian Yeah.

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Jordan So I think that, and I hope that that's a tidal wave. I think that if we're talking about not just decisions, not just YouTube's made, but that industries have made about AI, I think Neil just made one of the best decisions that a CEO could possibly make.

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Hudson Keeping that, especially obviously too, as you saw with the actor's strike a few years ago

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Brian and things like that,

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Hudson if traditional Hollywood moves more toward AI, and again, I don't necessarily think it will, but obviously like traditional content is a lot more formatted and it's easier to replicate with AI. And if YouTube had an advantage on like real people,

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Brian I think that would be super good. That's a drop the slop.

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Hudson Drop the slop.

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Jordan Thank you guys.

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Brian Awesome.

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Val Thank you guys. This is awesome. This is our first podcast together.

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Jordan We did one with all three of us.

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Val Yeah, I saw that podcast. Celis was so young that time.

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Jordan All right. Thank you guys so much.

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Brian Thank you guys so much for all your time. Thanks so much. Thank you.

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Val Thank you. Thank you.