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Deep Dive with Ali AbdaalDeep Dive with Ali Abdaal

How To Make It On YouTube In 2023 - Colin And Samir

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. When investing, your capital is at risk and you may get back less than invested. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

Samir ChaudryguestAli AbdaalhostColin Rosenblumguest
Oct 8, 20232h 34mWatch on YouTube

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Partial transcript

  1. 0:00 – 1:16

    Colin and Samir

    1. SC

      I had big dreams as a 21, 22-year-old kid. I think you're only lucky enough once or twice in your life to be that naive. And I, I say lucky because I think it's, like, an unbelievable moment in time where I sat down with a pen and pad and I was like, "I'm gonna make a TV network."

    2. AA

      So in today's episode of Deep Dive, I'm joined by the fantastic Colin and Samir. They are the podcasting duo and YouTube experts who for over the last 10 years have been helping people navigate the creator economy. They got their start building a small online network for college lacrosse, and then they pivoted into helping creators make the most of the online space.

    3. CR

      It was those early videos that I made, which were about lacrosse, that Samir saw. And so when Samir invited me to come to Los Angeles for what was gonna be just even three months, I was like, "Wow, someone will pay me anything, $700 a month to go do this?" Because I didn't study this, so it was a no-brainer. It was like, "Yeah, absolutely."

    4. AA

      Their main channel has over one million subscribers. They've interviewed the likes of MrBeast and MKBHD and Mr. Whose The Boss and me.

    5. SC

      We never talk about the start of the Colin and Samir podcast, which is essentially what has become our entire career, which was in 2018 when we were really down and out, having an existential crisis 'cause we couldn't make any money as creatives, and decided as almost an act of therapy to get on mics to have open conversations with each other.

  2. 1:16 – 3:17

    How did you get to becoming thought leaders in the creator economy?

    1. AA

      You guys are the creator economy guys. Like, you are the seeming-- Y- you've somehow become the experts in the creator economy, where you've interviewed people like MrBeast and Tim Ferriss and, like, all of the big names, uh, and also, uh, me [laughs] on your, on your show a couple weeks ago.

    2. CR

      I'm at the top of the list. I'm at the top of the list.

    3. AA

      Yeah. [laughs] All the big names and Ali Abdaal. Um, how-- In a, in a nutshell, how did you guys get to becoming these, like, thought leaders within the creator economy? What was the-

    4. CR

      Hmm. Doing that in a nutshell is going to be very difficult.

    5. AA

      Hmm.

    6. SC

      I mean, what, uh, uh, how, how I would describe it is just that it, it took us a really long time to figure it out ourselves, and so we found people to talk to, to ask, "How do you do it?" So it wasn't that we're the experts, we just talked to a lot of people who had done it. Um, and granted, we have been in the space for 12 years. I think maybe something that a lot of people don't know about us is that we uploaded our first YouTube video together in 2011, and that is a long time ago. So we actually have been uploading to YouTube for a very long time and have met a lot of people along the way and have had a lot, uh, a lot more failures than we've had successes. And I think that creates an interesting, you know, dynamic when you have the opportunity to have more failures than, than success.

    7. CR

      And in this version of us, because there kind of have been two, in this version of Colin and Samir, we spent the majority of the time actually helping other YouTube creators, helping them with their productions. And then once we had a podcast and a place to speak with them, they were willing to come on the show to talk about it.

    8. AA

      Hmm.

    9. CR

      So I think that's part of it, is that we were behind the scenes while trying to be in front of the camera as well.

    10. AA

      Yeah. So I guess you guys have been doing this, this, this YouTube thing for 12 years now, since way before the word creator economy was even a thing.

    11. SC

      Yeah.

    12. AA

      Since way before. It was, I guess, around about 2012 was when people really started to make money in the space-ish.

    13. SC

      Ish. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    14. AA

      From my, my vague understanding of what's going on.

  3. 3:17 – 6:58

    To what extent would you recommend being a creator as a career? Pros and cons

    1. AA

      Um, it, it feels like a lot of young people these days want to become creators. Um, to what extent would you recommend being a creator as a career? And what are the-- Yeah, what are the pros and cons, I guess?

    2. CR

      When I hear that a, a lot of young people wanna be creators, I try and think about what is it that they're seeing that makes them want that. And I feel like, sure, money is part of it, but I think another part of it is confidence in identity. You can quickly assume that a lot of the creators you follow are very confident in who they are if they're willing to put it on camera. And I think those are two very attractive things, like money and confidence in identity. And I think there are many ways to get both of those before you go about pursuing this career. And I think it's important to try and think about how you can pursue confidence in identity perhaps before you embark.

    3. AA

      Ooh.

    4. SC

      I, I would, I would wholeheartedly agree with that and also say that i- it's not even s- about, like, us recommending to you if this is something you should do. I think it's just, um, there's, there's people who can't help it, and I would say that, that we are some of those people who just can't help it. We've been doing this since 2011 and, as I mentioned, we've had more failure than success. That is a completely irrational thing to do. To work on something day in and day out that is not working through, you know, your late 20s at times, through not making much money, to get together and get excited about uploading a video to the internet is irrational. And so I think that there's some people who just can't help it, and if you are actually that type of person, you will become a creator because you will just keep going. And I think that, um, you do have to really evaluate what it is you're looking for. Is it the outcome that you're seeing? Is it the outcome of validation, um, recognition, money? Uh, is, is that the outcome you're looking for? Actually, the majority of being a creator is the process of creating.

    5. AA

      Hmm.

    6. SC

      So you have to really understand your relationship with your, the process of creating.

    7. AA

      Yeah. In a way, like, are you embarking on this journey for the sake of the journey or for the sake of the destination?

    8. SC

      Yeah, because I-

    9. AA

      Because, yeah

    10. SC

      ... I mean, everyone can-- You have to see it for yourself, but everyone can tell you the de- there's, like, no real merit to the destination, right?

    11. AA

      Yeah.

    12. SC

      Like, the destination doesn't exist.

    13. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    14. SC

      You reach there, and then you're like, "Now I just do more of this?"

    15. AA

      Yeah.

    16. SC

      I remember when f- I felt like we had achieved some level of success, and I was like, "Oh- So success just means doing more of what we used to do, but in a more comfortable way.

    17. AA

      Hmm.

    18. SC

      It's the same thing. You know, when we were first starting out, we were figuring out ideas-

    19. AA

      Yeah

    20. SC

      ... and then filming them, and then editing them, and then coming up with a thumbnail, and then putting it up. It's the exact same thing we do today. [laughs] It's just sometimes more comfortable and sometimes more stressful, and different problems arise from it.

    21. AA

      There's a nice, um, quote f- I think, I think it's from Zen Buddhism or something like that, which is kind of what happens before you reach enlightenment, enlightenment and what happens after. And so the quote is, "Before enlightenment, uh, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

    22. SC

      Mm-hmm.

    23. CR

      Yeah.

    24. AA

      And I, I, I-

    25. SC

      Exactly. Yeah

    26. AA

      ... I would think of that in the creator economy, it's fair- fairly similar.

    27. SC

      Yeah.

    28. AA

      Like, the things that we were doing when we hadn't made, made it and we were making videos and making no money are basically identical to what we're doing now and making decent money from the thing.

    29. SC

      Yeah.

    30. CR

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  4. 6:58 – 10:41

    How much money were you making in the early days and how much do you make now?

    1. AA

      Okay, let's talk about money. Um, you guys have been doing this for 12 years. Uh, at what point... Like, how, how much money were you making in the early days? And if you're open to sharing-

    2. SC

      Yeah

    3. AA

      ... how much money are you making now? Like, how did it work?

    4. SC

      Yeah. So in the early days, none. Um, you know, the way it worked in the early days was we started... I, I graduated college and then started a company called The Lacrosse Network, which was a sports media business about lacrosse. My vision was I'm going to make a television network for the sport of lacrosse, which was a sport I grew up playing. Very niche. Um, can't make a TV network, can't pitch it to anyone on TV, so okay, let's make it on the internet. That, that was the, you know, base premise. I had big dreams, you know, as a, as a 21, 22-year-old kid. I was like... I, I didn't... I think you're only lucky enough once or twice in your life to be that naive. And I, I say lucky because I think it's, like, an unbelievable moment in time, where I sat down with a pen and pad and I was like, "I'm gonna make a TV network." That's a ludicrous thought, right?

    5. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    6. SC

      Like, to have that thought at 34 years old with everything I know now, I'd be like... I wouldn't even allow that thought to go the next step.

    7. CR

      Let alone a TV network for a sport that not that many people play.

    8. SC

      Right.

    9. AA

      Yeah.

    10. CR

      And the majority of people who play it actually play it on the entire other side of the country.

    11. AA

      Yeah.

    12. CR

      Like-

    13. AA

      And most people probably also haven't heard of it. Like, I heard of-

    14. SC

      Yeah

    15. AA

      ... lacrosse when I got to university.

    16. SC

      Yeah.

    17. AA

      I was like, "Lacrosse?"

    18. SC

      Yeah, yeah, exactly.

    19. AA

      "That's a thing? Okay, cool. Fair enough."

    20. SC

      Yeah. [laughs]

    21. CR

      At that time, did you think money was gonna be something that came? Like, that's why you were doing it, was like, this is a, this is a money thing?

    22. SC

      No, it wasn't money driven. It was like, I'm really passionate about this community.

    23. CR

      Yeah.

    24. SC

      This community has given me a lot. Like, I found a lot of identity in that community. I found a lot of friends. I... That was what I did in college. I coached a team. I was, like, very involved in the community, so I wanted to give back to the community. But I'm not gonna say it was fully pure. I was like, "I wanna be in the entertainment business." I know you can make a lot of money in the entertainment business. I grew up in LA, um, and that was a huge part of it. That's not, you know... At, at 21 years old, that's a huge part of it. And I think we talk about a lot that the era that we were in at that time was the startup era.

    25. AA

      Hmm.

    26. SC

      The sexiest thing you could be a part of or have was a startup. And, you know, [laughs] when you think about The Social Network, that movie, you know, Facebook, Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, these are 21, 22-year-old startup founders who were becoming mega millionaires. So everyone had, you know, an idea for a startup at that time. Long story short, um, as it sounds like, that was not a quick way to make money, to start a, uh, lacrosse-based YouTube channel [laughs] with another friend-

    27. CR

      Yeah

    28. SC

      ... and then fly Colin from, you know, uh, Colorado to come live in LA. I mean, this was not a way, a quick way to make money. Um, nor did it ever really make money in the three years that we built it. Um-

    29. AA

      So how were you, how were you sustaining yourself s- in that time?

    30. SC

      Yeah. So the, the way we were sustaining ourselves was, was two ways. One, from my savings, and two, from, uh, my dad runs a clothing company, and basically I said, "We're a group of creatives. Give us essentially a contract to do your creative work."

  5. 10:41 – 26:21

    Starting a job for passion vs. money

    1. CR

      wasn't sure that money was gonna be a reality.

    2. AA

      So this is kind of... So a lot, uh, like a lot of people I know who are in, like, their early 20s, for example, would think that, okay, your 20s are for grinding, your 20s are-

    3. SC

      Yeah

    4. AA

      ... to get the job at McKinsey, and to do the consulting thing, and to set yourself up to maybe then follow your passion further down the line. But it seems like you guys went for the I'm passionate about X, let me do the thing.

    5. SC

      Well, I'll, I'll back up. I know the question was about money, so I wanna be-

    6. AA

      Mm.

    7. SC

      [laughs] you know, respond to that question. To give you a frame of reference, the deal with Colin was, "Come out for a three-month internship. We'll pay you $700 a month."

    8. AA

      Oh, okay. Nice. [laughs]

    9. SC

      That was the deal. I don't know if you remember that.

    10. AA

      Yeah, no, yeah.

    11. SC

      That, that was the deal, to give you a frame of reference-

    12. AA

      Yeah

    13. SC

      ... of where we were at. Uh, and that was a big deal for us to, to spend that kind of money. Um, so just to back up about, like, how did this come about, I grew up in LA. I was always into film. I was into, you know, performing. I was into, uh, music was primarily what I was into. When I was a kid, I thought I was gonna end up being in a band, a touring band. That's what I thought.

    14. AA

      Yeah, we'll put some B-roll of you playing the guitar.

    15. SC

      Yeah.

    16. CR

      [laughs]

    17. SC

      I thought, I thought that's what the outcome of my life would be-

    18. AA

      Yeah

    19. SC

      ... is like, of course, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be in a band. We would perform, like, a ton in high school and, um, I had a lot of dreams of, of becoming a performer or some type of entertainer. Um, uh- I went to film school. I f- I, you know, ended up being pretty good in my film school to the point where they placed one person in a job in Hollywood, and it was me, uh, as an editor. And so I got placed on a film called Ides of March, um, and I was an assistant editor on that film. Bottom of the barrel assistant editor. A job that today is done by AI, but I was there to, you know, the, the, this thing. I basically synced audio and video. That was it, um, for the dailies. So dailies came in every day. I would sync them and then pass them to the next editor. Um, I sat in a pitch black room every day. Uh, the, the distance from the entrance of the studio to the editing room was probably like 100 feet, but I would walk as slowly as possible just in case a producer saw me and they were like, "There he is. That's the guy. Put him in the movie."

    20. AA

      [laughs]

    21. SC

      Uh, never happened. But I would sit in this room, and I just, like, didn't get it. I was like, "This is not the entertainment industry." Like, all the editors were in cargo shorts and hoodies and were kind of overweight and just sitting in this dark room. And I was like, "This is not what I imagined at all." Um, and I, I went out to lunch with the head editor, and he asked me. He was like, "You, you know, you seem a little kind of not into this. Is this what you want to be doing?" And I was like, "I think I wanna make stuff. I don't know how to explain it any further, but I just know that I'm capable. I can edit something top to bottom. I can also film something. I can also come up with an idea, and I can also be in it." And, uh, he said-- He gave me the best advice I've ever received. He said, "So here's the deal. You are an assistant editor for me right now, and you're pretty good. I like having you around. I will hire you again as an assistant editor, and I'll recommend you to my friends as an assistant editor. And one day in 10 years, maybe you could be me. Is that what you want?" I was like, "Absolutely not."

    22. AA

      [laughs]

    23. SC

      And he said, "Okay. So I'm gonna urge you to leave right now and go do exactly what you wanna do. Exactly what's in your head. Go do that because in 10 years from now, you'll get the opportunity to do more of that, whatever that is."

    24. AA

      Ooh.

    25. SC

      And I left, and that's right when I said, "You know what I wanna do? Everything. So I'm gonna make my own network 'cause then I can do everything. I'm gonna-- I can film. I can be in it. I can edit. I can make the d- programming decisions. I'm gonna do everything."

    26. AA

      Yeah.

    27. SC

      So that's, that's how it came about because then it was like, so what can I talk about? The thing that I know the most about, the thing that I know the most people in the community that I'm organically a part of, lacrosse.

    28. AA

      Hmm.

    29. SC

      And where can I take this network? The only place where they can't say no, the internet. So that's how that came about.

    30. AA

      There's so many ideas that are just spark-

  6. 26:21 – 31:07

    A roadmap to success in the creator economy in 2023

    1. AA

      Let's say you were speaking to, um, a y- let's say someone in their 20s. They've just graduated university. Maybe they've tried a job for six months, and they're like, "Screw the job." Like, "Job's not for me. I wanna become a creator." What would you ... If you, if you had to give this person, if you were their, like, mentors and you, you, you were giving them a roadmap, what would be the roadmap now that it's 2023 to succeed in the creator economy?

    2. SC

      You'll have to buy the course to find out.

    3. AA

      [laughs]

    4. SC

      Um, we can't answer that. Yeah. I'll invoice you after. No, I'm kidding. Um, so as I look back on that, I think the one thing that we always agree upon was that we went into, um, making the Colin and Samir channel with being very, like, um, selfish creators, which is completely fine. It's like, "Here's what we want to make."

    5. AA

      Ooh, yeah. Mm-hmm.

    6. SC

      Right? "Here's what we want." But if you're, if you want to be a creator, then you have to be empathetic towards the audience, and we were not. An artist has no empathy to the audience, right? An artist paints something and says, "This is what I wanted to paint. I don't care what you think about it."

    7. AA

      Yeah.

    8. SC

      "Interpret it as you wish."

    9. AA

      Okay.

    10. SC

      If you wanna be an artist, that is a different thing.

    11. AA

      Yeah.

    12. SC

      If you wanna be a creator, you have to be empathetic towards the audience. There's a balance between what you wanna make, what the audience wants, and what the platform wants.

    13. AA

      Sure.

    14. SC

      There's three things that make up, you know, the-

    15. AA

      What you wanna make, what the audience wants, and what the platform wants.

    16. SC

      Yeah.

    17. AA

      Hmm. Okay.

    18. SC

      That's something that we call content market fit, is finding, you know, that, that right in the middle of that is content market fit. What you wanna make, what the audience wants to watch, and what the platform wants.

    19. AA

      This episode is very kindly brought to you by none other than Huel. Now, I've been a paying customer of Huel since 2017. I first discovered it in my fifth year of medical school. And if you haven't heard of it, it's basically a meal in a bottle. And in that meal, you get a balanced mixture of carbohydrates and fats and proteins and fiber, and it also contains 26 different vitamins and minerals. And each meal has around 400 calories and 22 grams of protein, so it's pretty reasonable in terms of protein count. And because I tend to be pretty busy and there's always stuff going on, I tend not to really have time to get a healthy breakfast or a healthy lunch, and so I'll often use Huel Ready to Drink as a replacement for my breakfast or my lunch. They've got eight different flavors that are available. My two favorites are banana and salted caramel, so if you find those, you should check them out. And even though Huel as a company started off online direct to consumer, recently they've propagated amongst all of, like, the grocery stores in the UK at least, and so I've been seeing it out and about everywhere, which is pretty cool. And very excitingly, we also have an episode with Julian Hearn, who is the founder of Huel, back on this podcast from Season 1. And so that episode was a real masterclass in entrepreneurship, and it was really cool seeing, kind of hearing the story of exactly how Huel came together. So head over to huel.com/deepdive, and thank you so much, Huel, for sponsoring this episode. This episode is sponsored by Kajabi, and they've actually got something really valuable for all of our Deep Dive listeners. Now, if you haven't heard of Kajabi, it's basically a platform that helps creators diversify their revenue with courses and membership sites and communities and podcasts and coaching tools. So it's one of the best places for creators and entrepreneurs to build a sustainable business. We started using Kajabi earlier this year, and as soon as we started using it, we were like, "Oh my God, why haven't we been using this product for the last three years?" It's got everything you'd possibly need for running an online course or hosting an online community or building an online coaching business, and it essentially makes it really easy to run your entire online business. From payments to marketing tools to analytics, Kajabi has everything that we creators need all in one place. And actually, you don't necessarily need a huge audience to generate a sustainable income. A creator on Kajabi can, for example, make $100,000 by converting just 350 customers a year, depending on your price points. And in fact, there are creators on the platform that are making millions of dollars every year with fewer than 100,000 followers across their social media platforms. We've been using Kajabi to host all of our online courses since the start of 2023, from our $1 part-time YouTuber foundations to help people start off on their YouTube journey, all the way up to our $5,000 package for the part-time YouTuber accelerator, which gives you access to me and my team. And Kajabi does not take any cut of what you earn. Creators keep and own everything. The way Kajabi makes money is through the monthly subscription fee, and even though we generate, like, literally millions of dollars every year from Kajabi, we're still only paying them a couple of hundred dollars a year. And actually, in their lifetime, Kajabi have paid out over six billion dollars to creators. That's billion with a B, and over 1,000 creators have become millionaires through products on the platform. Now, back in May 2023, I did a keynote at a Kajabi in real life, Kajabi Heroes event in Austin, Texas. And in that keynote, I talked about the exact steps that I used to grow my business from zero to over two and a half million dollars per year from course revenue alone. Now, people paid for the pretty expensive tickets to watch this keynote at the Kajabi Hero live event. But as an exclusive deal for Deep Dive listeners, Kajabi have very kindly offered to provide the recording of that keynote completely for free to anyone who listens to this podcast. So if you're interested in getting completely free access to that keynote, just head over to kajabi.com/ali. That's kajabi.com/A-L-I, and that'll be linked in the show notes in the video description as well. And you just enter your email address, and then you will get the recording of that keynote completely for free, whether or not you ever become a Kajabi customer. So thank you so much to Kajabi for sponsoring this episode. Okay,

  7. 31:07 – 40:51

    Advice for a music YouTuber

    1. AA

      so let's say I'm like, "You know, I really wanna be a music YouTuber."

    2. CR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. AA

      "I love Kurt Schneider. I love that Voice Avenue era of-"

    4. CR

      Yeah

    5. AA

      ... uh, popular song covers on YouTube, and I wanna, I wanna make money on YouTube playing guitar and singing songs. And I'm, and you guys are my mentors. How would, how would, how, how, how would we be having that conversation?

    6. CR

      I would say if you wanna make money, figure out another way to make money-

    7. AA

      [laughs] Okay

    8. CR

      ... to start. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes we made when we started this YouTube channel, was that we did not really think about where money would come from, and we assumed that it would come pretty immediately from this new pursuit of creating YouTube videos. Because we had just come from a background in YouTube. Why wouldn't it?

    9. AA

      Hmm.

    10. CR

      We kind of thought we understood how that would work. But it, it made us make choices that were based out of fear, taking different production projects and things that took energy away from what we were trying to put into this creative pursuit. So I think if you love music and you wanna make money from it, figure out a different way to start to make money from it-

    11. AA

      I mean-

    12. CR

      ... so that you can just focus on the creative side.

    13. AA

      Hmm.

    14. SC

      A- and when it comes to the, the video making side, I mean, the first question I would ask you is, who's the audience?

    15. AA

      Ooh. [laughs] I'd be like, "I don't know. Like, uh, people who want covers of Ed Sheeran songs on YouTube?"

    16. SC

      Okay, and how much of that is available to them? Like, I would ask-

    17. AA

      Loads of people are doing Ed Sheeran covers on-

    18. SC

      Right

    19. AA

      ... yeah. [laughs]

    20. SC

      So I'd ask you to scan that, right?

    21. AA

      Yeah.

    22. SC

      And say, "Okay, cool. Now go study who else is doing what you wanna do."

    23. AA

      Yeah.

    24. SC

      Why are they watching? What's interesting about it? You know, like start-

    25. AA

      Oh, okay. Yeah

    26. SC

      ... do they have space to watch five of these in a row? Is that the culture of this audience? Where else do they hang out on the internet-

    27. AA

      Mm-hmm

    28. SC

      ... outside of, um, YouTube? And a lot of what we've learned, I would say, over the past 12 years is this process of studying audiences because we are, again, we are part of the equation, but the audience is... We're playing ping pong-

    29. AA

      Mm-hmm

    30. SC

      ... with an audience, right? That's what the internet is really great at. We throw something out, the audience reacts to it, and we understand, "Oh, interesting. That's what you, what you guys like. That's what you didn't like. Okay, let me try this. Ooh, okay, now I just learned something new about you guys."

  8. 40:51 – 47:43

    To what extent passion is prerequisite for success in the creator economy?

    1. SC

      what running a creative business is, you know? And I think that's, that's the thing. The advice I would give is like just get really smart on understanding what making it means to you. Like what is making it to you? What is, what does that mean to like make it on YouTube? What are you imagining in your head? And then also like, you know, do you deeply authentically care about providing value to the audience that you've told me you, you wanna have? Because if you do, then you can have a long career. Um- Then you're gonna wake up every day and be like, "Okay, this lifestyle is really enjoyable. The process of making videos is really enjoyable. I get to do the thing I'm passionate about. I feel like myself while I'm doing it, and the people on the other side are really happy, and I, I get joy from providing value to them."

    2. AA

      You can make some s- some sorts of businesses work and some sort of j- like a l- you know, a lot of people have jobs at which they're not fully passionate about.

    3. SC

      Yeah.

    4. AA

      But, you know, it makes money. It gets them by. To what extent do you guys think that passion is a prerequisite for success in creator, creator economy land?

    5. CR

      I think it really depends what type of person you are.

    6. AA

      Yeah.

    7. CR

      You know, if you're motivated by metrics, if you're motivated by dollars, the message or the medium or, or what you're putting into the creative side is not as important, so you're ... It's easier for you to compromise. It's easier for you to make decisions that will allow you to be financially successful.

    8. SC

      Also, the, yeah, the passion that you have is towards, uh, entrepreneurship or making money. That's a completely fine passion to have.

    9. CR

      Hmm.

    10. SC

      You know? And, like, if the pro- ... We've met creators who say, "I am an entrepreneur. It just happens to be that my product-

    11. CR

      Mm-hmm

    12. SC

      ... is video." And I think that's a completely fine thing. I just think all of this is, like, a process of self-discovery and self-awareness of, like, if that's the case, that's completely fine. You're gonna make different decisions about video, you know, and that's, that ... You're gonna make different decisions than I would, but I have to understand that I'm the type of person that deeply cares about the craft of the video and what it looks like-

    13. CR

      Yeah

    14. SC

      ... what it sounds like, what goes out to the, the people on the other side. I deeply care about that, and I would sacrifice, um, the numbers on the screen going up, uh, in exchange for me being happier with the video.

    15. CR

      Hmm.

    16. AA

      Yeah, it's like there's these different approaches. There, there are some people that approach YouTube or whatever the platform is from the perspective of creative trying to make money.

    17. SC

      Yeah, yeah.

    18. AA

      And then there are others that approach it from a perspective of an entrepreneur trying to make money-

    19. SC

      Yes

    20. AA

      ... who's recognized that there's a niche and there's, like, a, "Ooh, I can make a faceless YouTube channel with AI and stuff-

    21. SC

      Exactly, yeah

    22. AA

      ... that capitalizes on this high CPM niche-

    23. SC

      Yeah. [laughs]

    24. CR

      [laughs]

    25. AA

      ... kind of thing.

    26. SC

      I think we, um ... When the term the creator economy came, I think it was in, like, 2020 maybe. It was the first time I had heard it.

    27. CR

      Yeah.

    28. SC

      Um, and it, it was so funny because it was the first time I was like, "Oh, wow, there's a name for the thing that we talk about."

    29. CR

      Mm-hmm.

    30. SC

      "People are calling it something. That's interesting." Um, but I think that word creator got way too, uh, used in a way that assumes that everyone is the same.

  9. 47:43 – 59:07

    What are the commonalities you see among the creators who managed to make it professionally vs. the ones who treat it as a hobby?

    1. SC

      So, so you have to actually continue to do the fundamentals of just keeping this thing, uh, alive, allowing it to develop. Um, and I think we overestimate a lot of times, like, how much we can do and how much we should do. And again, I'm speaking from a space of experience myself-

    2. CR

      Mm

    3. SC

      ... of, um, really having to learn how to refocus and, and really having to have discipline on, like, we are going to do this. We have a lot of brand building to do. Um, we need to be best in class at what we do first, and maybe that's it. Maybe we will never expand beyond that, but let's try and be best in class.

    4. CR

      And can we focus enough? Can we be disciplined enough to be consistent?

    5. SC

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CR

      Because that's really difficult. I think some of the top creators are all consistent. They've found a way to be consistent, even though in our opinion, creative people are often not consistent people. We ourselves are not-

    7. SC

      Mm-hmm

    8. CR

      ... consistent. I do think that's our biggest struggle. Can we focus enough? Can we be disciplined enough to remain consistent? Because even now that we've found a format and we're two years in, every day I wake up and go, "Oh, I could do that."

    9. SC

      [chuckles]

    10. CR

      How do I make space to do that thing over there? What if we cleared three months to do that?

    11. SC

      Hmm.

    12. CR

      And things that are sort of not in what you, what probably anyone who would be looking at us from a business perspective would recommend.

    13. AA

      How does this tie in-- Okay, so I, I have two thoughts here. Both are somewhat garbled. The first is a, a fear that I often have, that I've had for a while, and I'm only just realizing it as, as I put it into words, is that what if I got a lucky break? What if... You know, it's, it's unusual to see a YouTuber who is relevant today who was relevant 10 years ago. Outside of the tech guys, like, there's very few people who've managed to sustain that longevity. Audiences are fickle. Audiences' thingies change, like, uh, you know, vibes and, uh, preferences change over time. What's to say that if I just continue making videos consistently, actually next year or the year after, the year after that, I'll, I'll still, I'll still be relevant. I'll still be around. Therefore, should I not focus on diversification and trying to build a platform off of YouTube and trying to build all these things s- just in case I'm not, in fact, relevant, I become a has-been two or three years from now?

    14. SC

      That to me is like, uh-

    15. AA

      Mm

    16. SC

      ... and again, I'm gonna speak from a, a deep place of experience. That is, like, very fear-based thinking, in my opinion, right? Like you're, there's something that you're afraid of there, of, of becoming irrelevant.

    17. AA

      Yeah.

    18. SC

      Um, I think that s- like, my experience right now is, like, I've, I've somehow worked out a way to relinquish a lot of that fear.

    19. AA

      Ooh.

    20. SC

      Uh-

    21. AA

      How'd, how'd you do that? [laughs]

    22. SC

      [laughs] Um, a mix of, uh, you know, like being married to a therapist-

    23. AA

      [laughs]

    24. SC

      ... s- uh, a lot of journaling and, uh, uh, slight help from psychedelics. But, um, I would say that, like, relinquishing some of that fear around y- y- scarcity and abundance is-

    25. AA

      Ooh, yeah

    26. SC

      ... is what I'll say.

    27. AA

      Yeah.

    28. SC

      So I've grew up in a very scarcity mindset environment, right?

    29. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    30. SC

      Growing up in an immigrant household-

  10. 59:07 – 1:02:28

    The fear setting exercise

    1. SC

      you write down, um, you know, how... You, you essentially take it. You're like, all right. For example, I just did a 10-day vacation, and I have in the past had a lot of fear around vacation. Vacation is terrifying to me. What if... So here's one of my fears. What if someone emails with an opportunity and I'm not at my email? Okay. Well, that's a, I- even as you hear it out loud, that's a ridiculous fear.

    2. AA

      [laughs]

    3. SC

      You just route it to your agent or route it to Colin or route it to someone else-

    4. AA

      Yeah

    5. SC

      ... to read it. And then it's, okay, well, what if it's an opportunity that we want but I can't do 'cause I'm on vacation? Well, if you value vacation [laughs] , then you are-

    6. AA

      Yeah

    7. SC

      ... that is a reality that's going to happen.

    8. AA

      Yeah.

    9. SC

      Oh, okay, okay. That's not actually that bad.

    10. AA

      Yeah.

    11. SC

      Uh, and then you s- you just keep going down. Okay, how could I re- repair it, quote-unquote? Well, we could just email them and see if we could do it when I'm back, right? It's just like there's so many... It, it sounds ridiculous-

    12. AA

      Yeah

    13. SC

      ... as you go down and you start to realize, like, oh, these fears are just, I haven't thought them through yet.

    14. AA

      Yeah.

    15. SC

      They're very surface level, and so they're, they're, um, eating at me because my imagination is so powerful, and I'm, I'm-

    16. AA

      Yeah

    17. SC

      ... a storyteller inherently, so I'm able to tell myself-

    18. AA

      Mm

    19. SC

      ... a completely invalid story. Um, but if I live it out and write it down, it's like, oh, okay. Actually, it's completely fine. Um, so yeah, that's, that's, has been incredibly-

    20. AA

      Yeah

    21. SC

      ... helpful.

    22. AA

      Oh, man, I love the fear setting exercise.

    23. SC

      Yeah.

    24. AA

      Any- anytime I feel, uh, any sort of existential crisis about my business or anything, I just Google Tim- Tim Ferriss fear setting.

    25. SC

      [laughs]

    26. AA

      Literally just go through it, type it all out, and I'm like, at the end of it I'm like, "Cool." My conclusion from all of this is things are totally fine.

    27. SC

      Yeah.

    28. AA

      I enjoy making videos. I can just keep making videos.

    29. SC

      Yeah.

    30. AA

      And just th- that, that's it. [laughs]

  11. 1:02:28 – 1:10:19

    What is it like to be a duo of co-founders?

    1. SC

      What is that, uh, dynamic like? 'Cause it, it's unusual to have co-founders, like a duo in the creator economy. I suppose there's, uh, Rhett and Link, um-

    2. AA

      Jon

    3. SC

      ... there's Rhett and Link. Uh, but most of them are couples.

    4. AA

      Yeah, like Matt and Abby.

    5. SC

      Yeah.

    6. AA

      Ben and-

    7. SC

      Kara and Nate. Yeah

    8. AA

      ... yeah. I love the couple, yeah.

    9. SC

      Yeah. And which is why people-

    10. AA

      So, so for the record, like-

    11. SC

      We are a couple.

    12. AA

      You know.

    13. SC

      No. [laughs]

    14. AA

      Sorry. [laughs]

    15. SC

      Because that is the most searched-

    16. AA

      It's the most searched question

    17. SC

      ... uh, question about Colin and Samir, are Colin and Samir dating? Uh, we-

    18. AA

      I think people just see us in a frame and they assume we, like, sleep in bunk beds-

    19. SC

      Yeah. [laughs]

    20. AA

      ... in the same room, and-

    21. SC

      Like how-

    22. AA

      Or even a double bed in the same room.

    23. SC

      Yeah.

    24. AA

      Yeah. [laughs]

    25. SC

      How, how could we not be in this box together?

    26. AA

      Yeah.

    27. SC

      Um, but no, I have a wife and Colin has a fiancée, so unfortunately-

    28. AA

      Cute. [laughs]

    29. SC

      ... uh, to, to, to quell those rumors, we are not dating.

    30. AA

      Oh, damn. [laughs]

  12. 1:10:19 – 1:15:16

    Would you ever start a couple’s channel with your respective partners?

    1. SC

      and when I feel like it, I enjoy it. Um, but yeah, I, I am... This to me, like, in terms of amount of recognition we have, I, I feel very fulfilled in it. I feel, uh, like I have enough. I don't, I don't crave, uh, fame, you know, beyond the, the recognition we have right now.

    2. AA

      Yeah.

    3. SC

      So when I think about that, and I definitely don't crave it in the context of my relationship, what I crave in the context of my relationship is quality time.

    4. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    5. SC

      And that to me does not include a camera.

    6. CR

      Yeah.

    7. SC

      So, you know, that changes the dynamic. It's a thir- it's another person in the room. It's another... You're, you're, you are... It's completely different.

    8. AA

      Yeah.

    9. SC

      Um, and I think, like, life is very fun, like traveling with my wife and, you know, we just went to Italy and just had a great time, and we walked to coffee shops in the morning. Like, I don't want... Sometimes we, we go to coffee shops or we go to, uh, dinner and, you know, people, uh, is- sometimes more than others, people come up and, you know, wanna talk or take pictures. And, um, that's like so incredibly, like to me, I'm still like that's insane-

    10. AA

      Hmm

    11. SC

      ... that people would want to come up and, and chat.

    12. AA

      Yeah.

    13. SC

      Luckily, our fans and the people who watch our show are like professionals.

    14. AA

      Yeah.

    15. SC

      You know? [laughs] And so they come up and they're so respectful, and you do get to have like a really cool conversation. But I wouldn't want that in the context of my relationship, you know-

    16. AA

      Hmm

    17. SC

      ... of people looking at my relationship and, and being fans of my relationship.

    18. AA

      Mm. Mm-hmm.

    19. SC

      Like I, that to me is There's nothing about that that sounds interesting or attractive. I- my answer might have been different in my early 20s-

    20. AA

      Mm.

    21. SC

      When I, when I really craved fame. Uh, but I think that's wrapped up in a lot of different things, and I, I don't-

    22. AA

      Mm

    23. SC

      ... I don't have that feeling at all anymore.

    24. AA

      Yeah. Interesting. Interesting.

    25. SC

      I love, uh, being on this side of the mic and looking at you and being like, "Where is he about to take this?"

    26. AA

      Yeah, I have no idea.

    27. SC

      Did I just drop something that he is now-

    28. AA

      So, okay, so-

    29. SC

      ... changing his trajectory?

    30. AA

      I, so I've been, I've been intrigued by the idea of, like, the couples channel as a phenomenon for a while.

  13. 1:15:16 – 1:21:10

    Filming with no commercial intent

    1. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    2. SC

      And it was one of the most therapeutic things that we could have done-

    3. AA

      Yeah

    4. SC

      ... was decide that we would just grab mics and talk to each other.

    5. AA

      Mm.

    6. SC

      And that when I think about it is like something I'd like to do with my dad.

    7. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    8. SC

      I'd like to create that container with my dad. I'd like to do that with my wife. Do I need to distribute it? No.

    9. AA

      Mm.

    10. SC

      I could just record it, but, uh, what I actually want is the container.

    11. AA

      Yeah.

    12. SC

      I want that space. Yeah.

    13. AA

      Yeah. I keep thinking about home movies.

    14. SC

      Mm.

    15. AA

      The fact that I actually do have from my younger years home movies shot by my mom or my dad-

    16. SC

      Yeah

    17. AA

      ... that were just sitting on tapes in my house.

    18. SC

      Yeah.

    19. AA

      And of course, when they filmed them, it was just to hold onto these memories.

    20. SC

      Yeah.

    21. AA

      And even as I travel with my fiancee next week, or I think about, like, having kids, I don't wanna not have home movies-

    22. SC

      Mm-hmm

    23. AA

      ... and home video.

    24. SC

      Yeah.

    25. AA

      I just may not wanna put them out in public.

    26. SC

      Yeah. You don't have to distribute.

    27. AA

      And I think we started the podcast that way.

    28. SC

      Yeah.

    29. AA

      In a way it was like, let's just record this because it's something we're going through, something we wanna do. It was like putting it on a shelf. N- not that many-

    30. SC

      Mm-hmm

  14. 1:21:10 – 1:24:36

    Productivity guilt

    1. SC

      is my max.

    2. AA

      Oh, you can slowly work it up over time if you really want to.

    3. SC

      [laughs]

    4. AA

      But-

    5. SC

      3X is insane.

    6. AA

      I mean, for, for most like nonfiction books, if you, i- and self-help books, if you understand the vibe, you can, you can kind of get through the message. But-

    7. SC

      [laughs]

    8. AA

      ... I used to do that quite a lot, and then that would lead to these great videos where it's like how, you know, how I read, how I read 100 books a year kind of thing. It's not that hard if you listen to an audiobook every three days at 3X speed.

    9. SC

      Yeah, yeah.

    10. AA

      But-

    11. SC

      If you bump that up to 100X, you could probably read-

    12. AA

      Yeah, you could just like-

    13. SC

      Yeah

    14. AA

      ... blitz through the whole-

    15. SC

      You could probably read a million books, yeah. [laughs]

    16. AA

      Whole back catalog. Um, but now increasingly, like even when I'm driving, I'll often just think, "You know what? I'll just like not listen to anything," or go for a walk in Hyde Park and not listen to anything like actively.

    17. SC

      Yeah.

    18. AA

      And I've-

    19. SC

      It's hard

    20. AA

      ... I say it's, it's hard. But I think over time I'm becoming more and more comfortable with it, which then also means I'm like, "Oh man, I used to be the 100 books a year guy, and now it's what, I don't know, maybe like 25 this year. Oh, wow."

    21. CR

      Mm.

    22. AA

      Waste man. You know, that kind of thing. [laughs]

    23. SC

      You know what I've found to be the most helpful, uh, activity if you want to start-

    24. AA

      Mm

    25. SC

      ... to practice not being stimulated by audio or video, and that sounds like crazy even when I say it, but swimming.

    26. AA

      Mm. Yeah.

    27. SC

      Uh, I started swimming, and you're underwater in this flow state just with your thoughts.

    28. AA

      Yeah.

    29. SC

      And like the first few lengths, it's kind of like you're focused on the swimming, and then after a while it goes like, "Huh, I'm just here underwater with no inputs."

    30. AA

      Yeah.

  15. 1:24:36 – 1:30:46

    Finding the format

    1. SC

      uh, I, I don't know how to explain it, but in a way that's like it would never even come into quest- like, it just, it's not even something. And I, I would say that's, that differs from other partnerships that I've been in where you kind of go to bed and you're questioning the value that each person is contributing, or you're questioning like, "Hmm, is this split right?"

    2. CR

      Yeah.

    3. SC

      "Am I getting compensated enough for this? Is this..." Like, i- if you're entering into doing a creative project with someone like the way we do it, you, that-- I wouldn't do it if that ever, if that question ever arises-

    4. CR

      Mm

    5. SC

      ... in your head.

    6. CR

      [inhales]

    7. AA

      Hmm.

    8. CR

      I also wanna add one thing to you playing Diablo IV-

    9. SC

      [laughs]

    10. AA

      Yeah

    11. CR

      ... and feeling guilty about it.

    12. AA

      Yeah.

    13. CR

      So.

    14. AA

      Oh, no. So I w- I was playing it while on my walking treadmill, so I got the steps in.

    15. CR

      Okay. There you go.

    16. SC

      Yeah. There you go.

    17. CR

      See, you figured that out.

    18. SC

      There it is. Yeah. [laughs]

    19. AA

      So I tried also playing it listening to, listening to an audiobook, and I was like, "No, that's too much." [laughs]

    20. SC

      Yeah, yeah.

    21. AA

      Just those two things.

    22. CR

      So there was a, a moment a few years back when I kind of had a similar feeling watching shows on, like, Netflix and whatnot-

    23. SC

      Yeah

    24. CR

      ... documentaries and things like that, and feeling like, "Am I spending a lot of my time consuming-

    25. SC

      Yeah

    26. CR

      ... here and not really creating?"

    27. SC

      Yeah.

    28. CR

      And a really good friend of ours who was a professional lacrosse player that we met during our time there, still, you know, was a groomsman in Samir's wedding, Paul Rabil, uh, that we've done a lot of projects with, said to me, he was like, "No, that's part of your job. You're heavily on the creative side of this business. You need to be watching, studying, relaxing at times, taking in these inputs that are a bit unexpected."

    29. SC

      Hmm.

    30. CR

      Like, you need to be exposed to all these things. So if you're staying up late and you feel guilty watching something or staying up late, waking up late the next day, that's okay. Don't, don't be so hard on yourself because try and think about where that actually fits into your creative process.

  16. 1:30:46 – 1:33:19

    Format FOMO

    1. AA

      like breakdowns. I'm like, "Oh, like what if I could do a breakdown of Elon Musk's productivity?"

    2. SC

      Format FOMO. It's such a good term.

    3. CR

      Format FOMO.

    4. AA

      Yeah. I feel that a lot.

    5. SC

      It's so real. Yeah.

    6. CR

      Yeah.

    7. SC

      But, um-

    8. CR

      Again, we're not consistent people or creative people.

    9. SC

      Yeah, yeah.

    10. CR

      So that's why you have the FOMO. You're like-

    11. SC

      Yeah

    12. CR

      ... "I'd like to do that over there."

    13. SC

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. The, um, I would say the, like the Ali Abdaal format, one of the greatest things is I can close my eyes and envision it, right? That's a brand. A brand is consistent. A brand is something that can be talked about. I can say, "Oh yeah, Ali Abdaal, he's a, he's a creator that does these list videos about productivity, about evidence-based studies." You know? Like I can, I can talk about your brand because you have a format. Um-

    14. CR

      Mm

    15. SC

      ... if we did a different video every single time, sure, there might be people who are like, "I like these guys Colin and Samir. They make, uh, creative videos."

    16. CR

      Yeah. [laughs]

    17. SC

      That's hard to, to build. And again, it's, this is all coming from a place of like us articulating what h- it has taken to turn this into, uh, a commercially successful entity.

    18. CR

      Mm.

    19. SC

      Not what it has taken to be creatively fulfilled. That is a different thing.

    20. CR

      True.

    21. SC

      Um, so like, uh, uh, finding a format in media is the biggest unlock from a commercial perspective. Um, that's, that's the thing that can take you.

    22. CR

      Hmm.

    23. AA

      Do you guys get format FOMO these days?

    24. SC

      All the time.

    25. CR

      Yeah.

    26. SC

      Of course.

    27. AA

      Oh, what does it, how, what's it like for you?

    28. CR

      Every time I watch YouTube, Netflix, Instagram.

    29. SC

      [laughs]

    30. CR

      At all times I think that'd be probably fun to make that.

  17. 1:33:19 – 1:40:54

    Experimenting with formats

    1. AA

      should, should you experiment with formats even once you've found your format that works?

    2. SC

      I think everything's, uh, like you should always be experimenting as a creative. I think the thing about even our podcast is what happened was we were ex- we were making these like explainer videos on our channel. People who've been watching for a while know we found a format that was working, which was Colin and I sit in a car and break down, you know, something about YouTube.

    3. CR

      Yeah.

    4. SC

      And that was a great format. It was fun. It got way too hot in the car 'cause for some reason we wouldn't let ourselves turn on the AC.

    5. CR

      [laughs]

    6. SC

      We thought it would mess up the sound.

    7. CR

      Mm-hmm.

    8. SC

      So we would just sweat profusely in the car. It took a lot of writing and a lot of research, and a lot of creativity that, you know, was, was intense. The post-production really sat on Colin's shoulders, which was a lot of work and a lot of effort. Um, and it was hard for us to be consistent within that format. So when we wanted to experiment with a podcast, we started a podcast YouTube channel.

    9. CR

      Hmm.

    10. SC

      And we started uploading the Colin and Samir podcast to that YouTube channel.

    11. CR

      Oh yeah.

    12. AA

      The Colin and, and Samir Show.

    13. SC

      Yeah.

    14. AA

      Was it? Yeah.

    15. SC

      Well, it was called the Colin and Samir Podcast.

    16. AA

      Oh, it was called podcast. Okay, yeah.

    17. SC

      Yeah. And we interviewed, we gave, we did Airrack's first interview on that channel.

    18. CR

      Yeah.

    19. SC

      We did an interview with Graham Stephan. We talked to each other on that channel. We probably did 20 episodes over there.

    20. CR

      Mm.

    21. SC

      And then what we realized was, okay, these car videos are working and they're good and people like them, but we can only really make like one a month or one every six weeks. The podcast, while we've been doing that, we've made once a week. So that's the format-

    22. CR

      Yeah.

    23. SC

      Because we can do that. So now we're ready. Let's bring that to the main channel.

    24. CR

      And the views were comparable.

    25. SC

      Yeah.

    26. CR

      And then on some other ones, they were exceeding what we were doing-

    27. SC

      They were explosive. Yeah

    28. CR

      ... on the breakdown. So it was just like-

    29. AA

      If you find a format that you can be, it's easier to do, it's more consistent-

    30. SC

      Yeah

  18. 1:40:54 – 1:49:23

    To what extent would you recommend starting a podcast to someone who’s new to the creator world?

    1. AA

      Loads of people get format FOMO about podcasts-

    2. SC

      Mm-hmm

    3. AA

      ... 'cause they're like, "I can't believe you guys get to do this for a living where you sit down and talk to people. I want some of that." Um, to what extent would you guys recommend for someone who is completely new to the creator world starting a podcast as the, the thing that they do?

    4. SC

      I, I think, uh, having a podcast is one of the most rewarding things you can do. I would decouple it from the financial reward. Um, this was a conversation we had with Tim Ferriss. He talked about there's the, uh, non-financial reward of having a podcast, which is the conversations and the experience of getting to have long conversations. Then there is the performance and financial reward. Those are two separate things. When you first start a podcast, you should not even think about the financial reward. One of the greatest things is that we didn't know that as we were starting a podcast from 2018 to 2021, really, that podcast existed as a fun thing that we got to do together.

    5. AA

      Mm.

    6. SC

      So the reward, if you really think about it, guys who are not really making a lot of money were spending time every week making a podcast, editing a podcast-

    7. AA

      Yeah

    8. SC

      ... because it was rewarding from a lifestyle perspective, from a fulfillment perspective, from just I need to have this conversation. I need to have this- ... format so that we can sit together and talk about the ups and downs of what we're going through. That was rewarding in itself. So I would-- If you're going in as a creator saying, "I want a podcast," remove the monetization and just say, "I'm gonna do this because I want to do this."

    9. CR

      Yeah.

    10. SC

      "Because it is rewarding for me to do this." Making a podcast is one of the least expensive things in the world. It-- For, in the creative world, not in the world, but in the, in the creative world.

    11. CR

      [laughs]

    12. SC

      Um, it's not expensive. You know, we, we had two mics laying around that were under $100. Um, we, you know, you could get a USB mic like you have right now that goes-

    13. CR

      Mm-hmm

    14. SC

      ... into your laptop. You, you can record a podcast on a very small budget. [lip smack] Um, and you can also edit a podcast quickly. You don't even have to edit it. You can upload it through Anchor or Megaphone or, like, any of these. There's, there's services that are free that you can use. Like, it is n- a low cost, low friction thing. You shouldn't tie a ton of stuff to it. You should just have it be a thing that you enjoy doing, and if that turns into something, amazing. But I don't think you even know if you like it until you do 100 episodes. You know, maybe 50 episodes. I don't think you'll know anything about your own podcast until you do that. So leave enough space for it to end at episode 30.

    15. CR

      Yeah.

    16. AA

      And what do you think is the commercial viability of the podcast format these days for someone completely new to, completely new to it?

    17. SC

      Uh, ah, that's hard. Yeah.

    18. AA

      I think it-

    19. SC

      I think discovery is really hard.

    20. CR

      Yeah, discovery obviously is difficult, which is why a lot of people have taken to YouTube, because you can use SEO and find audiences. I think when you find an audience, it can be one of the most impactful ways, obviously, to monetize because you're in people's ears for hours-

    21. SC

      Yeah

    22. CR

      ... at a time.

    23. SC

      You know, I remember there was this time where we, we built to the point where we had, like, 2,000 people listening to our podcast in probably 2019. Um, and that to me was like a lot. That was a lot of people. I think it was, like, between 1,500 and 2,000 people. And we did this podcast episode where, you know, we were experiencing a deep existential crisis, so I didn't know, we didn't know why we were doing what we were doing. We were very confused. So I stayed up at night one night and wrote these, like, 17 questions that we were gonna independently answer that would help us kind of reestablish our why.

    24. CR

      Yeah.

    25. SC

      Why are we doing this? And so I sent it to Colin. We independently answered them, and then we came on a podcast and answered them. And it was really fun-

    26. CR

      Mm-hmm

    27. SC

      ... and really nice, and at the end, I gave a URL to download it, at the end, the last minute, and it was a unique URL. And 750 people downloaded it in the first day.

    28. CR

      Wow.

    29. SC

      Out of 2,000 people.

    30. CR

      Yeah.

  19. 1:49:23 – 2:04:24

    The story behind publish press

    1. SC

      Yeah.

    2. AA

      You guys have a newsletter business as well-

    3. SC

      Mm-hmm

    4. AA

      ... called The Publish Press.

    5. SC

      Yeah.

    6. AA

      Which was only when you guys were interviewing me in LA that I've, I realized that, oh, that's a really clever name 'cause it's like press publish, but like reversed.

    7. SC

      Yeah.

    8. AA

      And also it's like, it's like, whoa, that's, that's really clever, and I c- I can't believe I haven't come across that.

    9. SC

      Yeah. [laughs]

    10. AA

      Just hadn't thought of that.

    11. SC

      That, uh, yeah. [laughs]

    12. AA

      Yeah. Um, what's the story behind the newsletter business, and why did you decide to start a newsletter business?

    13. SC

      Yeah. So I, I think, um-

    14. AA

      And what is a newsletter business? Just for-

    15. SC

      [laughs]

    16. AA

      ... people who might not be familiar with, uh, The Publish Press.

    17. SC

      Yeah, I mean, uh, uh, our business is, uh, content and sponsorship. That's like to simplify it. We produce content, and we get relevant sponsors to sponsor that content. That content happens in audio form, in video form, and now in written form. Um, that's like the simplest version of it, right? And you look at, um, what the content stands for. Like, what is the, the, the product that we are creating? Um, well, a lot of what we're doing is building a very hyper-specific audience that's interested in a cerp- certain topic, um, which is the creator economy and the business of creators. So as we started producing, you know, the podcast, uh, a- as a video podcast, we were still having hiccups in the process and figuring it out, but at maximum, we were like, "We can make one of these a week." You know, that's, that's maximum for us i- is what it felt like. We can make one really good one a week. Um, and we were aware, we had a conversation with Alex Lieberman, who is the, one of the founders of Morning Brew. We had a nice call with him, talked, and I was like, "I'm curious about newsletters," because I think the audience that we are building spends time in their email inbox.

    18. AA

      Yeah.

    19. SC

      Like, we're building a professional-

    20. AA

      Mm-hmm

    21. SC

      ... audience. They care about this profession of being a creator, and a professional audience spends time listening to things-

    22. AA

      Mm-hmm

    23. SC

      ... and reading things.

    24. AA

      Yeah.

    25. SC

      And we're making YouTube videos. So that attracts kind of the aspirational creator, and we break our audience up into aspiring creator, career creator, and creator industry.

    26. AA

      Okay.

    27. SC

      The aspiring creator is, you know, the creator who knows how to make videos, has probably made some videos that have hit or, you know, trying to figure it out, and, um, they hang out on YouTube. They get their education from YouTube, right?

    28. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    29. SC

      Um, the career creator is someone who is making an income and trying to figure out how to progress in their career, trying to learn from other career creators, trying to, um, figure out how to make more money, trying to understand the career, looking for, you know, a sense of community. They're feeling isolated. Um, and then you go to the creator industry. Those are people who want to work with creators. They wanna join the industry. They wanna understand creators more. Each one of those, um, categories of audience, um, r- has different wants and needs-

    30. AA

      Mm-hmm

  20. 2:04:24 – 2:09:24

    The “Daily Productivity” newsletter

    1. AA

      doing is launching a daily newsletter called Daily Productivity.

    2. SC

      Okay.

    3. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    4. AA

      So I bought the domain dailyproductivity.com.

    5. SC

      Like the D- like The Daily Stoic kind of vibe?

    6. AA

      Like The Daily Stoic, exactly, or like Daily Dot.

    7. SC

      Yeah.

    8. AA

      Like I'm fully inspired by Ryan Holiday. We spoke to Billy and Dawson from his team-

    9. SC

      God, Ryan-

    10. AA

      ... when we were in Austin

    11. SC

      ... Ryan's so good, yeah.

    12. AA

      And we were like, "Okay, that's really cool." Uh, I had, um, uh, Alex Lieberman on the pod-

    13. SC

      Mm-hmm

    14. AA

      ... like last year, talked about Morning Brew. I was like, "That's an, an interesting model." It's super inspired by what you guys are doing at the Publish, at the, at the Publish Press. And the idea being like can we do Daily Stoic but, like, the productivity version-

    15. SC

      Mm-hmm

    16. AA

      ... where we give you-

    17. SC

      Mm-hmm

    18. AA

      ... a productive and evidence-based productivity tip or an idea in your inbox every morning for your consideration or something like that.

    19. SC

      Mm-hmm.

    20. AA

      Where it's not tied to my name. Maybe if at the start it's Daily Productivity by Ali Abdaal or something, but like over time we lose that thing and try and build its own thing around that thing. What do, what do you reckon? [laughs]

    21. SC

      [laughs]

    22. AA

      What are the thoughts that you'd be... Like, what, what sort of questions would you be asking? What's... How would you approach that?

    23. SC

      How, how would you write the content? Batch? Like would you write 365 before you launch it?

    24. AA

      Uh, probably not. Um, we are thinking we'd write seven and pilot it for seven days, um, with our audience and see what happens, and then four weeks from now decide are we actually gonna do this, 'cause we're in a bit of a we're not sure-

    25. SC

      Yeah

    26. AA

      ... if we want to do this stage right now.

    27. SP

      I definitely highly recommend what we did with keeping it internal.

    28. SC

      Yeah. Pilot it internally for like three months.

    29. SP

      Yeah, like start with just staff.

    30. SC

      Okay. And I would think like 90-

  21. 2:09:24 – 2:12:59

    Is going viral a bad thing?

    1. SC

      Right? Project through-

    2. CR

      Yeah

    3. SC

      ... Community or something like that. Maybe I want it as a text.

    4. AA

      Yeah.

    5. SC

      Maybe-

    6. AA

      Maybe there's the option. [laughs]

    7. SC

      Maybe my productivity, um, doesn't allow me to, or doesn't... I'm not good at opening my email first thing in the morning.

    8. AA

      Yeah.

    9. SC

      Or I just wanna clear my inbox. I don't want more clutter in there.

    10. AA

      Mm.

    11. SC

      So give it to me somewhere else.

    12. AA

      Yeah. Nice.

    13. SC

      Maybe it's, uh, what Ryan did with Daily Stoic in podcast form, and-

    14. AA

      Yeah

    15. SC

      ... you know, you can click a date and hear you say it. I don't know. I, I would really look at, like, the distribution of it and what's, like, what do you like from the distribution.

    16. AA

      Mm.

    17. SC

      But just think about those two things, you know, d- you have to understand-

    18. AA

      Product and distribution being decoupled.

    19. SC

      Yeah. They're d- they're decoupled, and they're different, and you have to understand both. Um, yeah.

    20. AA

      Are you glad you have a newsletter business?

    21. SC

      Yes.

    22. AA

      Yeah.

    23. SC

      I, I think, uh, based on what I talked about with, um, permission and interruption.

    24. AA

      Hmm.

    25. SC

      Um, it's a permission-based environment. The people there have given us permission to be in their inbox. They open it when we send. They click on stuff that we recommend. Um, that is a group that I feel like I have a deeper understanding of, that I have, uh, a depth of connection with because of the permission they've given us. On YouTube-

    26. AA

      Yeah

    27. SC

      ... I- it's harder, right?

    28. AA

      Yeah.

    29. SC

      'Cause you're like, "I have to interrupt you."

    30. AA

      Yeah.

  22. 2:12:59 – 2:19:07

    “Brand is more important than reach in the long term”

    1. SC

      it turns you into someone who is, uh, constantly seeking that outcome of virality. And, um, I think the, the thing to seek is the process, right? And so that, that's, that's my opinion of like I think as creators we should be seeking a, a better, more enjoyable process, not necessarily the outcome. Like, the outcome is a byproduct of that process. Um, and so if we're just chasing the outcome, and I, I'm speaking from a space of experience. The dopamine hit of going viral-

    2. AA

      Now, how did you, uh-

    3. SC

      ... is one of, is one of the most intoxicating things ever.

    4. AA

      How did you guys feel after your MrBeast video? 'Cause that was like 2 million views in like w- two days.

    5. SC

      Which one?

    6. AA

      The, the most recent one, the interview.

    7. SC

      Oh. I mean, the thing is, you get to a point where you can look at what you're creating and understand what, you know, the... You understand the, the, the distribution perspective of that. I think we felt some of our, uh, on the production side, like we, we had wished we had, you know, asked a few more questions. We had wished we had taken some different angles and like-

    8. CR

      Yeah

    9. SC

      ... so there was some of it where we sat down as a team and we were like, "How can we do a better job of prepping?"

    10. AA

      Mm.

    11. SC

      That, that's what we took away from that. I, I assumed that, you know, there would be a large audience for that.

    12. CR

      Yeah.

    13. AA

      Yeah.

    14. SC

      You know, that's not, that's not a surprise. Uh-

    15. CR

      The, the bigger rush was five years ago-

    16. SC

      Yeah

    17. CR

      ... when we made a video essay about David Dobrik and-

    18. AA

      Yep

    19. CR

      ... he shared it on Snapchat.

    20. SC

      And it blew up, yeah.

    21. CR

      And it blew up like crazy, and you just... Comments are coming in-

    22. AA

      Yeah, yeah, yeah

    23. CR

      ... and you think, "This is it. We made it. This is the moment. Everything will change."

    24. SC

      I, I think the r- you know, one of the r- the rushes for me came from, you know, when we did our interview, I felt like it was a great conversation, and I was like, "That was a rush." When we did our interview with Dream, it was a rush.

    25. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    26. SC

      When we did our interview with Deestroying, we found places and avenues and, uh, learned things. That was like a total rush. We did our interview with Tim Ferriss, it was a rush. And like all of those have different metric numbers next to them from a distribution perspective, but process-wise, some of those were really, really fun and w- I felt like we were really prepped and we, um, really just nailed what it meant to be Colin and Samir in that conversation. Same with the Try Guys. I think that was-

    27. AA

      Mm-hmm

    28. SC

      ... another one that felt really good. And so some of those, those to

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